Ep 112: The Perfect Meal Plan

Today, we will unlock your physique's full potential without being a slave to restriction! I’ll explain why those one-size-fits-all diet plans are holding you back, and arm you with the science-backed strategies you need to customize your own “perfect” meal plan, a dynamic and flexible meal plan, that balances your energy needs, macros and micros, fuels your workout performance, and supports your metabolism.

And it’s not just about food. You’ll learn psychological tactics that will keep you adhering to your plan, smashing those plateaus, and tasting the freedom of flexible dieting. If you're tired of feeling stuck in a meal-planning box and want to turbocharge your journey to your ideal physique without restriction, save this episode as your game plan. Most importantly, listen all the way through because there is so much gold here in terms of strategies plus the exact step-by-step method I like to use to construct the perfect meal plan.
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Today you’ll learn all about:
[2:33] The template mean plan
[5:18] The importance of personalized nutrition
[8:56] Psychological strategies for crafting your perfect meal plan
[10:35] The classic 80/20 principle
[13:17] Default meals as an emergency strategy
[16:26] Batch cooking as an act of self-care
[19:31] Shifting the perception of food as fuel, not a reward.
[21:47] Utilizing social accountability
[22:35] Documenting dietary variables
[23:13] The one more rule, and overcoming decision fatigue
[28:01] Using your app as a meal planner
[29:34] Setting calorie needs, macros and micros
[35:54] Simplifying food choices and measuring portion sizes
[38:17] Map out your meals, including indulgences
[43:47] Listen to your body's signals for dietary adjustments
[47:14] Outro

Episode resources:

• Ep 110: Macros Aren’t Enough – Flexible Dieting vs. IIFYM 

• https://www.witsandweights.com/email – reply to the welcome email and ask for the FREE guides from episode 110

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

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Transcript

Philip Pape  00:00

documenting things like other variables, other dietary variables, maybe it's hunger. Maybe it's your emotions, mediate your sleep and stress and journaling them in conjunction with your meal plan so that it informs your meal plan. It improves your mindset and your awareness so you can make the choices you want for next week. Simple as that. That way you know that the meal plan you came up with is or is not aligned with the goals. Welcome to the Wits & Weights podcast. I'm your host Philip pape, and this twice a week podcast is dedicated to helping you achieve physical self mastery by getting stronger. Optimizing your nutrition and upgrading your body composition will uncover science backed strategies for movement, metabolism, muscle and mindset with a skeptical eye on the fitness industry so you can look and feel your absolute best. Let's dive right in. Wits & Weights

Philip Pape  00:54

community Welcome to another solo episode of the Wits & Weights podcast. In our last episode 111 The anti diet athlete mindset with Sherry Cheban Sherry and I challenged your conventional wisdom on dating and fitness. As we looked at why diets fail the nuances of transformation versus results and how you can transform your identity into that of an athlete. Today for episode 112 the perfect meal plan, we are going to unlock your physiques full potential without being a slave to restriction. I'll explain why those one size fits all diet plans are holding you back and arm you with a science back strategies you need to customize your own perfect meal plan. A dynamic and flexible meal plan that balances your energy needs macros, micros, fuels your workout performance, and supports your metabolism. And of course, it's not just about food, you'll learn psychological tactics that will keep you adhering to your plan, smashing those plateaus and tasting the freedom that comes with flexible dieting. If you're tired of feeling stuck in a meal planning box and want to turbocharge your journey to your ideal physique, without the restriction, save this episode as your game plan. Most importantly, listen all the way through because there is so much gold here in terms of strategies, plus the exact step by step method I like to use to construct the perfect meal plans. So there's a lot in this episode. With that, let's get into the topic, the perfect meal plan. First, we have the one size fits all meal plan when someone says, Hey, do you provide meal plans in your coaching? Or can I see a meal plan or an existing client might even ask for a meal plan. What they're asking for is a list of meals or snacks with specific foods or potentially recipes, organized by the throughout your day that potentially have calories and macros listed that meet a certain plan, certainly plan for calories and macros. This is what I call the one size fits all meal plan or the template meal plan. And this is the epitome of a singular, rigid method that supposedly can meet the needs of everyone. But we know in fact, research shows quite the opposite both for dieting, for training, and really for anything in life where we're trying to be consistent, and hit a goal and make progress that a one size fits all, where you have rules, good and bad. And restriction is going to cause the opposite of what we intend it's going to cause you to stick to it may be for a month or two is what the research shows in terms of the meal plans. And then you're gonna fall off the wagon, because there is a wagon and we don't like wagons. But that's a wagon. And so I think the research has shown that no matter what diet you follow, in a 12 month period, the first two months, people stick to it, maybe 60 70% of the time, they get to their goal, which oftentimes is weight loss. And then the rest of the year, they pretty much do what they were doing before and if anything they might set start to gain a little bit of weight back. So we know that this idea of a meal plan is going to backfire. From the research. There is plenty of emerging emerging evidence that suggests that anything we do should be individualized based on your individual factors and lifestyle, whether that's your age, your activity level, your metabolic rate, your food preferences, okay? It's something that's very important, but we often throw that out the window when we're saying, hey, just give me a planet. Just give me a diet, right? Yeah, but what if you like pizza and the diet says you can't have pizza right there. We're going to run into a brick wall. And there are plenty of experts out there and plenty of research that shows the importance of personalized nutrition is where it's at and that's where we're at on the show. I mean, you know this even the title, the perfect meal plan. I'm sure it piqued your curiosity and you said what is this guy doing another click Beatty title? Let's see what this is all about. But by the end of this show, you are going to have the perfect meal plan for you. That is where I'm going with this. There There's also this common obsession with macros. And I talked all about this on my last solo episode, which was about flexible dieting, versus If It Fits Your Macros, and it causes us to neglect other things. So you should definitely go check that out. I think it's Episode 110, called macros aren't enough, listen all the way through to get all of the nuances. But when we talk about a meal plan, are we talking about calories and macros? No, we should also be talking about optimal health optimal performance. You're trying to get physique goals, you're trying to work out you want energy on and on and on and on. And the list goes on, it's very difficult to encapsulate that on a piece of paper with a table that says, here's what you eat, unless, again, you have a nutritionist or dietitian, who you're paying to exactly understand what you're going through what you need, and then giving you a meal plan. But even that is is bound to fail. Because it's a restrictive approach. It's a rigid approach. The other thing is you are going to have a different metabolic requirement, and thus calorie requirement that somebody else and different macro needs, right. So even the same meal plan calories, let's say a 2500 calorie meal plan is not going to be as effective for one person versus another because it doesn't account for the individual macro needs. And let's just face it, we know this, I've talked about it many times that your individual expenditure changes on a daily basis. And so in reality, we are adjusting our macro targets and our calorie targets each week. Meal Plans are not very resilient to that. They're also some nutritional timing assumptions. When we have meal plans, the fact that a meal plan assumes a certain number of meals, certain meal frequency certain meal timing. First of all, we know that meal timing is somewhat important. It's not as important as the basics, energy macros, even micros. And, but it is somewhat important depending on how much you care about your performance and your workouts and so on. Here's the thing from day to day your life changes, things happen, the nutritional timing needs to be flexible enough to account for that. So timing in a templated, one size fits all meal plan becomes another barrier to adherence is my point, it becomes another thing where if you don't quite hit it, what do you do? Right? And what if you miss a piece of a meal or a piece of a snack? Where does it go in the day you've you've just succumbed to the all or nothing thinking, which is exactly what we try to avoid what we do avoid here. There's also food quality, right? A meal plan doesn't always account for that. I mean, to be fair, I get that if somebody is giving you a meal plan, and they're an expert, you know, they've probably including lots of Whole Foods in there. But that brings up another challenge of what if you don't want all Whole Foods and you want a little bit of, you know, some of the something a little indulgence here or there, you want some flexibility to substitute something out, it really doesn't account for the the quality quantity indulgence part of that without sacrificing something along the way. And then meal plans don't let you learn. It's like giving somebody a fish instead of teaching them to fish, right learning to track and adjust and become intuitive over time. Because I think ultimately true Intuitive Eating is within your grasp. But most people fail to go through the initial process of developing the intuition. And a meal plan is just another way to say here's the answer, maybe. And it's not even close to the real answer, instead of teaching you the skills, right. And I always like to say that with my clients, it really isn't about coaching. It's about teaching skills. Coaching is just part of the process, but the skills are what you take for life. And then finally, no matter how effective the meal plan might seem, it is just not sustainable is really like any diet, if it's not dynamic, then is not sustainable period. Okay, so that's kind of my diatribe to just to get things started. And I could just end the podcast right there and say, Okay, so the answer is there is no perfect meal plan. And it really has to be customized. But I don't think that's very helpful. And that's probably not why you're tuning in, I've actually broken this podcast into three segments. That was the first segment. Now I want to talk about a whole bunch of psychological strategies. And this list was a lot of fun to put together because I've been thinking a lot about this topic lately, posting on it, listening to other podcasts, doing research, and at the risk of overwhelming you. I want to give you some things to think about in the mindset department that have nothing to do with food. I mean, food is involved, but they're not like food choice. So that if one of these really resonates with you and you hadn't considered it before, I've just added something in your repertoire that you can use when constructing your meal plan because the last part of the podcast please stick around is going to be step by step how do you do it? Right How do I do it on my clients do it and so on. So psychological strategies for success with meal planning. Here we go. The first one is surrounding consistency. Okay, consistency is King regular meal timing. That is having a routine every day the same types of meals. Mainly the timing of the meals is what I'm talking about has been shown to increase metabolism. and regulate your hunger signals, the idea that you eat roughly the same time every day, just like when you go to sleep the same time every night, is now aligned to your circadian rhythm. And that gives your body a sense of relief, that it doesn't have to fear scarcity or a lack of food. And therefore it kind of relaxes on its conservation of energy, therefore burning more calories. So you don't just eat the same food every day necessarily. But if you keep your meal timing consistent, it can help. So that's the first one. And all of this is going to come into play when you put together your meal plan, because you're going to think, Okay, how do I make it adhere to some of these strategies? The second one is the classic 8020 principle, the Pareto Principle, right? If you can select 80%, whole nutrient dense foods, and leave 20%, or you can do 9010, but 8020 20% of indulgences, that is going to go a long way toward a sustainable planet just is, it just is because the first thing that happens when you go on a restrictive diet is you cut things out, and guaranteed one or more of those things are things you like, and there's something just wrong with that.

Philip Pape  11:09

Just as a human if you tell me I can't do something, oh, boy. I'm already hitting resistance right from day one. So 8020 is always a great philosophy and a lot of things 80% whole nutrient dense foods 20% indulgences, I will let you decide what that is, depending on what would fit your goals. Okay, for me, the indulgences might include ice cream, you've heard me say that many times before. It might include more calorie dense foods like pizza, a lot of the stuff that many of us like to have as indulgences, maybe french fries are an indulgence for you, whatever. So the 8020 principle, the next one is your emotional inventory. So listening to your emotions, this is kind of a mindfulness thing. But listening to your emotional state, when you're going to eat right before you eat, while you're eating after you eat. And this has to do with differentiating between emotional and physical hunger. Now I do have I have a whole guide on this, it's not very long guide, it explains this, it gives you a scale. And it gives you a little journal that you can use. Many of my clients have found it super helpful. I've given it away many times. So if you want it, definitely sign up for my email list, and then reach out by email, reply to my first email and say, Hey, Philip, you mentioned this hunger guide this hunger scale, and I want it. So let me have it, and I'll give it to you. So the idea here is that hunger is a complicated thing. It is driven by hormonal signals, but it's also tied to our emotions. And so when you're going to eat, being aware of your emotional state when you eat, and potentially documenting and journaling it so that you know whether it's physical or emotional, right, psychological can be very helpful when you decide how to construct your meal plan. Because for example, you might find that later in the afternoon is when you are at most risk of emotional eating of binge eating. And instead of trying to hammer away the problem, you can accommodate the fact that you get hungry that time, and maybe shift some of your calories to that point. Right, that that's just one approach. The next strategy is, I'll call it planning for perfection, but preparing for reality. I've always been conflicted with this idea, but I still stick to it. And that is, we never are going to be perfect. We're human beings. But we can strive for perfection any given day. And I don't think there's anything wrong with that. I don't think there's anything wrong with going for 10 out of 10 every day, knowing that we might hit nine out of 10, five out of 10, one out of 10 something more than zero and you know what, some days you might have a zero in might happen. It's okay. Don't beat yourself up have some self compassion. But if you have some quality default meals, right, these are like your perfect meals. And I'm sorry, you have you have your perfect plan. But then you have some some quality default meals that you can always fall back on, they may not be in your meal plan. But if the day goes off, like if it goes off plan, you have this little library of a few different meals that can fit in on a given moment, kind of as an emergency so that you don't have to make the choice in the moment or succumb to your motions, kind of tied to the last one. Right? So plan for perfection prepare for reality, always think life is going to happen no matter what, in fact, is the norm rather than the exception. And I don't know if you hear my girls playing their instruments, but you might okay and if you do consider it part of the background music. Okay, so where was I going with this? Yes, always have default meals available. Now these default meals could be for example, a small dish of casein powder with almond milk that you put in the freezer as like an ice cream substitute for when you get a sweet tooth late at night, for example, right? And this is just the idea that if emotions get the best of you, you still have a an emotionless strategy to fall back on. Okay, next one is a goal oriented did mindfulness, right. And what this is, is, each meal is contributing toward something it should be, it should be contributing toward some goal, you have your physique goals, your performance goals, it should be aligned with your existence, your identity as an athlete, like we talked about with Sherry Cheban when she was on, right. And so as you construct your meal plan, and even as you're eating, being aware of how this is contributing to those goals, will improve not only your relationship with food, but your ability to plan for your meals, right. And this is kind of a general principle, but a specific application of that principle would be your workout nutrition. Like for me, I work out early in the morning, right now, three days a week, sometimes it's four, or five or six, depending on what phase I'm in. It's three days a week. So I know on those mornings, I'm planning in a banana and a protein shake early in the morning. Super simple, basic ingredients, it meets my needs. And it contributes to me having energy during that workout session. And I know it works for me and I had to get to that over time, right? Sometimes I tried it completely fasted, I realized no, I don't have energy doing that. Sometimes I tried eating more food, like maybe oatmeal, now the fiber and that causes it to digest too slowly, and I don't have a lot of time before I work out. So that doesn't work. Too much food in my stomach, etc, etc. Right? These are all goal oriented. They're not emotional, or just a I'm just eating to eat. Now, that's not to say that food can't be delicious. I'm okay, if these are these are not mutually exclusive things. Okay, next thing, I really love this one, I want you to think of batch cooking. Okay, meal prep, like on the weekend, when you just batch cook some proteins or carbs or something, I want you to think of that as self care as an act of self care rather than a chore. It's an act of self care why? Because you are eliminating a ton of stress from the week, you're eliminating emotional decision making from the week, and you're creating something that's going to perfectly fit into your meal plan, it's gonna be ready to go, it's gonna be super easy to execute. It's almost like you had a workout plan for the week. And you've actually got all your sets done. And now you just have to kind of log them as you go. Because honestly, eating is not hard as hard as lifting. Right? Okay, so think of batch cooking and self care. Now the act itself of the batch cooking, of course, itself can be a fun thing you can do with your family, you can put on some music, you can have your favorite beverage or snack as you're doing whatever, I don't care, watch the football game, you know, make itself an act of self care. But I'm just saying that the stress you reduce from doing it is also a gift to yourself during the week, I got a lot more for you where this is coming from. So please stick around. This is an epic episode. I don't know if I meant it to be but it will be. The next one is the growth mindset. You might know Carol Dweck, she's the author of oh, boy, is it grit? Oh, man, this is terrible. I can't think of the book. But it's really the fixed versus the growth mindset. To me, every failure in life is an opportunity for growth, everything. So your dietary and food planning mishaps are all opportunities for growth, meaning if you are thinking in a personalized meal planning context, that gives you the opportunity then to try it out. See what you learn. If it doesn't work, great, that's information, learn from it, revise, you can't do that with a fixed meal plan you just can't. So this is the beauty of making your own meal plan. And using that as an opportunity to learn about yourself. Okay. The next strategy is visualization. All right. We know visualization is a motivational tool in different contexts. And I like to use it as well or suggests that you might want to use it by visualizing a successful week, visualizing a successful meal successful day, successful week, and how that all contributes to the goal oriented motivation you had before, right? Because at the end of the day, training, your nutrition, your sleep, all of these things, we want to plan them out. Like we want to think ahead, in our logic with our logical brain, you know, on the weekend, how's this week gonna look. And therefore, a successful week backs into how I want to construct my meals and where I put them and so on. It's kind of a fun process because you're, you're looking at your future self a week from now who's looking back and say, Damn, you did a great job. Coming up with that plan, because it was so easy to follow. I didn't have to think emotion didn't come into it. It had foods I loved the timing worked out. It supported my training. It supported the things I wanted to do with my family, the social events, all that stuff. So that's, that's another good tool. The next one is always important when we talk about food and that is the perception that Food is fuel it's not a reward. Even though food can be delicious. You can anticipate it if you have like a refeed day or a day where you've shifted calories for some fun event. Those can still be fun, enjoyable, rewarding experiences, but not specifically because of the food food is not something you withhold from yourself. Food is something you give to yourself to nourish you and your goals and your values. And because of that, when you do the meal planning, you can then not think of it as Oh, I'm going to save up for a cheat day. So much as on any given day, I want to support my goals. And here's how I'm going to do it within the whole context of the week. And I keep saying a week, because a week is a good timeline. For a meal plan, I wouldn't go beyond that if, if the subsequent week is going to be similar, great, you can reuse the meal plan. And in fact, what you'll find is that in reality, if you're using an app like macro factor, you're going to do a lot of copy and paste because you get into a routine where your meal plan is really just your normal routine. And therefore you could just copy to the future, and not really even have to think about it as much or plan for it as much because you've already experienced the meal plan multiple times anyway, Food is fuel, not reward. Okay, the next thing is, think about the pre emptive strikes, that you want to account for in your week. And what this is, is, for example, a high protein snack before a situation that would tempt you. Like if you know, there will be emotionally charged situations during your week, or situations where you there might be alcohol involved, or there might be a lot of other people involved where you get distracted. And these are normally the situations where you might over eat, bam, put your meal plan to work for you by shifting what happens before that point to minimize the chance of doing what you don't intend to do. And that could be something like having a lot of protein an hour before that event. So now you're not as hungry. It could be shifting calories, whatever, but be pre emptive. That's the way I like to think of it. That's an element of planning. Okay, the next one is social accountability. And this is simply recruiting your spouse, friend, family member, community member, coach, whoever is on your side and support your goals. And sharing your meal planning goals with them sharing ideas, maybe asking them for ideas, maybe they also use macro factor like you and you can share recipes, right, that's perfectly easy to do, you can take you can take a meal that you like to eat, turn it into a recipe and share it say Hey, this is what I like, for my lunch while I'm in fat loss. Right? And so just like with anything else, the act of meal planning can be a social experience to enhance your commitment. Okay, the next one is Carl's gonna love this Carl Berryman, if you're listening, you're gonna love this. And this is daily or weekly journaling associated with your meal planning. And this is this goes back to what I talked about during the flexible dieting versus If It Fits Your Macros episode of documenting things, like other variables, other dietary variables, maybe it's hunger, maybe it's your emotions, mediate your sleep and stress and journaling them in conjunction with your meal plan. So that it informs your meal plan, it improves your mindset and your awareness so that you can make the choices you want for next week. Simple as that, that way you know that the meal plan you came up with is or is not aligned with the goals we talked about earlier. So that's journaling. The next one is called the one more rule. This is kind of the tiny habits of meal planning, incremental changes. If this is your very first week doing it, how successful do you think you're going to be if you if you literally just plan the whole week out. And it's completely different than anything you've ever done? It's gonna be tough, even though you've planned it out, it's still going to be tough to to meet that you're not setting yourself up for the best success in my opinion, I would add one or two things the first week, one or two things the next week, and so on, for example, adding extra vegetables to your existing meals like continuing to eat similar to what you were, but adding a vegetable adding a protein. And again, I'm always a fan of adding in adding and adding and adding in which then crowds out what you don't want and what is not aligned with your goals. So you can do the same thing with meal planning first week, just just take what you would normally eat and add in here and there strategically, and continue to build week after week. The next one is decision fatigue, you probably familiar with this concept, the idea of paralysis by analysis that you have so many choices that you can't even make a single choice. And so when it comes to meal planning, I am not a big fan of big fancy recipes, even though I have recipe guides if you want them. I am not a fan of using that for meal planning. I would rather you have a very limited set of food choices. And then you just mix and match. I mean really limited. It could be as simple as two meats that you batch Cook, one that you use for lunch, one to use for dinner, two carbs, and then several vegetables, right, like two to two. That goes for lunch and dinner the first week just keep it really simple, almost boring. Sure. Right. And if it's too boring, mix it up. That's totally up to you. But if you have enough combination if you have enough foods even if it's a short At least they'll make a lot of different permutations right? A lot of different combinations. Hey, this is Philip. And I hope you're enjoying this episode of Wits & Weights, I started Wits & Weights to help people who want to build muscle lose fat and actually look like they lift. I've noticed that when people improve their strength and physique, they not only look and feel better, they transformed other areas of their life, their health, their mental resilience and their confidence in everything they do. And since you're listening to this podcast, I assume you want the same things the same success, whether you recently started lifting, or you've been at this for a while and want to optimize and reach a new level of success. Either way, my one on one coaching focused on engineering your physique, and body composition is for you. If you want expert guidance and want to get results faster, easier, and with fewer frustrations along the way to actually look like you lift, go to wits & weights.com, and click on coaching, or use the link in my show notes to apply today, I'll ask you a few short questions to decide if we're a good fit. And if we are, we'll get you started this week. Now back to the show.

Philip Pape  26:07

So again, I do have a guide to help you with meal planning that I give to my clients. And again, sign up for my email list wits & weights.com/email, and then reply to me and say hi, I want I want the guide for selecting food. And it's got proteins, fats, carbs, fruits and vegetables, a short list with all the information about them. So you can easily mix and match from very commonly available foods. And then it does have sample meal plans. Again, I say that with caution, because they're just ideas of how you can put things together. But decision fatigue is important. So keep the choices limited at first and start to get more complex over time. Okay, the next one is I think this is the last one on my list of strategies is habit stacking or anchoring your habits. So this is pairing your new habits with existing routines. And this could be not just the act of meal planning itself. Although of course, if you want to like turn on your favorite music or podcast while you're coming up with your first meal plan, that's fine. This is more, making sure that the meals and the timing of the meals align with your schedule such that not that you're eating and doing something else at the same time. Because that's not always recommended. But you're guaranteed are almost guaranteed to actually eat those meals. Because one of the problems I see early on with clients is they actually struggled to eat all the meals, even if we haven't planned in there. And part of the problem is you're not planning for success, you're not anchoring the meals to your lifestyle, right and pairing those habits with what you already do. And so it could be a matter of, for example, anchoring them around your workout, that's a nice solid one, it could be anchoring in around a walk. So like you know that you eat and then you walk, it could be anchored around the habit that you normally have where you go to the vending machine and get a candy bar, it could be in that slot, instead write that, okay, I'm gonna have my protein snack, a lot of ways to do this. The one other thing I actually forgot to add to my notes, but I'm going to mention it is if you're using a food logging app, for example, macro factor makes it very easy to do use the app as your meal planner, use your app as the meal planner, it doesn't mean you have to map out your entire week. But you can map out what looks like a successful day. extremely common strategy that I propose to clients all the time who's who tell me hey, you know, I really am struggling to get the protein, and I see it in their data. And again, when you work with me, it is not about 100% adherence at all, there's a lot of flexibility because I would rather learn who you are and your patterns, then beat you on the head for not hitting a number. That's not the point. The point is to learn about you and find out how we make things more successful over time. So using macro factor and saying okay, well, you need 150 grams of protein, and you're regularly getting 100. Let's map out tomorrow, while you're in a logical, cool headed state today, and figure out where to make that happen. Conversely, let's look at your food logs for the last few days and see why we couldn't quite get there. Where's the opportunity to add in a little little more protein, or add an extra meal or alter your food choices, right? A lot of different ways to skin a cat. So those are the strategies and I'm going on What 30 minutes now for the episode. And now we're gonna get to the final piece, which is the steps to create your personal dynamic meal plan which that is the perfect meal plan a dynamic personalized one for you. Alright, so this is this is very prescriptive, very simple. And you may not need all the steps, but here we go. Step one is you have to know your calorie needs. So if you're using an app like macro factor, which calculates your expenditure, you'll know what that is on a weekly basis. I'm not going to go into that on detail on this podcast. But whether you're using an estimate a calculator or an app that calculates it for you've got to have some ballpark of where you're going to start. What are you actually eating? And those calorie needs are going to be based on your calories that you burn every day. That's your maintenance calories, your total calories burn, and then you're going You're going to add or remove calories for your goal, whether you're trying to build muscle, or lose fat. And really, those are the two directions we go on this show, right? We're not talking about endurance training or anything like that we're talking about strength building muscle, improving your body composition. So if you are going into a fat loss phase, and you know, you want to lose a pound per week, and that comes out to a 500 calorie deficit a day, and your metabolism is 2500 calories a day, then your calorie needs 2000 very simple concept, but just I wanted to put it out there. That's one of the more important dietary variables when you come up with a meal plan because of course, you want to meet your calorie needs for your goals. All right, then we go one step down into macros. Okay, now we have our calorie needs, we want to set our protein, fats, carbs, I'll just repeat the general guidelines that I like for that. For protein, we're going to go with around point eight to one gram per pound of your target bodyweight. So if your target body weight is 180, we're talking 150 to 180 grams of protein. I like to do fats next. I know some people go with carbs next, but I like to do fat. Next, because all of us listening here are building muscle. So we want to have carbs, like a decent amount of carbs left, if we can, it's not always possible, we're in fat loss, for example, for fat, I would anchor it at 30% of your calories. Right? So if you're going to consume 2000 calories, 30% of that is what 600 calories, and then you divide 600 times nine, I'm actually trying to pull up a calculator right now and do that. And that will be 67 grams of fat, and then the rest goes to carbs. So that's a super basic rule of thumb. Now, how might that very well, if you're in a fat loss phase, you might want a little more protein. Or if you're in a muscle building phase, you could deal with up to a little less, if you've come from a Keto background, you'd like to get a lot of higher fat foods, you can up the fat a bit and reduce the carbs or vice versa, a lot of ways to skin it. Okay, I'll stop there and keep going. So next we have micronutrients. So here's where we start to deviate from the traditional meal plan. So the normal meal plan, thinks about calories, macros, and then listing foods by meals. That's basically it. You know, there's some timing aspect to it, maybe. But we're gonna go deeper than that, because the next thing we care about is micros. And if you go back to the strategies, I talked about 8020 80%, nutrient dense foods 20%. Other, you're gonna get there, you're gonna get pretty close to what you need. So if 80% or more of your foods are whole nutrient dense foods, you're going to have foods rich in essential vitamins, minerals, fiber. So fiber is not a micronutrient. It's a subset of carbohydrates. But I really think it's important to spike it out and think about the number and aim to hit that number. But again, you don't have to have a giant spreadsheet or anything. If you go the 8020 rule, you're probably going to be covered or pretty close to it. Because most people are like the opposite. They're like 60, or 70%, processed foods and like 30 or 40% Whole Foods. So if you're just doubling your whole foods, through proper meal planning for you for your goals, because why do we want nutrient dense foods, we want micronutrients, we want to mitigate hunger, we want to feel full, we want to feel great, we want to support our goals, we want to be healthy, and so on. So incorporating the 8020 is an early step in the macro planning process, because it already gets you to think of as you're going through, okay, I'm going to think I'm gonna think Whole Foods first, first, first first, but then my 10 or 20%? Where are those gonna go? Where's my pizza? Where's my ice cream? Where are they? Where's my glass of wine, whatever, where's that gonna go? Like, actually plan it in. That's the goal, to plan it in, and then enjoy them and not think of them as a reward, but just part of your plan. Okay, the next step is, and maybe you could have done this earlier, doesn't matter. I want you to list out all the things you like, all the things you like within each category. So the very simple way to do this is list your proteins, fats, and carbs. Now you can say well, but you know, beans are both protein and carbs or nuts are like mostly fat with some protein. Just put, the more they're dominant. So like beans, I'm beans are the weird one, I might put them under carbs to be honest, because when you really need a protein, it's not as dense as say meats, dairy, eggs, and so on. Right? Plants have plenty of protein, but they also have plenty of other stuff. And you know, same thing with grains like oats, I'm going to put that on a carbs even though they have some protein. So you kind of list them out. And guess what just put on the list of things you like don't put the things you don't like. Now if you're trying to be adventurous and you're trying to open up your palate, and like I had to do with my not had to do but I chose to too early in my marriage when my wife was like him. You are so picky. I ate hardly anything, but I was willing to try and together we incorporated more foods and I found out that I could like vegetables more and more rituals and there's certain things I just don't like, like I don't like to meet those, so I wouldn't put them on my list. And then mushrooms are like a like, I might put them on there because I know they're, they're good food to have in there. And I'm okay with them. So put the things you'd like the most put some of the things you want to try to incorporate maybe categorize them in that way, the things you just absolutely don't like, don't want to eat and don't even want to try it, hey, leave them off list. And then you can have another list or two of indulgences that don't really fit into protein, fats, carbs, like if pizza is on your list. I mean, what is that that's a lot of fat, a lot of carbs, maybe some protein, a bunch of oil, right? It's very calorie dense. So it's kind of in its own category of indulgences. So there you go, you've got your little menu to choose from. And again, I have a guide, where I can give you that has basic list like of those fruits and vegetables might be in their own category. For example, don't make it complicated, but just come up with the list that you need to choose your fruits from. That's it come up with that, before you go to the next step. The next thing is, you definitely are going to want to have a way to measure your food if you're tracking your food to that level. So if you're tracking it to the gram level, having your food scale, and I kind of throw this in here just to make sure you're prepared. So when you get to the meal planning, or the execution part, you know, if you're planning out 100 grams of potatoes, how are you going to know you ate 100 grams of potatoes right? Now, you could use quantities like one medium potato and stuff like that. But I'm really a big fan of just normalizing everything, just making it all grams weighing your food doing that for a while until this becomes intuitive. Because if you're using a meal plan, it's because you don't quite have that intuition yet. And I get it right, because that's where we all start from, you don't have that yet. And so we want to be very precise, I prefer more precision to less. You don't have to do it that way. But just be aware that you want to be prepared for it for controlling the the portion measurement, especially initially. Okay. Okay. Next on your meal plan checklist is the frequency and timing that aligns with your lifestyle and metabolic needs. And that could include workout nutrition. So this is pretty straightforward. For most people. There are routine days and not so routine days. And for most people that's weekdays versus weekends, or training days, versus non training days, or some combination, right training days, non training days, weekends, and oh, by the way, I love to go out partying every Saturday night. And so that's its own little day, fight, whatever it takes each of those days is its use has its own unique plan. Makes sense, right? We're not gonna have one plan that we do every day, even though I would say that that is ideal. In reality, you're not going to do it. Just admit it to yourself, right now, you're not going to do it, you might do it for two weeks, you're not gonna keep doing it. Why? Because that's restrictive. That's rigidity. That is what we're trying to avoid. Okay? A plan that works on a day that it's easy to execute. The plan is not restrictive. It's just having a plan, but a plan that you're trying to force into a day where it won't be easy to meet the plan. And you know, that is restrictive. That's the difference. Okay? So I'm very passionate about this stuff, as you can tell, because there's so much BS out there. But meal frequency and timing, what does this look like? Take a typical day, let's say a non training day, that's in the middle of the week. And very simply map out your meals. That's it, map out your meals, and your snacks, your indulgences, everything, like put it all in there. It might be breakfast, lunch, mid afternoon snack around the time that you don't really get hungry. And then dinner, and maybe a dessert or pre bed snack if that's what you want or need for your goals. And then do the same for your training days is the same for the weekend. And what and then put it all together, put it all together for seven days. And that's going to tell you a lot of information because does it fit? And by fit I mean calories macros, right? Let alone all the other stuff which which is driving your decision of what foods to pick, but calories and macros are they fitting. And so that's why I like to look at the whole week because your training day may have more food than your non training day, if you want to do it that way. I don't recommend that initially, I'd rather just keep it pretty consistent. And then you can shift things around from that. But you may decide right now that No, on the weekends, I'm gonna have more calories. So I'm going to make that happen in my plan. Fine. That's your natural lifestyle. Okay, so meal timing and frequency set that up, plan it out for the whole week. I kind of alluded to this already. But the next thing I would do is to pre schedule all of your indulgences so that you can adjust the other things around it. So once you've got your typical day, and I kind of miss telling you this, but when you plan out your normal day, you don't have to have indulgences in the default meal plan, let's say but then you'll realize Hi, where do I want indulgences. And you may decide I'm going to instead of having a dessert every day like I do now maybe I'll have one three times a week or I'll have it only on the weekends. And I'm going to plan that in that way. And then I know to come in, and there we go. So pre plan your indulgences make it work. Another way to do that is just leaving open spot of probably fats and carbs, let's be honest, most indulgences are fats and carbs, and leave it open spot, I would do this sometimes during a fat loss phase, when it starts to get a little hairy there. At the end, I get lean, and the calories are somewhat low, I might reserve say, 200 calories at 8pm. If I go to bed at like 930, or 10, for a little bit of protein and some carbs. And I know I just said fats and carbs. But for me that was like protein pudding, for example. And I would do that just in case, because I knew that, hey, I might get hungry, I didn't always take advantage of it, I would sometimes accommodate earlier in the day and maybe have a bigger dinner and just not have it. Or I would end up with less calories for the day, which was fine as well, since I was in fat loss, it generally worked out. Okay, then you are going to take those days that you just planned, and make sure that you have the right lifestyle factors accounted for. So this would be for example, variety, right? I don't want you to eat the same thing every day, if that's not going to be enjoyable for you. But you may have the same breakfast every day, you maybe even have the same lunch every day for the week. And then next week, you switch up the lunch, like the way I do it, I've been eating the same breakfast for years, my lunch tends to be similar during the week, and then the next week, I might switch it up like I might have a different meat, I might go from chicken thighs all this week to lean ground beef all next week, as an example. So the idea here is not just to have a fixed plan for the week, but options for yourself. And so what this might look like is some different example days. So for your routine day, in the middle of the week, you might have a couple of versions of that. And you just kind of rotate back and forth. Okay, now, this might all seem overwhelming. I'm not saying that you have to have all of this written down per se. It's more of being conscious of it. And it could be just the next day, it could be the two days ahead that you do that. Just just putting that out there. Okay, flexibility. Okay. Now, once you've got all that, guess what Next, it's time to execute. So the first step to executing is shopping, right? You create a shopping list based on the sample days, you think about whether you want to do some meal prep, some batch cooking, if it's convenient, if it helps you with your self care and reducing stress. And then you go and buy the groceries. Simple, right? Then you're going to log everything in execute. So you're going to, you know, meal prep if you have to, but if not, or if you chose to. But if not, you know you wake up in the morning, you've got this plan ready to follow whether you've whether you've pre documented it, or it's mental or whatever works for you, again, flexibility, and you just start to execute it, and you start to log it. And at the end of the week, guess what you have, you have super valuable information on actual versus expected feedback. That's the feedback loop actual versus expected. So anything that you missed, you reevaluate. You say, Why did I miss it?

Philip Pape  42:56

Is it okay that I missed it? Do I need to switch something up? Is it tied to psychological hunger? Is it tied to something that came up in my life? And how could I better accommodate that in the future, and on and on and on, it's all a detective game, let's say, it's, at least, you know, I enjoy this, you can hear it in my voice with my clients, and they come in and they check in for the week, and they're a little bit discouraged. You know, my checking back to them will always be positive, because I know that that discouragement comes from the fact that they disappointed themselves and didn't quite meet their plan. And for me, I look at it as Oh, now we have this amazing information that we can grow from growth mindset, you're going to be even better this week, and the week after the week after you're just going to constantly grow. And this is this is awesome, this is an opportunity. And so I love having all that information logged, because then it's easy to see what's going on. Okay, the next thing, I don't want to forget this in all of this detail. But please do listen to your body all the time, and pay attention to your body's responses. And then let that also serve as information for the meal, even if you're not writing it down. If you constantly get digestive issues, and you can tie it to what you ate. Come on, that's that's telling you the information right there, stop eating that, like stop eating that thing. And make a change, maybe it's less of that, a different version of that, cutting it out altogether, switching to something else, whatever, that's your body telling you what you want to do. Okay. And then all of this is an ongoing process. So I would say not only do you make adjustments potentially every week, but as the weeks go on you and you become more attuned to your body and you get into a routine, it almost becomes easier to adjust at that point. Because you can pick out where changes cause outcomes, you know, right? Like if you all of a sudden start to experience something, and you've only changed this one thing in your meal this week. You know, that could be the culprit, right? It gives you it gives you more sensitivity to your own body and to your meals with that awareness. Okay, this is a lot like I said, it's it's a lot. So now you have the answer. You have the answer the perfect meal plan, which is sent Believe the one that works for you. And so now you're equipped with multiple ways to get there multiple strategies, step by step approach. Hopefully I didn't miss anything. If I did, please reach out to me. But I think that'll get you going quite a way along the road to success if you need some help putting one together. Okay, again, I do not do meal plans. I do not give people meal plans. However, if you join my email list, and then you reply to let me know that you listen to the show, right, Episode 112. And you want my free guide to creating your own meal plan, I will send you a guide that gives you a list of foods that gives you sample meal plans for inspiration only. And it gives you foods sorted by protein density, meaning all the types of foods for steak, for example, sorted by which ones have more, the most versus the least protein, which really helps because when you're in fat loss, for example, and you're trying to play this little Tetris game of keeping the protein high, but the calories low and enough carbs for energy. It can be difficult, but I find that starting with very high protein density usually makes the rest of the equation fall in line pretty easily. So that's why I provide that in there. If you want it go to wits, & weights.com/email, join my list and then just reply to my email. I answer everyone, I'm a human being I love conversation. So do that. Go to the link in my show notes or go to wits. & weights.com/email. All right. In our next episode 113 barbell training for physical therapy and injury prevention with John Patricio Oh, this is an awesome one. John is a physical therapy consultant throughout my rehab journey, and he's just a master at combining barbell training with rehab. You don't find that too often in the industry, and he's going to teach you a lot. We discuss how he marries those two worlds. We're going to challenge conventional wisdom. As always, we're going to give you a framework that could drastically change your approach to injury prevention and rehab. It did for me, you'll learn why strength isn't just about lifting weights and why barbell training could be your secret weapon against not just injury, but mediocrity. Please subscribe or follow the podcast right now in your podcast app, please pause or go into the app whether it's Apple podcasts overcast, whatever, Spotify, click either follow or subscribe, whatever they call it, and you'll get notified and automatically download new episodes. It also helps me it helps the ranking of the show, the more subscribers there are, so don't just download willy nilly actually subscribe and that will help others find the show. As always, stay strong. And I'll talk to you next time here on the Wits & Weights podcast. Thank you for tuning in to another episode of Wits & Weights. If you found value in today's episode, and know someone else who's looking to level up their Wits & Weights. Please take a moment to share this episode with them. And make sure to hit the Follow button in your podcast platform right now to catch the next episode. Until then, stay strong

Ep 111: The Anti-Diet Athlete Mindset to Release Weight Naturally with Sherry Shaban

Joining me today is Sherry Shaban, an extraordinary fitness and life coach who’s battled back from the brink of paralysis to transform her body and her entire outlook on life. We met when she recently had me on her podcast, Fall In Love with Fitness, so I’m excited to talk to her again today.

Sherry will challenge your conventional wisdom on dieting and fitness as we examine why diets fail and what you can do differently. We are unpacking the nuances of ‘transformation’ versus ‘results’ and how to move from a life of limitations to endless possibilities. From the role of intuitive eating to overcoming chronic pain to the habits that define successful “athletes” in all walks of life, this is a holistic conversation about optimizing your performance from the inside out.

Sherry Shaban is an osteopath and an anti-diet health and life coach from Montreal, Qc. She is the founder of the Fall in Love with Fitness Podcast, the HIIT Decks™ App, and Make Peace with Food™, the leaders in an Anti-Diet approach that rewires the brain’s relationship with food to release bodyweight struggles forever naturally.

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Today you’ll learn all about:
[3:23] How adversities shaped Sherry's life and mindset
[6:54] What it means to be an athlete
[11:33] The impact of identifying as an athlete
[14:15] The difference between transformation and results
[19:24] Working toward a short-term result
[22:37] Why diets fail and alternatives
[28:33] Busting a dieting myth
[32:05] Switching to intuitive eating
[37:24] Diet restrictions
[39:27] Differentiating emotional and physical hunger
[50:25] Transformation and focusing on food that serves us
[56:30] Aligning to your needs and extracting habits
[54:10] Protection mode
[58:14] The question Sherry wished Philip had asked
[1:00:25] Where to learn more about Sherry
[1:01:01] Outro 

Episode resources:

• Website:  www.sherryshaban.com 

• IG - @sherryshabanfitness

👉👉👉 Click here to apply for coaching!

👩‍💻👨‍💻 Click here to schedule a FREE results breakthrough call with Philip

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Transcript

Sherry Shaban  00:00

Really the key is to tune into what works for you. If something doesn't feel right if you're forcing yourself like you said self when you're forcing yourself through diet and exercise and you're really going against your desire, that's where we can start to create all of these self sabotaging patterns in the brain where we start to do self sabotaging behavior. And so what we need to just release is this idea that there's this one way to eat because what works for you Phillip may not work for me and what works for me may not work for you. And the goal is to really just find what works the best for each person, individual and just follow that.

Philip Pape  00:35

Welcome to the Wits & Weights podcast. I'm your host Philip pape, and this twice a week podcast is dedicated to helping you achieve physical self mastery by getting stronger. Optimizing your nutrition and upgrading your body composition will uncover science backed strategies for movement, metabolism, muscle and mindset with a skeptical eye on the fitness industry so you can look and feel your absolute best. Let's dive right in. Wits & Weights community Welcome to another episode of the Wits & Weights podcast. Joining me today is Sherry Cheban, an extraordinary fitness and life coach who's battled back from the brink of paralysis to transform not only her body, but her entire outlook on life. She and I met when she recently had me on her podcast fall in love with fitness. So I'm very excited to talk to her again. Today, Sherry will challenge your conventional wisdom on dieting and fitness as we look at why diets fail and what you can do differently. We're unpacking the nuances of transformation versus results, how you can move from a life of limitations to one of endless possibilities. From the role of intuitive eating to overcoming chronic pain to the habits that define successful athletes in all walks of life. This is a holistic conversation about optimizing your performance from the inside out. Sherry Cheban is an osteopath and an anti diet health and life coach from Montreal, Quebec. She's the founder of the fall in love with fitness podcast, her new hit decks app which is out now and make peace with food. The leaders in an anti diet approach that rewires the brain's relationship with food to naturally release body weight struggles forever. With over 23 years of experience in the fitness industry. Sherry is a renowned expert in the most challenging weight loss cases and has helped 1000s of people worldwide transform their health and fitness using her revolutionary method to rewire the brain release self sabotaging limiting beliefs and patterns and fall in love with fitness so that weight loss becomes easy, predictable and enjoyable. For the first few years of being a gym owner, Sherry felt like a phony she was frustrated with herself disappointed and angry for being a victim of her circumstances, unable to demonstrate a single squat. But her turning point toward recovery came from understanding that one of the central elements to transformation is to let go of debilitating and self limiting thoughts and to begin to rewrite a new story. With over 20 years of experience in her specialty. Sherry has dedicated her life to helping 1000s of people transform their athletic identity to become who they are meant to be. Sherry, it is so good to see you again.

Sherry Shaban  03:09

Thank you so much, Philip, what a beautiful intro. I don't even know how to follow that.

Philip Pape  03:13

Oh, you'll have no problem following and sharing your you're a pro. And I know that listeners have been looking forward to learning about this, especially the whole anti diet discussion that we're going to get into. But let's just learn about you a little bit. You've battled these life altering setbacks, the near paralyzing accident, and then you turn them into stepping stones for something greater. So how have these adversities sharpened Your mindset is really what I care about how much to sharpen your mindset, not just for fitness, but life as a whole.

Sherry Shaban  03:44

So good, so good. So really how we do anything is how we do everything. And I also have to say that when we look back at a story like mine, or any story of anyone who is quote, unquote, successful, whatever that means, it always looks like it was so easy. And it came so naturally. And there were no struggles and the roads opened up and the sun was shining and all of these things. But really, what we don't see is the pain. What we don't see is the self deprecating thoughts. We don't see the disappointment. We don't see the embarrassments. We don't really see the struggle. And so the first thing that I want to say is that it's a process, and it's a journey, and I still have my days. And what's fun about that is knowing that I'm always a work in progress. Because I mean, if we reach that final, complete, perfect image of ourselves, what's the point of continuing to work on ourselves. And so it's this constant work in progress. But really, again, it's it's really understanding that the way that we are in one part of our life is how we actually show up in all the other areas of our life. And the first thing that happened when I finally embraced my story, and I decided that I'm no longer a victim, because my thoughts Phillip was always around. Well, if that didn't happen, then this would have happened. If it wasn't for that, then I would have that and it's this constant feeling of lack of scarcity around what is possible. But the more meant that we actually look back at these hard challenging moments of our lives. And instead of thinking, well that happen to me, we start thinking this happened. For me, there was a higher purpose of that there was a reason why this happened. All of a sudden, everything started to make sense. And everything started to align. And essentially, what it did for me on a personal level was making me realize that I can do anything that I can accomplish anything. And so I've had the financial struggles. But because I was able to overcome this part of my life, I had the faith knowing that I could overcome financial struggles. I've had relationship struggles, but again, you overcome this part of your life, and you realize you can overcome anything. And in 2019, I lost my mom, which was the most devastating experience of my life, way worse than everything that happened on my back, because I knew I'd overcome just tragic thing in my teens, that I was actually able to also overcome that. And so you realize that just gives you strength and power. So that was on a personal level. But on a professional level, I just became relatable to people, because we all have a struggle, right. And I think even you, Phillip, as a coach, everyone looks up to you everyone admires you, everybody's always coming to you for advice, and you're kind of the know it all, or the person that really inspires others to create momentum. And so when people start to hear that, you've also gone through your struggles, and you have the story, you automatically become relatable. And when you become relatable, you can connect with the person, you can reach them, and then you can also help guide them through their own story.

Philip Pape  06:27

It's so true, that is relatable and even the idea of having humility, and coming to the realization of with wisdom of time, right? Because I know I don't know about you in my 20s. If I wasn't known at all, that's the only side of me, I would let you see right. Now you know that it's like, let's get vulnerable, because people really relate to that. And like you said, we don't always see the struggle. But how we do like what you said, how we do anything, is how we do everything. So think about that. This is this is awesome. So one of your specialties, one of your superpowers, now that you've gone through all this is the idea of redefining our identity, which is kind of what you were talking about. And specifically thinking of yourself as an athlete in the physical fitness realm, which I love, I hear more of that kind of messaging in the space, you probably do as well. And I think we should definitely embrace it. You call everyone an athlete? So I want you to break that down for us? What is the shift the psychological advantage, if you will, that happens when someone starts to have that identity.

Sherry Shaban  07:25

So get, I think, first we have to address just the most powerful force of the human psyche, before we even get into that, because the most powerful force that we have is how we define ourselves our self image essentially. And so what happens is when we decide who we are, through our self talk through our language through the image that we have of ourselves, what we start to subconsciously or unconsciously do is just prove that to be correct, we try to validate that all day long. So if in my mind, I wake up in the morning, and my first thoughts are a girl, so I'm so fat, I'm disgusting, I hate myself, I'm so slow, like, what is this all What a shitty day it's going to be or what I'm so exhausted. And then these are all the words that are coming to me, well, then throughout the rest of the day, I'm going to support that my actions will support that unknowingly. And so when we come down to that concept, and then we take the athletic identity and start to apply it, first, we want to understand what is the athletic identity. And so we have again, this image that an athlete is a person who's paid millions of dollars a year to be on TV and to play their sport at a very, very high level. But that's not really what it is. Because when we dive deep into what that really means, we understand that an athlete is actually a mindset. And a mindset is just a collection of beliefs. That's really what it is. And so an athlete doesn't show up to practice or doesn't commit to their sport, because they're so focused on how much they weigh. Unless, of course, they're trying to classify in a particular weight category, then that's another conversation. But the reason what that they don't show up has has, it has nothing to do with their physical body. It has everything though, to do with their performance. And so they show up to their practices, or they honor their values and their rituals, not because they need to release weight or because they want to change their physical appearance. But instead, it's it's because of what they're able to do with their bodies. And so that starts to shift why we show up because if exercise is a means to release weight, it's a punishment, if exercise is, is a means to change my physical body because I don't like how I look, then it's always a punishment for what I think of myself. And so when we step into the athletic mindset, we no longer are focused around exercise just for the burning of calories or what my weight will be at the end of the month. And the same thing applies for nutrition nutrition will no longer be focused on restrictions and caloric deficit just because I want to look a certain way but instead, the focus will be how can I feel my workouts better? How can I recover faster? How can I optimize my sleep? How can I continue to show up, I'm going to decide to turn down social events the night before the game. And it's going to be easy for me to do that, because I am committed to my values, it doesn't feel restrictive. And so when we embrace that athletic identity, it's no longer a restriction. It's no longer I can't do these things. It's more I don't do these things, because it's not who I am. And what I want to create in my life is so incredibly important to me. So purposeful, and so meaningful, that there is no other way. I don't commit to these things. Because I'm trying to do these things. I commit to these things, because I'm being these things, it's actually who I am.

Philip Pape  10:38

Because I'm being these things, I love that there's a sense of empowerment and relief, almost, there's a, you're getting rid of cognitive dissonance, right, because so many of us, myself included, went through years of forcing ourselves to do things for some out calm, not realizing that a maybe it wasn't that outcome we were really going for. And P we weren't doing the things that were aligned with those and our values. So fortunately, there's more of this in the industry, but not enough. And so people like you coming on the shows and talking about this as important because I want people to realize that if they can take, Sherry's approach of abundance, right of performance of fuel of being your best, and then letting your choices because that's what they are, right? Their choices, drive that and create your identity, all these other things also become easier whether it is physique, and everything else, it doesn't matter. I love that. So do you think this label, just the label of athlete itself is is a game changer for people who've never considered sports or even physical activity as part of their life, like even from day one.

Sherry Shaban  11:45

So that absolutely and again, coming back to what we were saying earlier about how we do anything is how we do everything. It's so incredibly important. And, you know, I've seen so many transformations happen, the moment people embrace this concept, the moment they go from, I can't do this, I'm not able to do that to suddenly feeling the sense of certainty, because that's really what it means. It's not just about the collection of all these actions that we're doing. But the moment you embrace that athletic identity, your mind starts to shift, your thoughts start to shift that that faith that you have in yourself, that confidence starts to shift. And if you've ever heard any big, famous athlete, let's say on Netflix, I think there's, there's a Conor McGregor documentary there. I think there's a Michael Jordan documentary, they're just too I can watch them over and over. But I watch them over and over. And I have this obsession, even the Arnold documentary obsession about it, because there's a pattern there, there's a pattern. And once you identify the pattern, then you realize I can apply that to myself, too. And here's the pattern, Philip, is that they don't doubt themselves. They don't say, Well, maybe today I might I think I probably could. And maybe this week, I might work out a couple times, or no, it's I am, I am going to do this. I am the best. I am relentless. And even after they fail, or even after they have a bad game. They don't give up. Right? And we can look at Olympic athletes, they trained for four years to compete for 10 seconds. And what do they train for? They train for the gold. But what happens when they get the silver or the bronze, they don't give up, they go back home and start trading for the gold again. And so that's the mindset. The mindset is just around that resilience in the faith. And we can all step into it. The moment we detach this idea, this image of an athlete being this high level competitor that is professionally playing for the their sport, because really, there's a recreational athlete. Also, there's a part time athlete also. And we all have this capacity within us to harness this energy of being the athlete.

Philip Pape  13:43

Yeah, that's awesome. I was thinking about the Arnold thing where he's like, I envisioned myself winning Mr. Olympia, I envisioned myself as a Hollywood superstar. Like it was happening, it was going to happen, right? And they don't doubt themselves. You said resilience and faith. It's funny, because since the time you and I talked, I also, honestly, thanks to you and a few others, like Steph Gaudreau, in the industry, who's very much thinking like that have been using the term client athlete with my clients, right? So like, you know, I kind of throw it in here and there in the past, and now it's like, no, no, you guys are athletes, then you're right. It creates a different mindset completely. So you talked about it early on, like results, how the result we want isn't always the result we're really going for, for example, if it's not really physique, it's something else. And you also mentioned the word transformation. So drill down into the difference the subtle difference that makes one superior to the other that is transformation versus mere results.

Sherry Shaban  14:35

Right. Oh, so good. So good. Yeah, results can be measured, right results can be temporary result is just this change, and transformation. I like to really look at it as a caterpillar becoming a butterfly. But there are two different things. There's the same thing. It comes from the same place but it's it just as a brand new being and so transformation is this end result that doesn't Really and although it is this end result that continues to stay in motion, where I no longer have the set of belief systems that I had in the past, I now have a different level of thinking, I have exchanged that my old emotions with a brand new level of emotions and a higher vibration emotions. And so the transformation really is this emergence of the butterfly where it thinks differently, it behaves differently, it acts differently, almost everything around it is different. And I use the word different. But really what we're doing is we're just actually becoming that highest version of ourselves, because really, you are coming home to who you're always meant to be.

Philip Pape  15:39

So this metamorphosis because I love the caterpillar butterfly thing. I think you alluded you mentioned, it's it's a continual process, right? Like a result is an endpoint, a short term endpoint, the transformation never ends, does it? Like you said, we until the day we die, it never ends. Is that right?

Sherry Shaban  15:54

Right. 100% under percent, and it's just like brushing our teeth, right? I don't brush my teeth, or get my teeth clean, just that one time I go to see the dentist that year, or I don't just clean my house once. But it's this this constant work. And the thing about this constant work because we have this this thing in our brain where we think that progress is supposed to be linear, or we think that work is supposed to be linear. And it's not because that constant work means that I am accepting all of the things happening in my life as I continue in this journey of transformation, which means there will be losses, there will be difficult moments, there will be injuries, there will be things that come out of nowhere that I didn't expect them to be. And can I be more flexible, can I be more adaptable with the things that happened, because that's what transformation is, if I can change my mind, which means I can change my belief systems, which means I can change the way I think and therefore all my emotions that come along with that, than the way that I can handle situations look very, very different than my old self, which was very limited maybe in the way that it thought about certain things. And the way that it reacted to certain things will be very different than how I react to things now. And so yes, transformation is this constant work in progress, the work never ends. But the beautiful part about that is there is a flow and we aligned with the flow of life, which is ebbs and flows, which is really great things happening. And then And then really painful things happening to us at the same time. And regardless of what's going on in my life, regardless of my environment, whether I live in Montreal, or I'm on the moon, or I'm traveling or people come in and out of my life, my rituals don't change. And so that's one thing when we want to ask ourselves, have I really transformed, maybe we can look deeper into ourselves and ask ourselves, Is my transformation dependent on my environment? Or is it truly from within because I think we saw this in the pandemic. And I saw this at my gym, too. I had people that would come in, I mean, really religiously for years. And they were so like, keen on their health and fitness, they did not miss a single workout. But then the pandemic happened, the gyms disappeared. And so did that tie with all of those behaviors are those rituals. And so if I'm dependent on a gym for my transformation, then is that really coming from within? Because what would happen if that gym closed down? What would happen if the trainer changed? What would happen if things in the gym change? And then I no longer can connect? What does that mean, for me? Does that mean that I still continue to honor who I am, and honor the important values in my life around my health? Or does that mean that also changes. And so that's also another way that we can look at transformation is that I'm really driven by my own desire to become that reflection of my highest self, and that has nothing to do with anyone around me. And at the same time, I can match the ebb and flow of life.

Philip Pape  18:39

Yeah, what I hear you're saying is, we really don't have an excuse to be a victim, because that's what you alluded to before. Because the exception to the rule is when things are routine and perfect. It's rare, right? People expect, okay, I have a plan. And I'm just gonna do that plan every day. Day two, something happens day three, something happens. And you're so off the so called track, right? Like people use the track or the wagon, which doesn't exist, which doesn't exist, it doesn't exist. It's an ISA, like it's as Broad Avenue that you're just meandering through life, or so think of Bruce Lee's you know, water analogy. He said, I don't know exactly how it goes. But he's like, be like water where you just kind of shape yourself around everything, but you keep moving forward. Okay, so what about then somebody might say, well, what if I am in the short term, still trying to achieve some results, right? Like, like an athlete will try to win games or, you know, trying to get a new maximum on their squat or whatever? Maybe it is fat loss. I don't I don't care a result. How can you align that or fit that within the idea of transformation?

Sherry Shaban  19:43

Yeah, transformation will be the sum of all results where the results could even maybe be going in the opposite direction, right. And so that's also the other thing, I could be training so hard for something I'm training for this race day, and all of a sudden race day comes and I didn't even come close to peering, but that's still a result and so If we're so focused on a result, or focused on a positive outcome where success is attached to that positive outcome, or joy is attached to that positive outcome, that's when we have a problem. Because then our emotions are going to yo yo and roller coaster along with that outcome. And so I've had horrible results before, right. But that doesn't drive me away from my transformation, because it's kind of like looking at all the small battles in a war. There are many small battles, you win some, you lose some, but ultimately, there's still this ongoing nature around it. And so the moment that we can embrace that and understand why it's a bad training day, that's cool. That's fine. Or I was expected this today, but it didn't happen. That's okay, that I still have faith. And that's the thing is, when we harness the energy of transformation, and we're not just focusing on results, what we're also doing is harnessing patience, and harnessing faith, and integrity. And so I can become patient when things don't go my way. If I'm doing all the things if I'm eating in a way that serves me, and I am training, and I'm following my entire program, and maybe the results don't reflect that. If I can harness that energy of patience, then I know that it's only a matter of time, where things will finally align in the way that I hope and expect them to

Philip Pape  21:14

know that that's a beautiful image there. Sure. I like how you said that. Because there are a lot of people are not lazy, right? They're working hard. Yeah. And they are taking action. And somehow it's not getting them where they want to be. But they are if like they're working with you. And they're they're understanding the psychology of their identity and trying to shape their identity. You kind of take that in stride and learn from that. I mean, you just triggered me with multiple times in my life where I just completely failed. Like last year, I did a speech contest, and I blanked out for like minutes. And it was horrible in the moment, but afterward, I'm like, Wow, I'm glad I went through that. Because do you know how much I'm gonna be able to change? Or I just had surgery since the last time we talked? And it's like, yeah, I gotta find a way to train right Wednesday's training day. I don't care. It's training. But I'm sure people can definitely relate to what you're saying. So let's talk about the D word. Yeah, okay. Let's talk about the D word. Because I think that will fit nicely into the context of all of this, because, at least for me, when I think dieting, I think several different things. So let me just tell you what I think are the top, I think multiple definitions. One, I think a calorie deficit, right. Another is, I think, restricting foods or trying to follow rules for a diet. Another thing I think of is maybe how we eat a dietary pattern. And another is trying to get a result like right, trying to lose fat weight, whatever. Or the other way even build muscle. So define what you mean by dieting. So we're on the same page. And then let's talk about why dieting in that context fails. And what's more effective.

Sherry Shaban  22:45

So good, you've really great questions. So I like what you said, Because kind of everything that you said was true. Okay, so I'm actually so behind everything that you said. And so when when we're looking at our goals, first and foremost, there's nothing wrong with wanting to release weight, there's nothing wrong with it. There's nothing wrong with wanting to change your physical body, there's nothing wrong with wanting to be the highest version of yourself or become stronger or have more endurance. So all of those things are amazing. And now when we look at that, and then we ask ourselves, okay, well, then what's wrong with dieting? Well, here's the thing kind of coming back to where we were talking about when it comes to mindset. It's very different Celebified come into a party and you say, hey, Sherry, do you want to drink? Do you want to drink? And I say to you know, Phillip, sorry, I can't, I can't I can't have a drink. Versus No, Philip. Sorry, I don't drink. Now, it almost sounds the same, because in both ways, I'm declining your offer. But when I say I can't do something, what I'm actually implying is that there is a desire, and what I'm doing is going against that natural desire. But when I say I don't do something that now reflects who I am, that's part of my personality. And it's true. I don't drink so I don't have a hard time turning down alcohol because I don't drink. And I don't know if you know what poutine is, but I'm from Montreal and poutine if anyone's listening and doesn't know what it is, it is this thing. This this dish of of French fries, I think swimming and gravy with like, kurtal cheese on top. I've never had it in my life, and I never will. And it's not because and people. I'm gonna I'm gonna call up your house and force. Everybody you know. And the reason why I haven't I've never tried it was not because I was restricting or dieting, but because nothing about it appealed to me. And so the word diet that is negative that where it is talking about a restriction, that's the one that can become harmful if we don't readjust the mindset around it because what happens in the brain when we deny ourselves so something against that desire when we prevent ourselves from happening, having it what we end up doing is actually building this reward system with the hormone dopamine. And so when I want chocolate cake, but I'm on a diet, and I can't have chocolate cake, and all I think about is a chocolate cake, because that's true, by the way, Philip, I love chocolate cake, that would be a restriction for me. And so what ends up happening is it builds this reward system in my brain. So then the moment that I have chocolate cake, I get this insane flush of dopamine. And now my desire for chocolate cake has increased tenfold. And now I want that chocolate cake even more than I ever did. And that's where we can start to see patterns of binge eating, and out of control eating, which is not uncommon around athletes, or fitness competitors or people in the bodybuilding world, because that's exactly what happens. So what's different than around wiring and rewiring the brain is to have that thing not even be a part of something that you desire. So if I don't even desire it, then I'm not restricting. And so the danger of restriction then comes from this reward system that is built up. And now the other thing about dieting, too, is that there are a million diets out there. And we just have to ask ourselves, well, why is it that we live in North America, where food is abundant, where science and information is abundant? Where diets are abundant? And yet we are the one struggling with weight and health the most? Like why is that? Yes, absolutely. We have fast food and we have processed foods and we have all this other stuff. But is that really the issue? Or is the issue that we're so focused on weight and on body image, and told from a very, very young age that we should look a certain way. And that's generally the people that I work with. And actually they started dieting, something like when they were eight, nine, even 12 years old, already started dieting. And when you get in from get into one diet, and then move on to the next, what you actually start doing is becoming very confused around food because this diet says that we shouldn't have carbs, this diet says that we should have carbs This one says we shouldn't have meat, this one says we should have meat. This one says eat breakfast. First thing you do when you wake up, this one says don't eat and you should fast. And by the way, all backed by science all legitimate. There's there's enough scientific data to prove that each and every single one is correct. And so what we've done is create these restrictions for these massive reward systems in our brain and at the same time confused ourselves like crazy around what information is correct that we no longer intuitively recognize the cues that our body's constantly giving us to be hungry, or when we're satisfied, and we're full or when we're missing something. But now everything is thought processes first, before we take action, I have to think about what I want to eat, does it fit in my macros that I eat enough calories? Or should I get more protein, there's more thought involved versus intuitive. Calling upon the signal that's already actually telling me what it is that my body needs

Philip Pape  27:47

at the moment. It's very interesting, because you and I agree on 99.99% of stuff. We really do. And just I love the way that you explain that in the context of the reward system and the binge eating. And the fact that there is science, I'll say cherry picked to support this or it's incomplete, if you will, right. Because the psychological aspect you're talking about, I'm sure there's science on that, as in fact, I know there is I know they've studied rigid dieting versus more flexible dieting, for example. And it comes down to adherence, often, more often than not, and that is also science. So the question is what you know, what do you believe? Right? That's the crux of what you're getting to is that people are either misinformed or just overwhelmed with the information. So what is the biggest of those myths about dieting that you wish would just finally fall on its face and go away? Because there's so many?

Sherry Shaban  28:42

Yeah, I think it's probably that there is one way we're supposed to eat. And I think that's the issue really, is that we're on this journey, this lifelong journey to find the secret, what is the secret to weight loss, like, and then we see this everywhere, right? This this is like a major attention grab 10 secrets to weight loss, right? And so we're looking for this, we're looking for this magic pill. But the truth is, if you just take a couple steps back and from a third person perspective, you just ask yourself, Okay, well, how can this be logical because if I looked at the evolution of the world and the evolution of man on every single content and every single type of environment, I would see that here, these people lived off of whale blubber and meat, that makes sense. And over here, maybe people lived more off of the land and ate plants because there wasn't anything available to them. And so when you start to see that we've actually evolved eating a lot of different things, essentially eating what the land gave us, then none of these diets really make sense. There's, we don't talk about carbs anymore or fats anymore. We can also go to Italy and to Greece, where they eat a lot of carbs. And we can find many Blue Zones there. People living over 100 years old and very happy. So clearly, it's not about the potatoes either. But really the key is to tune into what works for you. If something doesn't feel right if you're forcing yourself like you set up on your fortune. yourself through diet and exercise and you're really going against your desire. That's where we can start to create all of these self sabotaging patterns in the brain where we start to do self sabotaging behavior. And so what we need to just release is this idea that there's this one way to eat because what works for you Phillip may not work for me and what works for me may not work for you. And the goal is to really just find what works the best for each person, individual. And just follow that and have this become this massive science experiment. And by the way, this, this doesn't mean eat a dozen donuts for breakfast and see what happens and then go to McDonald's for lunch and see what happens. That's not what it means. Because I think if we ate doughnuts all day long for days and processed foods, our body will would rebel if it wasn't off limits for us our body be like, okay, dude, just everything else. Right?

Philip Pape  30:50

Yeah, yeah. And I was thinking of like, just a catchy phrase, right? You know, If It Fits Your Macros, if it fits your body, right? Like, if you had to, like, just simplify it to, okay, there's not one way to eat. But if there's one way to state this, it would be if it serves you, or like if it works with you. Yeah, exactly. So, which is which is very similar to what a lot of what I say even though I do get caught in the trap of using numbers and things like with carbs, and protein targets and stuff, so maybe we could explore some of that

31:20

out to Philippe and hopefully for a long time, and know how passionate he is about healthy eating, and love his strength. And that's why choosing to be my coach, I was no stranger to a dieting and body training. But I've always struggled to do it sustainably, Philip helped me prioritize my goals with evidence based recommendations, or not over stressing my body and not feeling like I'm starving. In six months, I lost 45 pounds without drastically changing the foods I enjoy. Now I have a more balanced diet, I weight train consistently, or most importantly, I do it sustainably if a scientifically sound healthy diet and a Langstrom body is what you're looking for. Philip Pape is your guy.

Philip Pape  32:05

I want to talk more about intuitive eating, which I guess I guess it does run counter to the typical diet culture, right? Even though people heard the term, define intuitive eating and be and I asked this because there's the in my opinion, the example you just gave about eating as much donuts or McDonald's as you want. In version of intuitive eating. Yes, I've seen that. Right. Which is like, just listen to your body. But without any training or education or any any feedback or experimentation. And therefore you're not, you can't really trust what your body's telling you necessarily. Versus you've got to somehow go through a process to kind of get out of the typical and get into this more transformative mindset. So tell us about because I want to know, like, if I wanted to become an intuitive eater, right away, what were the steps look like?

Sherry Shaban  32:50

So good. I think you said something so so important, because you said how do I go from eating all of these things, and then just suddenly listening to my body? Right. So that's actually step number one. And there is a place for tracking, by the way. So I want to also add in here that I'm not anti tracking, because it always has its place, especially when we're trying to understand what we don't know. Like, we don't know what we don't know, Philip. So if I've been, you know, I've been raised in this environment where, you know, my mom fed me box foods, she did her best, let's say she fed me box foods her whole life. And we had microwave dinners, and she was working three jobs. And she was a single mom, and she just really really did her best. By the time I become a teenager or maybe a young adult, I don't really know enough about nutrition because I've just haven't been exposed to it. So for step number one is just just to learn the basics and not to get so caught up in the minutia, or the details of every little thing and feel that we're doing things good or bad, or I'm doing it right or wrong. And so that's where we start again, that's that slippery path where we start to develop that self sabotaging behavior. So first things first is just to get comfortable with the information, it may actually be new information for some people to learn that juice is not really serving us or there's so much sugar and juice compared to eating the fruit straight up. Or maybe all of those health products that are claiming to be health products and marketed to us as health products are actually not that healthy for us. And they don't actually differ very much from chocolate bars.

Philip Pape  34:17

Let me there. So let's take the juice example. Let's say let's say pure fresh squeezed orange juice versus an orange, right? How do you communicate that and explain it to a client or somebody educationally? Do you? Do you make it more of an objective comparison? Or do you put a little bit of judgment on it kind of I heard that a little bit in there of because it has so much sugar in it has so this it's not so great for you. And even the word great is a little bit of a label and I'm just call it calling you out on your own thing because I know you're aware of that. How do you do that? How do you communicate that?

Sherry Shaban  34:46

So it's really understanding the basics of what the body actually needs. And what we can do is we can maybe rewind 100 or 150 years to really see how we ate and so we don't know what the body needs eats any more, because the majority of the food that is available to us is actually food like substances not really food. It's like the kind of kind of a version of food but really didn't come from a tree

Philip Pape  35:10

pre digested. Together. Yeah,

Sherry Shaban  35:13

absolutely. And so it kind of has to start, there's just this basic understanding of how the body works, the hormones in the body, what the body needs to build itself. And then from there, you can start to reverse engineer as to what the food would look like.

Philip Pape  35:25

Okay, go ahead. No, no, okay. No, no, that's perfect. I love that of like, understanding. Okay, well, Orange has fiber, and fiber helps with this. And this, this physiological, and maybe that's why we want to eat an orange rather than drinking orange.

Sherry Shaban  35:37

Right, right. Okay. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. And then, and then from there, we can start to get into the intuitive signaling because my body can't intuitively signal for certain things, when the majority of what I'm eating is not real food, all of that all those chemicals interfere with the signals. So of course, like I bypass my hunger signals, or my fullness signals. And so there's, there's this level of first just understanding Well, what is what is the food that fuels us the best? What is the food that serves us the best, it's not saying it's good or bad, because maybe a piece of cake can serve you too. But what is the food that serves as the best and what is the food that we are actually meant to eat? And now that's kind of coming back to diets. And what kind of brings all diets together is most of the time most diets focus on eating real foods. Maybe this side will tell you reduce the amount of fats here or take out the fast completely while this diet tells you takeout carbs. But what they both are kind of saying that sounds similar is eat from the land, eat food that is actually real that comes from nature. And so if we start there, we can then start to become more in tune with the natural signals of the body, and not the signals coming from the other chemicals or the other unnatural substances that we're putting in our body.

Philip Pape  36:54

Let me ask you this, because you mentioned chocolate cake earlier. Yeah. How does? How do you put that in the context? And I'm getting kind of nitpicky just because I know Yeah, please do this. You've got this element. Yeah. You're, you know, at a birthday party, your grandma made the chocolate cake. She used a cake mix and some sort of oil, you don't know what it is. And you said you love chocolate cake. And I do too. I love chocolate, everything. It may not be optimal for your physiology. Right? Perhaps I don't tell good based on everything. You just said how would you I don't want to say justify it, because it's really just your choice. But for a potential client who's like struggling, okay, well, what do I do here? What I do here? What do you mean? Like, can I never enjoy this stuff? How would you answer that?

Sherry Shaban  37:36

Ah, so good. Yeah, have the damn cake. Right. It's about having the cake because you restricting yourself from having the cake is actually a greater problem and more harmful to your body than actually having the cake. That's if you desire to have the cake. Now I could have come to that party and I saw the cake and like actually don't want to have a piece. That's not a restriction. But if I wanted a piece, and I'm watching everybody else have a piece and I really wish I could have a piece but I can't have a piece because, well, all these things in the sky, and I'm off sugar, and I'm off carbs. And that's very different. Because what ends up happening now is I'm building up that reward system. And so the other thing too, is about quantity, right? So there's a very big difference between having a whole cake or six pieces of cake versus having a piece of cake. And we need to get to that place because I actually like to see my body as this temple, where if I give it sugar, it can handle it. Now, that doesn't mean I need to use it and give it more sugar than it possibly needs in one day or even in one city. Again, that becomes the harm. And that's where we start to see this ease.

Philip Pape  38:43

Yeah, yeah, I love that. What was I going to ask? I got so into what you're saying that I was gonna ask something about that relate to the quantity, the quantity Yeah, it's so true. Because when you do your step two of developing intuitive signaling, right with your satiety signals that and you start to I guess, desensitize yourself to the the overly flavored processed foods we have you'll find that like you don't want that big of a piece of cake. It's kind of a rebel repels you would you still want to be you wouldn't be polite, there are so social implications and all that and there's also the fact that delicious to some extent, but you know, if you have this bigger piece of cake, it's not gonna feel so great the next day, so I love that level of balance. And then so we talked about signaling and hunger. How do you differentiate how does someone learn to differentiate where hunger is real physical hunger versus emotional hunger for example?

Sherry Shaban  39:36

Ah, so good so good. All right. So let's let's go through emotional hunger first, because this is a really important one and it's interesting football say that the when I when I was sharing in the beginning that I really help people overcome emotional eating or binge eating. What I've actually noticed is that those who've been struggling with their health or their weight the longest, it wasn't because they Have a discipline problem. It's not because they didn't have the best meal plan, it wasn't because they found they didn't find the right diet, it was none of those things, in fact, that had nothing to do with food, but had everything to do with the inability to sit in an emotion with not having the tools to be able to manage an uncomfortable emotion when it comes up. And so the way that it looks like when we emotionally eat or when we binge eat or boredom, ie boredom, also being another emotion that we're uncomfortable sitting in, what that looks like, generally is it starts with a trigger. So the trigger is something that is provoked by one of the senses. So either I saw something that triggered me or I heard something, or I smelled something, or I tasted something, or I remembered something, and even the memory of something is generated by one of our five senses. And so there's a trigger. And now the trigger gave me this emotion. So I have this uncomfortable emotion. And I don't know what to do with it. So maybe it was the end of the week. And I had a really, really long week. And then on Friday night, in the afternoon, as I was checking out of work, my boss came up to me and told me how disappointed he was in my performance all week. And I really bombed that meeting, and I need to prepare better. So now, I come home Friday night, that was my trigger. Now I'm feeling like, Man, I'm such a loser. Like, I tried my best this week. And I it's never enough, no matter what I do is not enough. I'm gonna get fired. And now I've got this uncomfortable emotion. I don't know how to sit in it. And so what I want to do is numb it. I self medicate. And one of the things that we use for self medication is food. Sometimes we can use drugs, sometimes we can use alcohol, sometimes we can shop sometimes we can gamble, sometimes we can turn to sex, it's all the same. It's a dopamine hit. And so it gives me a temporary relief. And then after that temporary relief, all of a sudden, I start to feel guilty, I start to feel ashamed, I start I start to feel disappointed in myself, because I said this week, I was going to work really hard with my trainer. And I was not going to eat any sugar. But here I am, I'm having sugar. And now that I'm already here, well, I may as well just finish the whole box of Oreos since I've already finished one row. And I'm going to start my diet again on Monday. And so that's an example of a cycle. And so emotional hunger can be identified when there's a trigger that made us feel a certain way. And now, of course, I'm saying all these things that I'm giving you step by step flow, however, what's really happening is on the subconscious level, so I'm actually not aware of this. But in order for us to become aware, we just have to first know that this is happening. So how do I do that? Well, I'm about to eat something. And maybe before I start eating, I can ask myself, why do I want to eat this? And it could be then a very simple answer, like, Man, I'm bored. I'm nothing else to do. Or I'm really excited, I'm celebrating or I'm really sad. And so we just come back to that emotion. And then again, reverse engineer, well, what triggered that emotion? Why did I feel that way? Someone say something like what happened that made me feel this way. Right. And then we understand that the reason why we're eating is emotional. And so when a person has an emotional eating pattern, there, they are aware of it, because they noticed that no matter what the circumstance is whether that the circumstance, give them a positive emotion or negative emotion, what they start to recognize is this inability to handle stressful situations in their environment or in their lives without resorting to food. And oftentimes, it's also attached to another substance, it could be marijuana, it could also be alcohol.

Philip Pape  43:36

It's really important, I think, like you said, to create awareness, really around everything. So I love that idea. And I'm sure again, this is where methods versus principles, there's probably many ways to create that awareness, like you said, Ask yourself, maybe a diary, all sorts of ways to do that. But I also want to point out to the listener, that what you mentioned very early in the podcast about having the identity of an athlete, I think, personally, that also changes this because as you start to find positive ways to channel the reason you eat, it kind of crowds out or takes away from the desire need to eat emotionally, I've seen that, you know, it's like these physical changes where you don't necessarily have to go to a psychiatrist and diagnose this, you can do some practical things and get there. That's just what I've seen. I do I know, we only have like, 10 more minutes. So and I have like a bunch of questions that I'm not going to get through as usual. I want to jump to the aesthetics and the physique part, because the listener might be thinking, you know, are there mixed signals or not? And I know there aren't, but I want to, like address that with you. So the first question is the million dollar question is how do you have a six pack and defy these traditional norms of dieting and excessive exercise that everybody thinks they need to do?

Sherry Shaban  44:47

Alright, so yes, so so it's so interesting. I'm actually really happy that you brought that up because there's this fine balance that we want to have between the two concepts, right, because to your point, you can go on Instagram by the way if you hashtag into it. Eating on Instagram, please don't listen to what's being said like really go to to a resource such as a book, or a person who's really like a psychologist or a nutritionist who's who's doing this work, because there's a lot of these videos that people intuitive eating donuts and intuitively eating their pizza. And that's one intuitively eating that is actually promoting you to eat foods that don't serve you. So to answer your question, Philip, yes, I'm I'm resting 16 17% body fat. This is this is without adding effort. I don't eat certain foods. And I don't, it's not because it's a restriction kind of what we said in the beginning, it was more around aligning my values. And so the first things first is really identifying what it is that you want to create in your life. That is the number one thing what is it that I want to create? What is that vision of my life? Because if I ask somebody that question, and it's actually the first question, I ask anyone who starts to work with me, I asked him, What is it that you want? Like, what are your goals, now that they do fill up, they list all the things they don't want, they talk about all the things they don't want to do. And actually, most people are not very clear as to what it is that they want. And so the first thing is getting crystal clear around what it is that you want that you want, not what other people expect you to want, but what it is that you want. So that starts there. And then if let's say my goal is, let's say my goal is to release 30 pounds, if that is my goal, instead of focusing on the doing, which now gets into the diet mindset, because if you tell me Sherry, okay, your goal is to lose 30 pounds will fill up, I'm going to do anything, anything it'll take, I can even chop up a limb to make that happen, because that's my goal is to lose 30 pounds. So instead of focusing on the doing, what do I have to do to release my 30 pounds, instead, we come back to the being, who do I have to be to be that person who's 30 pounds lighter. And now that starts to look a lot different, because now I can find a set of values, I can find the personality type of this person, I can find a list of habits that they do in their day. And now what that starts to look like is something that is measurable and something that I can start to incorporate in my day to day life, I can actually schedule that stuff in. So if I had no idea what it would be like if to be a person who's 30 pounds lighter, I would maybe find a mentor, I would find somebody and I would model them. What are they doing? What time are they waking up? What are they having for breakfast? What are they eating? Where are they drinking? How much movement are they doing? How are they thinking, how are they behaving, and look at their diet. And in this sense of the word diet is not just what they're consuming through their mouth, which is beverage and food. But it's also who they're talking to. It's the conversations that they're listening to. It is the news that they're watching on social media, that is all diet. And so once I have the set of values and the set of habits, I can then start to schedule them in. And so when you asked me well, how do you have a six pack, but you're also anti diet, I'm so focused on me the being, which is I love to train, I train maybe twice a day one is usually outside. So it looks like the 75 hard but apparently I've been 75 Harding for like the longest time. And that workout outside sometimes can be a look with my dogs. Sometimes it can be a run, sometimes I could cycle and then I'll do some sort of resistance training. And why do I do resistance training? Well, I do resistance training because there was a time in my life where I relied on other people to bring me to the bathroom or to shower me. But I do resistance training. Because it's so important. For me, it's one of my core values, that I'm able to do everything for myself and be completely independent up until my very final days. And so now, as I'm focusing on all these values that are important to me, which is eating the foods that served me because if I eat sugar, I feel my back. If I eat processed foods, I feel my back. So I'm focusing on foods that make me feel good. I'm focusing on Exercise and Movement that makes me feel good. And as a side effect that the body follows. Because really, the body, our physical body is an outward reflection of our internal environment, whatever is going on inside mind, body, spirit, whatever is going on inside. That is what the body will reflect.

Philip Pape  49:04

Yeah, I couldn't agree more when when you see people align more with their body and their values and what you said, your your diet, and that's why the word is so confusing because it can be used in five different ways. Right? But you kind of your lifestyle is what you're alluding to, and you're being then sometimes these things naturally happen. What I do wonder is somebody who let's say, gets into that situation where they're dialing everything in there. They're serving themselves and being an athlete. They're training like they want they're moving like they want they eat in a way that feels great. How is that? What's the difference between being at maintenance doing that versus you still have some weight to release? What's the process? You take clients through on that because there's a little bit of maybe discomfort that you need from being in a deficit to lose weight? Maybe not. I want to hear I want to hear your take on this because it's like, if you just be like that, aren't you going to more or less maintain your weight? or not because of body composition or other physiological changes going on.

Sherry Shaban  50:04

super interesting. So I think I actually want to just dive a little bit deeper into this question. So what I think I'm understanding from you is, well, what would happen then if suddenly a person puts on weight and they and they're no longer in maintenance phases? That what you're asking?

Philip Pape  50:20

It was a very terribly worded question. Very simply, if somebody, let's say somebody has, they feel like they, they're not the body that they want to have, you know, physically they want to, they want to look more like you, Sherry, and they, they're doing all the things that are, are great for their lifestyle, and it feels great in their training and doing all the things they're eating well. And that's good enough to sort of help them maintain their weight. But now they actually want to lose weight. So to me, again, I think more in terms of well, you have to have some sort of release of energy in your body, which is going to cause a little bit of hunger and things along the way. How do you make that happen?

Sherry Shaban  50:55

Oh, so good. Okay. Yes. All right. So the calorie deficit. So there's, there's sort of four components that we want to look at to have a transformation and coming back to what that definition of transformation was in the beginning, which was that result that is a completely completely different embodiment? And then what we first started with, so yes, there there is this changing around the nutrition that needs to happen? Right, and the changing around the nutrition? I think we already talked about how it's important to really focus on the foods that serve us not only because we know that they serve us, but also in terms of how we feel. Now, any calorie deficit that happens for too long as you know, the body starts to backfire. And so if there's a calorie deficit, we just really need to identify what that means. Because Am I deficit in what I'm currently eating and consuming, or am I in a deficit, but it's actually how much I need to sustain my body weight, there's a very, very big difference. So if let's say right now, sitting here, I need 2000 calories to maintain my body weight. If I am eating 3000 calories of food, and I am in deficit of 1000 calories, I'm still eating enough to maintain my body weight and maintain more importantly, the energy that my body is requiring. If I go below that, that's where we start to see detrimental effects. Specifically, that's where we start to see reducing the metabolic rate. We're starting now to tap into lean body mass. And as we know, we have other effects that happen there. And so that's the number one thing is just to really understand what this calorie deficit is. Because when we say we want to release weight, what are we really trying to release? Is it numbers on the scale? Or are we trying to release body fat because then the approach is very different. So we want to get specific around that. Let's not keep saying I want to lose weight, or I want to lose 10 pounds, I could make someone lose 10 pounds of fat. Now that looks very different. And my approach will be very different. So that's the first game.

Philip Pape  52:51

Okay. Yeah, my last episode was called fat loss versus weight loss and exactly the same thing. But yeah, what I was what I was getting more was like, once everybody's dialed in everything, and they still want to lose the fat. Do you? How do you have them go into a deficit? Do you have them listen to their body and just kind of reduced quantities? Or are they actually tracking calories, even though it's intuitive,

Sherry Shaban  53:09

so interesting. Okay. So I talked about the nervous system being in either a protection mode or safety mode. And now this is really where all of the magic happens. Because everything that we're talking about right now, Phillip is controllable factors, which is I can control the amount of water I consume, the exercise I consume, what I eat, what I don't eat, theoretically, I can control all these things. But what I actually can't control is the effect that my body is having on that food, unless I understand what's going on on a nervous system level. So we have the central nervous system. And we have the autonomic nervous system, the central nervous system is a spinal cord and nerves, and that is responsible for active movement or voluntary movement, then we have the autonomic nervous system, which is the nervous system that governs all of the other functions of the body that are on autopilot. And now that's heart rate. That's blood pressure, that swallowing that's blinking, that's, that's the creation of hormones, and so on and so forth. And so when we are when we are naturally at rest, or when we're feeling joyful, we actually are in what we call safety mode. Safety mode is also known as rest and digest. And during that mode, the body doesn't have this tendency to or need to store extra extra fat or excess fat or excess energy. And so when we are in a space where it's just becoming so confusing as to why is it that I'm not releasing weight, I'm doing all the things I've reached this the stagnant point I can't break free from it and I'm just don't understand do I need to get into more of a calorie deficit? Well, we can actually start look at instead is where's the nervous system? Because if I'm in protection mode, which is fight or flight, my body's actually going to favor me to hold on stored energy. So I know that I'm in protection mode when I'm always under stress when I'm feeling super angry or my emotions are in You're and anxiety and fear and depression and worry and all of these emotions, the more I'm in those emotions, the more I'm in that protection mode. And now my body's not working with me, it's working against me. So all this the safe to answer your question is when a person gets that point where they're, they've stagnated, they're not seeing any more release of weight, instead of going to cut more calorie deficit as a solution. Let's see where the nervous system is up. Because if I'm living in a space where I'm constantly stressed, and I'm constantly in fight or flight, then I'm constantly also favoring stored energy. But if I'm, if I'm able to get my body into safety mode, where it's relaxed, where it doesn't feel that there's a danger, or a direct threat of scarcity in the environment, my body doesn't have that need to hold on to stored energy. And so we work with the nervous system in order to shift it into a place where it can actually naturally release that way.

Philip Pape  55:51

You know, it's beautiful that we use different language for the same thing, Sherry, I love that like it totally, it's amazing. I'm glad we have this conversation today. Because it's, it's taught me a lot to about where, where you're coming from, and kind of the intuitive eating perspective, but the idea of releasing, of stress on the body with the nervous system, I almost think of it as the opposite of that, or not the opposite. But the other side of the same thing is, you're increasing your expenditure by reducing stress on the body. So therefore, you're able to be in a bigger deficit than you thought you would be at kind of a natural setpoint with all your other activities. Yeah, I was, I was just curious, I was trying to get it like, okay, the very first time somebody wants to release weight, do you put them in a deficit? But I think what you're saying is, by aligning everything to your needs, the body's going to kind of shift toward accept point anyway, you're kind of going to naturally be in a deficit until you're getting to your normal kind of setpoint of body fat. So beautiful. Yeah, that have I have that right. I didn't like Miss.

Sherry Shaban  56:48

No, it's, it's spot on. And it's so interesting, because you and I were doing the same work. And we're approaching it very differently. And I think what's so beautiful about that, as it resonates with different people, and so a person who comes let's say, to see me, I will put them on a calorie deficit or even have them know it's on a calorie deficit, we start with what is the highest version of yourself? What are the values tell me what the driving emotions are of that person, tell me what their habits are. And tell me what that what their character is like. And once we know what that is, we can then extract habits, those habits, now we start to stack them. So it's called habit stacking, where now we apply the rule of addition before subtraction. So I'll have them add more water before they stop drinking juice or coffee, I'll have them add more vegetables before they stop doing this. And actually, what they end up doing is changing all of their nutrition, but they don't they don't track it. They don't say I'm on a calorie deficit or watching my carbs. They just end up being that person through all of the small little actions that through applying all the small habits, they transform into that butterfly without it being this okay, checklist. I did my workout today, I did this today. Instead, what we do slowly start to add on those habits. And now it's irreversible. And now you're a brand new person, and it's impossible to ever go back. Wonderful.

Philip Pape  58:03

Yeah. And some of that full brings us full circle to to add him in the things that serve you and it sort of crowds the other stuff out and it becomes part of your life. I want to ask this question, because I asked him all guests, cherry, and that is what one question Did you wish I had asked? And what is your answer? Whoa, hmm.

Sherry Shaban  58:26

They I think I would have loved that you asked maybe more about the importance of spirituality in this whole entire process.

Philip Pape  58:34

Okay, tell me about that.

Sherry Shaban  58:39

We are so caught up in the matrix. And the matrix is the three dimensional world where we are so focused on action reaction. But oftentimes we forget that we are, we are not just our body. And we're not just our mind. And we're not just our emotion, but we are the witness of all of these things. And the moment we can tap into the witness where we are witnessing the things happening in our body, and we're witnessing the emotions, we're witnessing the thoughts and not engaging them, we create this separation. And through this separation, we're then able to identify what that highest version of ourself is, and realize that everything around us that we're experiencing is just an experience. And we're not so stuck into our day to day problems, we start to understand that living and thinking the present moment means peace and stillness. And when we are fixated on thoughts in the past, or things that happened to us in the past, that brings up the emotions of sadness and loss and regret and remorse. But when we're focused also on the thoughts of the future, that's where we feel stress and anxiety and feeling like there's this uncertainty and fear ultimately. And so when we're in that place where we can operate from that consciousness from really understanding that the party is the body is something we experience and the thoughts are something we experience and the emotions are something experience. Then actually transformation becomes so easy And you realize from that place that you can actually create anything that you possibly want.

Philip Pape  1:00:05

I can enhance that in any way that is so gorgeous. And I would love I would love to dive into that again in the future because that is so good. I, you and I think differently in certain ways, but we're also both deep and philosophical about things. So I wouldn't even have asked about spirituality and yet, I totally get it. So and I'm sure the listener does as well. So thank you so much for sharing all of this. Where can listeners learn more about you and your work?

Sherry Shaban  1:00:31

Thank you so much. You're really great Philip and I love this conversation every single second of it and I have a feeling we'll do more of these in the future either on my iPad podcast or yours, so if anybody wanted to reach out they can find me on Instagram at Sherry Shaban fitness or check out my website also Sherry shaban.com

Philip Pape  1:00:49

Perfect I will put your IG and website in the show notes so people can find you, Sherry again, this was a pleasure. I loved it. I mean some some of these interviews just go by so fast. I wish we had another hour. We'll definitely connect again and I hope you have a beautiful weekend.

Sherry Shaban  1:01:03

Thank you so much Philip. Be blessed.

Philip Pape  1:01:07

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

Ep 110: Macros Aren’t Enough – Flexible Dieting vs. IIFYM

Today, the battle between Flexible Dieting and If It Fits Your Macros (or IIFYM) is on. You’ll discover why the freedom to eat your favorite foods and only tracking macros isn't enough to achieve real, life-changing health. I will compare the glaring differences between flexible dieting and IIFYM so you can fuel your body for peak performance, physique, and longevity and make friends with foods that serve you and your values.

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Click here to apply for coaching!
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Today you’ll learn all about:

[1:44] What is IIFYM
[5:01] Personal experience with tracking macros
[7:00] Importance of fiber and its health benefits
[8:50] Transitioning to the flexible dieting approach
[10:57] Quote about flexible dieting from Alan Argon's book
[12:02] Different approaches to tracking and precision in flexible dieting
[16:47] Tracking fiber for improved health and fat loss
[18:25] Setting a maximum for saturated fat intake and tracking micronutrients
[19:24] Tracking workout nutrition and biofeedback
[21:52] The impact of meal timing and food choices on digestion
[24:10] The importance of sustainable and flexible dieting approach
[25:14] How do you do flexible dieting?
[31:01] Free 30-minute breakthrough session to achieve your fitness goals
[32:47] Outro

Episode resources:

• Ep 80: Flexible Dieting, Evidence-Based Nutrition, and Protein Strategies with Alan Aragon

• Ep 59: Why You Should Track Your Food

• Book: Flexible Dieting (Alan Aragon)

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

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👩‍💻👨‍💻 Click here to schedule a FREE results breakthrough call with Philip

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Transcript

Philip Pape  00:00

I FIM is really about hitting your macros no matter what you eat. Whereas flexible dieting is about selecting foods to serve your lifestyle, your goals, your values for multiple dietary variables that may include macros, but also many other things that support how you feel and perform. Welcome to the Wits & Weights podcast. I'm your host Philip pape, and this twice a week podcast is dedicated to helping you achieve physical self mastery by getting stronger. Optimizing your nutrition and upgrading your body composition will uncover science backed strategies for movement, metabolism, muscle and mindset with a skeptical eye on the fitness industry so you can look and feel your absolute best. Let's dive right in. Wits & Weights community Welcome to another solo episode of the Wits & Weights podcast in our last episode 109 lifting weights at any age on a platform of strength with Andrew Romeo, Andrew and I talked about the concept of a platform of strength, making fitness fun, and lots of other topics related to lifting weights at any age. Today for episode 110. Macros aren't enough flexible dieting versus IFYM. The battle is on between flexible dieting, and if it fits your macros or ifitm, you'll discover why the freedom to eat your favorite foods, and only tracking macros isn't enough to achieve real life changing health. I will compare the glaring differences between flexible dieting and ifitm. So you can fuel your body for peak performance, physique and longevity, and make friends with your food foods that serve you and your values. So let's jump into the topic. Macros aren't enough flexible dieting versus i f ly app. So let me just define I FIM If It Fits Your Macros. It's an eating style that focuses solely on meeting your daily macro targets. And the concept originated in the online bodybuilding and fitness forums around the late 2000s and early 2000 10s. Alan Aragon has shared this story I think it's even written about in his book flexible dieting, and it was initially presented as a rebellion against at the time were the traditional restrictive bodybuilding bro diet, right, chicken, rice and broccoli, a very limited range of foods. And the idea behind ifitm was simple like, like many approaches like many diets, in fact, as long as you meet your macro targets for the day, your macronutrient targets, the specific foods you eat don't matter. And in fact, they took it to an extreme of really don't matter at all. And the concept gained traction right because it allowed for a more flexible eating style. With Ay ay ay fim. You could technically eat fast food desert, any other kind of food, quote unquote unhealthy whatever term you want to use junk food, etc. Fast food doesn't matter. I already mentioned that as long as it fit within the calculated macros for the day proteins, fats, and carbs. And I think the reason it became a meme or a seine was that people would ask questions on these forums like, Hey, can I eat pizza on my diet? And they would say, Well, I FIM right. If it's your macros, you can you know, you can eat anything If It Fits Your Macros. And social media, of course amplified this like it always does. With fitness influencers, bloggers adopting the method showing off their indulgent food choices while they have this lean physique, the six pack whatever. And you still see this today. In fact, there seems to be a resurgence on social media about are with nutritionists and dietitians who are obviously paid by the big food companies to plug their stuff not only as if it's okay to eat within a flexible diet, but they actually push it to the point where they say this is a healthy source of nutrition, which is probably a bridge too far. And we're going to scratch all of that today and get to a truly flexible approach is where I want to take you that aligns with you. And while I FIM has been criticized for lacking in other things like you don't think about nutritional quality, you don't think about density or fullness or anything. It still remains very popular. And oftentimes interchange is interchanged with the term flexible dieting because of the psychological benefits. So if you for example, we're used to eating restrictive diets, let's say keto carnivore, something like that, where you've cut a bunch of food out foods out and now you you have the mindset of well, I can really eat anything. But now I'm tracking my calories and macros macros, so I'm going to make it fit. That's actually a nice step along the way along the spectrum I'll say toward where you eventually want to be and it probably has more psychological alignment than the yo yo dieting that you get for On restrictive diets, so I'm not totally bashing the idea as a foundation, but it's not everything. It's in fact, it's not, I'm not anywhere close to everything. And I want to get into these today. So and here's why I slightly defend ifitm at the beginning is because I went through that process myself, when I was first tracking. Well, I first I tried to track multiple times in my life. And the first few times didn't really take but when I finally started tracking using macro factor, and actually got feedback on my metabolism, and then I knew how to adjust my macros each week, I really wasn't thinking too much beyond macros. And yet that took me 80% of the way to where I needed to be until I hit my first fat loss phase. And I realized that you really want to think about more than macros, if you're going to stick with the phase if you're going to be adherent if you're going to be successful. And if you're going to have a bunch of other things regarding your health and energy and performance met and satisfied by what you are eating. So it was a nice stepping stone toward discovering all of that for me. And so I thank it for that. But it's not enough and that's what I want to get to get into today. And here's why. If It Fits Your Macros overlooks a lot of things it overlooks micronutrients, your vitamins, your mineral minerals, it overlooks fiber, it overlooks saturated fat, it overlooks even hydration, like there's things that aren't aren't even technically foods so to speak, that it doesn't really consider it has nothing to do with meal timing, or,

Philip Pape  06:41

you know, supporting your training and activity and all these other things. So we're gonna get into micros, for example, directly affect your training, your recovery, your recovery, your immune system, your overall well being. And right off the bat, if you're simply picking foods because they meet your macros and nothing else you're going to have a deficiency there. Studies have indicated that if you only focus on macros, you're probably because if you've come from a traditional Western diet, you're probably gonna have a diet low in fiber, and essential nutrients like potassium, vitamin D, omega three fatty acids, there was a study in the Journal of the International Society of sports nutrition that argued that while macronutrient targets could be met with diets largely consisting of processed foods, this is going to lead to deficiencies in fiber, and other essential nutrients. And I think that was actually helped a helms article from 2014 helms at all. So right off the bat, we can see one of the disadvantages of only thinking about macros, fiber, in particular, I'm a huge advocate of putting that way up there at the same level of your other macros even though it's a subset of carbs. Because it plays such a crucial role in your digestive health, it helps control blood sugar, it's been linked to lower levels of LDL cholesterol. A lack of fiber can give you digestive issues, higher risk of heart disease, poor poor blood sugar control, and so on. And I just like it for satiety as well when you're in a fat loss phase, and it is associated with more nutrient dense Whole Foods. Similarly, if you have too much sodium, too much saturated fat, which is what is found in processed foods that still can quote unquote, fit your macros, like you could probably eat pizza every day all day and fit your macros with with the right combinations of ingredients. But it's gonna have a lot of salts can have a lot of saturated fat. So we all sorts of things is going to wreak havoc on your system and probably not aligned with your health. And of course, those have been linked to things like cardiovascular disease, hypertension, and other metabolic issues. So I am a big fan of changing your mindset toward one of flexibility and toward the idea of macros and calories as a as the first variables the first set of variables. But then we want to start to include more dietary variables. So that's the phrase I'm going to use and grow that approach into full flexible dieting. So I'm using the term flexible dieting from here on out to define what we mean when when you take a macros approach, and then you add the other 10 things on top of it or variables on top of it that we really need to align with our goals. And this is why we track things like energy, digestion, your progress in your training, right and so on, like multiple things regarding biofeedback, regarding our activity, and start tweaking those variables, those dietary variables based on individual rather than this one size fits all approach. Right? Some people already plenty of fiber, for example, others have very little fiber, so somebody who's not eating very much, I'm going to want to track that as a dietary variable. Pretty early on. If I was working with a client, and we were tracking their food, I'm going to be looking at fiber I'm going to look at saturated fat just out of curiosity if nothing else, but if I noticed that it's far below what we need. Ah that It's a great clue as to what kind of food choices and quality they are selecting. And now we can go through the education process of, well, let's increase the fiber, because here are the benefits. And here are the types of foods I have a lot of fiber, right vegetables, fruits, whole grains, etc, let's start to add those in. Right, we're not, we're not trying to cut things out, we're gonna add those in. And as we add them in, it's going to take the place of some of the other things in your diet, which may be processed foods, or may just be foods that just have less fiber, maybe reading a ton of protein, and you want to back down on the protein and actually increase the fiber for example. That's, that's unusual, but could be. And so we're what we're going for here is we don't want new nutritional imbalances. We don't want health issues. And so early on, if we start to think of other dietary variable variables, it will start to guide our food selection. Now, I wanted to give you a quote from the book, flexible dieting by Alan Aragon. Alan was on the show, I don't have the episode off top my head, but you can look that up. And I will have a link to his book in the show notes. Because I highly recommend everyone pick up a copy. It's super easy read. It's not very long at all. And it can be used as a good reference guide. If you ever run into a question like, Oh, what do I do for fiber? What do I do for carbs? What if I'm an endurance athlete, right? What about building muscle? What about seed oils and red meat and eggs, all of those things are addressed in there. And so I'm gonna read a quote from that book that I think is insightful here. Or I guess it defines flexible dieting. Quote, flexible dieting involves individualizing the degree of dietary flexibility or rigidity, it also individualizes the precision of tracking and accountability. So right there, I'm gonna stop the quote before I continue. Already, you can see flexible dieting is not about macros. It's about you defining what level of flexibility or rigidity you want for yourself. And the level of tracking and accountability building you want for yourself very important because some people confuse this or even my coaching approach with being all about macros. And it really isn't. If you are working with me as a client, we are going to have a fairly high level of precision from tracking and accountability so that we both have data to work from as quickly as possible and get to your results as quickly as possible. But you don't have to do it that way, especially if the approach itself is repelling to you. Or if the approach itself prevents you from adhering to your plan. Okay, so right there, I wanted to stop the quote, and I'm going to continue reading the quote, some folks can sustain the practice of gram tracking just fine, and some even enjoy it. Although in my observations, they're in the minority. So perhaps I'm in that minority. Some folks would rather track portions of each food group as in the traditional exchange system used by dieticians. Other approaches include tracking just protein and total calories, or just protein. There's also the option to not track anything at all in the formal sense. Rather, you just maintain an awareness of your requirements for the least amount of dietary variables that still allows progress or maintenance of progress. This option involves developing your awareness of hunger and satiety cues, flexible dieting, encompasses all of these approaches and quote, so as we can see, this method goes beyond macros to consider your personal overall dietary pattern, your requirements to get the results you want, and the right level of tracking and precision to get there. And this is why if you want to do for example, what I'm doing, or maybe at the time, this episode comes out in the middle of it, we're done with it, and aggressive fat loss phase, get it over and done in two weeks, I have to have an extreme level of tracking and precision to make sure I do that successfully on a short timeframe with such a large deficit. But if you're trying to just limit maintenance and get some body composition, you could track very little you could track just protein, or not even track at all and just use portions and know that, hey, I'm eating four times a day, and I have protein every time. And I'm going to eat in a way until I feel full. And I'll eat mostly Whole Foods, so it's easier to get the hunger signals. And then I will just track my weight every few days or once a week or once a month. And as long as my weight is in the ballpark of what it was last time. I know I'm maintaining my weight. And I'm going to train hard and get somebody recomp. Right, that is an approach. But then if you came to me and said, Hey, Philip, I've been doing that, but now I want to I need to lose 20 pounds of excess body fat to get leaner now that I've built muscle, can I just take this very imprecise tracking approach and I'm gonna say it's very hard to do, it's very hard to do, you can definitely induce some release of fat or some fat loss with a non tracking approach, but it's going to probably take longer and have plateaus along the way that you could have avoided with more tracking. Okay, so this method does go beyond macros. And it comes down to which dietary variables that you want to track which is where my provocative title macros aren't enough comes from. And I'm going to give you a list of other things that you may also want to track. And by tracking these things, you can then select foods that support meeting these variables, if that makes any sense. And I think I talked about this on another episode of What was that it was about, like the different things that we can track, I think it was about I forget the name of the episode, but it was like, what are all the things that we can track for progress. And this is a subset of those things. And if you track these, and by track, I mean, you have some sort of target a minimum or maximum, and you're trying to hit it most days or get close, because by doing so, it will result in XYZ, like it results in improved health results, improved digestion, and so on. Hey, this is Philip. And I hope you're enjoying this episode of Wits & Weights, I started Wits, & Weights to help people who want to build muscle lose fat and actually look like the lift. I've noticed that when people improve their strength and physique, they not only look and feel better, they transform other areas of their life, their health, their mental resilience and their confidence in everything they do. And since you're listening to this podcast, I assume you want the same things the same success, whether you've recently started lifting, or you've been at this for a while and want to optimize and reach a new level of success. Either way, my one on one coaching focused on engineering your physique and body composition is for you. If you want expert guidance and want to get results faster, easier, and with fewer frustrations along the way to actually look like you lift, go to wits & weights.com, and click on coaching, or use the link in my show notes to apply today, I'll ask you a few short questions to decide if we're a good fit. If we are, we'll get you started this week. Now back to the show.

Philip Pape  16:49

So I'm gonna go down the list. The first one is fiber. Again, I think fiber is super important. It's almost like its own macro, the general recommendations are going to be 14 grams per 1000 calories consumed. So if you consume 2000 calories, you're looking at, you're aiming to get 28 grams. Now if you use macro factor, again, if you don't use macro factor, download it today, try it out, use my code, Wits &, Weights all one word, you get a free trial, that way to try it out. Macro factor has a micronutrient explorer where you can track some of these with targets. So fiber, you can see is every food or every meal that I'm logging, helping me toward my fiber goal. And what's nice about that is at the end of the day, or the end of the week, you can look back and say what did i What did I hit right and I'll do this for a client will look I'll look at their fiber data, say you know, you're getting like 10 grams of fiber a day, that's that's quite lower than we want to be. We're not ready for a fat loss phase yet until we address that, because in my opinion, you have to have a decent mount of fiber to make fat loss a lot easier for multiple reasons satiety food, food selection, calorie, calorie, low calorie density, right. And also, you kind of get a free, how do I put this, every gram of fiber has fewer calories than a gram of another type of carb. And yet we log them as as grams of carbs. And so the actual calories consumed are going to be less, which may even make it easier to stay in a deficit without quite realizing it, if that makes sense. So fiber is one right there, because then it leads you to select foods and increase your fiber. And I mentioned those before, those are the classics, vegetables, fruits, whole grains, those are the big ones. So fiber is number one, the next one is saturated fat, and saturated fat is more of a maximum, we want to keep it at around 10% of our calories or less. Or put another way, about a third of our fat intake or less. And again, if you use a macro factor, we'll have that for you. And saturated fat. When you have when you consume too much of it, it could tell me that your dietary pattern is full of too many processed foods, for example. Or maybe you're just adding too much butter and oil, you no butter to your food. It doesn't mean any of those things are bad. Of course we love eggs, we love butter, they're perfectly fine Whole Foods, natural foods. It's just a matter of quantities and ratios and dietary pattern. micronutrients. So the next thing so vitamins and minerals are excellent to track because again, if you're looking to get enough iron, selenium, potassium, calcium, whatever that will lead you select foods and try to consume them within your lifestyle to get them rather than relying on supplementation. And generally that leads to more whole food diet as well. The next thing I like to track is my workout nutrition. Now, how you track this I mean the way I track it as simply make sure that I'm planning my pre and post workout meals on the days that I train. And for me, it just becomes a routine where I do the same thing every time so I can copy and paste in my app. And there we go. But my point is when you eat your proteins and carbs is going to be important for a lot of people, especially when you train really hard and you're worried about your energy recovery and building muscle. And so meal prepping and planning for that is As part of your flexible dieting strategy, right, not just hit your macros, it's, well, I need to hit certain macros proteins and carbs at certain times of day. And I want to do it in a way where it doesn't mess with my digestion, right eating things at the right time. So it's not too soon or too far away from my workouts and so on. The The next one is energy levels. So this is where we're starting to get into more biofeedback, if you can track biofeedback, say, on a weekly basis, which is usually good enough, some people like to do it daily. But again, going back to Allegan, Aragon's definition, the level of precise precision is up to you. The level of tracking is up to you. But I think biofeedback once a week is pretty good. Because you can look back on the week and see, you know, what my energy this week was pretty poor, like, it's just not good, as good as it is normally. And then you can diagnose that say, Well, why is that? Did I have a bunch of extra life stress? Did I not sleep enough now? And then you can go through the list? Okay, maybe I slept enough. Maybe I don't have any more stress. Why was my energy down? Oh, it looks like I didn't quite hit my carbs this week. And so I want to make sure that at least for my training days, or, you know, recovery days, whatever, I have enough carbs, or maybe I want to shift my carbs around. And so that gives you a clue beyond just pure macros as to why you might be lacking energy, maybe you don't have enough fat, right? Maybe you don't have enough fat, and you're hitting your fat target. But the target itself may need to be increased. So this gives you information. So that's energy. The next one is recovery. I'm going to say that's kind of related recovery is more do you feel sore? The day of your workouts? Do you feel like fatigued or not when you go into train? Again, all those are affected by what you're eating when you're eating it, the ratio of your macros. The next one is sleep quality, similar thing, right? Are you eating too late in the day eating? Or at night? Are you drinking caffeine too late? Are you eating things that are messing up with your digestion? The next item is digestion. Digestion is huge for a lot of people, are you feeling bloated? This could be a matter of timing a matter of food choice, often it is a matter of food choice. It's either an intolerance, or more likely, it's just foods that have a bunch of ingredients that don't sit well with you, which in my personal experience tend to be more processed foods or foods from a restaurant, they just have extra stuff in there. You know, I don't, it's again, it's no one ingredient is good or bad. But I mean, if you've got a ton of oil in a dish, and you're not used to drenching your food and oil that could cause digestive issues, right. Or if you're trying to do some sort of intermittent fasting protocol, and you're eating too much at one time. Or if your work schedule is so hectic, you forget to eat, and you cram all your food into two meals, and cause digestive issues that tells you something about meal timing, food choice, when to eat, and so on. And then the other one is hunger, I mean, definitely track hunger, and fat loss, this is going to be huge. But hunger is going to tell you along with fiber, can you make different food choices that mitigate hunger. And that could be the actual foods themselves, like having more protein or having more low calorie density foods, like vegetables, like high volume fruits, like vegetables, Susan, soups and broths. Like maybe eating harder, less processed foods rather than more soft processed foods, a whole long list of things that have nothing to do with macros, and everything to do with hunger and letting you stick to the deficit and get through it without feeling miserable, right, because when we want to release some weight, we're gonna have to go in a deficit. And our body's going to tell us that it's working with hunger signals, but you can still mitigate those by, you know, eating frequently enough throughout the day, or lowering the frequency. Believe it or not, for some people, eating five or six times a day actually causes ongoing hunger because the the meals are not big enough to meet it to satisfy the hunger and so you constantly feel hungry. Whereas if you put it down to say, three meals, or even to during a fairly aggressive fat loss phase, you might find that that actually helps with hunger because now your body gets full when you eat. And then when you're not eating, it's not expecting to eat. So all of that feedback helps you with your flexible dieting approach. So essentially, anything that you care about with respect to your lifestyle, your goals, and your values, is the essence of sustainability, and flexibility. Hence the term flexible dieting so that you can achieve any of these short term results in the context of your long term, never ending lifestyle transformation. So here's the verdict. Okay, when we lay all the facts on the table, it's it's pretty obvious that If It Fits Your Macros is very simplistic, incomplete approach. Whereas flexible dieting is a more balanced, sustainable, health conscious approach that aligns with everything you're doing, and it goes beyond macros. It's, it emphasizes a holistic dietary pattern, right? And so for me, that is the clear winner for anyone who's serious about their physique. For anyone who's serious about their overall well being, that's approach to take. But I'm, I'm happy to have kind of dived in today to flexible dieting beyond the idea of just some calorie macro targets because it really goes far beyond that. Now the question is going to be how do you do flexible dieting in this approach that I'm talking about? Because No, it isn't just track calories and macros, but it is tracking the variables that you care about. So it could be a very minimal set of tracking or it could be very high precision tracking. It's up to you. So step one is to determine what those are what targets do you care most about calories, macros, just one of the macros like protein, fiber, saturated fat, micronutrients, your biofeedback, all of those are the targets, your training progress, they're all part of your nutrition plan. Right. And this is why when people sign on with one on one coaching for me, they realize it's not just about food, the food is almost the after thought of all the other lifestyle changes that we make for the better, right for the awareness for the self awareness and, and sustainability. But then you get to decide what targets you want. So that's number one. Then number two, guess what, you track those, you simply track those variables for the calories and macros and food and fiber and micros and all that you use a food logger, like macro factor, right? What that that one app will let you track all of that stuff. And then the rest of it like biofeedback, or you're training, you're gonna use a journal, a log, a note app on your phone, maybe even put notes right in the in macro factor, which has the ability to do that every day. So you can put the notes right there. Or you could put it all in one app. With my clients, we use an app special coaching app where they can log these things. And then they can journal their progress when they check in for the week. So if you wanted to do that for yourself, you can reach out to me in fact, I'm happy to share some of the details that I asked my clients for, and give you an idea of that, so that you can do it yourself. So that's number two. So number one, what dietary variables do you want to track number two, go ahead and track those. Number three, choose foods to support those goals. Okay, this is where we start to close the feedback loop. Now good rule of thumb just to get started is 80% whole nutrient dense foods like lean meats, fruits, vegetables, seeds, nuts, whole grains, and then 10 to 20%, whatever the heck else you choose, and or want to enjoy your indulgences. Some people have more propensity to want indulgences, or have a sweet tooth, and so on and others, right. I've had clients who just eat all Whole Foods, that's just the way they are. I personally eat way more whole food to indulgences now than I used to. But I still love certain things like ice cream, I love ice cream. And I like chocolate, right? There's just things. But I don't have an emotional attachment to these things like I used to, it's more of just, I enjoy them, they taste good. I like the texture, and so on. And so I always seek out good quality versions of those even when they happen. Now, that's not to say that I'm not going to eat something out of a box or a bag occasionally, or more often than you would think. Of course it fits in there. It fits not only the macros, but it fits my overall goals because 80 90% of what I'm eating is more than sufficient to check off all the other boxes, right, and that's the flexible approach. So that's number three, choose foods to support those goals. Number four, monitor your results along the way, and adjust. So you're tracking your variables, you're choosing foods that support them. Now, the key thing is to see what happens to those. If anything is off where you intend if the fiber is below your target, or the saturated fats above your target, or your hunger is too high, or your training, progress is stagnating, and so on and so forth. That's giving you a clue that perhaps your food choice, your food timing, supplementation, all of that needs to be tweaked somewhere, it may not be the only reason it may there are other factors that play like lack of sleep, you know, ineffective training, programming and so on. But this is part of the data. And then number five, work with a coach if you want to vastly accelerate the process, or at least join our free Wits & Weights, Facebook community, okay, I couldn't help myself this one, because I do know it is so effective, to be in a community and to work with others, especially to work with a coach to just get those results as fast as possible that they will help you and by they I mean, it could be an expert that you know who's a friend of yours, it could be a coach already working with a coach that you hire, or a free community that you join or a paid community, whatever, where everyone is supporting everyone and you can ask you a question and say, Hey, these are my goals, what should I track? You know, what kind of foods can I eat to support those etcetera, how can I track them and so on. Alright, so to recap, determine the targets you care about, track them to Foods to support reaching those targets, monitor results along the way and adjust and then work with a coach and or community to Accelerate Your Progress. There you have it. Pretty simple right? flexible dieting is like the wiser, more experienced sibling of If It Fits Your Macros, I FIM and they are definitely not not the same thing at all i FIM is just a tiny piece, a tiny piece of that foundation that leads you to this flexible approach. I FIM is really about hitting your macros no matter what you eat. Whereas flexible dieting, is about selecting foods to serve your lifestyle, your goals, your values for multiple dietary variables that may include macros, but also many other things that support how you feel and perform. Okay, so we've talked a lot today about how making choices designed around you can dramatically accelerate your progress toward your physique goals. I don't remember who said this, but it goes like this information is just potential power. What you really need is tailored strategies that apply specifically to you and your unique situation. And that's why I'm inviting you to a completely free 30 minute results breakthrough session. And I always like to make one thing clear, this is not a sales call, this is about you are going to dig deep into what you've been doing. What's been holding you back and sketch out a roadmap for where you need to go. Next, we will get to the bottom of what's actually going on all the stuff we just talked about today really understand you no fluff, no nonsense, you know, straight up steps 123. How do we get from here to there? Because the truth is everybody's body does respond very differently. And the only way to know that what will work for you is to get to those details. So if you're serious about breaking through your plateaus, maybe you're a seasoned lifter, or you're just getting started this this breakthrough session, I do these free calls, and I do them every week, there's always space in my calendar, this is your opportunity to fast track that process. Again, that was step five of our five steps earlier. All you've got to do to claim this is hit the link in the show notes. Pick a time and let's get the ball rolling, no pitch no catch just 30 minutes that could potentially change the way that you approach your health and physique forever. All right, in our next episode 111 111 The anti diet athlete mindset with Sherry Cheban Sherry and I challenge your conventional wisdom on dieting and fitness as we look at why diets fail, the nuances of transformation versus results and how you can transform your identity into that of an athlete. After all, we are all athletes if we think like one If you got value from this episode, make sure to rate review and share it with someone who needs to hear this and as always, stay strong. And I'll talk to you next time here on the Wits & Weights podcast.

Philip Pape  32:59

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

Ep 109: High-Performance Training Built on a Platform of Strength with Andrew Romeo

Today is a very special episode because I am joined by Andrew Romeo, a long-time coach of mine and a friend and fellow entrepreneur. He owns Romeo Athletics here in Connecticut, the gym that I joined 12 years ago, where I started training and came to understand what strength was all about. So, I have him to thank for introducing me to the world of lifting.

We'll discuss how to make fitness a part of your identity, balance family, career, and life, and make strength training work for you at any age. From his "platform of strength" to making training entertaining to bloodwork and supplements, Andrew will revolutionize your health and wellness mindset.

Andrew Romeo has always loved helping people reach their health and fitness goals. He developed and managed Romeo Athletics, Northern Connecticut's premier personal training and group fitness center in Enfield and Avon. He offers personalized training and mentoring. Andrew exemplifies integrity, self-improvement, and excellence, and goes the extra mile to help others succeed.

__________

Click here to apply for coaching!
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Today you’ll learn all about:

[2:15] Gym, family, and personal life
[3:42] Balancing roles as a father, husband, entrepreneur, and coach
[5:41] Andrew's core values and principles
[7:25] Realizing fitness as an identity, not just a habit
[10:22] Relationship with fitness over the years
[15:05] Effective approach to get started
[18:03] Making fitness enjoyable for adults and kids
[24:02] Concept of "platform of strength" in training
[26:22] Adapting training styles for different life stages and fitness levels
[28:45] Common mistakes in strength training
[32:57] Common questions or misconceptions from gym newcomers
[36:53] Importance of blood work and supplements in a fitness plan
[42:15] How to schedule a wellness consult with Ethos
[45:20] Plans for Romeo Athletics
[47:19] One question Andrew wished Philip had asked
[53:02] Learn more about Andrew and Romeo Athletics
[53:33] Outro

Episode resources:

• Ethos’s Wellness program - bloodwork, peptides, hormones -  ethosmedicalaesthetics.com

• Romeo Athletics (CT) - romeoathletics.fitness

👉👉👉 Click here to apply for coaching!

👩‍💻👨‍💻 Click here to schedule a FREE results breakthrough call with Philip

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

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Transcript

Andrew Romeo  00:00

No one's ever said, Man, I'm just too strong. I gotta get weaker. Man, I wish I wasn't that strong. Like, no strength is always a strength, like strength is markville strength is never a weakness. What are those like? So that's what I mean by a platform of strength and everything can be built from that. And I truly do believe that.

Philip Pape  00:18

Welcome to the Wits & Weights podcast. I'm your host Philip pape, and this twice a week podcast is dedicated to helping you achieve physical self mastery by getting stronger. Optimizing your nutrition and upgrading your body composition will uncover science backed strategies for movement, metabolism, muscle and mindset with a skeptical eye on the fitness industry, so you can look and feel your absolute best. Let's dive right in Wits & Weights community Welcome to another episode of the Wits & Weights Podcast. Today is a very special one because I'm joined by Andrew Romeo, who's a longtime coach of mine as well as a friend and fellow entrepreneur. He owns Romeo athletics here in Connecticut, the gym that I joined 12 years ago, when I first touched a barbell I first learned the big lifts, I came to understand what strength was all about. So I have him to thank for introducing me to the world of lifting, which is saying a lot. If you've ever wondered how to make fitness a core part of your identity, how to balance the demanding roles of family work and life or how to make strength training work for you at any age. We've got you covered today from Andrews concept of a platform of strength to making fitness fun to the use of bloodwork and supplements and it'll change the way you think about health and fitness. Andrew Romeo's a man with a lifelong passion for fitness and helping people achieve their health and wellness goals. A husband and father first and foremost, he is the founder and CEO of Romeo athletics, the premier personal training and group fitness facility in Northern Connecticut now with locations in both Enfield and Avon. He's an entrepreneur who provides training and mentorship that works for each individual. And in my opinion, Andrew embodies an ethos of high integrity, self improvement and excellence. And he's always willing to go the extra mile to bring people up and help them succeed. Andrew man, I can't believe that I haven't had you on the show before but there's no time like the present.

Andrew Romeo  02:10

100% I'm happy to be here. Thank you for having me, Philip. I appreciate

Philip Pape  02:13

ya, man. This is gonna be a lot of fun. We haven't caught up in a while. So just you know what's been going on with the gym, the wife, the kids with ethos life in general.

Andrew Romeo  02:22

Yeah, I mean, life is busy. School is kicked back off, which is great because now the kids can go to school and they're not home all day, which is awesome. More of more for Kate, my wife and myself. gyms are busy. I'm between both gyms. Every day, I'm I'm done an Avon Monday, Wednesday, Friday. That's where most of my training happens up and field Tuesday, Thursdays, I don't have too big of a role there anymore. Don't get me wrong, I'm still involved with a lot of stuff. I just don't coach that many people,

Philip Pape  02:53

the big guy hands growing business. You know, it is it is what it is. And

Andrew Romeo  02:57

then as you mentioned, we have another business, ethos, medical selects and wellness. So that's also an Avon, too. So we've got a lot going on. It's it's all good stuff. It's fun. And to your point in the intro, which I appreciate the intro. It's very nice. Thank you. I'm always lifting. I'm always I'm always in the gym, I tried to live, breathe and eat what I preach. So it's I'm always in there.

Philip Pape  03:18

Yeah, I mean, for the listener, I don't know. When I when I met Andrew right from the beginning, he's the kind of guy that just is unassuming about things you go in. He's like all about lifting just to supernatural. He gets clients in the door. And before you know, they sign up, they're not even thinking about it, because they're like this guy knows he's talking about and I just want to get fit. So I was there right early on. And when you were, you know, in that small box, and then he started to expand. So So anyway, I wanted to paint a picture of the listener for who you are. We talked about your role as a father and husband, right? We also know you're busy with the the extra location now. So how do you balance those roles, I mean, being an entrepreneur, being a coach all of it.

Andrew Romeo  03:58

So it's interesting, because people talk about like a life work balance. And unfortunately, being an entrepreneur, I don't really believe in life, work balance, it all just kind of like weaves together all of the times. I've been really, really fortunate with my life. When we started the gyms when he joined. My wife was a high school English teacher, and she could kind of like float the bills while I grew the gym. And then we got to a point where she could come into the gym, and we could do it together. So her and I work together daily. And then in addition to that my kids are in the gym daily. So it's a really cool way for my kids to grow up where they view fitness, they view strength. It's just kind of like part of what we do. It's just who we are. We're not I'm not doing it just to be big and strong and stuff like that. It's, hey, we lift weights, because that's kind of what what's expected. It's fun. It's something that like, you can get some mental clarity from makes you feel better. And that's really the model that I try to portray to them. But like workwise I mean, I'm always working dude. I mean I'm sure you're similar, where it's the middle of the night you have thoughts going off, you're taking notes. And I embrace it. I like that also, like, I wouldn't have it any other way.

Philip Pape  05:08

I love that answer, right? Because it's true. A lot of people would say, Well, you know, I have to schedule it in, or I have to keep this in this separate, or I have to make sure I focus on this, and then this, and you're like, look, it's just all my life like it is life. A lot of us saw that during the pandemic, right, we started working from home, people have office jobs, and now it started ticking like intertwine with your family a little bit. Like, wait a minute, it's kind of nice to be able to, like, take them to an appointment or this anatomy of the workday, but still get my work done. That 100% it's more natural, you know. So, so that's cool. I mean, you're a Super Down to Earth guy, and yet are able to handle all of these, you're always willing to help people. So what would you say, are your core values and principles behind, you know, giving you this opportunity, I guess, that you have now to change people's lives and also your own kids in the process?

Andrew Romeo  05:53

Sure. I mean, the biggest one is integrity, all the way through and through, it's I practice what I preach, I'm never going to suggest someone do something that I wouldn't do. And then hard work and dedication, like everything in life, if you work hard, you're dedicated, and you act of integrity, those three things are going to carry you through and a lot of good stuff is gonna come from that. And like, to your point of when you're introducing the people feel that people see that. And that's how people trust you, where you're, I'm not trying to take people's money just to take their money. I'm trying to help them. Yes, I need to get paid. But like, I'm honestly, I want to see everybody win. I mean, you talked about the abundance or scarcity mindsets, I am so far on the abundant side of anybody that's near me in my circle, I just want you to win. I just want us all to win.

Philip Pape  06:39

Yeah, I love that integrity. I mean, I. So again, for the listener, I can walk into your facility. And if we have to figure out a problem, it's not this long, drawn out discussion. It's like, let's go to the whiteboard and just figure it out. Let's just do it. And then and then trust people that they'll get the job done, which I can definitely relate to and people listening to because people always ask what is the what is the magic to consistency? It's like, Just do it. Get the result? And he's tend to motivate yourself that way.

Andrew Romeo  07:07

Yeah, I agree. And there is no magic to like motivation, right? And consistency like and all that, like, we get into the gym when you get into the gym. I'm fortunate I work in gyms, I get to lift weights all the time. It's just part of my life. But like, as you said, just show up and do it.

Philip Pape  07:22

Yeah, well, so speaking of that, that is part of your life. At some point, it had to start right and, and become a habit or routine. And maybe it was just super natural for you when you were young. But tell us how that happened. And how people who maybe aren't fit into fitness right now can get that same sense of identity, because I'm a big fan now of like saying like, we're all athletes, we can all be athletes, we just have to take on that identity and then let our actions serve that. So what do you think?

Andrew Romeo  07:46

So I'll start on the second side first, because it's easier than how I started. So the second side is really finding like your Why? Why do you want to like, hey, I want to lose all this weight. Why do you want to lose that weight because that's what your motivating factor is going to be. And that's what you can start identifying as, and like, you don't need to be a rock star to get started. Like there's like start where you're gonna start. And that's okay. Hey, I can't walk 50 feet without taking a break. Okay, we're gonna walk 45 feet, and then tomorrow, 47 and 50. And whatever it is, start wherever you're gonna start. Don't be intimidated because everybody comes into the gym. And they think people are watching them. They think people are judging them. They think people like no one cares. Honestly, most of the time people aren't watching, you don't even notice. But if they are, at least in my facility, they're supportive. And they're like, that's great. Good for you. Thank you for like doing this for yourself. For me, where my identity identity with fitness and strength training came from. I've been in gyms Dude, my whole life really has been like I was the weirdo where we would go to like, whatever the version of target was 30 years ago. And I want those dumbbells and apparently they want dumbbells. So I've been in and out of gym since I've been literally like lifting weights, and I've been 12. And I pretty much haven't stopped the variations of what I've done has changed, which is a natural progression. Everything from bodybuilding, to powerlifting, to Olympic lifting to CrossFit to functional training, like it's all blended together and which is great because it just built my my toolbox of tools I can pull from and use. But I identified as physical fitness was something that I enjoyed from a small age. I've always enjoyed training, I've always recognized that the harder I work, the better I do. And I don't mind putting in the work to get the result I want.

Philip Pape  09:42

Yeah, yeah. And your kids are gonna see like right off the bat, they're going to be in that culture, which is really nice. Like, I'm glad that my daughters can see that I work out and in a way that it's an enjoyable thing that this forced thing you know, just to quote unquote lose weight or sweat it off or whatever. And I remember coming into your gym the first time I think I had tried and Other CrossFit gym earlier in the week, and it was too far away. And I like I think I puked. And I passed out on the bed right that first time and then I came to your place. And you had a little bit of a more of like, let's really understand where you are now let's not just throw you into a crazy wide. Yeah. And I don't know what I squatted or the first day but I'm sure it was probably the empty bar. So it doesn't matter. It's got to start right. So how is your relationship with fitness evolve? You mentioned all the different things and how they blend it together. Do you have you left things behind? have you incorporated just a new perspective on those like CrossFit, for example, is a big one that I always think about because it's really changed over the years. Like what are your big priorities now? What have you maybe focus less on now as well?

Andrew Romeo  10:42

Cool. So what I focus on now is I have two mandatory lifting days a week, I have a mandatory lower body day and a mandatory upper body day, I got to get them. It doesn't matter what day of the week it happens. They got to happen. And when I say that, it's the big list. So I'm squatting, I'm pulling, I'm benching I'm pressing, I'm doing pull ups, chin ups, RDL and all that fun stuff. What hormonally big muscle groups energy expenditure and metabolism. Super important. That's what I do. Do I lift other days a week? Sure. I might lift three, four days a week. The other days are more exhilarate days. So maybe I'm hitting more shoulders or back or fun things like that. My cardio kind of comes in the form of jujitsu. I roll jujitsu three days a week. So that's my cardio, things that I have left in the past. I don't really so I don't Olympic lifts anymore. It doesn't serve me. It doesn't deliver. It's highly technical. And I had a lot of injuries that came from it. I enjoyed the sport of it. I was relatively good at it. It's pretty strong. But you got to put a lot of time and dedication I was training for three hours of clip and so much of it is skill development. How am I going to snatch out like so. time and place it was great. I learned a lot. I still carry some of that I just got done training a high school kid, high school athlete and I teach one of the first movements he did today was a full clean, so he cleaned that he dead lifted. The clean surfaces almost a warmup first dead so he's got some power, so I'm gonna explosiveness then we move into his deadlift. Other movements like so I probably haven't crossed that in myself personally since 2012. It just, I here's here's my deal. I don't like quantifying success when you compare it to other people. Hey, you beat me by five seconds. That would eat me up. And I did God dammit. How did he beat me by five seconds? It has nothing to do your your performance has nothing to do with me. Why am I comparing? So after a while it starts like wearing down at you we're fitness isn't the competition. Fitness isn't about anybody else other than yourself. And when you start comparing yourself to other people, you're gonna burn out it's not gonna last Plus, there's a lot of other things with CrossFit. I didn't like but I mean, there's just a lot of dangerous aspects of movements that I don't think are necessarily necessary. You don't need to be snatching high speeds repeatedly. You don't need to be climbing ropes if you want to. That's cool. Go do it. I appreciate all movement. I just personally moved away from that. Yeah. If that's someone's thing, they're like, I love it. This is what I do. Good for you. The same way I feel about walking. I love to walk great. I mean, is it gonna be everything you need? No. Can you do better? Yes, but is it better than nothing 100%. So like, that's kind of where I've fallen into that. Other things are left behind honestly, like I pretty much 100% Trap bar deadlift at this point, puts me in a better position, My back feels better. I haven't knock on wood rec see this? I haven't I haven't heard my back in years since I trap our deadlift. I have more of an in between squat between high bar low bar. Whereas one of US Olympic lifter, a high bar I hurt I hurt more often high bar I put more pressure on my knees, more pressure on my lower back. I move that bar to a low bar kind of Campbell. It's more hammies glutes less pressure on my back less pressure on my knees. Typically I bench using the Kabuki bar. That's here's real grit. So I feel better. I feel I

Philip Pape  14:05

am multi grip. Yeah, sure. Yeah.

Andrew Romeo  14:07

Like that bar was my shoulders and better positions. You got to remember, as I said, I've been lifting since I've been 1238 match my joints got a lot of wear and tear on it. I might be strong, but like I gotta I gotta be selective of what I do.

Philip Pape  14:21

I think everything you just said it's like the master class in how people want to think about as they age, preventing injury evolving with your body, right? Because I haven't been in nearly as long as you but I had the age factor being 42 and I just had rotator cuff surgery. And before I had that though, I'd moved to the neutral grip bench and I and you start listening to your body more and more right as Yes. And don't let anyone tell you that this is the one right thing even though the trap bar I know there's like for example the starting strength community there's there's a whole like hardline against it. And you know, the rest of us are kind of like more in this. Okay, that's a little bit dogmatic. Let's start Let's do what works for you. And you're right. I've seen it be successful with with for a ton of people. So if if you had to, you said two days or you're like heavy lifting days, if you had to break down the simplest, I'll call it efficient, maybe or effective way that most people getting started would make the best use of their time. Right? If they don't know what they like yet. It's not for you know, competitions, not anything. It's just for general health and fitness. What would be the most effective approach? Principle wise, you don't have to give exact programming?

Andrew Romeo  15:31

No, absolutely. I'm so certain Thanks. That's a good job. It's linear progression. Yeah, I mean, so and she said, you said your start, right. So you are a novice athlete, you do not need to do anything fancy. If you do fancy things, you're actually just shortchanging your results. It's a basic linear progression, you're gonna squat, you're gonna deadlift, you are going to do pull ups or your variation or pull down. You're gonna do chin ups or chin pull down, you're gonna bench you're going to shoulder press. Anybody throw some stuff in at the end, but it's every week, just stepping up, stepping, stepping up, until that progression no longer works. For some people, it might be 10 weeks, some people might be 20 weeks. But if you've never done a basic linear progression, you should I don't care what your training age is. Go back and do it. Because you're gonna get all that little strength out from where you started. Most of the time, it's five. I mean, having people do three sets of five. So when you talk about that, Hey, okay, what's that? That's myofibrillar hypertrophy. Big word, little myofibrillar is and your muscles are getting thicker, you're getting stronger. It's amazing, right? And then after you've done that, like so typically, people that I've worked with for a while they've gone through the linear progressions will do a periodized approach of sarcoplasmic, hypertrophy, neuroma, then myofibrillar hypertrophy. And then you go into neuromuscular efficiency. For people that don't know what I'm saying, we're getting you big, we're getting you strong. And then we're testing your nervous system to see how strong you are. And then we rinse and repeat it over and over and over again.

Philip Pape  17:05

It's fun. Yeah, exactly.

Andrew Romeo  17:07

And like, a lot, I know you've done a lot of weight gains, weight cuts, weight gains, then you start Mimic, like mirroring that in with your face of lifting. And Amazing things happen, right? You get really, really strong or you get really, really cut up. It's all fun stuff. I went to high level for

Philip Pape  17:27

No, no, no, no listener loves that. I mean, we sometimes get in way more detail than that. Maybe, maybe I shouldn't, but sometimes we do. So yeah. So periodization, we talked about that in nutrition, like you mentioned. And you're basically saying the same for lifting that keep it super simple. Increase the load initially. And then eventually, you can add more of the fun stuff. And you don't even need to work out that many days a week, right? Three,

Andrew Romeo  17:49

three days a week, three days a week is all you need. Like, like, that's a big misconception, right? And aw morning, like you. And this is kind of weird, but you only get stronger while you're rest. You got to earn your rest, but you only get stronger while you rest.

Philip Pape  18:03

Right? So now, what about making it fun for people, right, because that's the other aspect I know is big for you, especially when you want people to stick with it, your trainer, you know, you've got the the interests of both helping people get stronger, but also wanting to see them succeed and not just leave after a week or two. And you also like helping children to with their movement. I mean, even my kids did your couple of your classes, and they had a lot of fun. So we don't want something to be something we feel like we have to do. How do you make this fun and effective for people? A lot of the training we do

Andrew Romeo  18:35

now is semi private training or private training. And I think the fun or stickiness that comes from what we do is interpersonal connections. The trust factor, hey, I know what you're doing. I know where we need to be. I know how we need to do it. And then the fact of like, working professional, anybody that's listening, when you come in, you don't have to think anymore. I got you don't worry. Like I know your weight progressions. I know the movements we need to be doing today. And like also, how are you feeling? Are you tired? Are you hung over? Are you whatever you're at, I will take care of that. And make sure that today's workout is the best workout we can have. So that's kind of on the adult side, what we do on the kids side? Well, we play games, we have fun. We we try to make it more fun because honestly, that's how it should be for kids. Unless, if you aren't like the kid that I was training as a high school athlete, he has a set goal. He's on a linear progression. We're making sure that he's getting stronger for his upcoming sports season. Fun isn't as new. His fun is results every week and it's linear progression, etc itself get better. That's his fun. So it's all about kind of what stage of a lifter you're at what you're looking to get out of it. And I am running another session of the homeschool PE right now. Right I got I think I have 12 kids in it. It's great. And like they work really hard, as you saw, they're working hard, but they're with friends. They're having fun. They're joking. I try to keep it light hearted. I don't force anybody to do anything. If you don't want to do it, no problem. You don't have to do it like and there's no judgment passed. I'm not going to judge you for that. That's okay. So that's kind of, like a little bit more low key laid back. But I think in the long run of things, that's how we should like there's no need like people could this stereotype about gyms that it's like meatheads and super Blair and death metal, and we're screaming at people, that is not it. That is not what we do.

Philip Pape  20:35

Unless you want that there are other gyms for that. There are gyms for that. And like,

Andrew Romeo  20:39

some people do seek that out, but it's not the majority of the population. So

Philip Pape  20:43

it's, you know, you get a lot of great answers. And what it tells me is that there's not a one size fits all right, like everybody's waited, they stick with something or find motivation differs, it might be in a group are in a semi private situation where you have the community, it might be the one on one where they need that personal understanding from you as the coach, or what you said, like the trust factor and knowing their knowing their physiology and how they respond in their lives and everything. It might be people working from home, who just need guidance on programming, or they need guidance on whatever, there's a million ways, but at the end of the day, you hit the nail on the head when you said results. Because I imagine if you had people coming in you did all those things. And they weren't making progress, they will still stick around, right?

Andrew Romeo  21:23

Yes. No matter what you have to deliver on whether they're

Philip Pape  21:27

Yeah, yeah. Who was it? Somebody mentioned to me how, you know, they go to the gym every every day, and they're just not enjoying it. I said, Well, what are you doing? He's like, Well, this is my routine, like, Well, tell me about the routine. Tell me about the load, you know? Well, it's the same weights every Oh, okay, I got it. I got it. I got you're not making any progress. So it's just this boring, repetitive thing for you. Alright. Yeah. notching the weight up a little, and see if you start to enjoy it more. When you get exactly,

Andrew Romeo  21:49

yeah. Give yourself a little bit of a struggle for it. Yeah.

Philip Pape  21:53

Yeah. That's such a great point, you work for it. You may not look forward to it beforehand, but you get in the gym and you do it. And you find out it's a lot of fun when you when you get that

Andrew Romeo  22:02

squat. Absolutely 100%. I agree. And in

Philip Pape  22:06

a gym like yours, you know, like you said, it's not competitive. It's everybody's kind of supporting each other no matter where you are. And I get that feeling of seeing somebody coming in for the first time. And I'm just so excited for them because I know what's ahead in their lives. And I just, I don't care if it's an empty bar, I'm like, look at you doing that, you know, my mom's squatting with just to a chair to get stronger now is exciting me, you know what I mean? Because she's gonna get stronger. So

Andrew Romeo  22:32

that's awesome. That's awesome that you're moving. You got to do something like that. Because that's like, huge for longevity.

Philip Pape  22:37

Yeah, and yeah, you mentioned that earlier about why this is so important, just for everything in your life. So what do I say I always get go off on tangents wrong. So let me see what kind of questions I have for you. What about you mentioned the kids, so there's more of the athlete, teenagers, right? Who, who, it's not necessarily fun for the sake of fun, it's more the progress and competing, which then makes it fun. Let's say a kid came in and a parent wanted a certain outcome and the kid wasn't into it. Do you ever get that kind of situation? And then they, there's a way that you approach it and embrace it? Yeah. So I had something similar in

Andrew Romeo  23:13

the past where the kid the parent can pretty much like drag the kid in as a he needs to be more active. And you're the person that making the act? Yep. So in those situations, it's going through trying to find like exercises, the kid doesn't mind doing having fun with it. And again, like, I'm never gonna yell at anybody. Like, that's just not who I am. I mean, you, I've coached you plenty of times, I am not the in your face, yell at you, I'm going to talk to you, I'm going to have a conversation with you. I'm going to encourage you to work harder and do things. And most of the time kids respond pretty well to that. But honestly, like, if I was training somebody and the kid was like, I started crying, or I don't want to do this. I'm going to talk to your parent and being like, I'm sorry, I'm not the person for you. Because I'm not gonna force your kid to do this. This is just not aligning with who I am. Yeah,

Philip Pape  23:59

I was just curious about that. Go. Yeah. All right. So as we as we got ready for this interview, you mentioned a term I hadn't heard you use it before. But you called about you talked about building a platform of strength, a platform of strength, that can be universally applied to sports, life health, through different stages, different styles of training. Now, we often talk about strength as a foundation for everything else like it's the foundation of fitness. And maybe that's what you mean. So I'm intrigued with platform of strength is tell us what that's about.

Andrew Romeo  24:28

That's foundational strength platform was shaped very similar. I think my personal opinion, lifting weights is going to help pretty much any aspect of your life if you want to be stronger, you want to live a long time you want a better quality of life great those are the physical sides. You want to be more mentally want to be happier. You want to be sharper, like mentally acute. You want to other cognitive benefits lifting weights is going to help so I mean, yes I own gyms I've been in gyms my whole life. I believe in weightlifting, so I have a bias. But that platform of strength if you are strong, only, like no one's ever I've said this before, you've probably heard me say this. No one's ever said, Man, I'm just too strong, I gotta get weaker. And I wish I wasn't that strong. Like, no strength is always a strength, like strength is markville strength is never a weakness. What are those like? So that's what I mean by a platform of strength, and everything can be built from that. And I truly do believe that

Philip Pape  25:26

I did to man and and the funny thing is, you, yes, you have a bias because you're a trainer, but you're also totally invested this I can tell for the rest of your life, because you know how effective it is. And it's just completely aligned with how you help people. And I've gotten into that just from my personal transformation, and now wanting to help others because I see this above everything else. Make it supersedes everything else in your life, because anything you want to do, gets improved by having a stronger, thinner body, right?

Andrew Romeo  25:56

100% I mean, you gotta live in this thing for the rest of your life, you might as well take care of it.

Philip Pape  26:02

Absolutely great. And live several extra decades hopefully with you know, with all that strength to deadlift to your trap, bar deadlifting when you're 95. So I hope so, for sure, man. So one of the most common questions I always get is, you know, how do you train IE, fill in the blank after 40? Or after 50? There's always these cut offs. And I'm like, I'm 42 I'm not that old. Right? So how do you adapt training styles to based on someone stage in their life based on their fitness level? How should their mind set expectations, all these things involved when it comes to strength training as they age, like, what are the extra factors that come into play?

Andrew Romeo  26:38

Okay, so as you get older, your training volume is probably gonna drop, you're gonna need to recover more. Weight progressions probably won't move up as quickly, we're going to take less risks, because injuries take a lot longer to recover from a big thing that people miss is that, hey, whatever you do in the gym should be making you better outside of the gym. So if you're getting hurt lifting weights, we did something wrong.

26:58

That's a Philippe an awfully for a long time. I don't know how passionate he is about healthy eating, and body strength. And that's why choosing to be my coach. I was no stranger to a dieting and body training. But I've always struggled to do it sustainably really helped me prioritize my goals with evidence based recommendations, or not over stressing my body and not feeling like I'm starving. In six months, I lost 45 pounds without drastically changing the foods I enjoy. But now I have a more balanced diet, I weight train consistently. And most importantly, I do it sustainably if a scientifically sound healthy diet and a link strong body is what you're looking for. Philip Pape is your guy.

Andrew Romeo  27:43

I'm just a lot more cautious when I'm working with athletes that are aging. I mean, we're all aging. It's just I mean, we all were teenagers at 1.2. And you're a lot more resilient. Also, when I'm working with older people, we take in a lot more considerations of their limitations, how your knees how's your hips, you talked about your shoulder or your shoulders? What's it what's our range of motions look like? So as a coach, there's way more of a checklist that I have to go down of just watching everything you're doing. Have you had surgeries in the past? Do you have any metabolic diseases? Do you have any other crazy things that I need to be aware of that you have this nerve issue or whatever it is? And then I have to build something around that that's gonna fit you the best?

Philip Pape  28:26

Yeah, I like how straightforward you answer that question. Really, it does come down to recovery, right, and injury and rehab and all that stuff. It's so true. And I think a lot of people who are getting into it for the first time in their, say, 30s like I did, you just you just want to be aware of that and be smart about it, but not use it as an excuse so much, you still want to push hard and train hard. But man does those CrossFit days especially you really beat me up and and I know it's different than training, strength training.

Andrew Romeo  28:56

I was gonna say a big thing with that. So another thing that a lot of people make the mistake of is they want to copy someone else's program. Hey, I saw so and so do this. So I'm going to do it be like Well, what's your training age versus their training age? What's your training restrictions versus nurture? Like, like you used to hear this a lot in the Olympic weightlifting I'm gonna do this Bulgarian, whatever program to turn up Bulgarian here, not one of the top 1% athletes of that country and you're not probably taking a lot of steroids. So that program is probably not going to fit your best. But go do it if you want to like it's, it's just don't. Do you need something that's built for you. Don't just copy someone to copy because you saw someone doing hip thrusts and now that's the thing you're doing.

Philip Pape  29:40

Yeah, that's a great point. Yeah. And going back to what you said earlier, just starting with a simple progression, cuts out all that complication. Anyway. So we talked about recovery. We talked about training as you age keeping it simple, not copying other people's programs, especially because you're probably not taking peds and not from Bulgaria. So what is is like what is one or two of the biggest mistakes people do make when it comes to strength training? And maybe that's again, something you're able to address when you're there as a trainer. Ego.

Andrew Romeo  30:12

Ego is the number one thing, right? I saw this 17 year old lifting that and I'm 35. So I can affect to me that 17 year olds been lifting for five years, and it's pretty advanced. And this is day one for you. Like, you are the number one thing that gets people all the time that's injuries come from,

Philip Pape  30:29

is that mostly men, though? Yes, mostly men,

Andrew Romeo  30:32

mostly. And I will say for my teenage athletes and kids, girls listen way better than boys, like girls are like, I will do what you said how you said it, I will move how you said, or boys are like I'm gonna put more weight on, because I want to put more juice, here we go. So that would be number one would definitely be ego. Number two, I would say is just not sticking with it long enough. Hey, I did this for three months, and I didn't get the results I want. Okay, like, I don't know what you want. Like this is a lifelong journey. Like it takes a long time to put on muscle and really build sighs I've been working on this forever. I mean, you probably when you join the gym, I probably weighed about 175 pounds. So think 12 years later, I sit around like 225 or so that's 12 years of lifting weights, like that's in seriously lifting weights and eating and like pushing and like, yes, it doesn't have to take that long. But like, it takes a while guys, nothing's going to happen in one month, two months, three months, it's going to be life changing. Maybe it'd be life changing.

Philip Pape  31:41

And I think they say the average genetic limit for males something like 40 or 45 pounds over like six or seven years of like injury free hard lifting in your metabolic peak. You know what I mean? Like, you started Fortunately, you started when you were at, you know, the testosterone in your 20s. So you got that benefit. That's That's why also the nutrition man. I mean, you talk about not sticking with long enough. I mean, if you're, if you're lifting for three months, and constantly trying to diet that's also gonna hold you back.

Andrew Romeo  32:08

Yeah, exactly. So I mean, nutrition is your jam. And you can clearly understand, hey, I'm trying to lose weight. Most of the time, it's really hard to gain muscle while you're doing that. That's, I'm trying to gain muscle. But I haven't put on all this fat. I don't know what's happening. Yeah, that happens to that's where we have that periodization of like, bulk, bulk, bulk, couple bulk cut. And yet, they're shortcuts. I could talk to you about shortcuts with that. But then you start talking about hormones and peptides and stuff. So you start I mean, that's the supplement game where you can, you can get different results really quickly. With legal thing. It's not illegal by any means. It's just a different different take on it.

Philip Pape  32:50

And ya know what, I'll we'll get into that in a second. For sure. Actually, I'll be just one more question about training. And then I want to get into work and stuff. When people come to you for the first time, I imagine just like I see it on the nutrition side, all sorts of misconceptions, questions that are like, oh, man, you know, I know they've been watching some influencer, right, of course, that they bring you what are the real common ones? You hear a lot?

Andrew Romeo  33:14

I hear a lot about the kids stuff. I mean, everybody asked me, Is it okay for kids to lift weights? That's when you talk about youth training? That's the number one question. And the way I answer that is, I teach movement patterns. As long as we keep the weights under control, and the movement patterns are correct. No one will get hurt. We don't really start to increase weights until kids hit puberty. Because then as you just said, they have all of the hormones and then they get these crazy results here. Wow. That's amazing. I wish I could I wish I could progress that

Philip Pape  33:46

and what ages are those? Generally? I mean, I know puberty can range but gender from boys and girls,

Andrew Romeo  33:50

any typically you're getting 1314 year olds where I start, like, cool. Let's get that linear progression going. Let's start tacking on weights. Let's start moving this, this and everybody's different. Some people will be younger, some people, some boys are 1617. And like they're just kind of late to puberty. They're late bloomers. Okay, no problem. We'll get there when we get there. I mean, you can see it, you can see like, Hey, you can tell when someone doesn't have those hormones. But because those weights don't change. It's always hard. Like I'm getting better my movement patterns are getting better, but the weights aren't getting better. And then they all of a sudden start getting a bit more testosterone in their system and more growth hormone in their system and all of a sudden, wow, coach. I mean, really show up. Yeah, look at that.

Philip Pape  34:33

We always had that elixir.

Andrew Romeo  34:36

Right. So that's one of the biggest common ones and then all everybody comes in they first thing they want to talk about rightfully so is all of their injuries and all the reasons why they can't do the things and mine is you can do the things. It's just a matter of how we're going to do them and the progressions that we take and like, I mean, you've been in the weight world long enough. There's 10 different variations of a squat. I can Pull out. I mean, and there's not one right answer. And okay, your knee hurts. I'm gonna have you sweat like this, okay, you're back. I'm gonna have you squat like this, okay? Your shoulder hurts. I'm gonna have you squat, like, you know, like, there's so many variations. And that's why people if you have serious concerns, talk to a professional, like, talk to someone that knows what they're talking about, and they'll find you the right answer.

Philip Pape  35:19

That's the way to do it. And let me tell you, you have four limbs. So if you could use one of those, you can do something.

Andrew Romeo  35:27

I've been watching your training to felt that you've been putting it up where you're recovering from your shoulder thing and exactly what you're doing. Hey, if I can't use my left arm, I'll use my right arm. Yeah, somehow my left arm is recovering. There's there's science to show that works.

Philip Pape  35:40

That's right. The cross training effect. Yeah, I want to do a podcast on that. That's actually good idea. Yeah, I was doing one arm deadlifts for a while too, which are their own little, but I was glad I could use two arms again, because then the load goes way up. Absolutely, absolutely. Ya know, so those are really good ones, right? Is it safe for the kids to lift? I think that that is a long held myth of like, you know, it's gonna stunt their growth and all these ridiculous things. And I don't want to one of the best examples people say is, well think about farmers, kids, you know, like, from the time they're little, they're slinging hay bales. And they're doing all sorts of weightlifting, naturally. They're not stunted are they? They're nice and big and strong.

Andrew Romeo  36:14

I mean, anybody that's ever had a little kid that jumps off of their couch or jumps off of something, and they land really hard, the amount of force that just went through their knees, hips back, is 1000 times that of what they're going to be squat. Like, they're okay. I promise. Okay.

Philip Pape  36:30

Yeah, and then not making the excuses. When you come at the beginning of, well, I can't do all this because of my shoulder. There's a way there's always a way.

Andrew Romeo  36:37

Just talk through the person. Yeah, explain what you have, and then be open to where they want to bring. Yep. Always seek

Philip Pape  36:43

out. Yeah, seek out an expert for any of this stuff. The older you get, the more of these risks you have. They're not excuses, but you definitely need to have good counsel. Good. Good information. Right. So that's. So an interesting area that you're more involved in now is with ethos medical in Avon is using bloodwork right? Working with a medical professional who can customize supplements, hormone treatments, really anything that kind of fills the gap. That's why I like to think that fills the gap once our nutrition and lifestyle are where they need to be because we don't want to use these shortcuts. What is the importance of bloodwork and supplements as part of a fitness plan? How can people use those talk to us about it.

Andrew Romeo  37:21

So the biggest thing with the blood bloodwork part, it's like getting like a diagnostic for your car, you're getting to see how everything's functioning it like so for a guy how's your testosterone looking? What are all the other level I mean, even basic bloodwork for health purposes of cholesterol, blood lipids, all those things are all really important for guys that are coming to a supporting what are your PSA levels looking like for prostate stuff like these are important things to know. And a lot of times your general practitioner is just glossing over it, seeing if anything pops and moving forward. And I'm like, so talking about testosterone, right? Like the average range is like 300 to 1000.

Philip Pape  38:00

And if you're anywhere in there, you know, quote unquote, normal.

Andrew Romeo  38:04

You're normal, you're good. I am happy to be transparent and share my numbers. My numbers. Testosterone number before supplementing was at 240. It was at 240 and it was there for years. I do I eat well. I exercise, I get sunlight, I go for walks, I sleep, I do all the things and I was still literally clinically low. Okay, so I got my bloodwork done, I Kristen, who runs ethos, we work together and we came up with a plan so what I do is I get my bloodwork done every eight weeks I am taking supplements through her one of them being TRT which is testosterone and I last bloodwork I got done my testosterone was at 980 You want to talk about like lifestyle changes of like how much happier I feel how much more energy I feel and nevermind strength gains strength gains and muscle gains like it makes a big difference.

Philip Pape  39:02

I think I need to get my blood checked

Andrew Romeo  39:05

it's a game changer. It really is

Philip Pape  39:07

yeah What about so for men it's pretty straightforward with the TRT the free test and all that for women. So I've learned a lot about this or nutrition now with with the progesterone the DHEA and testosterone estrogen. A lot of I understand a lot of that stuff is it's difficult to measure through bloodwork and you need like urine and saliva and other types of tests you do they do that as well you guys do that? So that's I'm gonna completely forget to grill you about all that. Okay.

Andrew Romeo  39:35

i Yes, I am involved with ethos, but she's really the person so like any any lesson I can talk about my own personal experience, but higher level stuff, I gotta I gotta defer to her. Yeah, so

Philip Pape  39:46

what would you recommend for just the average person both men and women to do if their fitness and nutrition or fitness and nutrition aren't quite where they need to be? Can they still pursue the bloodwork and supplements kind of in parallel with What's the thought there?

Andrew Romeo  40:01

I would say yes. Only Yes. Should you dial in your food? Yeah. Should you dial in your your exercise? Yes. But checking to see what's going on under the bloodwork one might motivate you a little bit more, when you really get a big picture. Hope man, I didn't know I was in this poor of health. Or maybe, hey, I'm actually in pretty decent health. So what it could serve as a motivated effector. And to if you're is like lowest iOS and testosterone, it's really hard to get results. And you if you're new to this, you might find it really frustrating. And you might feel like you're beating your head against this wall over and over again, we're getting your levels regulated, is going to put you into a place where you're getting the results that you shouldn't be getting, because your hormones are regulated. And that's where like, I don't compete in any sports anymore. It's not like I'm being drug tested for this stuff. And even if I was like, Hey, listen, I'm clinically low. Like, I'm bringing myself to level playing field at this point.

Philip Pape  40:58

I agree, man, that what I've learned about TRT is just that we are as a population of men, and this is a problem for women to just, like you said, clinically lower than we need to be. And oftentimes, it's not even clinically low. It's just you might even have symptoms, right? Even if you're at like three something. percent. Yeah. And the doctor is like, that's normal. Because I've heard both both sides of the coin of like, if you have symptoms, and the bloodwork doesn't show it, the symptoms are important. If you don't have symptoms, but you're clinically low, that's important as well, right? So everybody's going to need some form of replacement, probably at some age for the rest of their life, I would think.

Andrew Romeo  41:34

And there's always this like big stigma with dudes for testosterone. But how many people do you know ladies that are on a thyroid monitor? Guess what? They're on that? They're on that hormone med for the rest of their lives? Because the biggest thing I hear about testosterone? I don't want to get started because I'm have to be on it forever. Yeah. I mean, it's a hormone that you're lacking with your dad. It just is what it is. I mean, again, just speaking from my personal experience, if there was going to be I mean, I guess the number one supplement that I recommend is creatine because I believe everyone under the sun should be using creatine. But if you really want the most effective supplement, it'd be testosterone. Yeah. At least from my personal experience.

Philip Pape  42:17

Yeah. And what for so it ethos, what does that look like? You just do you make an appointment? Do How does that work? To get your

Andrew Romeo  42:24

go online, go to our website, ethos, medical esthetics.com, right. So go to our website, and just go through and schedule a wellness consult. So all you're gonna do is you're gonna sit down with Kristen, she's a PA

Philip Pape  42:40

for local, it's not local. So it just seems to be in the Connecticut area. Yeah, that's so

Andrew Romeo  42:45

if you want to do peptides, you could do this. Online, you can't get to sastra. But you can do peptides. And peptides can do magical things as well. Like anything from immune system stuff to Muscle Gaining stuff. And you don't need to do it in person console for peptides just for hormones. I'm actually the state regulations and things like that. And I do take peptides as well. Again, I can't really dive too much on the science side of that, I'd have to defer to Kristen for that. But there's peptides that can do magical stuff. So like you want to talk about like rehabbing your shoulder. I know people that have used peptides and cut down the recovery period, because their body now is producing more growth hormone. And now it's healing faster. And that's where there's some science and some some stuff that is now available to people that wasn't previously that can really change how quickly you can get results. And also, what do you need it for? Are you sick all the time, it's winter COVID is coming around whatever it may be, okay, look at some of these answers. Or someone like yourself, I just had surgery, I want to get back to play faster. Okay, we can look at these things. And again, talk to a medical professional. We're a private practice. So we listen a little bit more, and we don't use insurance. So we can take our time and really work with somebody versus going to a primary care and you have 10 minutes. And as long as you're not dying. Get out.

Philip Pape  44:08

I have little to no faith in in PCPs anymore. Just so you know, you're preaching to the choir on that, like I've met very few that are worth anything to I'm sorry to say and if you're listening, and you are and you're a good one, then then great. We need more out there. Especially for women's health care. I feel like there's this gaslighting everywhere all the time. And I don't know what it is. Maybe it's just what they learned in medical school. And that's all they know. And they they open the root cause book and it's like you have this, this is the answer and then move on. But hormones is still kind of in its in its nascent period here. We had Dr. Rand McLaren and you know Dr. Rand McLean, he's pretty big peptides and and TRT is out of California, a perfect early episode. He also talked about peptides as well and I get it they're proteins, right? They're just proteins. But they a lot of them can do interesting things. So we're definitely gonna throw that in the show notes so they can check it out. Is Is there any scenario where somebody needs intervention beyond lifestyle? beyond what you've already talked about the TRT, any other supplementation I guess, is what I'm getting at

Andrew Romeo  45:11

me, you probably see me say this all the time, eat more protein, use that as yourself and lift weights.

Philip Pape  45:21

Call man, what's next for Romeo athletics.

Andrew Romeo  45:25

So Avon, I mean, the Avon location right now the goal is to grow Avon as much as we can help as many people here as we can. And if it just gets to the point where I can launch another one, I'll do it. But I mean, our goal is, as has always been, I personally enjoy working with people in person. So we are in person coaching facility. It's either private or semi private. For the most part, we offer a couple of group classes here and there. But for the most part, it's semi private and private training. And that's where we are, that's what we do. And my goal is to help as many people as we can help. And really, I really, like I don't know, if you've seen this at least, I really like how many ladies are coming in and saying like, I feel like I just need to lift weight awesome. Like something has changed in the world where people are like, recognizing, like lifting weights is important. And it's amazing. And it's awesome. And it makes me really excited. Because I have fought this fight for so long of being like I promise you won't get bulky. I promise you're not gonna get crazy biceps and from lift, like, prompt, like, unless you really want to,

Philip Pape  46:29

but like, Yeah, cuz it's hard to say it's hard for us to do a bulky,

Andrew Romeo  46:36

like, I have lifted weights for for ever, and to get big and bulky is impossible. Unless you

Philip Pape  46:42

take a lot of drugs. Yeah, no, you're right, man. It's true. I mean, I haven't been in the business very long. But even I see plenty of women saying like, how do I build muscle? How do I build my and it's a great, it's a great thing, blah, how do I feel? How do I build muscle and strength instead of cutting a night and let's build muscle? Well, I

Andrew Romeo  46:56

think they're also getting to people are getting Hey, muscle is also increasing my metabolism. So then in turn, I'm gonna lose more fat, and I can eat more stuff and get away with stuff now. Like, I mean, my basic thing left he protein.

Philip Pape  47:12

That's it. We're gonna Well, I do have to ask one more question that I asked about yesterday, and I can leave you off the hook with this, and it sometimes throws people off. But what is a question you wish I had asked? And what is your answer?

Andrew Romeo  47:23

Question I wish you would ask. I don't know. I mean it professional, personal. I mean, you could ask anything about lifting weights? What's your favorite lift? What's this? What's that? Or on the family side or anything on that said, I'm an open book, dude. As you know, you can ask me anything.

Philip Pape  47:40

It's more for you to tell me what you wish I'd asked. But that's the let's go with a lifting. Let's go the lifting question. Yeah, so you talked about your routine. Now, what does that look like in terms of like loads and progression scheme?

Andrew Romeo  47:57

Like loads, you want specific numbers? Like squatting? I probably squat weekly. No, and like low fours. Sometimes I'll push it up a little bit. My best squat ever was in the mid fives like 550.

Philip Pape  48:15

Points. Yeah. Yeah, it's

Andrew Romeo  48:16

this point, it's too heavy. Just walking that out on your back. It's just a lot of spinal compression. There's a lot that comes with that, that people don't realize when you start pushing those weights up like you feel it like your knees, feel it your hips, feel it, your back feels it, even if you have all the musculature to support it. I haven't really tried not to squat with belts and some just recently because like, I'm getting strong, and like, I can live decent amount of weights. I don't need to really belts for that. I really liked the Kabuki, benching bar. It makes it harder, but like interested, I really like it and then exhibited an

Philip Pape  48:51

angle perfectly. Okay, so

Andrew Romeo  48:53

go for a walk. Let's see how the thing works. Right. I'll show you guys get a little tour of the gym.

Philip Pape  49:00

Yeah. For the people on audio. We're walking through the facility. It's a couple give it Yeah. Okay. So it's kind of like a curved bar with multiple neutral angles. There we go. So slight angles. Yeah.

Andrew Romeo  49:14

Yeah. So you get that like neutral grip with a slight angle. And then it like, it makes you go a little bit deeper. So a big fan of that. I really liked the fact of that. But I'm sorry, I flipped your question. No, no, no.

Philip Pape  49:30

You're the only one that let do that to me. No, just kidding. No, that's cool. People are always interested in this stuff. Man, what are they gonna say that? Oh, you know, years ago, you had me squatting with the now this is in the CrossFit days, but we were doing like I guess you were like rack squats. You'd call them to kind of overload before doing the main squats. You still do stuff like that for your squat?

Andrew Romeo  49:51

Um, me personally not as much. I'll probably end up doing I don't know if you if you do squat Tober or not. So Exercise fitness company called sore necks. Their major fitness player they run a free program every October called squat Tober. Um, you squat five days a week and they definitely bring in a bunch of different squatting patterns. If I was focused on driving my squat number up, yeah, I would do rack squats. I would take shit from the bottom. We've hit different depths. I actually biggest honestly, one of the exercises that not a lot of people know about but I really liked for getting your squat number up. Hatfield squat. Are you familiar? The Hatfield squat? So I know what it is. Yep. So Hatfield squat, think safety squat bar. So I use the Kabuki one, so it just sits on your shoulders, I don't even have to hold it. So it just sits there, walk it out, you have handles you're holding on to squat down, drive up holding on to those handles, typically, you can overload that. So think it's an overloaded eccentric. by a good margin man, like I've squatted over 600 views and a Hatfield squat.

Philip Pape  50:53

So that's interesting. Oh, hold on. Now I'm really curious, because I've been using safety bar exclusively because of my shoulder because I can't get the grip around for the normal squat. You're saying you could load a lot more by just holding the rack in front of you do you have to have special handles.

Andrew Romeo  51:07

I put Kayson because I'm holding here, but you can hold the rack here just like that. And you can sell it because now on your way up, you're getting a little bit of your lat pull yourself up. So you can get an overload or do centric on that. And your squat will go through the roof.

Philip Pape  51:22

How does that feel? Back? Awesome. Okay, all good. Now, you just gave me something new to try. Oh, man.

Andrew Romeo  51:28

That is like one of my favorite like, non normal squatting things. Because everybody when people look at squatting, they're always like, Oh, it wasn't below parallel this or that. And being like, Listen, man, the below parallel thing came from powerlifting. That's where that came from. Because they had this sort of standard to measure success by I don't care if you squat below parallel, and I want you to squat to where your best movement pattern is. Does your knee hurt? Does your hip hurt? Does your back hurt? This is you can't judge it because my hands are holding on to something. But check it out. See what you think. And so every safety squat bar is different if yours doesn't hit that right angle, swing up to the gym, because my so I have the Kabuki one where it can adjust. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, the transformer bar up there. So you can come in, adjust the transformer bar, come check it out and see what you think.

Philip Pape  52:18

Cool, man, I'm gonna try that out. So that does that make it more quad dominant when you do that.

Andrew Romeo  52:24

Because you'll sit back into your hammock, same thing sit back and your picture, but rather than the Barbie hips, or the belt behind your hips, it's on your shoulders.

Philip Pape  52:35

I like that idea. Because this typical safety squat bar movement is slightly more like a front squat, right? It's a little more quad dominant, so that to get his more in the back, like the low bar that I love and miss right now. So

Andrew Romeo  52:46

I've been very, I've been very fortunate that I've pretty much always choose that Kabuki bar. So I don't even know what like a traditional safety squat bar feels like because I'm always adjusting angles and playing with things. So I've just been fortunate in that regard.

Philip Pape  53:02

Cool, man. Well, this has been a fun conversation all sorts of different directions. I hope the listener got a lot out of it. I know they did. Yeah, I know they did, man. And the last question of course, where do you want people to find you?

Andrew Romeo  53:14

Find me at Romeo athletic stuff, fitness, ethos, med medical esthetics.com instagram romeo.aj or Romeo athletics or Romeo athletics at Avon, I got a million.

Philip Pape  53:27

I'll keep it simple in the show notes. Like one.

Andrew Romeo  53:31

Google me. You'll find me there.

Philip Pape  53:33

All right, Andrew, Romeo, man, it's always been a pleasure. It's awesome to be in your circle and know you. And it was a fun conversation. So thanks for coming on the show. Thanks for having me. I'm

Andrew Romeo  53:43

always super proud to see your progressions. Man. You've done some big things and it's awesome to see you help so many people.

Philip Pape  53:48

Yeah, man. It's all it started with you to be honest. So we're all just paying it forward, which is what we want to do. I love thanks for coming on. Of course. Thank you for tuning in to another episode of Wits & Weights. If you found value in today's episode, and know someone else who's looking to level up their Wits & Weights. Please take a moment to share this episode with them. And make sure to hit the Follow button in your podcast platform right now to catch the next episode. Until then, stay strong.

Ep 108: How to Build Muscle Without Getting Fat

Today, we are re-examining the science of building muscle without accumulating unnecessary fat. Based on a new study that just came out this year, we will find the sweet spot between the “you gotta eat big to get big” dreamer bulk crowd and the “maingain/gaintain” crowd, so you have the optimal caloric surplus for muscle gain.

I’ll share my experience with these various muscle-building ranges, re-emphasize the role of strength training and protein, and discuss practical takeaways to set up your effective bulking strategy. This episode gives you a nuanced approach to lean muscle gains to help you achieve a muscular and lean physique without the extra fat.

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Click here to apply for coaching!
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Today you’ll learn all about:

[2:27] Personal experience with the dreamer bulk approach
[5:55] Finding the optimal calorie surplus for muscle gain
[9:23] Study on the effect of small and large energy surpluses
[11:53] The importance of a moderate calorie surplus for strength gains
[14:03] Key points on the Helms study
[19:30] Gains with aggressive surplus
[23:01] Adjusting body fat gain based on the rate of build
[25:27] Setting targets and rates for a muscle-building phase
[33:23] Outro

Episode resources:

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

• Email Philip: philip@witsandweights.com

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Transcript

Philip Pape  00:00

But I'm going to start at the extreme right side of the curve, what we call a dreamer bulk or also called the seafood diet, you see the food and you eat it. And this is what I would say I did for my first successful bulk meaning successful that I was able to build a lot of muscle. Not so successful and that I also gained a ton of fat in the process. But it was really the first time I was ever doing it that way, the first time I was ever intentionally eating to gain weight in my entire life. Welcome to the Wits & Weights podcast. I'm your host, Philip pape, and this twice a week podcast is dedicated to helping you achieve physical self mastery by getting stronger. Optimizing your nutrition and upgrading your body composition will uncover science backed strategies for movement, metabolism, muscle and mindset with a skeptical eye on the fitness industry, so you can look and feel your absolute best. Let's dive right in. Wits &

Philip Pape  00:58

Weights community Welcome to another solo episode of the Wits & Weights podcast. In our last episode 107 The secrets of zero injury running while optimizing body composition with Louise Valentine, Louise and I discussed some new and exciting strategies and considerations for female and endurance athletes, in particular, women 35 and beyond who love to run and want to improve their body composition. So go check that episode out. Today for episode 108. How to Build Muscle without getting fat. We are reexamining the science of building muscle without accumulating unnecessary body fat. And there's a new study that just came out this year. Literally last month, we're going to find the sweet spot between the you gotta eat big to get big dreamer bulk crowd and the main gains slash gain teen crowd so that you have that optimal caloric surplus for muscle gain. I'll share some of my personal experience with these various ranges, these muscle building ranges and of course, re emphasize the role of things like strength training and protein, and discuss practical takeaways to set up your own effective bulking strategy. This episode gives you that nuanced approach to lean muscle gains so that you can achieve a muscular and lean physique without the extra fat. That's the whole point of this. So let's jump into today's topic, how to build muscle without getting fat. And I want to start talking about my personal experience with this first so that I can tie it into the evidence. And keeping in mind that everyone's individual experience is going to vary. And in fact, a lot of this data no matter how good it gets, is representative of the population and not necessarily any one individual. So always keep that in mind. But I'm going to start at the extreme right side of the curve, what we call a dreamer bulk or also called the seafood diet, you see the food and you eat it. And this is what I would say I did for my first successful bulk meaning successful that I was able to build a lot of muscle not so successful, and that I also gained a ton of fat in the process. But it was really the first time I was ever doing it that way, the first time I was ever intentionally eating to gain weight in my entire life. This was back in the 2020 timeframe. And I had been introduced to starting strength for example, which famously talks about the Go med diet the gallon of milk a day. And to be fair to them they that's geared toward younger males in their 20s who are quote unquote hard gainers and just need to gain a bunch of weight. Nonetheless, I took those ideas to heart at the time, because I didn't really know what I was doing on the nutrition side. But I was lifting with progressive overload, I was using the compound lifts, I was working out three or four days a week. And I just started eating everything I started drinking milk, putting milk in my protein shakes, we're talking whole milk, eating anything processed otherwise didn't matter. And developing some not so great habits on the food side. But nonetheless, seeing the results on my lifts on my gains and so on. Now, one of the cool things about gaining weight is that in addition to the anabolic effect of gaining weight for building muscle, you will also find an improvement in your leverages for building muscle. And I was reminded of this a couple times this week, once by my client and friend Tony, who is going to be on the show soon actually where he talked about how the levers change after he went through his successful six week cut with us working together and how they started to change as a as he got off of that and started to gain weight again. And I also heard about it on on a it might have been the starting strength podcast, I'm not sure talking about the angle between the muscles and the bone. When they insert based on how much mass you have. We don't have to get into all the science. The point is your levers change and you're able to actually move more weight as you get heavier. So I was getting the benefit of that during my bulk back in 2020. And I was actually gaining quite a bit of strength. I mean, I, I doubled or tripled my big lifts from what they had been before. And so that is one approach. The problem is I gained probably 40 to 50 pounds overall, and it wasn't almost, maybe maybe 10 to 15 pounds of it was muscle, which is awesome, right? Like in your first, you know, six to 12 months as a male to gain that much muscle is what you're going for women, it's going to be potentially a little bit less. And the problem is now sitting sitting with this extra body fat, which expressed itself in my physique, right. So that was that was my experience with a dreamer bulk. So less, do you think that just eating more builds more muscle, it's not true, the amount of muscle you can gain will top off at a certain point. And all that you're gonna gain after that is fat. So that's part of this equation. Now let's go to the other extreme, which is the idea of trying to build muscle while not gaining any fat at all, by maintaining your weight, or maybe being in the tiniest, tiniest surplus, you know of like, of like 50 calories a day or something, which is barely a surplus, your body hardly knows it. And you might gain weight over a long period of time, but it look like you're hardly gaining weight. Some people call this Lean training or main gaining, or I think gain training, I don't know, there's a whole bunch of words for it. And I would say that there are special circumstances like brand new lifters where you can get a ton of benefit and some body composition going on at maintenance. And I highly, highly recommend doing that. If you have a little bit of weight to lose when you start that process, so that you're not, you don't have to face that fear of gaining more weight just to build muscle when you already feel like you're a bit overweight, it's more of a psychological thing. But if you want to build muscle as effectively as you can, and you only stay at maintenance, you're barely giving your body that anabolic environment to build the muscle. And so it's going to take a lot longer. And the idea here is we know we need a calorie surplus to build muscle. But the question is how much is too much? How much is too much. And the typical range that I that I've talked about often and I still stick to and I think is still supported by the newer evidence we're gonna talk about today is around point one to point two 5% of your body weight per week. But we're gonna give it some more nuance, we're going to talk about how the new science or the new research by Dr. Eric Helms, maybe also just supports that or gives us some more ranges to work with, depending on your training age. And you'll come out of this with maybe even more clarity on what might make sense for you as an individual. Okay, so let's talk about the basics first, right, a calorie surplus is definitely needed to grow your muscles for hypertrophy, for strength, all of that. But it has to be finely balanced. We just talked about the range of the point one 2.25%, which for some people might seem actually too slow, right? Like the point 1%. If you're, let's say 200 pounds, what does that come out to be? Point two pounds a week, or less than a pound a month. And I actually had any Morgan on my show a while back. And he was talking about a ballpark of two to three pounds a month. For males, he worked primarily with males who were probably around anywhere from like 160 to 190, kind of the average height average weight, gaining two to three pounds, which is more more in the 1.23% range. Or not, I'm sorry, you have to scratch that more in the point 4% range, a month or a week, point 4% range a week to get that two to three, I'm sorry, I'm throwing all these numbers at you, it's not going to matter, we're gonna come out to very clear recommendations in a moment here. So you can make quick gains by eating in this upper range, but you're also going to gain fat, whereas the Lean gains are not the Lean gains, the lean training might not build enough muscle. And so we want to lean gain, right? We want to be kind of in that sweet spot of lean, gaining maximize your muscle, minimize your fat. So there is a new study that came out. And this is what kind of what I want to get to and what drove me to create this podcast episode and revisit this. A new study came out in August 2023 by Dr. Eric helms at all by the way, Eric was on the show as well and we'd love to have him on again off to reach out. But the study was effective small and large energy surpluses on strength, muscle and skin fold thickness. So just think about just look at the title effect of small and large surpluses. So we're talking either, you know, very, very lean to no gain versus a larger gain on strength, muscle and fat. So skinfold thickness is a way to measure body fat. And there were three diet conditions in the study maintenance, a moderate surplus, which was a 5% calorie surplus, or a large surplus, which was a 15% calorie surplus. And they wanted to see the different impacts of calorie intake on muscle and fat gain. But they were also measuring like, one RM, I think it was back squat strength, we're not gonna get into all the strength results that they found, I think the general consensus is, it didn't make a huge amount of difference, relative to the fat gain difference. And that's really the goal of what I'm trying to get at today. But I'm gonna give you an example of if you were, let's say 180 pounds, we're just gonna take 180 pound person with a 2800 calorie maintenance. So the maintenance calories are 2800 180 pound person, this is actually kind of similar to what I am right now, I probably have a maintenance around 3001 85 right now. So 180 pounds, 20 100 calories maintenance. If you were in the moderate group, you would be in a surplus of 140 calories a day, which would equate to about point two eight pounds gained a week. So if you do the math, that's like a pound a month or a little over a pound a month. So pretty lean, pretty small surplus. If you are in the large group, again, 180 pounds 2800 calorie maintenance, you would be eating 420 calories surplus a day, which equates to point eight, four pounds a week, which is over, which is over three pounds a month. And again, going back to the when I mentioned any more than the two to three pounds a month, you can see we're both under the either way under that at around one, or kind of at that top range or a little bit above it a bit over three. Again, for a 180 pound person in this calorie range, you might weigh more or less and you might burn more or fewer calories, it's gonna be very individual. So the results on the strength gains and body composition showed that the moderate rather than the large surplus, or the maintenance was most effective for strength gains and improved body composition. And I'm going to share a few quotes. The first quote is going to be from the Eric Trexler review of the study recently published in the mass research review. And he said quote, for beginners, a rate of weight gain above point two 5% per week is likely defensible, assuming they're in a hurry and wanting to maximize their rate of muscle gain, okay, above point two 5% per week. Now that's normally the upper range we're talking about. And he's saying you know, if you're a newer trainer, and you really want to just make this happen pretty quickly, which a lot of us you know, we want the results quickly. Or maybe there's a there's a scheduled reason for this or what have you. above point two 5% is defensible. For most experienced trainees a more moderate pace of point one 2.25% per week is probably more appropriate, particularly if they're wanting to avoid a disproportionate degree of fat gain. Again, this is from Eric's quote. For people who are extremely advanced and legitimately close to their personal genetic limit for muscularity, then their rate of weight gain should be quite slow. So he's kind of separated into three groups, beginners, or early intermediates, intermediate or advanced trainees and very advanced trainees, I'm guessing most people listening to this show are in the first or second group, I would consider myself in the second group, a lot of you are in the first probably some of you are in the third group as well, which I love to have you listening to this because it's all applicable. But I'm gearing this toward the general lifestyle lifter person who wants to improve their physique, their body composition, we continue to see evidence that the point one 2.25% is probably kind of an average range. And if you have some advanced training if you have some training under your belt, but point two, five above point two 5% per week, may be a better number to shoot for if you're more on the beginner to early intermediate side. Okay, now switching to the study itself, the home study homes, homes at all, a whole bunch of researchers on the paper. He said, I'm going to share the three key points from the study and then the quote from the conclusions, okay, and I definitely encourage you to go look at the study itself if you want to get all the nuances because there are some limitations here. It was done during COVID. They had some people drop out. There's a whole bunch of limitations that we always have to consider when it comes to these things. But here we go the key points number one, when assigning intended energy surplus sizes of five to 15%, faster rates of body mass gain primarily serve to increase the rate that fat mass accumulates, rather than increasing rates of hypertrophy or strength gain. So that's really important. So the five to 15% range, which was the moderate to the large group. Mainly what he's saying is, the faster you go, the more fat you're gonna gain without any extra strength or muscle gain very important. Key Point number two. It is possible however, that faster rates of body mass gain could enhance hypertrophy to some degree, if a sufficient training stimulus is provided, ah, so this is really interesting, because he's not really distinguishing training age, he's just saying that, in general, maybe you could go faster, but you really have to have a solid training stimulus, very effective programming, sufficient intensity with your lifts sufficient volume for you, where you're actually getting the growth that you intend. Otherwise, it's sort of going to waste isn't it and that's where the extra fat mass comes in your body wants to partition those nutrients for the purpose that you're telling it you need it for. And that's where the muscle building signal comes in.

Philip Pape  15:50

Hey, this is Philip. And I hope you're enjoying this episode of Wits & Weights, I started Wits & Weights to help people who want to build muscle lose fat and actually look like they lift. I've noticed that when people improve their strength and physique, they not only look and feel better, they transform other areas of their life, their health, their mental resilience and their confidence in everything they do. And since you're listening to this podcast, I assume you want the same things the same success, whether you recently started lifting, or you've been at this for a while and want to optimize and reach a new level of success. Either way, my one on one coaching focused on engineering your physique and body composition is for you. If you want expert guidance and want to get results faster, easier, and with fewer frustrations along the way to actually look like you lift, go to wits & weights.com, and click on coaching, or use the link in my show notes to apply today, I'll ask you a few short questions to decide if we're a good fit. If we are, we'll get you started this week. Now back to the show.

Philip Pape  16:53

Key Point number three, while further work is needed if a sufficient training stimulus is provided, the rate of body mass gain that will best support hypertrophy is likely individual rates may be influenced by prior training experience, hereditary factors which influence one's potential maximum rate of muscle gain, and other variables, sleep stress, etc. Now, doesn't that sound familiar? Isn't that what we talk about all the time on this show that there are so many factors that affect your expenditure, your ability to build muscle, your personal results. And it really comes down to figuring out what that is for you by giving you the shot by experimenting. And these this evidence we talk about on the show is simply a starting point, it gets you in the ballpark, knowing that it could go swing in either direction, sometimes, quite severely if you are an outlier. If you are an over under responder, for example, he even mentioned the head of hereditary factors, it's true, some of us just have better genetic dice roll of the dice. And some of us less it's not an excuse, it's just we have to understand what it gives us in terms of these these ranges. Okay. And then finally, in the paper itself, the conclusion state quote, ultimately, we recommend conservative energy surpluses scaled to your training experience of so here the surpluses, they recommend of five to 20% over maintenance energy, or rates of weight gain of point 252 point 5% of body mass per week, scaled to training experience such that more advanced trainees consume smaller surpluses and gain weight more slowly. Okay, so so far, we're hearing a consistent message that if you have more training under your belt, you're simply not going to be able to gain muscle as quickly there's diminishing returns, the more muscle you've already built. And that means you don't want to have as large of a surplus because you're gonna gain more fat than a newer trainee. As far as the ratio of fat to muscle. Okay, what does this mean for your personal muscle building or bulking strategy? It seems that all of this evidence continues to support a gain of around, I'm gonna say point two to point 3% of body mass per week. Okay, I think Trexler mentioned that range in there as well, I think it's a good range, it gets you sort of on the top side of that point, one 2.25, it pushes it kind of on the top side of that pushes you a little past that upper range, and gives you that sweet spot of point, two 2.3% of body mass per week as a generalizable sweet spot for gaining muscle without gaining too much fat. Because again, an aggressive surplus beyond this will lead to quicker or may lead to just slightly quicker muscle gains, but you're going to accumulate fat and at some point, it's just going to be mostly fat, right? So you kind of you want to hang around that and not get too impatient. Knowing that it takes time to build muscle, it's easier to it's way easier timewise to cut fat, psychologically, it's a different story. But timewise it's way easier. So you kind of have to balance the two, you could say, I'm gonna go a little bit more aggressive, because I'm just not sure. And I want to see how my body responds, and I'm gonna train really hard and see what happens. And then I'm willing to take the risk that it's going to take a bit longer to just cut the fat later, and that's fine. That's your choice to do. Or if you know, you're not an over responder, or you've already been training, or let's say you're a woman, and women just tend to build muscle slower than men, you may say, You know what, I really don't want to be in that aggressive bulking phase range, I'm going to stick around a quarter percent, you know, point 3% body mass per week. And I think that's a great number, I really do. I've often recommended to newer male lifters to go around point three 5.4% on the upper end, and I've done that myself with pretty good results. And that's just so I that's for me, so I ensure that I gain as much muscle as I can, knowing that I might gain a lot extra fat. But for others, I would say keep it around point two 5%, you're golden. Again, as a starting point. Now, there is a massive role of strength training alongside your nutrition that we just alluded to, when Dr. Helms mentioned, the training stimulus is the training stimulus. And it's important to this whole thing, it's a very crucial role. All of this that I'm talking about assumes you are lifting properly. And the best way to know this is with information and what information do I like I'll give you I'll give you a few different things. First, your lifts are going up in some way your your volume, but primarily your intensity intensity, meaning the weight on the bar or the dumbbells or what have you are going up so that either weight on the bar and or reps are going up and or sets or a combination of these based on your programming. And you feel like you are getting stronger and you are performing more and it's not totally over fatiguing you and causing recovery issues. Assuming you're including proper D loads and such as needed, you should be able to see this progress pretty consistently. The second thing is I like to take body circumference measurements both during Fat Loss and Muscle Gain. And when you're building muscle, two important measurements are your biceps and your thighs, your bicep and thigh circumference. So also possibly your neck circumference which which may go up during fat loss or during muscle building phase as well. All of these can tell you yes, I'm building muscle. Now you these are going to go up with fat gain as well. And that's where the improvement in your leverages come into play. But you you definitely want to see them going up. You don't want to see them flatlining. And then you also want to see that your waist circumference whether you take a simple kind of belly button waist circumference, or you do the the three, you know, naval inch or two above the Naval Institute below the navel kind of measurement, whatever, whatever you're doing that it is going to slightly increase over time because you're gaining fat but we don't want it to increase too much. That's kind of the the toggle or what am I trying to say that's the the limiter that you want to see, that tells you that you're not really gaining fat too quickly. Okay, you're going to gain it, but not too quickly. Now, I've said it before, you can't rely on any form of body fat measurement for accuracy. But if you use something like the Navy formula, which for men requires neck and waist for women requires neck, waist and hips, okay, not not thighs, hips, like all around to the peak of your, your but basically your hips. The trend of that can tell you how quickly you're packing on body fat. And I've seen this for me in the past when I've done in a more aggressive build where I'm like at point 4% versus a more lean gain at like point one or, or so I will see that the fat gain slows down when I'm going at a slower rate, which is great. It's it's validating what you're doing. So those are the things your lifts are going up your bicep thigh, neck, waist or hip circumference, circumference, and then your weight also are your waist circumference is going up and not by a lot. Okay, so the practical takeaways here. How do you do a muscle building phase? Let's just recap the whole thing based on the data. All right, number one, you have to find your maintenance calories. Now if you've never tracked your food before, if you've never done this before, I'm going to recommend listening to some of my other episodes where we talk about tracking your food, where we talk about what do you do first you build you lose Do you maintain? There's a few in there. I'm going to try to link to them in the show notes. But they're easy to find if you go look at the back history of the show. But you want to find your maintenance calories and know that your maintenance calories are not fixed. They change daily. And in my opinion, the best way to find that out is to use macro factor. That's an app called macro factor all one word downloaded if you're a new user that's never used it before. Use my code Wits & Weights all one word all spelled out Wits & Weights to get an extra week on your free trial. Use it try it out you're going to be really excited about how it works because unlike Like the other apps like My Fitness Pal, and so on, it's not just a logger, it actually feeds you back information that helps you modify your intake each week, because it calculates your metabolism, it calculates your maintenance calories based on your food and your weight. It's, it's really awesome. Okay, so rather than trying to do a bunch of spreadsheets, or definitely don't use a calculator online, because that's not going to be anywhere close to your real maintenance, it can be off by 400 calories in either direction. Use macro factor, find your maintenance, log food for about three weeks, you'll log your weight every day. And you'll have a pretty good number to start from. So do that first, and then you want to set your target and set your rate. Okay, so how do you set your target, the way I like to do it is, I don't like to just pick a number out of the sky, I like to pick a duration, and based on the rate set the target. So I've said this before on the show. And if you haven't heard this before, it takes time to build muscle. And so you want to spend time building muscle for multiple reasons. One reason is because you want to get that win of actually seeing a meaningful change in your physique. And the other is just the sheer time that it takes, okay, versus fat loss. So I would assume six to nine months of building or bulking or improvement, whatever term you want to use six to nine months. So we're gonna assume that you're 180 pounds, right. And let's say you want to build for six months. And it's a good time of year, right? Because it's what almost this episode's coming out almost October. So November, December, January, February, March, April, that takes you all through the holidays and winter. And then you could do a cut or mini cut going into summer. Maybe it's tiny bit later than you would normally want but it's in the ballpark. So assume six months. Now let's go with the rate we talked about before the new sweet spot rate that I mentioned, from all of this evidence, point to 2.3% a week. So if you pick a number in there, it comes out to around a half a pound a week, if you weigh 180 pounds. So I always like round numbers just easier to think about easier to follow, it doesn't have to be down to a decimal half a pound a week. All right, so half a pound a week, for six months, and a few extra weeks beyond that gets you 15 pounds. Again, rounding up. So we're gonna go from 180 to 195 pounds in six months, right. And that's six months, maybe you want to go for nine months, that's fine, too, maybe you want to build for a year. So our target rate is gonna be our target weight is going to be 195 pounds, our target rate of gain is going to be point five pounds a week, which is around a quarter percent or so maybe it's like point two 7%. But again, we're rounding and then what you're going to do is just set your targets for calories based on that. So a half pound a week is going to be about 250 calories a day surplus. Okay, nice round number. And then every week, you're going to adjust that based on what is happening to your body. And again, the best way to know this would be to use something like macro factor, which will tell you hey, your expenditure has gone a little bit up or gone a little bit down this week. Therefore, we're going to adjust the calories up or down to keep you on that rate of gain, because we don't want to go too fast and build and lose fat. But we also don't want to go too slow and start to stall out. Okay, so this is all based on what's happening to your body. Now, as you go through a building phase, if you're going half pound a week, you will overall your metabolism should increase. You know unless your activity level just goes way down. Like if you go from 15,000 steps a day down to 3000. And it kind of offsets the building. You know, if everything else stays the same, your expenditure should be going up. This is like the opposite of not the opposite. It's metabolic adaptation, but in the opposite direction as what happens during fat loss when your body adapts. So you're going to have to eat more and more food over time. Most people don't really complain about this. But if you're you know a bigger person who has to eat a lot of calories, you know, eventually it can become a little bit tedious just like fat loss does, right psychology. So what do we what do we set for our targets? Well, if you're using macro factor, it's going to give you appropriate targets based on the evidence. And but if you're doing this by hand, we're gonna go back to the simple rules of thumb protein, point eight to one gram per pound of your target bodyweight. Well, if your target body weight is 195 pounds, we're gonna shoot for 160 to 195 grams of protein fat, I like to peg it at about 30% of calories. You could go as low as 20%. Either way that 20 to 30% leaves plenty of room for carbs for the rest of your calories. So don't overdo it with protein and not leave enough room for carbs. Don't overdo it with fat like at the Keto range where you're up at 50 60%. I mean you can but it is going to then eat into your carbs and limit your ability to build muscle because carbs are muscle sparing they give you energy to give you recovery. They allow you to lift more and we know from the evidence that a standard higher carb diet or average carb diet is going to be more effective for muscle building than a Keto style diet. And then finally, we have meal timing, just very simple rule of thumb, four to five meals a day to have protein is probably what you're going to need at a higher calorie level to get your surplus in four to five, four to five feedings of protein a day, and then some protein and carbs around your workouts. Okay, this is totally up to you. I know some people like fasted training. I think in general, for most people, you're going to, you're going to progress more and get that bigger stimulus if you are fed when you train. Another reason to do that, going back to what Dr. Tom said about the training stimulus being very important. So some protein some carbs around your workouts before after, you know I've given more specific recommendations in the past, but I'm just generalizing here that you want to be fed for your workouts. Okay, so there you have it, a moderate calorie surplus of point two to point 3% balanced set of macros sufficient protein, sufficient carbs, targeted high stimulus, effective strength training with progressive overload, these are all the keys to unlock muscle gains without gaining excessive fat. And as with any physique engineering strategy, the principles as you can tell are straightforward. They really are, they're pretty simple. And the challenge is going to be in applying them being consistent, putting in the reps, and probably most importantly, making adjustments for you your results and your lifestyle. So if you prefer a faster rate, and you're comfortable with the extra possible fat gain, just in case that you're an over responder, or if you know you are, then give it a shot, like experiment with an N equals one experiment with yourself. Worst case, it will confirm that you gained a little too much fat, because you're measuring all the things right you're measuring your circumference and how you feel and all this and that you all you'd have to do is a slightly longer or more aggressive cut to lean back out. Best case, though, that you're gonna find that this is perhaps your sweet spot. So it lets you find that number more efficiently than just just picking the same number every time from what a podcaster tells you. Okay, in our next episode 109 High Performance Training built on a platform of strength with Andrew Roamio. I'm bringing on my longtime coach Andrew to chat about how to make fitness a core part of your identity, how to balance the demanding roles of family work in life, and how to make strength training work for you at any age. Last thing, I didn't want to forget this if you want to build muscle and are not sure how to start. Or if you want help following the process they laid out in this episode. Just reach out to me I'm a human being I will have a conversation with you not selling anything. Literally just hey, reach out. This is what's going on. Cool. Great to meet you. Based on your question, maybe check this out. Here's a video here's a guy here's an episode or I'll give you a straight up answer on what to do for your situation. To do that, just send an email to Philip at wits. & weights.com Phillip at wits & weights.com

Philip Pape  33:12

My name is Juan L. Just make sure to spell it right Phillip at wits & weights.com And you could also find links to contact me there and other ways in the shownotes. As always, stay strong. And I'll talk to you next time here on the Wits & Weights podcast. Thank you for tuning in to another episode of Wits & Weights if you found value in today's episode, and know someone else who's looking to level up their Wits & Weights, please take a moment to share this episode with them. And make sure to hit the Follow button in your podcast platform right now to catch the next episode. Until then stay strong

Ep 107: The Secrets to Zero-Injury Running While Improving Body Composition with Louise Valentine

I'm excited to welcome back Louise Valentine, my first interview guest who I didn't already know personally, way back in Episode 26, to catch up on her incredible accomplishments and discuss new and exciting strategies and considerations for female endurance athletes, especially women 35 and beyond.  She empowers them by dispelling industry stereotypes and reaching a zero-injury rate.

For background, Louise Valentine is a best-selling author, published researcher, and award-winning sports medicine, exercise science, holistic health, and performance expert. She is the 2023 American College of Sports Medicine Practitioner of the Year. Her website, BreakingThroughWellness.com, helps active women 35 and older manage hormone shifts and improve health, body composition, and running with less stress!

Louise's courses and coaching are for you if you can't stand hormones affecting your health, fitness, or endurance performance.

__________

Click here to apply for coaching!
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Today you’ll learn all about:

[3:19] Earning the ACSM Practitioner of the Year Award
[5:10] Contributions to a new sports medicine textbook
[6:38] Strategies for active women with excess weight and hormonal changes
[8:34] Energy-first approach and aligning running goals with physique goals
[10:15] Strategic calorie reduction
[11:51] Client results
[12:47] Addressing myths in female-specific exercise strategy for women 35+
[17:49] Understanding hormonal changes and taking control of health
[22:29] Science-based training and injury prevention for 35+  female runners
[27:19] Dynamic functional lifting
[30:08] Strategic layout for body composition and performance
[31:25] Gut health struggles and the importance of nourishment
[36:37] The importance of lifting heavy for female endurance athletes
[41:05] The question Louise wished Philip had asked
[41:50] Where to learn more about Louise
[42:50] Outro

Episode resources:

• Free blog articles, videos, mini-courses & a 4-month 1:1 learning experience at BreakingThroughWellness.com

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

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Transcript

Louise Valentine  00:00

A lot of times, you know, we come in with both goals, I want to run my best and I want to lose weight. So we can work in strategic weight loss days, but strength training. I always say strength training is more important than you running. Why? Because running you're going to do it. The strength training is your testosterone, your ability to build muscle and your metabolism. The way you keep weight off is by having muscle your metabolic powerhouse.

Philip Pape  00:27

Welcome to the Wits & Weights podcast. I'm your host Philip pape, and this twice a week podcast is dedicated to helping you achieve physical self mastery by getting stronger, optimizing your nutrition and upgrading your body composition. We'll uncover science backed strategies for movement, metabolism, muscle and mindset with a skeptical eye on the fitness industry so you can look and feel your absolute best. Let's dive right in Wits & Weights community Welcome to another episode of the Wits & Weights Podcast. Today I am super excited to welcome back Louise Valentine, who was my very first interview guests who I didn't already know personally, way back on episode 26 Almost a year ago. So it's an honor to have her join me again to get caught up on her incredible accomplishments in the last year and some new and exciting strategies and considerations for female endurance athletes, in particular women 35 and beyond who love to run, and maybe juggling multiple goals to lose weight lean out while still enjoying their sport, from debunking myths in the industry to achieve any zero injury rate. Louise's here to dispel the misinformation and empower female endurance athletes. If you're ready to challenge everything you thought you knew about women's health and fitness in the context of endurance sports, you'll want to listen all the way through to learn exactly what to do to excel at all your goals without injury as you age. To catch you up on who she is. Louise Valentine is a best selling author, published researcher and award winning expert across the sports medicine, Exercise Science, holistic health and performance fields. She owns breaking through wellness.com, where she empowers active women aged 35 and beyond to mitigate hormone changes and maximize health, body composition and running with less stress. If you can't stand hormones wreaking havoc on your health, fitness or endurance performance, and are ready to understand simple ways to quickly restore energy, improve body composition, and or run your best. Louise's courses and coaching are for you. As the 2023, American College of Sports Medicine Practitioner of the year. Congratulations, Louise is leading the way in helping us simplify and apply the best female age 35 Plus specific strategies to unlock your best with less stress. Luis, it's great to have you back. How are you doing?

Louise Valentine  02:46

Thank you. Yeah, it's awesome. Congratulations on your success throughout the past year or two. It's amazing to see this community of grown amazing listeners interested in the nitty gritty science and feeling their best.

Philip Pape  02:58

For sure. For sure. We were joking before I recorded how when you were on, I was still recording out of a closet on a TV tray. But nonetheless, the passion was there. We had a great conversation. I you know, it kind of went by in a blur for me at the time, because I was so nervous back then. And now you know, we've grown into our respective areas. So it's been about a year since we spoke. And in that time, you've accomplished a lot You've earned this ACM s practitioner of the Year award. Tell us about that. And tell us what you did to earn that honor.

Louise Valentine  03:28

Yeah, it was, you know, I sort of felt like I was taking a leap when I submitted my application, you know, looking at last year's winner, it was the head of the obesity Institute, effective weight management in Greece, I believe. So I was looking at all of these top performers across the world and wondering, you know, do I fit into this, this award position, and, you know, just shared my story as a military spouse, this dynamic career that I've had, as well as my personal story, overcoming osteoporosis, hormone challenges, and really looking across the spectrum of health, fitness, athletic performance, holistic health, and blending these strategies. All throughout my career, whether I was helping pro athletes are now women, just like me feeling stuck with these small changes and wondering, wow, I worked out really hard. I still want to feel my best this vibrant, strong fit self. I don't want to lose this. In fact, I've walked kicking, screaming and running, trying to feel my very best, despite all these hormonal changes. So it's such such a thrill to win.

Philip Pape  04:35

Yeah, and it's it definitely is inspirational. We talked about your story last time, but even the thought of being able to pursue multiple goals and get multiple results at the same time because there is a concept or principle of periodization of, you know, exclusive gold is going after one at a time and how you can't have this at the same time as you have this and we've seen that mold broken in a few areas. For example, power lifters used to always be big You know, fat, guys, right? And now you see that they they're leaner, they can be healthier while still competing. And so in your area, you work with women with hormones with endurance. So another thing that you've been doing is working on a textbook or contributing toward a new textbook based on cutting edge science. It's with other weight loss experts for sports medicine for fitness professionals. Can you share with us any the secrets that you're including that the fitness industry hasn't heard yet? Speaking of breaking the mold?

Louise Valentine  05:29

So you know, this is, you know, again, looking at the act of woman, and we might assume someone who is struggling with excess weight is not active. But what about those women who are active, they're trying their hardest, they're dialing in their nutrition, and they're still not seeing results. So I share in particular a case study of a client that I worked with who was living with excess weight and trying to run ultra marathons and lose the weight at the same time. So what did that look like? If you're a fitness professional, and you're working with someone who's so dedicated to their running, yet, they still want to, you know, protect their metabolism, they want to see body composition changes? How do you do it, and then in particular, those hormonal changes, H 35. And beyond, we've got a heck of a hard time ahead of us. So I share insights into the journey and practical takeaways for professionals so that they can, you know, when when they have these ambitious, active women living with excess weight, let's be effective. And let's strategize so it's specific to their life and provides best results.

Philip Pape  06:36

So let's peel peel that back a little bit specific. What's one thing that everybody assumes is the case, and that you can't have this at this at the same time, with that type of woman, a woman who's very active, has the excess weight, but she's gotten to the point where there's some things conspiring against her whether it's hormones or something else. And she wants to have all the things right. What is one thing that you face on a regular basis you want to dispel here?

Louise Valentine  07:00

So I think it's the excessive calorie reduction that we see. And it's just, you know, diet culture tells us that we need to be low calorie, we log into My Fitness Pal, we see, oh, my gosh, if I'm eating over 1200 calories, I'm, I'm failing. And in this instance, we have to remember and use the lens that you are an active female, my goodness, you are a calorie burning machine. And when you go to low calorie, it is extremely counterproductive. Your body will fight that weight loss, like, like no other. So to your point about periodization. You know, if there's, you know, coming to the understanding, we can try things, but sometimes we might need to off cycle from something like an ultra marathon, can we do a half marathon instead? And maybe focus on some strength building, restoring some metabolic damage, in particular, when you're coming from a very low calorie past?

Philip Pape  07:51

Okay, that's great. I'm glad you said that. Because the listener needs to hear it over and over again, especially directly from women, because I'm not a woman. But I do tell women this all the time, you know, out of compassion that we generally want to eat more, you know, that's like the bane of many of our issues, and men too. But you and I were talking about how even over the last year, some of your, I guess, the audience you're addressing has become more and more clear. And I also on the podcast, if you you know, you were listening over time, you'd realize it's more toward an energy energy first approach of like, increasing that stack, increasing the metabolism, not trying to lose weight. And at the end of the day, when you want the physique or you want the weight loss, it's actually going to come pretty easily, without all the stress without all the negatives. So I love that you're saying that. Is there? What about on the running side specifically, is there are there things that are fighting against each other, when it comes to the energy needs? And the running in the context of say physique? Because you said that is an important goal? People want what? What would you say? Is there anything competing there? Is there a way to make them alive?

Louise Valentine  08:54

Yeah, absolutely. You know, avoiding things like fasted training, we need to have that hormone and the hormone balance and metabolism on fire. So being very strategic, no fasted training, absolutely not no carb restriction. We are looking at protein timing, we're looking at pre intra and post workout fueling, we are not taking calories away from that, going into the sessions field. And in a very strategic way, looking at that person's life, other stress levels of other levels of toxins they're exposed to stress could be environmental, it can be dietary. So there's so many components into protecting the hormones and the metabolism first and foremost, to your point of energy first, because without hormones without energy without a metabolism. You're not building muscle, you're not leaning out, you're not running your best you're gonna be injured, bloated and gaining weight.

Philip Pape  09:51

Absolutely 100% So love it no carb restriction, void facet tree, all the things I'm constantly getting questions about, like, but fasted training works really well really does it? Let's take the whole context and experiment with a little bit more energy here. So because you work with athletes who want to perform well in ultra marathons, endurance, sports, triathlons, and again, the conflicting goal thing, what about where does say fat loss fit in? And again, we're not talking about calorie restriction, per se. But at some point, there's a dedicated, hopefully short duration, as easy as we can make it minimal hunger kind of situation where you still lose the excess body fat if you need to. What does that look like?

Louise Valentine  10:32

Absolutely, it seems very strategic strength training. So looking at working with those hormonal changes, making sure you're lifting heavy enough. Because if you're doing all the lightweights in the world, you're not going to be seeing those body composition changes, ensuring it's very specific to the individual's goals. So it's we're seeing those body physique changes, as well as injury prevention, because you still want to get the strong runner to, but then also just looking at ensuring that all pieces of the puzzle are together, so you have the nutrition day to day, and then the strategic calorie reduction in small doses, so that it doesn't impact hormones, recovery and performance, to say that you would never have a day where you don't feel your best is a lie. We look at all the different strategies though, like even the carbohydrates cycling, the super low calorie, all the different diet trends out there. They're working against us in this particular circumstance. It's actually exacerbating things like our progression towards perimenopause. That was my exact story. I hit early menopause in my 20s. And it was like, What? Are you kidding me? At Illumina runners, they're running their way to perimenopause when they're trying to have all of these competing goals.

Philip Pape  11:49

So when you apply this to a client, what what kind of results have you been most proud of that you've seen? And probably learned from as you put these pieces of the puzzle together?

Louise Valentine  11:59

It's been absolutely amazing, because my academy that I have for the women that it coaches call it that is Breakthrough Academy is literally been built from listening to clients, and what is getting the best results. So I went in with so many assumptions as a professional. And the best takeaways have come from real, real women. So looking at ensuring that they have the nutrition, lifestyle and training strategies, they're just so critical.

Philip Pape  12:31

Yeah, it makes sense. And listening to clients. That's kind of like where I know, you put out a lot of content on social media. And if I were to guess probably almost every single one of those is based on a question you've had to answer for a client, right? Yes. Yeah. That's where it comes from. So what are the what are the hot trending topics right now? Is female specific exercise strategy? Right? And even I get the daily question, you know, but how do I train if I'm a woman over 40? And it's always, you know, it's always a specific age cut off, and that I'm a woman, you know, and I don't mean to be cynical at all, because there are differences between men and women. There's differences with age. But there's a lot of misinformation and confusion out there, right to the point where almost people get a defeatist attitude, when they come in, come in asking this question, and you want to really lift them up and give them the hope that there's plenty that they can actually do to empower themselves. So what are the common myths and mistakes you see in this area? Right? And then how do you educate our listener and the clients and empower them to break through break through, break through the noise and find out what works best for them?

Louise Valentine  13:34

Yeah, I just think it's incredibly overcomplicated. And we've looked at things like the optimization of lab work as an example. So we might see individuals who just come in, they're like, Louise, what, what labs Should I ask my provider for? What should we look into as a testing kit and review all of my labs. And you know, you could spend all the money in the world on a salivary cortisol test? What's it going to tell you? You're stressed, particularly in the morning, we could have pulled you out. If you look at your lab work, it is a point in time it is simply blood work is but a day. So I mean, then you can get expensive and get into Spectracell you can look into the nutritional composition of your cells to see how actually absorbing a lot of money. And we just get in the weeds of this optimization without taking the step back to look at are you doing the simple day to day things that matter most. And when the women that I coach come into my program, they're like, it's so simple. Because you're simple with the things that matter most you're consistent. You drive incredible results. But getting caught up in all the weeds of the science. I'm a scientist telling you don't get in the weeds of the science I did for way too long. I've done all the things I started in the NFL, I was all into the hyperbaric chambers and biotherapy and give me the rep you know anything I'll take this supplement that and No it did nothing except put me in complete hormone damage. And of osteoporosis that hypothyroidism, gut health disturbances, pre cancer, you name it. So I have been the train wreck where a lot of your listeners might feel like they are. But I can stand here as hope and living proof that you don't have to live like that. And at any age, both myself and my clients all the way through each, I think 56, this oldest woman has gone through my academy, reversing bone health, reversing Hormonal Health, and it's simple whole food. It's nothing crazy.

Philip Pape  15:29

It's true, it really comes down to like this really short checklist, you could just, you could just, of course, we know things are simple, not easy. Just give them the sheet and say do all these things. But we know. It's not just that right. I agree that we overcomplicate things to the point where like in the evidence based space, we have to start pulling out scientific papers and citations and all these other things. And you know, I love doing that personally. But the person I'm talking to just just wants to understand what to do. And the way you put it with it kind of being in alignment with your body. I guess you didn't say that explicitly. But that's what I'm getting from it. Where if there's anything that's off anything that's like forcing you in a direction, it doesn't feel right. Calorie restriction, does that right? Energy restriction does that where you just feel like, Can I really live this way? That Something's off? And I think what you're talking about is once you understand those simple things and put them in place, the work where do people get hung up, though? Like if, if everyone on this call or everyone on this podcast, if I said Louise, tell us a 10 things we have to do, and it's perfect. And they're not going to do what why is that? And what? What's the gap

Louise Valentine  16:34

and finding what's specific to their goals, their bodies needs and their lifestyle. So what is so ironic about what you just said is women in my program go through five initial weeks of learning. At the end, you get a checklist, it's called the 535 checklists. But what is so critical to your point is, I used to just do a couple of sessions I used to do, I know because we need to get you to practice this in every single day life. When it doesn't work. You come back to me 20 years in the field, I have got so many strategies we can pull from it is not one size fits all and anyone who tells you that it is that is a line of BS, they are too close minded, you need to find that outside of the box thinker that will help you fit it into your life. So working with froze all the way through and feeling completely burned out in broken chronic disease diagnoses, Olympians, I decided the spectrum we need the same exact thing customized to us or body.

Philip Pape  17:34

Yeah, for sure. What's the what's the classic phrase like their methods are many principles are few or something like the principles or the checklists, but how you get there for each individual is going to change drastically. And some may apply more than than to others. So speaking of women with the hormones, you mentioned that and now we can talk about maybe physiology, there's changes that definitely happen that affect your health, your fitness, your performance, I'm gonna say in the ways that healthcare fitness industries, maybe gaslight in some cases, or they put their hands up and they say, Oh, well, you're just getting older. That's how it is. I've seen that the women in my life and you mentioned the signs of perimenopause, I'm guessing some people put up their heads. I'm just gonna guess that some doctors did that. It kind of pisses me off, even though I'm a guy, right? Because I've seen firsthand how it affects people and it makes them think like, there's no hope. So how can women understand exactly what's happening in their bodies based on this age related process? And then take control over their health?

Louise Valentine  18:35

Absolutely. And that's again, where I think we're just so in the weeds with the science, let's simplify it. What is happening, age 35, for most women, is when hormones start to decrease estrogen, progesterone, and testosterone. So let's make that the underlying theory of women, right? Even an I have seen women even with estrogen dominance, maybe breast cancer, or some other thing or PCOS, but it comes down to this idea that we need to support our hormones, we need to help the hormonal balance of our body. How do we do that? It's something that I refer to as a stress tipping point. There's many factors that go into that. In the past, we used to assume that a woman had, you know, something like low bone density, Hormonal Health disturbances, problems with their period that that was called the female athlete triad. Well, part of the reason why I am a leader in the field now is because we're rethinking that, you know, been compared to the founder of that is leading the way in the field, but it's really rethinking has gut health plan to that. How does your day to day stress management stress meaning exposure to things that you eat in terms of ingredients and influence Hormonal Health and gut health? Looking at day to day stress and how you manage it, and then this is the game changer stress of exercise. So many active women don't realize that To exercise strategies need to change, or your Hormonal Health, you will be essentially draining it and expediting your way to perimenopause. And that's where you go to the provider like I did. And they said, Well, you just hit menopause early. I don't accept that. This is not okay. And with the fact that people think that this is okay, genetically, we might be mildly predisposed. But we also have control over our genes and how they express themselves. So taking that action, finding the providers who are leading the way who do have the strategies from the nutrition, lifestyle and exercise management side, put it all together, your hormonal health can be just fine.

Philip Pape  20:40

Awesome. Yeah. And that's empowering. I like how you mentioned epigenetics in there that we can change our genetics, we can change our it's effectively a way of changing our DNA to simplify it, right. But I think of that in terms of strength training, right? Why is it possible to build a bunch of muscle that you've never had before? And just a few months? Isn't that kind of an adaptation? Well, you can do the same with your hormones right.

21:01

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

Philip Pape  21:47

The stress tipping point, really nice way to put it, because when you mentioned stress a lot of times and you just leave it at that. I don't know if you've seen this. It's kind of this nebulous thing, right? Well, stress, okay, life stress, my work my family. And you're saying it goes far beyond that. It's all the things that place a load of stress on our body, gut health, right, the things you eat, I think that's great. Even alcohol, like I've learned a lot myself lately about the effect of alcohol on hormones, even though we can talk about you know, enjoying in moderation and tracking and all that. What about the stress load it brings you and an exercise of course, with the again, especially you'd see it's in your realm with the endurance because you want to support that, but not let it be a stressor. So actually, I do have a question about that. How? So someone who is doing ultra marathons, which are we're talking 100 Miles generally, right?

22:37

Yeah, I have some of my also run Yeah.

Philip Pape  22:41

I have to put in a lot of miles in their training, I imagine. And then event itself, but not even just not even counting the event, just training wise. How does that How do you prevent that from being more stressor than it needs to be?

Louise Valentine  22:51

Yes, and this is where, you know, this training plan is essential, a science based training plan that works with female physiology. And this is again, where there's not a lot in the field where we're accommodating for Hormonal Health. So again, another reason why you know, winning awards in the industry right now. And leading the way is thinking through less is more. And how do you train for an ultra as a woman in perimenopause in your late 40s without draining your bone health. And the way to phrase it too, is that endurance exercise is hormone draining by nature. The reason why we have a taper week before a race is to restore hormones. So essentially, you are draining your hormones the entire time, you're training as a byproduct of what you want to happen in your physiology and getting those training adaptations. So we need to be really strategic not to do that too much. So we're really rethinking the training plan, we we really rethink it in terms of days per week, adding more rest and recovery. When you go strong, you go strong, you could still pee are women in their 50s are getting faster in my program. I like you were talking about those results. That is something that I'm incredibly proud of. And I'm talking sports medicine, physicians, occupational therapists, physical therapists, and they're like, I just don't want to end up like my patients. Can you help? Like that is powerful. That is powerful to hear you say that? And then look what you're doing now taking charge of your health, like, blows my mind. I'm just so proud of the women that I coach, you could tell,

Philip Pape  24:24

of course, yeah. And then I'm sure they they love being able to have that clarity, the clarity that you can control what happens your body, even if you intentionally put it through a little bit of stress, which you have to train for these endurance events. I like how you put it kind of draining your hormones, and it's a deliberate thing because you're trying to get some other result. But then you're allowing it to recover, which which is kind of like the acute stressor of fat loss phase, right? Or even just the daily acute stressors like when we train lifting weights or whatever we are, we're stressing our body but in the long run, you get a benefit out of it, and then recover. So that's pretty cool. So most of your clients are runners and injuries are concerned And as well for people, you said you had a 0%, injury injury rate for the women 35. And over that's, I think that's impressive. I want you to put it in context of like, what the normal statistics are. And then I think we're where people are getting it wrong. A lot of times where athletes become more injury prone with age, and not using the right strategies for it, like you said, Take control of your health and knowing your physiology. So what kind of injury prevention strategies do you use talk, talk talk about that.

Louise Valentine  25:29

It's both from a nutritional perspective, as well as the strength training. And I would say, actually, to the science based training plan, so again, that less is more training, very strategic, not overloading the body. And then we're looking at running specific strength and conditioning. So we need to think through why runners get injured in the first place, less quad dominant athlete, we are really looking at the posterior chain or the back of their body strengthening. If you have a trainer as a runner, who's telling you to do endless squats, run, you do not need and less squats as a runner, in fact, you're going to just, you know, contribute to that stretched hamstring That's weak. And the quads that are super tight, you're running, when you start, you're running in this hunched over posture, you know, shoulders turned, hips are already turned forward, you're already in a terrible stride and looking at something like patellar, tendonitis, IT band syndrome or back pain, upper back pain. And so the strength and conditioning is incredibly simple, but it is strategic. And I do combine both elements of body composition change, because every runner still wants to look good to say that they don't is we're doing a disservice to runners by saying that they can't change their body composition, personally, as a runner who wants to do that? Yeah, of course, I'm looking at the injury prevention to very strategic, I know you love the deadlift. I do too.

Philip Pape  26:56

Yeah, right, posterior work, I love it. So I want to dig in a little bit on the simple but strategic strength and conditioning, squats, and then backward. So it makes sense to me having a strong core and back for anything, anything in life, honestly, including, like we sit all day, and that's not good for that. And it kind of like in my mind, you know, complements the front side of the body as well and kind of gives you that stable base. But well, what is it about squat? So I've heard people who are kind of late lay people who don't really understand running, say, well, it's you know, it's all about the strength to weight ratio, and you need as much power as possible. So of course, you want to have nice big strong legs, maybe for sprinters, but we're talking about endurance sports, right? Is there a difference there that I just assumed? And then what do you do for that power? That ratio if it is even relevant?

Louise Valentine  27:44

Yeah, I think we're we're getting power is just in functional lifting exercises. So looking at things like kettlebell swings, getting the glutes but here's the thing, when we're looking at recreational runners in particular, a lot of them have never been, first of all rehab, the when we're women, the core. So we've looked at pelvic floor and core health, ensure we're not doing anything to exacerbate you know, the diastasis recti die or the, you know, the separation of the abs that happens in pregnancy, most of the time, that's not really healed in the first place. So that core being strong, starting with basic deadlifts, I'm not talking about anything complicated, no single leg, because again, if your core is unstable, you had a baby, you're kicking your SI joint out of alignment every time you do a single leg deadlift. In this the first thing, I went to physical therapy, and that's the first thing they put me through a single dead

Philip Pape  28:35

like deadly collateral stuff, don't they? Yeah,

Louise Valentine  28:38

and I was just well, okay, so my history would not allow for this to be a great exercise. So, you know, it's like great education and a good relationship with a provider that you can benefit from there. But again, it's we're looking at Dynamic functional lifting to be a strong human, you know, things like bicep curl, and overhead press, let's not separate those, let's just keep them together. Be time efficient against fits into real life too, and not overwhelming. So meeting the person where they're at first and foremost, running specific, and then looking at their injury history to

Philip Pape  29:13

okay, and you mentioned the quad dominant nature of this what so what kind of leg work do you do just just as an example.

Louise Valentine  29:19

So I would look at deadlifting I would look at doing some clam exercises hip ridges, and doing hip or just lift some weights they have a counter pressure so glutes actually fire. What else do we do? We would do? Single leg exercises for core in particular, maybe even some getting the that neuromuscular pattern. So getting the just switch, single leg stance again, but that's not super weighted when we have these core concerns

Philip Pape  29:52

potential. Sure understood. And again, you're touching on the idea that you have to make some trade offs, right. We have to make trade offs depending on our goal. If you want to fit into In sports in there, and body composition and injury prevention, they all have to work and nothing's going to be like extremely dominant. So let's, let's look at that a little bit. So you mentioned body composition. How do you fit that in? Does it kind of is a more of a natural thing where you say, Look, if we get the nutrition dialed in, and we are working out anyway, for our training, you're probably gonna get pretty pretty much the physique you want or is there specific periods where you focus on that?

Louise Valentine  30:25

Yes. So with endurance athlete, or I mean, even a recreational runner, sometimes we say endurance athlete and recreational runners don't thinking that applies to them. But I'm talking about recreational runners. We're looking at a strategic layout of their next couple months. So okay, do we have a race coming up? Let's focus on performance there. Okay, do you have an injury currently, let's focus on rehabilitation. First and foremost, let's go into body composition. A lot of times, you know, we come in with both goals, I want to run my best and I want to lose weight. So we can work in strategic weight loss days, but strength training, I always say strength training is more important than your running. Why? Because running, you're gonna do it. The strength training is your testosterone, your ability to build muscle, your metabolism, the way you keep weight off, is by having muscle, your metabolic powerhouse. So I

Philip Pape  31:21

couldn't agree with you more. So what was I going to say about that? It lost me because I have questions. But I really like to go on off on these tangents. But now I can't remember what I was gonna ask. I'll just continue. You know, you talked you mentioned yet osteoporosis at 33. And I, as you know that your story is kind of why you do this, like your mission. Right? How did you start down this path? When we talk about the things you used to do while you're training fasted? I think you've mentioned like too much caffeine and under fueling gut, health, all that. Tell us more about that.

Louise Valentine  31:56

Yeah, you know, it really clicked for me when I believe it was one of the press releases that came out for American college sports medicine that said the least Valentine can see for the peri menopausal endurance athlete, what's coming for them that they don't even know is coming for them. I've lived through it all. I've reversed it. And some women look at me and they're like, Oh, you're young. And I'm like, but I've lived through the perimenopause, a woman's nightmare. You don't want cancer, you don't want osteoporosis. You don't want to gain weight. You want to look, feel and perform your best. You don't want to injuries. Been there done that all the wrong things, though. Now here on the other side, it's it's nice to have this mission to ensure that women don't end up like me, and then teaching them the simple strategies to prevent it because it's so incredibly simplistic. But we do need to, to your point that gut health, that is honestly one of the root causes of why I ended up with osteoporosis as immunocompromised youth where I had way too many probiotics. I was eating well, I was doing all the things. But if your gut health is not there, it doesn't matter how well you eat, your body will not absorb it. So

Philip Pape  33:07

yeah, you said too many probiotics. So how did you how did you discover that?

Louise Valentine  33:11

Too many? Not probiotics. Antibiotics?

Philip Pape  33:17

No, it makes sense. Okay, I was gonna say it's good right to have. Yeah, yeah. To me antibiotics. Okay. Yeah, I mean, go a little bit more into gut health, like, how much? How much of that do you get into, again, the science of it, even though we know at the end of the day that we're not trying to overwhelm people with science so much is like, what do we do about it? Yes.

Louise Valentine  33:35

And this was one where my diagnosis was one that we don't really study much in the US. So I had to go into like the Chinese Science, and pretty much figure out my own gut health and what was wrong with me and how to restore it. I was told I would have cancer in four years. And instead, I reversed the condition with a nutrition and lifestyle approach. So if your doctor ever tells you something's impossible, just know, do your research first and foremost, but I did. I did not have good gut health my entire life, and it manifested in the oddest of ways. And I do see a lot of women and even some of the men that I coach, having a lot of these gut health struggles, it's these weird symptoms. It's like I tested allergic to the world. I'm allergic to everything. Or I psoriasis, where the seasonal allergies, I had weird nerve pain, I can't lose weight no matter how hard I try. So I do have gut health education and my program, because I'd be remiss if I didn't teach women how to protect their gut health to its health and performance starts in the gut.

Philip Pape  34:39

Yeah, and I think a lot of there's confusion on that topic because it is so new, like you said, there wasn't really even a western medicine reference recently, and it's just starting to make waves. Okay, what about you meant Okay, so you've talked about weight loss a few times and I'm, I'm bringing this up more with guests and the what do you think of the phrase weight loss so I use the phrase Fat Loss more often now, and maybe it's semantics. But what do you think of that given, given the general perception people have of weight loss as an energy restriction and all the other things we talked about?

Louise Valentine  35:11

Yeah. So in terms of weight loss itself, I think that, you know, it's hard because I automatically I think we think of dieting and restriction. And that is where it's nourishing our body, I just wish it was nourishing your body. And I've also seen the language in over, over nourished individual as gaining weight. And I would say, No, that's an undernourished individual because their body does not have the nutrition, if they're eating much of, you know, processed foods as well. So sometimes, though, the language is very interesting, and, you know, even looking at hormonal changes, they can be mitigated, and I don't even think people realize that, it's just like hormonal changes that just happen in our body, they just happen, we can take control of them, and they don't have to happen as fast as they say they,

Philip Pape  36:05

they have to. That's a very good principle you just alluded to, because you can extend that to everything else in our body assume that nothing is fixed. Assume that nothing at all, nothing is fixed, you know, your strength and muscle, your capability to run races and power. Your hormones just assume nothing is epigenetics. You mentioned it before, till the day you die, right? Like just if you're 75, and just getting started, you know, I'm not saying everything applies, if certain things right when you go through menopause or whatnot. But I think that's a good principle. What is the industry missing out on when it comes to female endurance athletes? Like what are other coaches and nutrition experts? not acknowledging or talking about? Or maybe they're perpetuating the commonly held myths, which is a very common thing. What do you say to that?

Louise Valentine  36:54

I would say there's two and one is the strength and conditioning side, to say that runners can do bodyweight exercises and protect themselves from injury 35 and beyond. It's not how our physiology works, we need in particular, to overload the muscles with heavier weights, for lack of estrogen, it's decreasing. It impacts our body's ability to use carbs and protein to build the muscle. So we have to get the nutrition side, right, that we need to lift heavy. And it's amazing when I have women who are these Yogi's, and they're trying so hard to do bar and all of these physical therapy exercises, and they never get anywhere, seeing body composition changes, or preventing injury, because they're not lifting heavy enough, they start simplistically and having enough and their body changes, they're running up hills with ease, their injury free, shoulder pain goes away, hip pain goes play. You know, that's just one of my clients stories. You know, it's like,

Philip Pape  37:52

it's true, it is so true to all those that many people find it counterintuitive, like, oh, I have knee issues. So I don't squat. Well, maybe if you squat, you'll help your knee. You know, we kind of know this. I mean, I've had sort of a hip labrum tear for a couple of years. But when I squat, it feels great. So it's one of the weird things. How when you talk about lifting heavy, because that's always music to my ears. What does that mean? And let's be very specific, if someone's listening, and they're not doing that yet. And they just want to start working out tomorrow. And they want to just randomly go into the gym and try something to kind of get a feel for that. What would you suggest? Yeah, I

Louise Valentine  38:29

would say start with an exercise that you're comfortable with, you have good form. So if you're not with a certified into professional who can help you ensure that your form is correct, start with an exercise you're comfortable with and have good form, lifting heavy enough, in particular female 35. And over is looking at 10 reps or less, in my personal experience, and her science, and some of the women female specific science out there, that's a great place to aim for. What does that mean? It means that by the time you get to that 10th rep, you cannot lift another you maybe you can get one more, but if you can get 1314 15 I call that essentially physical therapy, exercise, you are getting a beautiful range of motion, which is great, but you're not going to build lean muscle or prevent injuries very effectively. Also, I would rather have you pick up a weight and get five great reps than get 15. So let that sink in. And not only that, how much shorter does your workout become? Yes. workout for 15 to 20 minutes, and actually this great changes in my body. It's people It's explosive people's mind, like your life is gonna change for forever. You're you're lifting more efficiently.

Philip Pape  39:42

Oh my gosh, you save time longer rest periods. It's I always call it the lazy persons way to get fit is lifting. Well, it's so funny because I'm doing physical therapy for my shoulder and it's all 15 reps, five second holds and it's like, not that it's torture. I'm glad I'm doing it because I It's a lot isometrics. But I'm like, if I had to do this with weights regularly, I can see why people would give up, you know, like people give up on their gym routines, because they're doing a lot of reps. So what you just said is a good point, if you're only doing six reps, eight reps, 10, whatever, they're really hard, you're gonna get that great feel not necessarily a pump, you don't always chase that you don't always choose soreness, but just like, feel like you put some strong weights around. It's empowering. And it takes us time. So why not?

Louise Valentine  40:25

That feeling that you're strong. Like, you know, that's what we need to feel 35. And over, we need to remember how incredibly strong we are, how incredibly athletic we are, we can do that at any age. And the fact that people tell us that we can't that is the story of burned out bloated and broken. We're, we need to rewrite it.

Philip Pape  40:45

For sure you can be strong in it. I don't care if you're you know, 65 and never lifted weight. Go do it. Louise is talking about with a move that you're comfortable with that you can have good form. And if you're not comfortable, and that's okay, find somebody that can help you get comfortable. A lot of options out there, including Louise. And I do want to ask this question. I don't know if I had this in the list back when we first met, but it's the one I always ask. And that is, is there a question you wish I had asked? And what is your answer?

Louise Valentine  41:12

I think the best question that no one's asking, as Ken and are women endurance athletes, putting the pedal to the metal and exacerbating pre menopausal symptoms, having hit them earlier than it should. And I think if we continue to train, as we have in the past, if we continue to have these hard, high volume training cycles for runners, you will, and I know because that's my story. So now I'm rewriting it. I'm helping other women rewrite it and it doesn't have to be complicated. So if you're looking for that simplistic side ScienceBase cutting edge, that is where my zone of genius is in this world.

Philip Pape  41:54

I love it. So yeah, if you the what worked in the past what people think worked in the past isn't what's going to work. The cutting edge simple strategies that Louise teaches will definitely work in. I totally believe it because it's proof is in the pudding in her actions and accolades. Where can people learn more about you, Louise,

Louise Valentine  42:12

you can find me breaking through wellness.com I've got a blog videos, newsletter tips, free resources, and a great community of women that I do coach as well as other, you know, mini horses and offers so I just encourage women to start getting informed and find the practitioner that resonates with you. Maybe it's not me, maybe it's Dr. Stacey Sims, other leaders in the field. Go get yourself educated, find what works best for you, and then own it. You know, don't let anybody else tell you that. There's only one way there's many ways,

Philip Pape  42:43

many ways own it. And if they're listening to this podcast, they definitely want to get educated. So I put those links in the show notes so the listeners can find you Louise, it's great to have you back on again. I learned a lot as always, and I'm sure the listener did as well and they have some great information to run with. So to run with. Yes. So thank you so much. Thank you for tuning in to another episode of Wits & Weights. If you found value in today's episode, and know someone else who's looking to level up their Wits & Weights, please take a moment to share this episode with them. And make sure to hit the Follow button in your podcast platform right now to catch the next episode. Until then, stay strong.

Ep 106: Eating Out While Staying Lean (Even During Fat Loss)

Today, we are diving into a topic that affects everyone. We all know that sticking to your nutrition goals is not something we do in a lab, it’s a battle fought in our everyday lives. And one thing that will always exist in our lives is eating out. Whether it's a business dinner, a social gathering, or a trip, dining out can feel like an overwhelming potential roadblock in the middle of your otherwise day-to-day routine.

But what if I told you that you don't have to choose between enjoying a meal out and engineering that ideal physique you're working so hard for? You can develop a few helpful skills to master the art and science of eating out without missing a beat.

We're talking planning, tracking, real-time decision-making, and even some tricks you've probably never considered. I am arming you with practical strategies, and you'll wonder how you ever dined out without them. By the end of this episode, you'll have a toolkit that will make eating out enjoyable and aligned with your goals.

So, if you're ready to take control of your dining experiences and fuel your performance, both inside and outside the gym, then tune in to today’s topic.

__________

Click here to apply for coaching!
__________

Today you’ll learn all about:

[3:11] Planning ahead
[4:30] Research the restaurant or menu ahead of time
[7:00] Pre-log your meal
[15:30] Strategies for making decisions in real-time dining scenarios
[18:32] Business dinner
[19:59] Navigating social gatherings
[22:45] Tips for travel
[24:12] Creative hacks
[27:58] Key takeaways
[31:52] Outro

Episode resources:

• Ep 93: Ditch Alcohol for a Physically and Mentally Healthier Life with Karolina Rzadkowolska

• Ep 20: How to Stay On Track with Meals, Fat Loss, and Fitness No Matter Where You Are

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👩‍💻👨‍💻 Click here to schedule a FREE results breakthrough call with Philip

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Take the assessment here!

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Transcript

Philip Pape  00:00

Imagine you walk into any restaurant, you scan the menu, or maybe you did so ahead of time. And you know exactly what you're going to choose to fuel your performance and fuel your physique goals. No longer is it just a reactive, emotional decision. It's a planned part of your personal strategy. And that is the power that you now have your hands. Welcome to the Wits & Weights podcast. I'm your host, Philip pape, and this twice a week podcast is dedicated to helping you achieve physical self mastery by getting stronger, optimizing your nutrition and upgrading your body composition. We'll uncover science backed strategies for movement, metabolism, muscle and mindset with a skeptical eye on the fitness industry, so you can look and feel your absolute best. Let's dive right in. Wits & Weights

Philip Pape  00:49

community Welcome to another solo episode of the Wits & Weights podcast in our last episode 105 Strength, power and vitality for women at any age with Cheryl I love I love. Cheryl and I discussed the art of movement, the challenges faced by women and fitness and actions you can take to enhance vitality and build confidence No matter your age, or where you're starting from, including some self defense strategies. Go check that out episode 105. If you missed it today for episode 106 Eating out while staying lean. Even during fat loss, we're diving into a topic that affects everyone myself included. We all know that sticking to your nutrition goals is not something that we do in a controlled metabolic lab. It's a battle that we fight every day in our lives. And one thing that will always exist in our lives is eating out. Whether it's a business dinner, a social gathering, you're just going out on the weekends, you're just on the road, dining out can feel like an overwhelming potential roadblock in the middle of your otherwise day to day routine. But what if I told you that you don't have to choose between enjoying a meal out and engineering that ideal physique that you're working so hard for? What if I said that you can develop a few helpful skills to master the art and science of eating out without missing a beat, because after all, eating out and living your life is more the norm than the exception. And so if we think that way, and kind of ditch that all or nothing, and have strategies in our back pocket, we can be successful all the time, forever. Now we're talking about planning, tracking, real time decision making, and even a few little tricks I have at the end of the podcast that you want to stick around for that maybe you haven't heard of. I'm arming you with some strategies that are so effective, that you're going to wander out, wonder how you ever dined out without them. And then by the end of this episode, you'll have a toolkit that will make eating out not just enjoyable, but also aligned with your goals. So we can definitely have your cake and eat it too, literally and metaphorically. So if you're ready to take control of your dining experiences and fuel your performance, both inside and outside the gym, let's dive into today's topic, eating out while staying lean, even during fat loss. So we know the importance of this because this is part of our everyday life and living a lifestyle that is aligned with our goals and not thinking in terms of things having to be exactly the same way every day, but rather how do we adapt to the real life situations that come into our lives? So I want to start with planning ahead. In other words, thinking about the fact that these things will occur no matter what kind of like, you know, I don't know, if you celebrate Christmas, it happens every year on December 25, no matter what. And to be surprised that you didn't budget for some gifts, is really on you, because you knew it was coming. So we know that dining out is going to happen unless you live in a cave again. So the role of planning is to avoid these impulsive, emotionally driven choices that tend to be less nutritious or healthy or what have you, less aligned with our goals, right. That's the role of planning. There are also psychological benefits of planning ahead. Some people think the gut reaction to planning is oh, that sounds like work. But it actually reduces your what's called decision fatigue, right, the need to make a decision in the moment actually gives you clarity, and reduces your stress, right? It reduces the stress associated with eating out because now you have a plan at any one time. And you're able to execute on it without really thinking about it. So one way to do this is to research ahead of time, where you're going and what's available. So for a restaurant, this would be using a restaurants website, or their app, you know, to look for nutritional information if it's a chain restaurant that oftentimes by law, or just it's a matter of course of business, they'll have these up on their website. If it's a more local restaurant, oftentimes they won't have that, but they will at least have their menu. So you can go and look on their menu and start to browse ahead of time. Think about the options that you want. things that are associated with your macro targets with your goals with, you know, protein rich food, maybe lower oils and sugars and fats, kind of the hidden fats, but still things that you would definitely enjoy. And very common thing here is just think about what you would eat at home. And now, how would you construct that? And now how would you construct it from a menu in a restaurant. Now, granted, you're going to a restaurant because it's a special occasion. Even if it is a once a week week thing, it's still special, right? And you're probably doing it to enjoy company and go out and have a different environment and so on. And you can still choose foods that are similar to what you would eat at home, even though prepared by someone else, maybe, maybe they're a better cook than you maybe different seasonings and so on. So we're talking things like lean meats and vegetables and things that where you can see the ingredients, and so on. So it's really up to you to do that. But definitely look at it ahead of time, if you can. And then to go along with this, let's say you don't have access to the menu, or you don't have time to look at the menu or whatever. Or you don't even know where you're going, for example, you know, somebody else is taking you there, you can set what's called a you can set for yourself what's called a personal food plan. Okay, this is not a meal plan, not a meal plan where you have, this is what you eat, when and how much. But a food plan is more your guidelines, I hate to say the word rules, because rules always imply rigidity. But these are your own personal rules for yourself. So you still have 100% of the power, and agency. So setting your guidelines for the food choices. When you can't see the menu ahead of time, like we just talked about prioritizing lean protein, and vegetables, or deciding how many drinks you're going to enjoy what type or what types of desserts or appetizers, you can get as broad or specific as you want, you can get as detailed or not as you want whatever works for you. And this could be in your head, this could be on an index card, you know, in your pocket, this could be in your phone in a note app, or reminder what happened. super flexible, okay. The other thing you can do ahead of time, is log your meal ahead of time either as a planning mechanism, or because that's exactly what you're gonna get. And so what I mean is, a planning mechanism could be, you know, generally what kind of restaurant you're going to, and what you want to eat. So you go ahead and you pre log it, you know, maybe Today's Friday, and tomorrow, Saturday, you're gonna go out on Saturday, you go ahead and log it in your app. Now, again, I use macro factor, I highly recommend it. If you're going to use it, I'll include a link in the show notes with my code to get to an extra free week, my code is Wits & Weights. So you go download macro factor from the App Store, and use my code Wits & Weights, and it's a great meal planning tool, because you can log the meal, you can see what the impact is on your macros and calories. And then you can then you have a few choices to make, you can either adjust what you're going to have at the restaurant, because it's just too far off of what you want. Or you can plan the rest of your day ahead of time, or even today or this week leading up to that day, so that the whole week works out the way you want it to. And one way to do this is what we call calorie banking. And that is just earlier in the day, or even earlier in the week, just making sure that you are hitting maybe a little bit more tight, tighter calorie target. So this is especially the case if you're at maintenance or in fat loss, where you're trying not to exceed a certain number of calories each week, because you're trying to induce a certain change in your body mass and your fat mass over time. If let's say your daily calorie goal is 1800, you might say okay, I'm going to aim for about 1600 each day for five days leading up to this special event, and I'm gonna sort of bank 1000 calories for the week. To add to that day, that's perfectly fine, right? It's just shifting calories, you're not doing it in an obsessive way, like down to the ground down to the down to the calories really just being smart and planning ahead, making it all work. Alright, so that's everything, those are things you can do ahead of time. The second thing you can do is tracking. Alright, so we're going to talk about how to track all this stuff, because I get a lot of concerned questions, both from clients, and really anybody listening who says, Well, I'm gonna go on a trip for the weekend, I have no idea if I can track and this and that. And it's understandable that you don't want to take your scale at your party scale or your food scale on a trip, right? We don't want to be seen as weird or that person who's doing that. If you want to do that, if it makes sense to do that. That's your choice, right? But let's say you don't. All right, so we're talking about flexible dieting here, right? The idea of fitting various foods that you enjoy into your macros and calorie goals as well as your other goals like digestion, hunger, how it makes you feel performance training, and so on. Right? It's not just about macros. In fact, I'm gonna talk about that in a future episode where we compare flexible dieting to If It Fits Your Macros, so stay tuned for that. But the idea here is that we want to at least log the meat To the restaurant in some way, that's within about 30%. Accurate, believe it or not, yeah, 30% is sufficient to get useful data when compared to not tracking at all. So that's a nice wide tolerance fact is very consistent with the idea of flexibility. In that even our login has some flexibility built in. So the if you're using macro factor, for example, the way I would do this is first you can search for either the exact item at that restaurant, like if it's a chain restaurant, you can search the chains name, and then the food item, and you'll probably find it you'll find both the like combination dishes, or like named dishes they have in the menu, you might also find their side dishes and kind of construct it together. And that makes it pretty easy. And then you can just log the amount you expect to have. And I always like to add a little bit of buffer or a little bit of extra calories. So what I'll do is let's say you go to Chipotle, and you get a protein bowl log it is like 1.2, or 1.25, just to account for the fact that they're not going to dish it the exact same way each time. And so I want to be conservative, that's during fat loss. Now, if you're trying to gain weight, maybe you just log one, and then be okay with it if it's overestimated, because you're trying to get more calories anyway. So that's one way. Another way is if you go into a restaurant where it's not in the database, you can still search for similar foods. So if it's going to be a sirloin steak, just look for sirloin steak. Now here, I like to add extra fat in the form of usually just a butter or extra virgin olive oil doesn't really matter. But just throw in a few extra tablespoons in there probably, you know, an extra 100 to 200 calories worth of fat just in case, they're dumping that stuff in there. And, of course, when you get your food, I mean, I've had dishes where it was like, obvious that the oil is just oozing out of every, every inch of the dish. And I definitely padded that fat number when I logged it. So just be aware of those things. Which is also why I like to choose things that don't have a lot of hidden ingredients, things that you can just see, you know, steamed vegetables and, and dry rubbed meats and things like that. And the other thing is you could do is if the restaurant has nutritional info, but the input, the actual dish isn't in the database, you can do a custom food based on that info, or based on the whole meal or whatever, right, like some restaurants will have, let's say a steak dish, and then all the possible sides. And I'll give you all the macros and calories in a big chart, you could just quickly log that as a quick add or as a custom food in your database. So I'm making it sound a little complicated, but it really isn't, once you do it, really it's no different than logging it at home. And the idea here is you're not going to be weighing in on a food scale. If you can weigh in on a food scale, and you're that's part of what you're doing. Of course, it gives you a little more accuracy. But I'm not suggesting to do that when you go out. And then the other thing is eyeballing your portions. So when you log it, if it isn't a standard, like the protein bullet Chipotle, where it's a protein bowl, and it just has everything in there. If you're if you're, if you're logging separate ingredients of the dish, you can

Philip Pape  13:11

Oh, first of all overestimate a little bit, but I like to log everything in grams. From the day I start tracking, and I ask my clients to do this too early on, I say, look, try, try to log everything in grams, food, beverages, whatever. Meat, you know, don't definitely don't use tablespoons and cups, because those are definitely not accurate. But even pounds and ounces, I would, instead of that use grams, so that you're thinking in grams all the time. And it's a normalized unit of measurement. So when you see on a plate, I've got some steak and potatoes and asparagus, okay, that's like 150 grams of that 100 grams of that 125 grams that you know, again, within 30% is fine. And that's what you can estimate it in your head. Now, when you track it, it could be it could be right then in there, but most people don't want to whip out their phone in front of company, you know, that's rude, and track in front of them. So you can quickly take a photo of it, which takes like two seconds. And then later on, you can log it or just look at it and just know what you got and remember it and do it later on. Get we're trying to get within 30% for my clients, sometimes we play a guessing game where they'll take a picture, they'll send it to me later along with their guests for how they logged it with calories macros, and then I independently will guess and we'll see see where they meet because this kind of trains you to get used to what something looks like. Hey, this is Philip and I hope you're enjoying this episode of Wits & Weights, I started Wits & Weights to help people who want to build muscle lose fat and actually look like they lift. I've noticed that when people improve their strength and physique, they not only look and feel better, they transform other areas of their life, their health, their mental resilience and their confidence in everything they do. And since you're listening to this podcast, I assume you want the same things the same success, whether you recently started lifting, or you've been at this for a while and want to optimize and reach a new level of success, either way more one on one coaching focused on engineering your physique and body composition is for you. If you want expert guidance and want to get results faster, easier, and with fewer frustrations along the way to actually look like you lift, go to wits & weights.com and click on coaching, or use the link in my show notes to apply today, I'll ask you a few short questions to decide if we're a good fit. If we are, we'll get you started this week. Now back to the show.

Philip Pape  15:30

So we talked about planning ahead, we talked about tracking. Now what about if you did have to make decisions in real time, let's say you didn't, you couldn't plan ahead for whatever reason, or you didn't plan ahead, and you want to make decisions in real time. Remember, we are trying to reduce decision fatigue by planning ahead. But planning ahead also includes having guidelines and kind of knowing what you're going to pick no matter where you're at. That also reduces decision fatigue. So one thing to do is get used to the way things are described in menus. So looking at certain key words like creamy fried glaze, right, you can kind of tell, based on standard key words, it's going to have a lot of extra fat and sugar in there. Now, again, your choice to have those things. Absolutely. And if that's what you want, and you're gonna go enjoy it. Again, flexible dieting totally gives you that option. And it's just making sure that you track it that way. But if you're looking to get more food and a lower calorie density, for what's on your plate, you definitely could avoid some of those things and get more food and not over exceed your calories, for example. And so that's where you would look for grilled, steamed, baked, right? It's pretty straightforward. But it's good to just be reminded of that, because our eyes can get bigger than our stomachs when we're hungry. And we were like, Oh, look at this, the fried seafood dish. I mean, I love it as much as the next person, person, you know, the fried everything. But it really does add up. So you just want to make sure it fits with your goals. The other thing is tell the waiter the server what you want, right, you can ask for sauces and dressings on the side, you can substitute sides, right, I know the fries are great with a steak, but maybe you want some other vegetable rice and grilled zucchini or whatever they have available. Or maybe mashed potatoes instead of French fries, you know, to get more food for the calories, or a side salad for example, right, it's up to you, you're the you're the you're the customer. And then eating mindfully is another way to kind of stretch your calorie budget when you're eating because you will potentially have leftovers that way, or you'll at least feel full before you get to dessert, for example, things like that. So in the moment, that also helps with the later on decision making during the meal. So you kind of think about the whole thing from appetizers and drinks, to the main meal to the desserts, and just kind of your strategy for how you're going to navigate through it. But also enjoy yourself at the same time. And now if we look at the next section I want to talk about is different scenarios, I'm just going to cover three big ones, I'm sure you can come up with some on your own. If there's a specific scenario I didn't cover and you're still unsure of what to do, definitely always reach out to me here or in our Facebook, Facebook community, you know, Wits, & Weights free Facebook community, and just post your question like, Hey, I'm going to go be doing this. You didn't really cover the details on that in the podcast, what should I do? So the first category is going to be business dinners. Very common a lot of my clients, the very busy demanding lifestyles, you know, they work they may be travel and so on. So a business dinner. And of course, you could extrapolate this to really any dinner out you know, even if it's with your family or for a party. And here's where you don't want to be whipping out your phone to log a bunch of stuff right and appear rude, you could do the quick photo or just log it later. And then alcohol I think it's important here to consider your alcohol strategy where you can either opt for lower calorie options like some hard liquors, but a little bit of it like like vodka or red wine or light beer, you know, something like that, or just decide that you're gonna have alcohol free or a diet soda or something. Now of course always make sure to log it but um, I know when I when I'm at like a business dinner you know, I'm gonna be careful with alcohol because I want to have my faculties fully there together, you know, maybe with your friends or family, it's less of a concern. Now I've been talking a lot lately lately to get off on a tangent about going alcohol free personally because I had surgery about nine weeks ago and I initially couldn't have alcohol because of that. And then I talked to an alcohol expert on I think was episode 93 of the show. Karolina of Jessica Polska and kind of decided to drink alcohol free beer. And I've been doing that ever since and loving it. You know? So think about options like that. Another category is going to be just any social gathering like a party. Right. And one of the things I like to do here is social gatherings tend to have formats that are different than just a regular dinner, you tend to have either like a buffet or a bunch of snacks, right, or a bunch of courses just coming out one after the other. There's alcohol flowing, there's a lot of chatting, and maybe dancing and all sorts of things going on, you're just like, caught up in all the revelry, which is great, right? That's what life's all about. But it's definitely easy to kind of eat a lot more than you expected. And a lot of things that aren't exactly what fit your goals for your macros and other things. So one, one nice thing I like to do is to pre pre eat or preload protein earlier in the day, for a couple reasons. One, it can curb hunger, you know, if you have protein. And then two, these gatherings are often full of foods that have very little to no protein, protein yet tends to be expensive, right and harder to prepare for some of these things is much easier for them to make, you know fried dishes, appetizers, hors d'oeuvres, those kinds of things, you know, yeah, you might might see a cheese and meat plate there or something like that. But you're generally not going to have like big, big things of like steak and chicken and pork, you might I mean, that's awesome if you do, but just assume you're not and preload with protein earlier in the day. And so what you can do is for breakfast and lunch, for example, have a decent amount of your protein for the day in those meals, along with some vegetables to fill you up. But to keep the calories low. The other strategy at these gatherings if it's like a buffet style, or, you know, just just tables of stuff is Apply to apply the art of planning or the art and science of planning in the moment. Meaning, rather than just jumping right in, take your time, scan everything, right, just look at everything, don't get overwhelmed, just start from the left to right, go and look at everything available. And then take your food guidelines that you developed earlier. And go ahead and fill your plate with the things that are important to you. And I mean fill it because I don't want you to leave room for other things and say, wow, I've got room on my plate. So I might as well go get get the brownie over here. And you know, the cookies over here and so on, scan everything, and then fill like half your plate with vegetables, right? Maybe a quarter with protein, and then the rest was in the other quarter with carbs, something like that. Right and or you can start with a protein, again, protein, vegetables, and a little bit of carbs and do that and really fill it up with the things that you enjoy. I'd rather you have like a decent amount of those things to fill you up that also serve your goals, and then you're not so hungry for the other stuff, but you still eat a decent amount. Okay, so that those are some basic strategies for social gatherings. And in travel, I mean, I did a whole episode on travel quite a while back, it's 20 something I think long time ago about how to handle that. The very basics I'm going to touch on here is packing things to go packing things for your trip, like your protein powder, protein bars, meat sticks, or jerky, your shake bottle like just to get have an easy protein option. If there's just nothing there, right, you could always just have have a whey protein, shake a scoop or two and top off your protein and get like 3040 grams of protein, right? They're very easy. organ meat sticks. I like the first form, meat sticks. And they're the protein bars as well make sure it's the kind of protein bars that won't melt, right, because some of them have like a chocolate coating. And those can get all nasty and sticky. If it's hot, or even in the plane, you never know if you're flying, but the temperature changes. So pick something that's more hearty than that. And then you can. The other thing I like is if you're staying at a hotel, if there's one or two meals a day that you can make somewhat of a just routine, kind of like you're at home or you can just cook them yourself. That's a nice way to blunt the effects of the other part of the day, which is probably going out or doing these big parties or what have you. So there's a lot more tips I have if in the last episode on this again, I don't have the number off the top my head and I want to continue getting through to today's episode. But if I can remember to do that, I will put that in the show notes for you. Alright, the last thing are just a few little creative hacks that come to mind. I'm sure you can come up with more. But I'm gonna give you three today just to keep it simple. The first one is called the half plate trick. And all this is is when you first order your food at the restaurant immediately asked for a TO GO Box. You might You might have heard this technique before but as for TO GO Box and pack half the food in the toolbox. So I don't know let's say you're going to Olive Garden. You know, you've been convinced to go to Olive Garden and pretty much everything they have. There's pasta dishes now. I'm sure there's some leaner, leaner options you can get if you want but hey, I like chicken alfredo as much as the next person and maybe that's what I'm going to order knowing that it's probably, you know, a 2000 Calorie dish probably I don't know all that fatty Korean Even while the pasta, but it's delicious. So I'm going to ask for a box, I'm going to throw half of it in the box. And now my plate is still got a decent amount of, you know food mass in there. And I'm going to act like hey, I'm just eating the whole thing today, I'm just going for it and I'm eating the whole thing. But really, it's only half of what you ordered, right? You could do that with the bread, even, you could just put like, if you were going to have a second bread stick, put that bread stick in the TO GO Box and so on. That's one trick. The second trick is just a lottery trick, right drinking a full glass of water before your meal arrives. Very simple thing. But we get caught up in our conversations. And sometimes your glass just sits there all the whole time, right and it's like, pretty much full, go ahead and gulp down that water right away. So that it fills up your stomach a little bit reduces the satiety signal, or increase the satiety signal. And maybe you will not feel like just devouring everything that's put in front of you or going for the appetizers and so on. And then the third trick is just the mindfulness trick of putting your fork down between bites. And I like this trick because it doesn't require all the hate to say like whoo, mindfulness stuff that we all struggle with. And I personally, like have tried all the mindfulness things of, you know, listening to my food as I chew it, turning everything off this. But look, you're out at a restaurant with other people and you're talking, you're distracted. So you can't do that. But guess what, you can just put the fork down after a bite, and then pick it back up. Just like when you cut meat, instead of cutting with the right and then putting it in your mouth and your left. Do it like what do they call it American style, where I think that's what it's called, where you cut it, put the fork, put the knife down on the plate, swap forks, the fork to the other hand, and then eat, it just adds a little more time and causes you more mindfully what does this do, it allows you time to digest to enjoy and stretch the food out. And then your body sort of catches up, despite all the distracting things going on, and conversations and fun that you're having. So that perhaps you aren't tempted, let's say to eat way more than you otherwise planned. Alright, so those are the the key strategies, I'm sure there are many more. I know. In fact, there are many more that I've shared with clients over the, you know, the time that I've been coaching, but I wanted to give you some basic hard hitters that are really easy to implement, that can have a big impact on your success when you eat out. And I definitely encourage you to take one or two of these and apply it to your next experience. You know, you don't have to do the whole thing. Just go back look at the timestamps jumped to the thing that you want to re review or review and apply it in your real life. You know, this weekend, for example, this episode comes out on a Tuesday. So you've got a few days to plan, you could do the calorie banking. Or you can look at the menu, right? There's all these strategies. So we're talking about planning, being flexible, reducing decision fatigue, using tricks to kind of trick your mind into being more mindful when you're eating. And we talked about different scenarios. And the key takeaways are preparation, personalizing it to you and being mindful. So now imagine you walk into any restaurant, you scan the menu, or maybe you did so ahead of time. And you know exactly what you're going to choose to fuel your performance and fuel your physique goals. No longer is it just a reactive emotional decision. It's a planned part of your personal strategy. And that is the power that you now have in your hands. And I can't wait to hear how you implement them. So I want you to go out there dine smartly, and share your experiences by reaching out to me again, you can reach me and a whole bunch of places Instagram at Wits & Weights is one another is in the Wits, & Weights, Facebook community, all these links are always in my show notes whenever you need to find them. And again, these are the kinds of strategies I help clients with every day. Now they're going to be much more highly tailored for the individual. If if a client has a specific thing that is tripping them up, I'm going to attack that with them. We're going to creatively come up with a solution but the principles are the same. Planning ahead making it work for

Philip Pape  29:03

you be mindful. So the last thing I want to mention, this is I don't think I've mentioned this on the podcast. But if I haven't, I'm I remiss on, you're missing out. And I'm remiss on not having done it. But every week, I send at least three emails a week, sometimes four or five, to my email list with these kinds of strategies. And they're things that you may not find on the podcast, right? They're things that come to my mind sometimes that that morning, and I have an epiphany or something that I recently have to client with. It's very specific, and he's gonna be helpful, or just gently reminding you of the general principles of progressive overload, flexible dieting, intuitive eating, you know, talking about forms of training, all these things that you're not going to necessarily find on the podcast. And if you want those, it's easy to get on my list. You just go to wits. & weights.com/email, that's it. wits & weights.com/email Or, again, you can click the link in the show notes that says Get Phillips emails here. Okay, so again, you can go to wits & weights.com/email, or click the link in the show notes that says Get Phillips emails here. And in our next episode 107 The secrets of zero injury running while optimizing body composition with Louise Valentine. So Louise is going to return to the show, she was one of my earliest interview guests. She was in fact, the first interview guests that I didn't know prior to her coming on my show. And she's going to share some exciting strategies and considerations for female endurance athletes. So I usually don't work with endurance athletes myself, and I'm happy to have you guys learn about what Louise can do for endurance athletes who also care about body composition, who want to be competitive, right, who want endurance to be kind of their primary mode of training. You know, again, here on this show, our primary mode of training is usually strength training, resistance training. And Louise talks to women, particularly women 35 And over who love to run, and maybe juggling multiple goals to lose weight and lean out while still enjoying their sport. So if you're interested in both running and achieving your physique goals, check out our next episode 107. To get notified of those new episodes, and help others find the show. Just follow or subscribe in your favorite podcast app. Do it right now I want you to pause and make sure you've clicked the little toggle to follow or subscribe whatever it says in your app right now, because otherwise you you just will miss out on the next episode. And this is what also one of the best ways you can support the show, because the more people that are subscribers or followers, the higher it gets ranked so people can find it. And again, you will have to manually download individual episodes. So just click follow or subscribe in your app please. That's very helpful. As always, stay strong. And I'll talk to you next time here on the Wits & Weights podcast. Thank you for tuning in to another episode of Wits & Weights. If you found value in today's episode, and know someone else who's looking to level up their Wits & Weights, please take a moment to share this episode with them. And make sure to hit the Follow button in your podcast platform right now to catch the next episode. Until then, stay strong

Ep 105: Strength, Power, and Vitality for Women at Any Age with Cheryl Ilov

Today, I am speaking with Cheryl Ilov, a dynamic force who challenges the misconceptions of aging, fitness, and the power of the female spirit. She is a physical therapist, martial artist, dancer, and author.  With over 20 years of experience in private practice, she has helped thousands of clients recover from pain and injuries by integrating the science of physical therapy with the art of movement.

Cheryl is also a second-degree black belt in an ancient Japanese martial art called Ninpo Tai Jutsu, which she began training at 47. She is the author of two books: “Forever Fit and Flexible: Feeling Fabulous at Fifty and Beyond,” and “The Reluctant Ninja: How A Middle-Aged Princess Became A Warrior Queen.” She hosts The FemiNinja Project podcast, which is about overcoming obstacles, personal empowerment, restoring human dignity, and alternative health and healing.

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Click here to apply for coaching!
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Today you’ll learn all about:

[2:40] Cheryl's passion for self-mastery
[7:15] Misconceptions about aging, fitness, and being a woman
[10:43] Definition and significance of the somatic movement
[13:27] Your perspective on vitality
[17:14] Top 3 recommendations for enhancing vitality
[22:44] Starting martial arts training at 47
[29:05] Your unique challenges as the only woman in your martial arts class
[35:09] Breaking gender barriers in martial arts
[41:39] Comparison of Ninpo Tai Jutsu with other martial arts forms
[44:30] Overcoming intimidation for women in martial arts
[49:45] Practical application of martial arts in real-life threats
[54:37] Safety and empowerment techniques for women
[59:59] One question Cheryl wished Philip had asked
[1:01:01] Where to learn more about Cheryl
[1:02:37] Outro

Episode resources:

• Website: cherylilov.com

• LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/cherylilovvitalityconsultant 

• Podcast: The FemiNinja Podcast 

• Books: Forever Fit and Flexible: Feeling Fabulous at Fifty and Beyond and The Reluctant Ninja: How A Middle-Aged Princess Became A Warrior Queen

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Transcript

Cheryl Ilov  00:00

We talk a lot about training our spirit. So it's not just training, you know this even with what you do in the fitness industry, it's not just physical. You know, you're actually strengthening and growing your entire being. And especially as a martial artist that's really really important to us and I could feel my spirit starting to rise, I could feel my spirit getting stronger.

Philip Pape  00:25

Welcome to the Wits & Weights podcast. I'm your host, Philip pape, and this twice a week podcast is dedicated to helping you achieve physical self mastery by getting stronger. Optimizing your nutrition and upgrading your body composition will uncover science backed strategies for movement, metabolism, muscle and mindset with a skeptical eye on the fitness industry so you can look and feel your absolute best. Let's dive right in. Wits & Weights community Welcome to another episode of the Wits & Weights Podcast. Today I'm speaking with Cheryl I love a dynamic force who challenges the misconceptions of aging fitness and the power of the female spirit from her starting martial arts at 47. eventually becoming a black belt to her unique perspective on somatic movement and its integral role in vitality. Cheryl integrates the worlds of dance martial arts and physical therapy, we will explore the art of movement, the challenges faced by women in fitness and actions you can take to enhance vitality and build confidence No matter your age, or where you're starting from. Cheryl is an author, speaker, physical therapist, martial artists dancer and former chronic pain patient. With over 20 years experience as a physical therapist in private practice. She has helped 1000s of clients recover from pain and injuries by integrating the science of physical therapy with the art of movement. Cheryl firmly believes that our body has an incredible capacity to heal itself, and that everyone can enjoy vibrant health and vitality at every stage of life. She's also a second degree black belt in an ancient Japanese art called Ninpo Tai Jutsu. From her own experience of beginning training at the tender age of 47 and becoming her teacher's first female Black Belt. 10 years later, she discovered that there's an incredible amount of strength and power in each and every one of us just waiting to be unleashed. Cheryl is the author of two books, one titled forever fit and flexible, feeling fabulous at 50 and beyond. And the reluctant ninja how a middle aged Princess became a warrior queen. She's also the host of the feminine Joy project podcast, which is about overcoming obstacles, personal empowerment, restoring human dignity, and alternative health and healing healing. Cheryl, it is so good to finally meet you and have you on the show.

Cheryl Ilov  02:37

I thank you, Philip, it is an honor to be here. I really appreciate it.

Philip Pape  02:41

So you've got quite the background. We were talking about that before we started. And we're going to dive into some of that it. This is a time when people are always seeking shortcuts, right? This is a time when people get complacent as they age, this is what I see at least. And here you are you dive into martial arts at the age of 47. You're a dancer, physical therapist, you talk about unleashing strength and power. One term that I've often used on this show is is self mastery, specifically physical self mastery, but even in general, and it's something that I really admire about you and your story. So what is the driving force behind your passion for this mastery?

Cheryl Ilov  03:17

Oh, wow, what a great question. Honestly, Phillip, I think what it is, is my incomparable stubbornness, and my resilience or not my resilience, but my resistance to accepting the status quo. You know, as we mature, some people might call it age, but I say we mature. As we mature, we start to hear things like well, you're never going to be able to do this again. Or you have to be careful. You know, I just spoke with a retired orthopedic surgeon yesterday for my podcast, and talking about, you know, like bone density, bone loss and the fear that comes along with aging, because we're told that all of these horrible things are going to happen to us. And it's not necessarily true. Because what we believe is what we become. And if we hear that those labels when you're getting older, you're getting frail, you're you're gonna lose bone density, you won't be able to do these things. Eventually, we believe that and what we believe is what we become. So I think it's really important for us, as we get older to flip the script and kind of look at what do we want our life to be like, over the next 510 years, you know, project ourselves see ourselves as in our 60s 70s 80s. And that, to me really kind of lights a fire underneath me, especially because I've been told so many times about the things that I wouldn't be able to do. I was a chronic pain patient when I was in my mid 30s. I went through another really difficult time when I was in my 40s and both times I had people almost I felt like they were patting me on the head and saying Don't you worry it's going to be okay and we are going to take care of you. And that was just what I needed to hear here because I don't want anybody taking care of me. And I don't want anybody telling me what I can and cannot do.

Philip Pape  05:07

That stubborn streak is relatable to me at the very at the very least, it's funny, my wife and I both have that sometimes they say opposites, opposites attract, but we're actually very similar. So it kind of butt heads in that way. But it's always fun. Because you're right. It's like why, why do we need to accept where we are? Why can't we do what is physically possible, mentally possible. And many of us, we don't discover that, until we have some of that wisdom of as you said, maturity age, whatever it is, that we may have been afraid in our 20s, or people been telling us things for years. And at some point, you just listened to it because you don't know any better, perhaps. And then the wisdom starts to reveal itself as you try things right. And as you take that action, so I love that idea of just doing it and saying forget what these people say. The other thing is Cheryl, right. Outliers tend to be the ones that that make progress. I don't know about you. Have you found that that just, you know, the status quo is where the complacency lies, and that outliers are the ones that are kind of changing the world.

Cheryl Ilov  06:07

Absolutely, and the ability to go out of your comfort zone. And there's a reason why we don't like to go out of our comfort zone, because it's pretty uncomfortable. So we do like what's known. And we do like to kind of stay in the status quo. But I think along with the incomparable stubbornness comes that once and the wisdom as we get older, it's, it's the adversity, you know, we all have a lot of issues and obstacles in our life and challenges, and how we deal with those adversities. And come out through it on the other end, is basically how we are setting ourselves up for the rest of our lives. Yeah,

Philip Pape  06:47

for sure. And part of that adversity, for many of us comes in the physical world, right with when it comes to fitness and health. And I always argue that health is the most important thing you have, because it enables everything else in your life, no matter how important all those other things are. So we focus on getting stronger. We talked about movement, nutrition mindset on this podcast, and then cultivating that agency to constantly improve to bust through the status quo. So I want to set some context here in your journey to feeling fabulous at 50. Right? What are the most commonly spouted misconceptions you that you alluded to that do hold people back about aging and fitness? And feel free to add being a woman to the mix?

Cheryl Ilov  07:30

Okay, well, you know, I think being a woman is not that much different, I guess, then, you know, men go through the same experiences as well, just maybe in a different way, but that we are being told that, you know, the experts, the from media, from the health experts, of what to expect, when we're aging, and again, using air quotes, that of course, we're going to be losing our bone density. So we have to be really careful, you know, it's natural to start losing your balance, you know, you're going to need these medications. You know, all of these things that we have to do, it's almost like it's a prescribed course of action that is inevitable,

Philip Pape  08:10

inevitable. Yes.

Cheryl Ilov  08:12

That's not true. And as you said, in my introduction, I am a former chronic pain patient. And that happened when I was in my mid 30s. And I was a chronic pain patient for two and a half years. And I was a medical professional. At that point. I was not a physical therapist, I was a respiratory therapist. So I was doing everything that I was supposed to do, according to the western medicine model. You know, I went to all the PT appointments, I took the medications I did the stupid exercises and stretches that the PTS gave me, went to all the doctors appointment, my life was just a mess. It was horrible. And you know, I'm sure I was depressed back then I couldn't even identify it. I was in too much physical pain. But after two and a half years, I finally realized, Hey, I'm not only not getting better, I'm getting worse. And this regimen that I was following, I think was keeping me in that pain spasm cycle that I couldn't get out of. So it wasn't until one of my doctors told me that I would never be able to do my laundry in my grocery shopping all in the same day. Because the arthritis in my spine was so severe, I would end up being bedridden that it was just like whoa, wait a minute, you don't understand I'm planning on going back to ballet class. And she actually laughed in my face and said wait a minute, you don't understand you are a chronic pain patient you will always be a chronic pain patient. You will never have the life you wanted or the life you had before. Even if you couldn't go back to ballet. You can't do that. You're way too old. And she knew that one of my goals was to go to physical therapy school, get my master's degree and she says you can forget about PT school because you are way too damaged. You are way too broken. And even if you could do the work, which you can't, you are way too old. I was 36

Philip Pape  09:57

that that is unbelievable. And you mentioned and all of those things like bone balance, no bone density and balance and medications being inevitable. And it's almost like the cause and effect are flipped, right? Like, these things get that way, probably because we're not doing the things that we should be doing and could be doing. And now we want to do those things. And the medical establishment is kind of stuck in there, what I call sick, sick care mode, rather than healthcare mode. So that so that that's fascinating. And being a physical therapist, I'm going through left shoulder therapy as well. And you kind of see those messages, even in that industry where don't do too much like don't take it too fast, you know, take it easy. And here I am wanting to train and get stronger. And you got to have the right to the right mix. So let's segue into the somatic movement, because I want to understand more about that. I think about it in your book, which is up behind you, forever flexible. My personal association with that is like the mind body connection, at least in the context of strength training, but maybe that's a narrow slice of what you mean. So what is somatic movement? And why is it important? Well,

Cheryl Ilov  11:04

absolutely, it is the mind body connection, and the somatic movement, it's like taking that mind body connection and really fine tuning it and taking it to a much deeper level. As well as being a physical therapist. I'm also something called a Feldenkrais practitioner. And it's a it's a four year training program. And it is basically a very highly sophisticated form of neuromuscular reeducation, based on the scientific principles of neuroplasticity, that our brain and our nervous system and our bodies, our mindset can change, all during the course of our lifetime, that we are incredibly malleable beings, starting with our nervous system in our brain. And the funny thing is, Phillip, you're gonna love this when I was in physical therapy school, we were taught and that wasn't really that long ago, I graduated in 96. We're taught in all of our neurology classes that this incredible miracle of nature's want to call it this neuroplasticity disappears at the age of 14 that has that point. You know, we're so hard wired that we can't change anything. And how depressing is that you want to think about it. But of course now neuroscience has finally caught up with you know, the idea that yes, this neuroplasticity, not only is with us forever, as long as we have a pulse, but it's incredibly powerful. And that we can use this power of neuroplasticity to change our lives and to keep us going in the right direction until the day we take our last breath.

Philip Pape  12:31

It's an empowering thing, right? Like you said to to better your agents. It's like when when some when I get the question, well, I'm over 50, how can I start strength training? Like I'm over 50 It's like this block of once you hit a number or even 40. I mean, I'm 42. And I'm like, I'm not old, come on, you hear that, like, I'm a woman over 40 Is it is XYZ possible. And it's like, you know, you can be 75 and you can lift a barbell and deadlift for the first time, it doesn't matter. And that's why I love your story. Because you're going to talk a little bit about it doesn't matter, it doesn't matter. The bringing the brain into us is really fascinating because the idea of adaptation. Beyond something like evolution, right? We often think of like species and things like that, but in real life in your life as as a biological creature that you can change so many things about your body, with your mind and change your mind itself is really fascinating. So I want to talk about vitality, in that context thriving and kind of link it all together. What is your perspective on that? Right? You talk about this at every stage of life? That's what we're talking about? And what is the most important component for that vitality? You know, if you had to choose just one? Well, first

Cheryl Ilov  13:44

of all, I love the fact that you brought the biology into it, because we can change our biology. And it has even been proven that we can change our DNA. So but that's another long story. But it all does start with your mindset. And that's, I think, where the vitality comes from, as well. Again, we've all had a lot of really terrible things happen in our life journey. Life isn't meant to be easy. I wish it were but it's not. And it's how we deal with a lot of those adversities. I think that really has a lot to do with Vitality. If I look back at some of the horrible things that have happened to me in my life, you know, I could be incredibly angry, I could be bitter. But you don't want to do that, because it's really bad for your complexion. So you know, ladies, don't be bitter. It ages you very quickly. But if you could look at some of those things that have happened to you along the way and kind of flip the script and say, you know, okay, it was really terrible that that happened. And I really struggled mightily as I was going through it, but look at where I am now. And look at where all the opportunities come from those adversities. So to me, that's what vitality is. It's a positive energy. It's a sense of you know what, life really is amazing and it does provide it so many wonderful opportunities, even thinking of look back at the pandemic, that was horrible, really horrible. But look at all the positive things. Well, the few positive things that did come out of that is that we didn't become a lot more connected, you know, through the internet because we have no choice. So now, you know, there's a lot more telemarketing or not telemarketing telemedicine, you know, the podcasting community has just exploded, I get to talk to you, I met you through another podcasting connection. In a couple of weeks, I'm going to be talking to a woman in Israel. It's just amazing how many wonderful things have opened up? Yes, as a baby boomer, I'm here to say the technology is terrifying when you're learning it for the first time. But like everything, you know, change is inevitable. You can either fight the change, or you can go along with it and figure it out.

Philip Pape  15:51

Yeah, right. It's like a like a, like a ship on a wave. You know, a lot of what you're saying reminds me of positive psychology. I remember reading something, how the vast majority of people have positive thoughts, right, even though we out loud, don't necessarily talk that way. In social media. And, for example, cancer patients will often think about how other cancer patients had it worse than them in whatever way that they're going through treatment, and therefore it by comparison, makes things seem better. So you kind of alluded to that of like, bad things happen. They're going to happen. They have happened. And where are you now? And this is the future. And you know, we're always looking forward to what's going to come from that. It's like the question, what would you tell your younger self to change? And, like, often the right answer is nothing, right? Because you won't, you wouldn't have gone through those experiences. So I'm just, you'll find that when I ask questions, share, I go off on tangents and just start talking and thinking out loud, because I love this. The philosophy of all of this.

Cheryl Ilov  16:53

Actually, I love tangential conversation.

Philip Pape  16:56

Good, good, good. Yeah, so vitality in the context of it, starting with your mindset, because again, neuroplasticity, and the physical manifestation of what we think otherwise, we can't do it, right, we can't get healthy, fit, eat better, whatever it is, martial arts without starting there. So if we're going to get very specific and actionable about it, right, so people have something to walk away with, what would you say are, say three things a listener can do to improve their vitality in that context?

Cheryl Ilov  17:26

Okay, well, starting off right now, I would say, three things, turn off your turn off the TV, and the radio, don't listen to the messages that we are receiving, you know, through a lot of the advertisement, because it's just, it's gonna mess with your mind, don't let anybody else influenced you. Second thing is go outside. Even if it's hot, even if it's cold, even if it's raining, take the time just to go outside, be in nature, have some time with yourself and really have that, that moment where you can access your inner being your inner child, if you will, you know, your your deepest thoughts, your desires, you can't do that when you're distracted by, you know, the barking dogs, which of course, we both love, or the television or the radio, you need to do that in absolute silence. When I say absolute silence, I'm not talking about you can hear the birds singing, you can hear the wind in the trees. Those are the things that really help clear your mind. A lot of people will say meditate, I can't say meditate, because I can't do it myself, I would be there

Philip Pape  18:33

to there. I have

Cheryl Ilov  18:36

failed meditation miserably. And I've had so many people, the meditation gurus that have had a lot of them on my podcast, you know, you're doing it wrong. And you know, let me help you, I will help you do it the right way. So I hear that and I say, Huh, one more thing in my life that I'm doing wrong. No, thank you.

Philip Pape  18:55

I don't want to do that. It's an added stressor. Right.

Cheryl Ilov  18:59

So what I do is I will do some movement patterns, I'll do what we call key home, practice, just some martial arts movement patterns, then I can clear my mind, that works for me. So for your listeners, find something that really resonates with you and does work for you. Whether it's, you know, a walking meditation, whether it's just sitting outside and silence, just find what works for you. And that is incredibly powerful. Because that way you can get rid of all the junk, all the stuff that's in the back of your head, you know of what you're hearing those subliminal messages from the media, from other people from the experts, and really figure out what you want for yourself and what you need for yourself at that moment in time.

Philip Pape  19:44

This is really great advice. I mean that let's break these down. The first one about not just turning things off. I mean, I would add social media to the mix. Right? Absolutely. Which I know you were implying that too but just even think news like I used to be a news junkie. And the only news I look at now is like the local paper just to kind of get the headlines. And so my daughters are aware of, you know, I've got two young daughters, they wouldn't even be aware of what's going on. But beyond that, it's just a bombardment of, of trash. It's just like, terribly mixed messages. And not not even mixed. They're highly biased messages, right? Like you said, they're trying to sell you something, fitness industry IgE, all that same thing. So getting away from it is a great idea. You know, go lift weights, go for a walk, or whatever. And then the other thing of having time with yourself, I also, I will tell people, hey, breathwork and meditation are two options to reduce stress, but I don't do them. So you know, I lift weights to reduce stress, I go for a walk to reduce stress, I will walk around the house and just start talking and getting my thoughts out of my brain to do you're talking about of like, unloading things off my mind. So all great advice, I think people going outside and just getting their steps and getting their son is part of the whole beauty of what we have as humans here on the earth. So

Cheryl Ilov  21:07

and I do want to add something else to that, because you gave me a great visual, when you're talking about listening to the news and all that trash just being thrown at you. And it is it's like all of these little torpedoes in a being launched at you. And I got this image of what we do at the dojo, one of the first things we learn as a new martial art student is to evade an attack how to get out of the way. And it's, you know, quite simple. If somebody's going to punch you, and you see it coming, you just step out of the way. And all of that negative energy goes past you, and the person actually goes right into the wall or off a proverbial cliff or whatever all of that negative energy goes back into them. So that's the same thing with the messages that we're getting not only from, you know, the media, social media, maybe even society and our friends and even family messages that they might be telling us that you just get out of the way, just move and just kind of like, you know, duck, you know, bait and switch, whatever, just get out of the way and pay no attention to it. Because words have a lot more power than we think they do.

Philip Pape  22:10

Yeah, yeah, I'm often accused of being too nice a guy when it comes to not taking the bait and kind of jumping into an argument because in the fitness world, there's all the all the camps and all the misconceptions and myths thrown around. And often it's with an attempt to sell something and some people some people's style is to go after that, or even post videos of like, here's why so and so is wrong, and I just don't do that. And I don't even engage and I like that. What you said kind of validates probably why I do that is just to let it brush by you. Just I don't need to waste my time on it. Yeah, okay. So like, I want to talk about the black belt stuff in the mental jujitsu, this this ancient Japanese martial art, I do want to understand what's involved like, what what do you compare it to, but you started training in 47, you got the black belt, 10 years later, you're getting higher levels of that. So you were, I guess, 57 at that point. Most of my clients, probably a lot of people listening are between 30 and 60. On this podcast, I'm guessing. And I've seen, I alluded to before, I've seen the power of somebody who's like 55, they never lifted in their life. And then they start and they start getting these winds of like, Hey, I'm stronger, hey, I can do this thing in my life I haven't been able to do before, not even the building muscle part, which then starts to come as well, and their physique improves and everything else. So I'm on board with your philosophy 100%. The listener still wants to know What were you thinking? When you started martial arts at 47

Cheryl Ilov  23:34

I was thinking I had lost my frickin mind. Pretty much. I did not go willingly. I'll be perfectly honest. Martial arts was never in my on my radar. It was not in my DNA. This is not anything that I would ever in my entire life thought that I would be interested in doing. And my father was a black belt in karate. I have four sisters. So as a father of five girls, you could well imagine since you'd have to. He wanted us to learn a few techniques. And he would always try and get us to go to the gym with him to work out and it was like, too icky. No, you know, that sounded disgusting. And no, none of us took him up on it. I was more of a fussy girl ballet tutus, tiaras, you know, pointe shoes. That's that was my thing. And I met my sensei. He was my acupuncturist, before he became my sensei. I don't know if you've heard this story on any of my other shows, but I'm sure

Philip Pape  24:29

I have but the the audience may not have. Okay.

Cheryl Ilov  24:31

So it's a really interesting story. One of my clients, I needed a new acupuncturist and one of my clients recommended this guy, and she was really picky. So I thought, well, she likes him that he must be okay. So the very first time I went to him and he started putting needles in my legs, he got a very faraway look on his face. And he said to me, you know, with your legs and my coaching, I could teach you how to kill with these things. And I'm thinking all Right, who thinks like this, let alone says it out loud. And I'm laying there on the table going, I think maybe I need to go. But I was literally stuck. I was pinned to the table. I had needles all over me. So unless I wanted to, or try

Philip Pape  25:13

to relax, right, like what was kind of trying to, but he's telling you how you can kill me. Okay.

Cheryl Ilov  25:20

That's my legs. And you know, I mean, I was really shocked and horrified. Well, he did have a martial arts school right next to his clinic. It was like a little duplex. And finally I said, well, thanks a lot. But no, I'll just save my killer legs for ballet class. And I almost thought about not going back to him. But there's something about him I really liked. And you know, I felt so much better after the acupuncture, acupuncture treatment, so I thought I'll stick with him for a while. Well, what he did not know is right before I met him, I had a really traumatic experience. And as traumas go, a lot of times when you know, you try and get help, and you try and report it, a lot of times, you know, people just don't listen. So that's basically what happened to me. So I just stuffed the trauma deep down inside, pasted a big smile on my face and pretended everything was fine. Well, it really wasn't. And mark in the meantime, that was my acupuncturist kept trying to get me to take classes with him. And I'm like, No, this No. So about a year later, the trauma came spewing out. And he was the first person I went to, because I don't know why. But I knew intuitively that he would listen to me and he wouldn't judge me. And he would believe me, which of course he did. So he started treating me for PTSD with needles and Chinese herbs. And she got Sue, which was lovely. And then his campaign to get me on the mat went into high gear. And he kept saying there was such a healing power in martial arts, Cheryl, you need to do this, blah, blah, blah. And I kept looking at him saying, I don't understand how hanging out in a smelly Dojo with a bunch of sweaty men whose goal is to attack me is going to make me feel any better. I'm sorry, I'm just not making this connection. So he never gave up talk about incomparable stubbornness is about three, it took him three years. And after three years, I finally said, you know, he wore me down. I said, Okay, I will take a few classes just to prove to you how much I'm gonna hate it. And then I'll quit. Now,

Philip Pape  27:15

did was he doing this to everyone like this? Was this a sales pitch? Or did he see something in you? Maybe in hindsight, you learned this that where he kept persisting?

Cheryl Ilov  27:24

Well, I don't think a lot of people ask me that. That's a great question. Because when people find out that I ended up being his first female black belt, you know, in 20 years of teaching, he never had a female achieve that high of a rank. You know, people say, Oh, he saw something in you. He saw that inner warrior, he saw this. And I said, No, that's not true. He saw a person who was really suffering, he saw somebody who was struggling. And we had developed a really warm friendship. And he just sincerely sincerely wanted to help me. He had no idea, you know, that I was going to rise up through the ranks the way I did, I had no idea. My goal was to teach him that, you know, he couldn't tell me what to do, because I was going to hate this, this martial art thing. But no, it was just truly amazing. And I'm very grateful to him, you know, to this day, and like I said, I'm getting ready to test for another belt level. And it's been 20 years since I walked into that dojo.

Philip Pape  28:24

Well, I mean, tell us more about that experience, right, because your perspective as a woman, the only woman there in the class, people listening to the show, I mean, we do talk a lot about the, you know, empowering people, men and women, but especially the traditional avatar, I guess, in the fitness world is, you know, a lot of movement. Dhoni, you know, a lot of restriction, you know, lightweights you can't build muscle, you can't be strong. It's this and that. I don't know a lot of is shifted, and hopefully shows like this and others have shifted about your strength is important performance, fueling, building, right abundance, not worrying so much about whatever the ideal body image is, as how do you feel great and empowered yourself? And that's going to give you the image you want. So tell us about your perspective?

Cheryl Ilov  29:08

Well, as far as you mean, being the only woman walking into class,

Philip Pape  29:11

yeah, you're in the fitness world, in general, in the class, all of that, yeah, we will start

Cheryl Ilov  29:17

with a dojo, because that was really weird. You know, I knew I would see a lot of marks students going in and out when I was waiting for my treatment sessions. So I would see the guys they all seemed very nice. And you know, they'd see me through the glass and a lot of them would either smile or wave and some of them would even bow in my direction on going on. That's kind of corny. But so I knew, you know, these guys going in and out. And when Mark, when I finally said, started thinking about maybe taking some classes, I said, you know, I'm really worried about being the only woman in class and he goes, Oh, don't you worry. I have plenty of female students, and some of them are even higher ranking and they would love to take you under their wing and teach you the art of the ninja, and what it's like To be a female ninja and blah, blah, blah, and I'm going, Okay, well, maybe this will work out. But I didn't realize that I never saw any of these women coming in and out of the dojo. So you know, okay, I don't know why I believed him. And when it came time for me to take, I signed up for classes and I said, Okay, I'm going to try this. And he says, Don't worry, there'll be you know, somebody, another woman in class. Well, my first class, not only was there no other woman in class, there was no other woman with like in a three or four mile radius.

Cheryl Ilov  31:16

So there was me with all of these guys, I had just come straight from ballet class, my hair was still in a bun. And I'm looking going, this isn't going to work out so well. And I felt so out of place, and so incredibly uncomfortable. Talk about getting out of your comfort zone. But of course, the men were very gracious, you know, they greeted me, they showed me where the woman's dressing room was, which did not go hand at all to myself. And as awkward as it was, you know, I managed to stay through the whole class. And I even got the opportunity to kick a black belt, which I tried not to, because I'm like, No, I'm not in this for the long run. I don't want to kick you. I've never kicked anybody before. And this black belt is saying, Come on, kick me, you can do it. You can do it. And I could tell he thought I was really adorable. And I'm like, I've never kicked anybody in my life. And I'm not about to start now. And he's up twirling my ponytails. I'm talking to him. And then I says, besides, I don't want to hurt you. And that's when I really thought, you know, he thought I was just absolutely priceless. And he got this big smile on his face. And he said, Don't worry, it's okay. I can take care of myself and you can't hurt me. And I'm like, okay, and then I'm looking like where his belt was located. And I'm looking like in that direction, kind of south of the belt, if you know what I mean. And I says, I don't want to get you in the sensitive parts. And he nodded, and he says, I don't want that either. Just make sure that you aim above the belt. Just kick me you'll be fine. And I'm like, okay, so I didn't know how to kick. So what did I do? I did what I knew. I pulled my right leg up. And I pointed my toes and I drove my point of foot right through his abdomen as if I was dancing and doing a grunt attack. Again, I did what I knew, well, apparently I could hurt him. Because he actually flew backwards and landed on his butt. And Mark, my sensei now have walked over. And he was just looking and Wescott up and said, Wow, that was pretty good. Where did you learn how to kick like that. And Mark was standing next to me. And he looked down at me. And he said, How many years of ballet and at that point, it was only 27. So I said 27. And he's talking about

Philip Pape  33:38

on toe and everything formal. Okay,

Cheryl Ilov  33:42

feet, legs, killer legs. And he looked at the black belt. And he said, Don't let the package fool you. She's a lot stronger than she looks. And it was like, boom, mental head smacking moment. I realized at that moment, I was stronger than I look. And I also realized, and I think is really is very important for the audience to hear, especially for those women out there, that we have life skills, that we can carry on into a lot of different situations that we don't even realize, who knew that the ability to do a grunge day could basically maybe even save my life someday. I had no idea.

Philip Pape  34:24

Transferable life skills, that this is good, because it reminds me of so when I have a new client, one of the questions I asked him are what are your strengths? Like? What are your strengths that we can build from and oftentimes it's a mental strength, right? Or it's a personality kind of strength, but it reminds me of that because what you're saying is, you know, you didn't karate or not karate, the martial arts was brand new to you. But you had effectively worked for years on things that would carry over, right. Similarly, people listening probably have strengths that they are not aware of, or haven't exercised as much and you going into a new venture is the exact place they can exercise those skills. And it's one, you know, it's one less thing to learn one less thing on the learning curve. I think it's a great message. And I'm wondering like, what is that? You know, how can people discover that? Like, do you have any ideas on how can someone discover that? Was it one of these things where you just just try things just just be open to anything? And you never know?

Cheryl Ilov  35:21

Well, you just said it. Yeah. And that is to get out of your comfort zone. Because like I said, I was way out of my comfort zone. And for those of your listeners, who are thinking, Well, you know, I haven't gotten off the couch, or I haven't been exercising. I have a really dear friend who does not exercise. She hates exercise. And she was telling me about it one time on the phone. And she says, Well, I just don't exercise and blah, blah, blah. And I says, Wait a minute, didn't you tell me that you and John went out dancing last night? And she says, Oh, yeah, well, you know, country swing and line dancing, blah, blah, blah. And they danced nonstop for four hours. I'm like, Ronnie, that's exercise. You know, moving is exercise any kind of movement. And for those people who are still maybe a little skeptical, you know how to move. You know how to exercise, you know how to play because you did that when you were a baby, when you were a child? You know, you go back to using like, the environment is your playground. And not worry about am I doing this right? Am I doing it wrong? Just when we were kids, we didn't worry about that. We just moved.

Philip Pape  36:30

It's true. Yeah. But play play should never end no matter how old you are. It's I mean, having kids I definitely see that, you know, when they want me to play with that my, the answer should be yes. As much as it can be, you know, when I'm when I'm not like just like slammed with work or something. Oh, that that's really good. Because what something else came to mind. If I can still have it in my brain. You were talking about movement and dance? Yeah, I guess, two things come to mind. One is the idea that if you can do things that you're already doing in some extent, but but shift shift that in a new direction, it's much lower friction, right, much less resistance to doing something else. The other thing is trying things you've never done before, despite thinking you will, quote unquote, won't like them. Give yourself a chance, because you really don't know until weeks months, and it depends on what we're talking about. But even when you talk about exercise, it's like, if you've never done it before, try it. And then if if you do it right, and you get results that they actually cause you to like it, that like creating that feedback loop. So is that what you found that? I guess how long did you resistance last getting into martial arts before it was like, Oh, I actually love this.

Cheryl Ilov  37:43

Boy, that's a really great, great, great question. But I want to go back to the play. Because you know, when that is really an important part of my martial arts training, and that might sound like really crazy. But just when you're playing, that's the best way to learn. And it takes a lot of pressure off of you. So even when it you know, for those of you who might want to try you know, you know, a dance class or something, be okay with being really bad at it. And be okay with making mistakes. Because that's how we learn is by making mistakes. And whatever you do do it in the spirit of playfulness. And that's the one thing that even on my very first day of that that class even before I kicked Wes in the in the gut, that I was very, I was impressed by how well first I thought it was really stupid. All of the bow wing and the cloud, you know, some of the ritual buying in and stuff. I thought God these people are grownups, I can't believe they're doing this. I'm so silly. But after that all after all of the formal re in how much everybody laughed, and seem to be having a good time, even though they were beating the crap out of each other, which made me incredibly nervous. But they were really having fun. And that's a big part of our training is that we play. So after that first class, I giggled the entire way home. I had no idea why I was giggling. I do know that I had not giggled in a very long time. But there was something about it. I just felt like somebody had lifted a weight off of me. And I felt younger than I had in a very long time. And it wasn't until I but I still wasn't all in. Okay, let's be clear about that. I still wasn't all in this was a temporary gig for me. I was just gonna take maybe a month of classes and then quit because I didn't want it to interfere interfere with my ballet schedule. So I was shocked when I found myself writing a check for the next month's tuition because I thought man, I should be you know, check it out by now. Well, at the end of the third month. While I was still training, one of the guys came up to me and said you need to test for your yellow belt. And I said, Oh no, you don't understand. I don't want to yellow belt. I'm never going to test. I'm just in it to learn a few things. I'm going to quit pretty soon. So there's no reason for me to test. And so this guy badgered me until finally, it was like, just to get an A Shut up. I tested for my yellow belt. And I mean, it was terrifying. I mean, I almost passed out. I was so nervous. It was just absolutely, I'm sure it was an absolute mess. But I passed. And so I got my yellow belt. And I again, I giggled the entire way home, I'm looking at this stupid yellow belt. And it was just like, why am I giggling? Why is this cuz I don't really care. You know, I mean, I don't want this belt. But it was just such an amazing experience. The next day, when I went to the dojo, I couldn't even come out of the dressing room, because I tied my belt. And every time I looked at it, I burst into giggles, it was just I figured at that point, I was kind of liking it, but I still probably wouldn't stay much longer. Three months later, the same guy badges me into going for my second degree yellow belt. You know, you are way too obsessed with all this testing, one or two, just lighten up a little bit. So finally, I tested for my second degree yellow belt. Well, three months later, I got the idea to test for my orange belt. Nobody had to talk me into it. Didn't have to badger me to do it. It was my idea when I realized I know all this material. And at that point, I realized I was all in. However, I never expected to go all the way to Black Belt. Never. Right?

Philip Pape  41:34

That's I'm sure the questions that come to the listeners mind are like, well, if if you kind of found a silly on the way, and these were resistant to doing the testing, why did you keep going from one to the next? Was there something deeper that was like, you know, driving you toward excellence, even though you didn't quite accept the rituals? You know, what I'm getting at? Like, what? Yeah, because he wants to know, like, what, what is the secret? You know, if they have a thing that they want to achieve? Maybe it's some simple thing for their health, maybe it's a workouts whatever? Where does that momentum start to overtake the friction? And what gets you there?

Cheryl Ilov  42:12

Boy, that is a great question. And I'm thinking that momentum and the friction Boy, that describes me to a tee, I really honestly believe what kept me going was the fact that I didn't want a black belt. I didn't care about climbing up the ranks. I cared about living to see another day, or get through another class for the first two years. And a lot of people don't know this. But the first two years that I was taking classes, I would sit in my car and have to talk myself into going into the dojo. And by that time, I knew the guys really well, we were friends. They were we had a wonderful time training. But there was always in the back of my mind, what if something goes terribly wrong today. And I would just kind of force myself once I crossed that doorway. So this is another important message for the listeners. Sometimes you just have to walk through the door. Once I would walk through the door, and I was in the dojo, the smelly dojo, I knew I was okay. And I just wanted to be better at the art, not because I wanted to be a great martial artist. But I wanted to understand the movement patterns better, I started to become really fascinated with the history and the philosophy of the art itself. It's an ancient Japanese martial arts. And so there is an awful lot of, you know, the history and the philosophy in there. As well as the Spirit, we talk a lot about training our spirit. So it's not just training, you know, this, even with what you do, in the fitness industry, it's not just physical, you know, you're actually strengthening and growing your entire being. And especially as a martial artist, that's really, really important to us, and I could feel my spirit starting to rise, I could feel my spirit getting stronger. And you know, it just there were days when, even like today, it's like, I don't think I want to go to class today. But 1130 is going to come along and I'll be driving to the dojo. And sometimes you just have to do it. Sometimes you just have to take that first step. And once you're there, you know, it'll change your whole perspective for your whole day. It can change your entire week. You can change your life.

Philip Pape  44:31

I think what you're saying is really important, because you've been doing this for so long, and yet still there is that thought of am I really going to walk in today, right? And I think people can relate to that because we all want it to be this perfect thing where once you fall in love with the process that it takes no willpower and you just do it and you're on autopilot. And we know that's not the case. I know. I love working out go to the gym. I have a gym at home. And yeah, there's always something about it. Like if it's squat day, I'm just like no Because, but but at the same time, there's so many things pushing you. And, and I know you say it's like forcing yourself, you just have to do it. But I also see that there is a lot of momentum, you mentioned, the knowledge that you are gaining the understanding the movement patterns, you are fascinated by all these different things, the mastery of the material, the history of philosophy, the art, the spirit. So there were enough things where you're like, This is just a fun, you know, part of my life, that if one piece of it is a little bit hard, that's okay, because the rest of it is just, it wouldn't be worth it to skip out on all of that. And so that kind of like, you know, when you set the balance there of momentum versus friction, you've kind of tilted it, which is answering the question that I asked what,

Cheryl Ilov  45:41

right, well, okay, but that this was really haven't touched on this. But the other thing is, the guys once I learned how to communicate with them, because the other was I was 47. I haven't had male friends since college. And you know, ballet class, yeah, there's a few men in class, but it's a completely different energy. And none of them were interested in trying to attack me. And, you know, they're just, it was a completely different energy. I mean, it's not that these guys were so macho, but they were, you know, they were all American men, and, you know, with families and everything. And it's like, I don't even know how to talk to these guys. And eventually, you know, we got to be really good. They didn't know how to talk to me, either. Because the women that would come into the dojo along the way, were a lot less girly than me, you know, they were really wanted to kick butt and all that stuff. And they wanted to be black belts. And it was like, I'm just here for, you know, short term. And, you know, I had to excuse myself and step off the mat. So I could fix my lipstick and my hair. And they're like, No, and, you know, they would try and attack me. And I would just run screaming off the mat going, No, don't don't touch me. And they're like, what was this creature? You don't? Exactly, but it was probably once I got that second degree yellow belt, and they started realizing it started taking me more seriously. And, you know, I can hardly blame them because I didn't take my own self seriously. But they started to help me and give me little hints and tips about how to use my feminine wiles to be able to train better. They also started whispering this word as they passed me Khun Ichi. And I'm like, Well, that sounds kind of dirty. What is that, and it's actually the female warrior. Okay. And so they were playing off of my feminine femininity, and my feminine wiles to help make me a better martial artist. And I have to tell you, this, it's really kind of funny. Of course, you know, I said, I have five or four sisters, you know, three girl cousins ballet class for over, you know, now for 40 years. So all of this feminine energy around me, didn't know how to talk to men. And the first time one of them called me to see if I wanted to meet him, you know, off class time to do some training. And you know, so it's like, okay, and after he says, Okay, see you then and he hung up. And I'm holding the phone going, Oh, my goodness, I had no idea that you could carry on a complete conversation in 30 seconds, with a few mono syllables, grunts and a See you at the end of it. And it was like a choir of angels began to sing because I thought this is so liberating. Where's the drama. And it was just like, wow, the way that men communicate is so different and uncomplicated than the way women communicate. That just opened up a whole new world for me.

Philip Pape  48:44

That is true, we're simpletons

Cheryl Ilov  48:50

tend to be very direct. And it's really funny because even in my second book, The Ninja book, under acknowledgments, I acknowledge the many magnificent men in my life because I would not be here doing what I do right now. And having, you know, the, the background that I have, without their help, I will admit, some of them were kind of jerks along the way, but that was okay. But most of them were incredible and really helped me get to where I am.

Philip Pape  49:14

You make a good point that men and women can learn a lot just from the other gender, I mean, that right there in life, there's so much you could learn about I mean, for me being married, learning about empathy and listening and so many skills that I you know, identified with myself as being terrible to build so it's true. You know, I'm curious about the martial arts itself though. I do want to ask about that because just I have it on my list because I want to understand how how practical are these martial arts and to real life situations like maybe you get this question all the time, but if you don't, if somebody came up to you on the street threatened, you pulled the gun something like that, like what, what is this mark style effective as a defense mechanism is

Cheryl Ilov  49:57

very much so very effective. I have never had to use it in that type of a real life situation. But I use the skills and the energy every single day. And I think that's one of the reasons why I'm not a target. And even, you know, sensei had told me one time, he says, you know, you develop an aura, you know, like an energy field around you. And people, no, predators are looking for an easy target. And if they see somebody who looks like an empowered person, they're going to move on and go to somebody else. If anybody ever pulled a gun on me, I pray to God, that never happens. I have no idea what I would do. But I do have some confidence that I would pull something out to save myself. You know, and even, you know, we practice break falls, you know, every class, we have a series of falls and rolls and tumbling, which, you know, I didn't realize that when I first signed up, and that was a big shock. Because getting on the floor, something I did not do well, I'm pretty good at it now. And I even had a spectacular fall. That was, when was that it was New Year's Day. And I'd gone to the dojo. And as I was walking out, you know, the sun had there was it had iced over there was black ice, and I didn't know it. So I was carrying a bunch of stuff in my arms. And one minute, I was just stepping, you know, on the cement. And the next minute, I knew I was on the ground. And I actually had flown up in the air. And, you know, when I hit, it was like, Damn, what happened here, and I looked and all my stuff was scattered around me in a circle, my notebook, my water bottle, my keys, my katana pages flew out of my notebook, I hit that hard. And, you know, the men came running out to see if I was okay, because they heard it and saw it. And I just looked at them. The first thing I said was, did you see my break fall? Because it must have been really spectacular. I was not hurt at all. Wow. I mean, you know,

Philip Pape  52:00

instinctually, you know, I

Cheryl Ilov  52:02

think too, I didn't even think about it. I just intuitively did a break fall. And I always wondered, would I be able to pull it out? I don't want to be challenged like that again anytime soon. And you know what I thought even as I was driving home, man, you know, a little bit of a trauma reaction shaking. And I'm like, No, you know, nothing terrible happened. And I thought maybe I should take an Advil or two, just prophylactically and it was like no, see what you felt like in the morning. And I felt fantastic. I felt great.

Philip Pape  52:28

Now you mentioned tumbling is our grappling like, like BJJ or anything like that.

Cheryl Ilov  52:34

We do do some floor work. But our skill set is basically in standing our philosophy is we never want to get we never want to be on the floor. Because there's always going to be somebody who is far more skilled than we are at the grappling the BJJ mixed martial arts, there's a lot of that our goal is to be able to go home. Okay,

Philip Pape  52:54

so how would you how would you compare it to that and maybe like Krav Maga or boxing, right, which are often touted as like, very strong ways to defend yourself to

Cheryl Ilov  53:03

Yeah, crop. That's great. That's a great, yeah, if you really want to kick ass take names, you know, and really do kill stuff. crops. You want to go home with somebody's DNA underneath your fingernails? Or, you know, yeah, I took a craft class one time, it was a woman's group. And I was invited. And I thought I really don't want to do this. You know, to be a team player, I went along with it. And gosh, they're probably 30 Women in class and one of the women said to the instructors, female instructors, what is the difference between this and some other martial arts? And they looked at each other, and one of them said, it's all martial and no art. Got it? And it actually came out of Israel, and they were trained. Or a secret. Yeah, yeah, to be able to fight without weapons and to be able to kill without weapons. I mean, if you really want to get down and dirty and crop is great for that. It didn't appeal to me because maybe with a ballet background, I'm a little bit more, you know, artistic. And one thing I love about our art, it's very sneaky. Okay? It's not. I mean, if you would look at me walking down the street, you wouldn't think Hey, she's really martial artists, you wouldn't think that right? And that's part of the ninja disguise. Okay,

Philip Pape  54:27

I'm gonna have to look I haven't looked researched and I want to look up some videos or maybe if you have something you want to send me of yourself doing that. I would love to see that. What so if you had to women who are listening to want to know how to protect themselves or increase their confidence or all the things that you gain from this, any any strategies for them, you know, besides just doing exactly what you did, but some everyone's going to have a different thing that works for them.

Cheryl Ilov  54:50

Right? Not everybody is going to want to spend 20 years in a smelly Dojo with a bunch of sweating and getting punched and smacked around and I can totally understand that I wasn't so excited about it, myself at first. But if I just want to list a couple of things, because they're really, really important to me, every time I see a woman doing this, it breaks my heart, please put your cell phone down, there is no text, there is no call, there is nothing that is so important that that phone should occupy your attention instead of your surroundings. Pay attention to your surroundings at all times, not to be hyper vigilant, but to be taking notes. You know, like mental notes like that is an interesting looking person. I wonder why they're wearing that, you know, I wonder if this person looks like they're having a really bad day by their posture, pay attention to your environment, and the people around you is a powerful tool for self empowerment. And you can even this is what I love, because you have two little girls, you could actually even play games, turn it into a game at the park, you know, and, and, Hey, what did you notice? And what color was that dog. And if you have to tell somebody you know where you were at and what things look like that you're training them in a way that's playful too. So it's not threatening, not you have to be afraid of everything. But just to be aware, so that awareness is so appointed, important. Put your phone down, start working on your awareness. The other thing of course, this is the awareness to be careful where you park, not to be worried but to pay attention. Always have your eyes up, look people in the eye, even strangers, smile at them, say hello. Because then people know that you're paying attention, people know that you're looking. And that is very empowering. Pay attention to how you walk and how you stand. When you're talking to somebody, let's say you're in a crowded room and networking of event, I talk with my hands a lot just because I always used to. But even now, when you have your hands in front of you been using them as self expression, they can always be used to knock somebody else's hand out of the way. Never stand with your you know, hands crossed, because that's in front of you. That's considered disrespectful. Hands on hip is considered confrontational. Hands behind your back, you might be holding a weapon. So just be careful of your body language and watch somebody else's body language as well.

Philip Pape  57:15

This is great advice. What about in a restaurant? Do you recommend sitting facing the door? Oh, yeah. Yeah, that's what I've always done. Like my family knows. Like, I'm the I'm the guy who has to sit far from the door facing the door that

Cheryl Ilov  57:28

I want to see everything that's going on.

Philip Pape  57:31

Yeah. Yeah. You know, paranoia is not paranoia when it's when it's what's the phrase? Right. It isn't paranoia. Once it isn't paranoia or something? You know, I don't know what

Cheryl Ilov  57:41

the phrase is. But I just think that that a healthy dose of paranoia is is really important to have. Yeah, everywhere. Yeah. Yeah. Being aware. And again, as you're back to the wall, watching. For the audience, pay attention when you walk into a restaurant, a new building someplace you haven't been before. First thing you do look for the exits. Know where the exits

Philip Pape  58:04

are. Yeah. Even if it's even if it's just for safety if there was a fire or something like that. Right, exactly.

Cheryl Ilov  58:10

We're not thinking nothing bad's gonna happen. But if you wanted to make a quick escape, the other thing is, I used to cringe when Sensei would say this, but everything's a weapon. We all walk around with water bottles nowadays. And that's really a good thing to have. So put your phone in your purse, but your water bottle in your hand. I like the ones that have the little hook where you can kind of swing it a little bit. Make sure it's always full.

Philip Pape  58:39

Yeah, my wife tells me about the keys between the fingers, you know?

Cheryl Ilov  58:43

Okay, but he's between the fingers. The problem with that is you have to be really close to the person.

Philip Pape  58:48

Okay, fair enough. distance there. Yeah,

Cheryl Ilov  58:52

I have something called a kubaton. Okay, so you can look it up, you can, I'm sure you can buy one online kubaton. And it's just a little stick with your keys on the end of it, and you hold it, you know, like, like you're holding a pencil or a pen, and you can swing the keys. Imagine what you could do

Philip Pape  59:09

with that. Okay. All right, kind of like, yes, the

Cheryl Ilov  59:13

last bit of advice I want to share with the audience, especially the women out there, do look into taking a self defense class or two. And don't just take one class and think I'm good. Take it a couple of times, take it with a bunch of girlfriends, have an engine night, you know, and practice some of these techniques with each other. Talk about the philosophies, talk about different scenarios of how you could get out of the way how you could protect yourself, you know, the knowledge is power, and the more you know, the safer you're going to

Philip Pape  59:43

be. Love all this advice. And if you get strong in the process, or you know, focus on your health that way and they complement each other don't because a stronger person who also knows how to fight. That's pretty good. Pretty good combination.

Cheryl Ilov  59:56

That's a happy coincidence.

Philip Pape  59:58

Yeah. All right. So I do like to ask this of all guests. So when I respect your time where I know we're wrapping up here, but is there a question you wish I had asked you? And what is your answer?

Cheryl Ilov  1:00:09

Oh, yeah, I thought about that. Um, I don't know, maybe, if you could have asked me. What would you like your legacy to be?

Philip Pape  1:00:24

Okay, what would you like your legacy to be?

Cheryl Ilov  1:00:28

Hmm, that there's a warrior in each and every one of us, and incredible strength and power. And if I could find mine, oh, trust me, you can find yours.

Philip Pape  1:00:42

Love it. Love it, we're gonna leave it, we're gonna leave it that. Share. This has been a pleasure. There's a lot of great strategies here. For people and a lot of insights. We had myself included. I always love podcasts because we learn through our interviews, and therefore I know the listeners learning. So where can listeners learn more about you and your work?

Cheryl Ilov  1:01:03

You can go to my website, it's Cheryl i love.com. Remember, there was no E at the end of I love everybody puts one on there. Even I do it sometimes out of habit. You can find my website I do have if you sign up for my newsletter, you have access to three what I call, you're gonna love this, Phillip, after we talked about meditation, you have access to three audio recordings of I call it meditation through movement. They're actually somatic movement exercises based on Feldenkrais. They're only 20 minutes long. You can download them and unsubscribe, you can find me on Facebook, you can find me on Instagram, find me on LinkedIn, I'm probably more active there than anywhere else. You can also contact me through my website, if you have any questions, especially if you're a woman, and you're thinking about taking some martial arts classes, and you'd like some advice, contact me, I would be happy to guide you through the process. Because if you do want to study martial art, or even just take some self defense classes, you want to be in the right spot. You do not want to be in the wrong school or the wrong dojo, I was fortunate because I got into a school that absolutely loves women. It's a very friendly, user friendly Dojo so I can give you tips on what to look for.

Philip Pape  1:02:15

Perfect. So I will add those links there. The website IG, definitely Cheryl's super responsive. And if you need help with anything we talked about, I always encourage you to reach out to any of our guests but Cheryl, especially for questions, I'm sure she'll help you out. Cheryl, thank you so much for coming on the show sharing your awesome story, amazing things we can all learn from and take action from so appreciate you coming on.

Cheryl Ilov  1:02:36

Oh, thank you so much for having me, Philip. And I do want to say one last thing. Philip is going to be on my podcast next week. So stay tuned and listen to what he has to say. And the name of the podcast, the feminine Joe project. And men are always welcome on the feminine Joe project. And that's one of the things that I make very clear. I love having guys on the show.

Philip Pape  1:02:58

Yes, yes, you do. And so the feminine is a project you can find it I think it's all one word. It is because if you put a space there it may not show up. So all one word, the feminine to project. You're listening to this show now so it's easy to go follow it and subscribe her show. And then you also catch my interview there and all of her other great episodes. So thank you again, Sheriff for coming on.

Cheryl Ilov  1:03:16

Thank you Philip. Have a wonderful day.

Philip Pape  1:03:18

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

Ep 104: Fat Loss vs. Weight Loss

Today, we get into the very relevant differences between two terms that seem similar on the surface, fat loss and weight loss, but are polar opposites in terms of the behaviors you would take to achieve them.

One of these can be downright destructive to your body, leading down a dark path that you’ve probably been down before, many times, that sacrifices your health and physique for the sake of hitting a number. The other drives you to make the changes you need and want to vastly improve your health and physique and do it in a sustainable, life-altering way that aligns with your body.

We talk about the semantic differences in how we use language in the fitness industry regarding the terms ‘weight loss’ and ‘fat loss.’ We talk about why fat loss is more important than weight loss. We also talk about the dangers of crash dieting and yo-yo dieting, and how they can backfire and make it even harder to get the results you want. Finally, we talk about how to achieve fat loss to get the exact results you want without the negatives of weight loss.

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Click here to apply for coaching!
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[3:43] Weight loss vs. fat loss, definitions, and industry problems
[7:51] Struggling with weight loss before the wedding
[10:52] Unsustainable cycle of crash dieting and weight regain
[12:30] The backlash against weight loss and extreme approaches
[15:27] The debate between restrictive dieting and intuitive eating
[17:23] Using a data-based approach for efficient weight management
[26:32] Losing fat instead of losing weight
[28:13] Combining strength training with proper nutrition for muscle-building
[32:34] Recovery and stress management for a better physique
[37:24] Focus on fat loss
[38:09] Take action now for successful fat loss
[40:23] Outro

Episode resources:

• Ep 88: Break the Cycle of Body Fat Overshooting for a Stronger, Leaner, and Healthier Physique - https://www.witsandweights.com/88 

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Transcript

Philip Pape  00:00

Here's the thing, if you're serious about losing fat and improving your health, improving your body composition, then you're going to focus on fat loss and not weight loss. You're going to train, you're gonna eat protein, you're going to keep that muscle while you lose your body mass. So it's just fat. Welcome to the Wits & Weights podcast. I'm your host, Philip pape, and this twice a week podcast is dedicated to helping you achieve physical self mastery by getting stronger. Optimizing your nutrition and upgrading your body composition will uncover science backed strategies for movement, metabolism, muscle and mindset with a skeptical eye on the fitness industry. So you can look and feel your absolute best. Let's dive right in Wits & Weights community Welcome to another solo episode of the Wits & Weights podcast. I hope you enjoyed our last episode 103 Sweet proteins, food science and the future of sweeteners with Jason Ryder, where we learned about sweet proteins, including the science behind them, their potential health benefits and new nutrition strategy to what foods you might find them in now and in the future. Today for episode 104 fat loss versus weight loss, we will get into the very relevant differences between two terms that seems similar on the surface fat loss and weight loss, but are polar opposites in terms of the behaviors that you would take to achieve them. And what the results actually look like? One of these can be downright destructive to your body leading down a dark path that you've probably didn't bend down before many times as of AI, a path that sacrifices your health and physique for the sake of hitting a number. The other drives you to make the changes you need and want to vastly improve your health and physique. And do it in a sustainable, life altering way that aligns with your body to find out what I mean, let's stick around and get into today's topic. Fat Loss versus weight loss. Here's the thing. What if I told you that the way you've been thinking about weight loss is all wrong? What if what you want is not actually weight loss? Here's the thing. The truth is that weight loss is not the goal for most people, even if it's what you tell yourself, even if it's what the advertisement advertisers tell you, even if it's part of the process itself, right, actually reducing the weight on the scale. What most people really and truly want is fat loss. And they want that for certain reasons that go even deeper than that. But we're going to talk about the semantic differences in how we use language in the fitness industry, when it comes to those two terms, weight loss, and fat loss and stick around. Because I have a lot to say and a lot of opinions. Some might be a little controversial, hopefully not hopefully, there's just reality based on my experience and what I've seen. But when it comes to those two terms, weight loss and fat loss, there are definitely some differences in the industry. We're going to talk about why fat loss is more important, just much more deeply more important than weight loss. And we're going to talk about the dangers of Crash dieting, yo yo dieting, all the I'll say the benefits that you get from potentially losing weight, but also the dangers of a purely weight loss approach, and then how these things backfire and make it even harder in the future to get the results you want. And then finally, we'll talk about how to achieve fat loss, right, because if we're going to put it on this pedestal, I need to justify it for you and talk about how we get there to get the results that you want without the negatives of weight loss. So let's start off with the definitions. And let's talk about the industry and the problems with weight loss because I think these things are very important, these differences and distinctions are important. So in the industry, the terms weight loss and fat loss are often used interchangeably. But there's a subtle or maybe not so subtle, but important difference between the two. Okay, weight loss is simply the loss of any kind of body mass. This is just the weight on the scale, going from one number to a lower number. And this is fat tissue. muscle tissue also includes daily fluctuations like water, but generally we're talking about over time, some sort of permanent loss in tissue as measured by weight on the scale. Now in this episode, I'm not going to get into fluctuations and averaging your weight and all that kind of stuff. We're just going to assume that when somebody says weight loss, they mean true a true drop in body mass over time, whether it's five pounds, 20 pounds, 50 pounds, 200 pounds. Fat Loss on the other hand, respire refers specifically to the loss of body fat, and it may be in the context of a loss of weight. So most people want to get past that initial A new training phase where you might be able to build muscle and lose fat at the same time and not change your number on the scale. Most people when they want to lose a decent amount of extra fat will still also lose weight. But there's a very different process to get there a different result. And the the recurrence of weight regain, and the psychology are vastly different. Okay, this is why I prefer one or the other over the other. By leagues and leagues, when people lose weight quickly, when people lose weight quickly, they're more likely to lose muscle and water but muscle than fat, right. And this is why crash dieting, yo yo dieting, the way that most people diet with restrictive diets, where they really don't have much understanding of how much they're consuming, and what deficit they're in, and how and why the weight is falling off. And so generally, to get the results that you think you want, and get to that number, you go to extremes. And sometimes you push that extreme further and further during a diet, especially as you hit plateaus to make sure that you lose that weight. And this is a very dangerous process. If you want to lose fat and keep it off, it's really about losing weight slowly and gradually, but also preserving muscle and we're going to tie that all together toward the end. But I want you to understand that that's that's the key difference between the two. Now, here's the problem with weight loss. Weight loss is often seen as a numbers game, right? People focus on losing as many pounds as possible, regardless of how they do it by numbers game, you know, I like data, you know, I like numbers. But it's a single number that people focus on, instead of taking multiple data points, multiple qualitative measures of your feedback, multiple aspects of your movement training, nutrition, it's this one number. And for what, what is your real goal here, I want you to just take a step back and ask yourself, why do I want to lose 20 pounds? Right? Or 30 pounds or 50 pounds? And when I do, how am I going to feel when I get there? And is that what I'm after? Meaning? If I lose a 30 pounds, am I going to now feel very confident with myself comfortable in my clothes, I'm going to have the physique I want. I'm not going to have any more insecurities about food, or my training my nutrition, I'm going to be able to maintain my results for the rest of my life. I'm going to be able to keep eating the way I've been eating. If those are all true statements, then, then yeah, maybe you're in a great place. But tell me if that has ever happened to you, when you just lost a bunch of weight. We know it doesn't happen because we know 95% of people regain the weight that they lose, because they're doing it in this way that's focused specifically on that number on weight scale. Wait, let me just tell you a quick story about my my wedding. This was almost 20 years ago. Okay, so I know I'm dating myself. But you guys know I'm in my 40s right I'm the over 40 Crowd says a lot of what I talk about. For my wedding. This was back in the mid 2000s I did some sort of crash diet and on for the life of me no matter how far back I go and emails and everything. I can't figure out what I was doing. It wasn't like a named a big names diet. I did those later paleo zone keto, and so on. I did Atkins earlier than this. But well, all I remember was I had a piece of paper with a list of foods that I could eat. Okay, sound familiar list of foods I can eat. And they were actually very specific foods. It was like, I could eat lunch meat. And I could eat

Philip Pape  08:45

strawberries, you know, and maybe a little bit a few nuts, right? And it was like these very specific prescriptive quantities and types of food. And they were like, I don't know 15 foods total at most, and I can mix and match them. And that's a whole a that's all a it was. It was miserable. And here's the thing, my wonderful wife who loves me and we're getting ready to get married you know, she's just supporting me all the way she was the opposite of a bridesmaid I have to say so good throughout the process had really had fun with it. We had fun planning for our wedding. And deal she never said a word she just supported me you know we were still living separately so I was kind of doing it on my own anyway it's not like she was making my meals for me and come the wedding. I had lost probably 1520 pounds I was you know nice and trim fitting in my suit. But when I look back on pictures of myself back then I said Man, this guy is kind of emaciated is the word I might use like extremely skinny pale, not healthy looking as the word now far be it for me to judge other people like that, you know, at least out loud. We all judge people in our heads I get it. I'm not going to do the on this podcast and say that but I'm talking about myself here so I can do it. that, and this is what I was feeling. But at the time I didn't, I didn't have the same perception. I just knew that I had hit a number on the scale, I was able to fit in my suit. And guess what happened? We go on our honeymoon, we go to Italy, and we go on a cruise. I mean, it was quite the honeymoon, I have to say. And I just was unhinged when it came to food I just picked out I ate everything, all the things. I said, well, the diet did what it was supposed to do. I fit in the suit, and it's over. And now we're married. So there we go, I'm just going to enjoy everything, I'm going to enjoy the unlimited food on the cruise, I'm gonna enjoy gelato is everyday in Italy. And we had a great time in Italy. And I really enjoyed the food. And I don't regret it at all. I don't regret it at all. We had wine, the wine was less expensive than Diet Coke. You know, it's crazy in Italy. So we had we had those prosciutto sandwiches every day, you name it. And I had a great time. But in hindsight, I know that I was completely out of control and had no clue what I was doing. And none of this was sustainable. And the goal of weight loss was fleeting, I hit it, and all of a sudden was over and I gained the weight back. And for years and years went on that same process, right? So just because you hit the number, it doesn't solve all your problems. And that's one of the big problems with weight loss. And then it leads to this unhealthy unsustainable relationship with food with with the dieting process with the what dieting even means, right? We think of dieting as a negative thing of like, Okay, I gotta turn on the switch. And I've got to go, just cut, cut, cut. And I'm going to suffer through this short term period, or maybe long term period, or maybe, maybe years. And I'm gonna get to this number, and then I'm done. And then why, right. So that's if it ended there, that would be bad enough. But we know and you've heard me talk about this on on a previous podcast, this mentality of Crash dieting, and doing it over and over, can make it harder to lose fat in the long run because of what it does to your body, physiologically, and somewhat permanently. Right. And I'm gonna get to that in a second. But besides that, you end up gaining the weight back, you end up having an increased risk of disease, you generally gain more weight than you started with. And this leads to just most people becoming more and more overweight throughout their life. And this is part of why we have just a massive problem with obesity in the Western world. And it's a problem. So I would love to say that the fitness industry understands this perfectly, and has decided to, in principle, do the right thing. But instead of adding nuance, we know that the fitness industry perpetuates misinformation, it perpetuates unhealthy practices, right. And sometimes they are a backlash to weight loss. But instead of solving the problem, they go to another extreme. So I want to touch on a few of these. I know this isn't like the controversy episode. But I think this is so important to the idea of, of weight loss and why I just I almost despise the term I try to never ever use the term, I will use it occasionally. And I very much respect people like for example, Brandon Cruz was on my show twice. And he will use the weight loss quite often. But I know that the way he's using it is really to mean fat loss. And if you listen to what he says that's exactly what he's talking about. So I don't hold it against people who, when it comes to semantics, who use the term and really mean something, that that's cool. Like I really I don't want to get into that. What I think is the nefarious part of all of this is when influencers or people in the fitness industry will say well, weight loss is unhealthy. So we do the opposite of weight loss, whatever that is, right. But let's just focus on how weight loss is portrayed in the industry. First and foremost, it's everywhere, right? It's the very first strategy regardless still the majority strategy online, offline on billboards in ads, we were on the highway, my wife and I were taking a road trip the other day, we were on the highway near the airport, and you have one billboard after another and it's either a lawyer or weight loss add pretty much right? A lawyer or weight loss ad. And I'm like oh, and they always show somebody with a you know, oversized pants, they're stretching them out and look at all this weight they've lost and you can lose, I don't know 10 pounds in your first week or second week at some massive claim always right. And here's the thing, weight is this tiny metric. When it's used out of context, it's just one tiny element of your of your body. Right. And it's virtually meaningless, except for generalizations about obesity and disease risk overall meaning if some, if I told you a person weighed 400 pounds, you wouldn't even have to ask their gender, their height, their age, you automatically know that as far as the human population goes that that is an unhealthy level of weight, most likely now now there actually could be a tiny segment of say, Sumo wrestlers, power lifters athletes who just have so much muscle They're metabolically protected that way. Okay, but come on, we're talking about the 99% of the population that 400 pounds would be excessively overweight. So in terms of generalizations, that kind of makes sense. But in terms of what the day to day person is trying to do to just quote unquote, lose 20 pounds and lose 30 pounds, meaning they really want to be healthier, they want to look better, they want to feel better in their clothes. It, it takes it out of context, from all the other things that matter. Because it's such a powerful marketing tool, I think of weight loss is like restrictive dieting. Right? Restrictive dieting, makes things very simple, because they tell you just eat these foods. That's it? Well, weight loss is very simple, because they say, we're just going to focus on this one number, if we get this number from here to here, you're successful, we're successful, we've taken your money, you're not going to sue us move on. And then next time you regain the weight, just come back to us.

Philip Pape  15:50

And if you send some note of cynicism in my voice, it's legitimate and warranted, in my opinion. Then there's the backlash of the anti diet crowd. So this is what I was talking about before where, where they say, okay, dieting is inherently harmful in all its forms, meaning like being in any calorie deficit, just a bad thing, calories in calories out. All that's just awful. And it can lead to disordered eating and other health problems. And here, you need this holistic approach to health that focuses on listening to your body and eating intuitively and listening to your hunger signals. And we're going to teach you exactly how to do that. And there's a couple problems with this. The first problem is that they're assuming that restrictive dieting, right named diets is the only way to create a calorie deficit and lose body mass or lose weight, or whatever it is. But we know that a flexible approach to dieting can also induce weight loss and fat loss without the problems of disordered eating and weight regain. In fact, it's like this idea of flexible dieting, we know is very much associated with a healthy approach, and a healthy relationship with food. And you can use it to lose some body mass as well, which means we have to add nuance, okay? Intuitive Eating on the other hand, can actually be a problem, because most people are going to have a very hard time learning, intuitive eating without developing the intuition first, and you can only do that through awareness. Now, can you develop awareness via looking at portion sizes, mindful eating, and all of those practices, you can, I will say, however, that if somebody feels that they are an unhealthy level of weight, and is trying to lose some fat, to be healthier, metabolically healthier, it may take a lot longer, it'd be a very frustrating, long drawn out process that requires a lot of discipline and willpower to get those kinds of skills in place. Whereas a simple feedback loop of tracking your macros and calories, and managing a few things like your training, and sleep and stress can be more approachable and measurable, to get you to where you need to be and create that awareness. Once you've got that awareness, you can then do things more intuitively. But I'll tell you what, I talked to people who are experts in physique enhancement, like Dr. Bill Campbell, like Brandon Cruz, and decrees and others. And they will tell you time and again for themselves and all their clients who have a goal. And it doesn't even have to be a super aggressive goal. It's just, they want to get from here to there. And they want to do it efficiently. They don't want to drag it on forever, because dragging things on forever, is unsustainable. They want to get it over quickly. And so using a data based approach with tracking and a science based mindset of you know, we're going to apply all of our tools we have as efficiently as we can to get it done quickly, is what they use. And that involves using a calorie deficit with a known number of calories rather than trying to eat intuitively. Not to say it's not possible. I'm not Pooh poohing intuitive eating. I'm just saying that. It is not the only antidote to weight loss. Okay. Then there's there's the Bazi excuse me, fumbling over my words. Then there's the body positivity movement. Oh, here he goes. Watch out what is Philip gonna say today? So, this is this is this movement that challenges the idea that there is only one ideal body type. Now, right there the premise, I already reject that premise as well. Just like the movement does, I reject the premise that there is only one ideal body type because there isn't. Hey, this is Philip. And I hope you're enjoying this episode of Wits & Weights, I started Wits, & Weights to help people who want to build muscle, lose fat and actually look like they lift. I've noticed that when people improve their strength and physique, they not only look and feel better, they transform other areas of their life, their health, their mental resilience and their confidence in everything they do. And since you're listening to this podcast, I assume you want the same things the same success, whether you recently started lifting, or you've been at this for a while and want to optimize and reach a new level of success. Either way, my one on one coaching focused on engineering your physique and body composition is for you. If you want expert guidance and want to get results faster, easier, and with fewer frustrations along the way to actually look like you lift, go to wits & weights.com and click on coaching, or use the link in my show notes to apply today, I'll ask you a few short questions to decide if we're a good fit. If we are, we'll get you started this week. Now back to the show. Everybody has a different body type first of all, and can nobody can look the same as anyone else. And whatever you are happy with is your ideal body type. And by happy, extrapolate that to whatever it means for you capable, functional, healthy, fit, long life, high quality life. And the again, this is where we talk about extremes, the Buzet body positivity movement encourages people to celebrate their bodies, okay, okay, all good with that, regardless of their size or shape, I'm good with that, too. There's no doubt that they are really focused more on the mental health side of things, which I think is a great mission, because you should definitely love your body, no matter what, no matter what. And that includes giving your body the best shot at a long, high quality life. That is where I have the that's that's my statement, where I think it starts to differ from some in the body positivity movement, that will claim that you can be healthy at any size. And that's really the statement that I have a problem with, because we know physically, physiologically, objectively, medically, that is not true. We just know that we know that above a certain weight, or with a certain lifestyle, or even if you're not above a certain weight, but you have a certain sedentary level of activity, we know that those are associated with higher disease risk, our disease, diabetes, you know, mortality, and so on cancer, whatever. And that's a physical objective thing. I like to think of it as I am positive about my body, I love it so much. And because I love it so much, I'm going to do everything I can to keep it alive and thriving. So get into a healthier weight, ideally, via fat loss. So we're going to talk about and not indiscriminant weight loss is associated with improvements in self esteem, and mood, not to mention the confidence in your body and its capabilities for the rest of your life for the decades to come. So hopefully I gave that the right. That subject the right respect, you know, I'm not the type to go off on things and become the radio jockey kind of guy. I am trying to give it nuanced, but also recognize that there's a ridiculous, if not stupid level of irrationality out there. When it comes to Oh, yeah, you can be 500 pounds and healthy, no, not possible, I'm sorry. But if you're 500 pounds, you can love your body. And you love it so much that you want to do something, and hopefully there are people to help you do that. Right. And that's, that's what we're trying to do in this show is help you do that and do it in the right way. So we know that losing weight in general, can lower the risk of developing chronic diseases like heart disease, diabetes, but only if you can maintain the weight loss. And as we're going to learn in a bit losing fat instead of losing weight is the way of maintaining your newfound health. So let's take this for what it is.

Philip Pape  23:24

There is Vanbrugh. And by the way, if I if I offended anyone I didn't mean to hopefully I didn't. And if I did, please send me a note and let me know that I did. So I can apologize, I don't think I got off track on that. But that some of these subjects are highly sensitive. So you know, and I am a sensitive guy, I think and want to give it the treatment it deserves. So let's take this for what it is, there is value in losing pure body mass from a health perspective. Yet, the only way to do that in a healthy and sustainable way is by prioritizing fat loss instead of weight loss. Therefore, let's take advantage of these benefits of losing weight. And understand that if you only lose weight indiscriminately, and don't lose fat, there are three things that are conspiring against you. Okay, these are physiological things that ultimately also become psychological. And these are the things that make it impossible for 95% of people who lose weight to maintain that weight loss. We are trying to avoid these things. So I want to clarify what those are. All right. So if you say need to lose 30 pounds, and you go and you do a crash diet or you do keto or something you just the weight starts flying off. Okay? There's going to be a few things that happen along the way that are going to backfire because you went so aggressively and you didn't prioritize fat loss. I talked about this on episode 88. It's called break the cycle of body fat overshooting for a stronger leaner and healthier physique, but I'm going to recap them so the first one is body fat overshooting. This is when you lose weight too quickly. The body tries to conserve energy you have metabolic adaptation. But even worse, you start To lose muscle, this leads to an increase in appetite, excuse me, a decrease in your metabolism much more quickly than it would otherwise, which makes it harder and harder to lose the additional pounds that you're going for. And then when you are done, you more easily regain weight for a variety of reasons. Having to do with the hunger, for example, having to do with the fact that you are on a restrictive diet. And now because you've turned off the dieting, switch, everything's back in play, and you're not sure what to eat. So you just eat all the indulgences and all the high sugar, high fat, high carb, whatever things high, everything high calorie, doesn't matter what macro it has probably not a lot of protein, let's be honest. And you regain all the weight and then some and this happens to 95% of people within I think five years. The second phenomenon is called hyperplasia. This is the growth of new fat cells. When you lose weight too quickly, the body might produce new fat cells to replace new ones that had been lost. Now I've seen this been called into question by, you know, reputable evidence out there. So I'm waiting to see more evidence come out, it may not be as big of a deal as we think. But you know why chance and I guess, and if you create new fat cells, you're never going to lose them, you're always gonna have those, it's just more energy storage for future weight regain. And then hyperphagia is the third one. And this is the excessive consumption of food, I believe it's triggered by the metabolic adaptation and the loss of muscle, like we talked about first, and you get these intense hunger pangs deep into the diet. And then that leads to binging, overeating weight regain. Okay, so enough of the doom and gloom, there's a very simple solution, all this to all this, okay? It's not not easy, but simple. We want to lose fat, instead of lose weight. And by losing fat, we're gonna gain all the benefits of losing weight, the health benefits of living at a lighter body mass, but none of the consequences that we just talked about. And so we can get the exact physique we want. And we can know with confidence how to shape our bodies, anytime in the future, do it sustainably feel in control, feel a sense of freedom, it's a great place to be. It's a place that I finally discovered about three years ago, and I've been living in ever since. And it's been so liberating. And then all my clients get to experience this as well. And it's just a joy to see them go through that transformation in such a short time, you know, we're talking three to six months, come out of it with a clarity they've never had before. And it really comes down to body composition. When we talk about our physique. We're talking about looking lean, and strong, and having less fat, which can be dangerous, depending on where it is stored in the body.

Philip Pape  27:51

Being at a healthy level of body fat, and then having carrying a lot of muscle, right. So body composition is what most people are going for. Now you can improve your body composition as a new lifter, without even losing weight on the scale. In fact, you can improve it while gaining weight on the scale. You could of course, build muscle and lose fat while losing weight on the scale. And you could just hold on to muscle and lose fat while losing weight on the scale. So now we start to see, okay, wait on the scale is one metric. But it's not everything is one metric. And we can use that metric. And we can use it for its advantages. But we need to do it in context. And so there really, I'm gonna say four major things that if you can do these, you're gonna have 8590 95% of the progress you want. And the first one is strength training. Absolutely, bar none. We want to build muscle when we are eating. We want to preserve muscle when we're in a deficit, we want to increase our insulin sensitivity, we want to burn more calories at rest. We want to better utilize our food as energy, we want to get stronger, we want to get better bone density, I can go on and on. I've done podcasts in the past all about the benefits of muscle, there are no disadvantages, and there are only upsides to having more muscle. But that is number one. And all the things I talked about before about weight loss and all the programs, all the crazy crash diets, all the billboards I see on the highway. None of them talk about strength training, they are all about just cutting and restricting. And so the people on those programs are going to be in for a rude awakening because when they're not strength training, they're just going to lose a ton of muscle, they're going to get more skinny fat, they're not going to be happy when they hit that magic number. They're going to regain the weight. They're gonna have even higher body fat percentage than before. They're gonna repeat the cycle over and over and over again. Again, body fat overshooting. But strength training is their biggest protector against this. It's your biggest protector against us both in the muscle mass you add, but even in the act of strength training itself and the adaptation and the signal that it sends to your body the day after the week after you know while you sleep. Because once you're in that calorie deficit and you're losing Weight, yes, you're losing weight, you're losing primarily fat tissue. As a representation of most of that weight, the man or woman down the street following the billboard program is losing half of their tissue as muscle, you're losing zero of that tissue as muscle. So while they're losing 10 pounds of muscle and 10 pounds of fat, which is just killing their health, you're losing 20 pounds of fat, period. That's what we want. So strength training is going to be the biggest signal toward that. And then it has to be combined combined with the right energy, the right food for that training. And this is the way I like to approach I'd like to start with strength and start with training. Because once you become an athlete, okay, all my clients are athletes, I'm not saying that they are athletes, and then they become clients. I'm saying they become clients, and then they become athletes. And anyone listening to this show, you can be an athlete, you can be an athlete starting today. Okay, once you're an athlete, and you think that way, and you train like an athlete, an athlete who recovers well, of course, we're not talking about an in season athlete, let's call it an offseason athlete, you're gonna then want to fuel that performance. And we fuel it with the right balance of protein, fats, carbs, which is probably a lot more protein than you're getting now, probably double for what a lot of people are getting, if you haven't ever tracked before, it's probably at least double and probably a lot more carbs than you used to as well. And then you're like, Well, are you telling me to eat more of everything? Yeah, actually, you're probably gonna need more calories overall, to fuel that act of building muscle, you're gonna be able to burn more calories, you're gonna be able to do so with gaining little to no weight, to set yourself, set yourself up for this fat loss phase, where you're training, send your body a signal, that muscle is important. And you're feeding the repair of that muscle with protein and sufficient carbs. Because remember, we've talked about this before, carbs protect protein, so we they kind of complement each other. But when you're in a calorie deficit, you're not gonna be able to have that many carbs. So you try to keep the protein as high as possible. Okay, so we've got training, we've got protein, folks, this is nothing new. You've heard me say this over and over again, these are the, this is the checklist. This is the checklist, okay, but it's good to be reminded of, it's good to remind myself of how important these are. Because as soon as one of these these things drop off, you enter the realm of weight loss instead of fat loss, then we have the appropriate rate of loss that is really important to this, because when we talk about the diets on the Billboard, those are crash diets because they promise fast weight loss and you probably get fast weight loss. And that is a problem because go back to my previous thing about body fat overshooting, hyperphagia, hyperplasia, hunger, you know, unsustainability, on and on and on. We don't want those, we want to go at a reasonable rate, which can still be somewhat aggressive, depending on your starting point, depending on how you feel, depending on how much metabolism adapts, and we're starting from, and depending on your hunger signals, we can vary that between, you know, moderate to pretty aggressive. Depending on where you're starting from, right, some of my more advanced client athletes can go more aggressive because they have a higher metabolism or they're bigger, they burn more calories, or they do a lot more activity and training. Whereas somebody who's been dieting a lot, who has kind of a suppressed metabolism, even once we recover it, it's still not may not be that high in relative terms, or it could be someday. And so you're not gonna be able to go as aggressive on that dieting phase on that fat loss phase, right. So it really depends. But the typical rate of loss is anywhere from a quarter to 1% of your weight per week, we won't get into aggressive fat loss today, because I don't want to mix the signals between that and crash dieting and confuse you here, I will do a future episode, I'm pretty committed to doing a future episode all about aggressive fat loss and how to accomplish that safely. And effectively. And you know, kind of what the limitations are. But today, I'm just keeping it to the standard quarter to 1% of your body weight a week, which for most people is going to be kind of in the middle of that range a half to three quarters of a percent of your body weight per week. So for 200 pound person that's going to be like one on one and a half pounds a week, which is about like a 500 to 750 calorie a day deficit. Okay. And then the last thing is recovery, getting enough sleep reducing your stress. I recently heard something on the revived stronger podcast, Dr. Mike Israel was on there. And he used the phrase, I think I posted a story about it, where he said physique, or he said fatigue kills physique. Fatigue is a killer for the physique. And what he was talking about is when you have too much stress in your life, and the stress could be in the form of too much training too much Exercise and Movement, right? If it's just too much, that creates fatigue that you cannot recover from and it starts to compound on itself. And this creates a load on your body a stress in your body that suppresses your metabolism quite a bit, in addition to the other things that suppress it. So getting enough sleep, reducing your stress are great ways to do that. I'll tell you about my personal journey right now. I'm eight weeks out from left rotator cuff surgery And around the time I record this episode, and I talked to one of my physical therapists about, actually, John Patrizio, he's going to be on the show soon, he's a starting strength guy who's also a physical therapist in my barbell club. And he and I went over some ideas for how I can ramp up my lifting. Now, I can start doing some things like some limited rom bench pressing, I can do safety bar squats, I can do some conventional deadlifting again, so I'm getting into that phase where I can start loading my recovering arm. But instead of doing a four or five day split, like I was used to, he's like, why don't we go to three days do full body. And the reason we're going to do that is because I can't lift that much weight with some of these movements right now. And so it's kind of like I'm a beginner, I'm regressing a little bit to linear progression, like a novice, almost like a novice linear progression, where I'm going to start deadlifting, like 90 505 pounds. Whereas Normally, I'd be up in the mid to upper three hundreds, right. So I'm doing that because I have this bottleneck of my left shoulder, preventing me from lifting as much weight. But now I can do it three times a week instead of once a week. So as an intermediate lifter, I was doing most major movements once a week, because that's the, that's as frequently as I can do them to progress, I might do a second or third day of that movement, at a much lighter weight or a variation of it. But now I could actually deadlift, Monday, Wednesday, Friday, for example, you know, maybe a set of five heavy set of five. And by heavy, I just mean, you know, my top set, what I can handle. So what is my point with all this, I'm actually going to work out one day less a week. And I'm going to increase the frequency. And this is a way to manage fatigue and stress, I'm going to increase the stress that I need to progress my deadlift. But I'm reducing the systemic stress and the frequency stress by going to three days a week and making a full body. These are all important concepts. Now, I don't mean to go off on this long tangent about training in the context of weight loss versus fat loss. But if I was in a fat loss phase now, which I'm not, if I was in a fat loss phase, this would be very important variable in how many calories I can eat. And I like to keep the calories as high as possible during fat loss. So that it's easier, don't you, right, so that's another benefit of keeping your energy coming in as high as possible by keeping the stress down. So those are the big things training, protein, appropriate rate of loss, and in managing sleep stress recovery. Okay, here's the thing, if you are serious about losing fat, and improving your health, improving your body composition, then you're going to focus on fat loss, and not weight loss, you're going to train, you're gonna eat protein, you're going to keep that muscle while you lose your body mass. So it's just fat, while the billboard folks are losing muscle, and worsening their body composition. So it's not easy, but it's doable. And it's totally worth it. And remember, if you haven't done these yet, if you haven't done what we're talking about here yet, if this is all new to you, you know, don't beat yourself up. In fact, congratulate yourself for listening to this content and getting these ideas and learning. And now you have something to run with. And I would absolutely love you to reach out to me if you have any questions if this is confusing in any way, because I know I can cover a lot in one show. But here's the thing, there's no time like right now to get started or to restart this process. There's no time like right now, there really isn't, now is the time. And then once you do once you make that progress, if anyone asks you what you're doing to look so incredible, I want you to share this episode with them and start using the language of fat loss. Instead of weight loss in your conversations. Instead of saying, Yeah, I lost a bunch of weight, talk about how you lost fat and improved muscle composition, or body composition. Or I built some muscle and I lost some of that excess fat in the process, rather than making about weight loss, right? Because at the end of the day, you're gonna probably weigh quite a bit more than you thought you could actually look leaner than you thought you could. And then we can spread the word about the important differences between weight loss and fat loss and why they matter. And if you're tired of not seeing the results you want, I get it. Right I work with people like you every day, we use the same science backed methods I talked about on this podcast who lose fat, no BS, just stuff that works. It worked for me or for my clients. It's not the stuff on the billboards that the show that they're trying to show you in the fitness industry. It's just reasonable, simple, not easy, simple things at work. So if you want to lose fat, not just weight, you want to actually look like you lift. That's what we do. My coaching program, if you're interested is a six month commitment to do just that. It's pretty much the fastest time period you can imagine getting that kind of result because we know how to do this. We take your diet, your training, your lifestyle, we make it all work together. It isn't for everyone. It's just not. It's for people who are serious about making the change we talked about today and who are tired of wasting time. And if that's you, there's a link in my show notes It says apply for coaching, I want you to click it, fill it out, I'll get back to you with a couple of questions. And then we'll see if this is the right fit. If it is, we start immediately, no messing around because I hate wasting time as much as you do. So you don't want to be in the same spot. Six months from now, thinking about weight loss instead of having gone through successful fat loss, I want you to click the link to apply for my one on one coaching program. And let's get to work. All right in our next episode 105 Strength, power and vitality for women at any age with Cheryl I love Cheryl and I will be discussing the art of movement, the challenges faced by women in fitness, and actionable strategies to enhance vitality and build confidence No matter your age, or where you're starting from. The best way to get these new episodes and help others find the show is to click subscribe or follow or whatever it says in your favorite podcast app. And I'm always grateful when you tell others about the show. Because they too can become more informed. They can learn the differences between fat loss and weight loss and they also can have the power to get the outcome they desire. As always, stay strong. And I'll talk to you next time here on the Wits & Weights podcast.

Philip Pape  41:18

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

Ep 103: Sweet Proteins, Food Science, and the Future of Sweeteners with Jason Ryder

Have you ever heard of sweet proteins? If not, you’re in for a treat, pun intended, as we dive into this topic with Jason Ryder, CTO and Co-Founder of Oobli, a food technology company building a new category of food and beverages based on naturally sweet proteins.

You'll learn about sweet proteins, the science behind them, their health benefits, and where to find them. Jason will discuss sweet proteins' significance in our diet, how they will change the food industry, their health benefits, and how they're made.

Jason had senior technological leadership roles at Amyris, Bolt Threads, and Hampton Creek / Eat JUST before Oobli. He received a B.S. and Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering from the University of Alabama and the University of California at Berkeley, respectively. Jason became Adjunct Professor and Executive Director of the Master of Bioprocess Engineering (MBPE) program in the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at UC Berkeley in 2018.

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[2:19] Interest and motivation in food technology and sweet proteins
[6:16] The science of sweet proteins
[10:24] Role and benefits of sweet proteins
[14:21] Human propensity for sweetness and the added sugar dilemma
[18:40] Health implications of sugar, artificial sweeteners, and sugar alcohols
[20:28] Quantity of sweet proteins in products
[27:41] Production process of sweet proteins
[30:19] Challenges in scaling production and increasing awareness
[33:27] Influence of academic role at UC Berkeley on his work
[35:09] Impact of sweet proteins on the food industry
[39:22] Addressing criticisms and skepticism
[41:07] Excitement and future vision for the field of sweet proteins
[42:10] Potential applications of sweet proteins in other foods and drinks
[49:28] The question Jason wished Philip had asked
[51:51] Where to learn more about Oobli
[53:09] Outro

Episode resources:

• Website: Oobli Sweet Teas

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/ooblifoods 

• IG: @ooblisweetproteins 

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Transcript

Jason Ryder  00:00

sweetness comes in a lot of joyful places. And I think normalizing that that's good by separating it from the negative health effects is really important to us as a human society, because we need to have joy and we also need to have health. And we very much view sweet proteins as one of the key tools and helping us reestablish that connection right. Both joy in and health can live in the same place around Sweden's

Philip Pape  00:27

Welcome to the Wits & Weights podcast. I'm your host, Philip pape, and this twice a week podcast is dedicated to helping you achieve physical self mastery by getting stronger, optimizing your nutrition and upgrading your body composition will uncover science backed strategies for movement, metabolism, muscle and mindset with a skeptical eye on the fitness industry so you can look and feel your absolute best. Let's dive right in. Wits & Weights community Welcome to another episode of the Wits & Weights podcast. Have you ever heard of sweet proteins? If not, because I haven't, you're in for a treat pun intended. As we dive into this topic with Jason, writer, CTO and co founder of Uber li a food technology company building a new category of food and beverages based on naturally sweet proteins. You'll learn about these sweet proteins from the science behind them to their potential health benefits to what foods you might find them in. Jason will share his insights on the role of sweet proteins in our diet and how they're poised to disrupt the food industry, not to mention the effects on our health and even how they're made. Prior to Uli Jason spent time in senior technical leadership roles at a virus bolt threads and Hampton Creek eat just he earned a BS in chemical engineering from the University of Alabama. So real scientists here on the show, and a PhD in Chemical Engineering from the University of California Berkeley. In 2018, Jason joined the UC Berkeley faculty in the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, where he currently serves as adjunct professor and Executive Director of the Master bioprocess engineering program. Jason, welcome to the show. Thanks,

Jason Ryder  02:04

Philip. Great to be here.

Philip Pape  02:05

Man. I'm excited to learn about this because I don't know anything about sweet proteins and I withheld from doing too much research intentionally so that I can learn it from the man himself. I do want to learn a little bit about you and your personal motivations before we jump into the topic. So how did you get interested in food technology for one and sweet protein specifically, and sort of what are your values and personal connection to all of this?

Jason Ryder  02:28

Sure thing. So I'd say you got me right. And the intro, I am a chemical engineer by training. But I'm a sustainable bioprocess engineer by choice. And growing up in Alabama had strong sensibilities about sustainability. Even back in the 80s and 90s. Before you know, the rest of the world really appreciated what our choices as humans were, you know, what, what impacts they were having on on us from a climate, food and health perspective. And so all of my work up to date has been figuring out different ways to harness sustainable technologies like bio processing, to address those problems, including when I was at amorous working on various renewable chemicals and fuels via fermentation technology up through materials that was the bolt threads. And all the way through the last 678 years of my life focused on foods. Sweet proteins was a really interesting one for me, in terms of applying my skill set, which is mostly around fermentation technologies to address that, and it came along in the form of Foodtech, I was working on a different problem making an egg replacement product at each us that just egg product and stumbled across through a biotech incubator, my co founder who was working on sweet proteins, and his interest in sweet proteins was around his grandmother who had cancer, which is horrible, but also the chemotherapy treatments she was getting which are horrible, what they don't tell you is you oftentimes lose your taste. And one of these sweet proteins from the miracle berry it's called miraculous and enables you to regain the tastebuds, which is fantastic. When you're going through chemotherapy and you need nutrition, you'd love to have the taste of food so that you can eat and rebuild health. And so what I did when I joined was to figure out a technology beyond growing these these plants that produce these sweet proteins taking it to fermentation technology, so that you can have a scalable and affordable solution. And that that was again it's sort of hit me right in the sweet spot pun fully intended of the things that I care about. Sustainability, climate, food and health all in one.

Philip Pape  04:50

Okay, so there's a couple of things I wanted to pull the thread on in those what is bioprocess engineering and bio processing in general as a medium of sustained Billy, if you can explain that a little bit, and then I have another quick follow up after that.

Jason Ryder  05:04

Sure. So most of the listeners are familiar with biotechnology. And that's mostly around using living cells to make bio based products on ways that are more sustainable than then then the other ways that humans have produced them a great example are biofuels and bio materials, right? Those that are produced via fermentation. And bio processing is using those living cells essentially building scalable processes around them so that you can make these materials and in our case, foods at a scale that that that is meaningful for the planet and addressing those problems. So things like large scale fermentation, everybody's familiar with brewing beer. In our case, we brew sweet proteins, and that's the bioprocess engineering that we do at Dubli. Okay,

Philip Pape  05:49

and one of those you mentioned was miraculous, which is an amazing name from the miracle berries. And you've regained taste during chemotherapy. So the obvious question you've probably been asked before is what about the COVID, long COVID symptom where people lose taste? Does it help them that

Jason Ryder  06:03

works for those that as well. And again, I think we're all trying to get rid of COVID Right, or trying to stick it, but it is a very useful, sweet protein for those that have been impacted.

Philip Pape  06:16

Okay, so let's step back and talk about sweet proteins in general, let's just define them what they are. Why haven't most people myself included, heard about them and I'll tell you, I know a lot about food and, you know, I look at I think about macros and micros all the time and food selection, I have clients, we're always talking about food, but I've just, it's just a new one to me. Start high level and then feel free to dig into the science like we talked about before we started recording and then how they compare to other sweeteners would be helpful. Sure thing.

Jason Ryder  06:43

So at high level sweet proteins are simply proteins that tastes sweet like sugar. They come mostly from plants and various around the equator. And unlike sugar and alternative sweeteners that most of your listeners are familiar with sweet proteins don't spike your blood sugar, or give you gut microbiome issues that makes them in and of themselves, a revolutionary game changer in the world of healthy sweets, going one level deeper. For for those of your listeners that want to dig into the science, proteins are relatively large biomolecules, right? They're made up of amino acids, often called the building blocks of life, but they comprise some 50% of the dry weight of your cells. Your body has a lot of proteins that are very functional. And based on that sequence of amino acids, they have a three dimensional folded structure that can take on a number of roles in your cells, catalyzing bio reactions. These are called enzymes, and even doing things like your DNA replication. To make more of you you need enzymes, you need protein, right? They're fundamental to life. Now back to sweet proteins. Sweet proteins are a subclass of mostly plant based proteins I mentioned that come from plants, berries and fruits around the equator. And their amino acid sequence and three dimensional structure make them sweet to our tons to our tastebuds what I'll call our T one, r two and two and R three taste receptors. And they're 1000s of times sweeter on a waitwait basis than sugar. Now, why would a plant make such a protein that was sweet to humans and sweeter instead of sugar? Well, plants are really good at making sugars. And they need to make sugars. Well, they make sugars by photosynthesis, right? That's their process. But they would rather turn those sugars into things like cellulose that enable them to grow more plant material for more photosynthesis, right? That's the leaves and the stems and the like. It's metabolically expensive for them to simply store sugar hoping that a human or a higher primate come along and eat them and hopes that they carry their seeds, right. And so we as humans, those mobile species and seed carriers and the early forests evolved in are wired to crave sugar for energy, right, we needed to try and gather. And we gorged on sources like fruits and berries that these plants make. And so they simply made that trade off metabolically to make a small amount of a sweet protein to trick us into eating them, as opposed to all that that sugar. And that was a dirty trick on us several 1000 years ago, when we needed that energy. But nowadays, we've cultivated sugar in a lot of forms, namely sugar cane, corn syrup, sugar beets, it's very cheap. It's recklessly abundant in our food system. And we're paying the price for it in the form of, you know, 40% pre diabetes and the US obesity rates are similar to that heart disease I could go on. It's just not natural. We weren't meant to eat that much sugar. And the cool thing about sweet proteins is they give us a path to have that sweetness, which we deserve as the people fill it but without all of that bad stuff associated with it.

Philip Pape  09:53

Yeah, I agree. The modern food environment has skew things way off from where they were intended to be. And I personally and pretty much everybody listening to this can relate with some level of sweet tooth, right? Whether it's, you know, yeah, we've gone artificial sweeteners or stevia or something like that to continue enjoying sweet things without the deleterious effects of too much sugar, or we've gone just, you know, as much toward Whole Foods as we can, and you kind of lose that sensitivity. But there are a lot of people that are just still stuck in that, you know, cycle of, of eating the sugar. So I think it's fascinating how this was an evolutionary change in these plants to have highly dense form of sugar. So it was a more efficient storage, and it still got the same result of spreading seeds. I mean, that's pretty cool. Is is in terms of like, all the plant matter on the planet, I guess, before agriculture came along with these have comprised a decent amount of plant species, or are they just small corner niches of of the environment?

Jason Ryder  10:51

Yes, so far, we know, there are between 10 or 20 of these species that are commonly known. And they're known because of the cultures that identify them. They're mainly in West Africa and around the equator around the world. And that's because these proteins, they don't have a long shelf life, once you pick the berries or the fruits, you got about three days to eat them before. Different enzymes inside those fruits, break them down. And so they've stayed local, the only one really didn't make it to the US in any form is the miracle berry. And it still has to be grown in the tropical area, mostly Florida and Hawaii. And so the cool thing about fermentation is we can brew these proteins in the same way that you brew beer, and you can brew beer anywhere on the planet. And that's that's game changing technology to go with the game changing proteins as you can make them and make them at a scale that's meaningful. As sugar is literally everywhere, I'd say it's 70 to 80% of the products in your grocery store have sugar in some form or another. And it's confusing for consumers because we call sugar a lot of different things at least 50 By my account, and sweet, sweet proteins give you a great alternative to that. And so that's why we're working on it.

Philip Pape  12:08

Okay, so let's I kind of want to dispel if my audience gets too excited thinking that this is like the new base of a protein powder or something, right, we usually discuss protein in terms of it's important for building importance for building and repairing muscle increasing satiety and our diet, higher thermic effect of feeding all those and we're talking about, you know, fairly high quantities of that macronutrient in our diet. But I suspect the sweet proteins aren't necessarily consumed at that quantity. And so what is, first of all, let's, let's let's discuss whether that's true or not. And then what's the added benefit of the proteins that taste sweet? Is it mainly as a sweetener, that's what I'm getting?

Jason Ryder  12:46

Yeah, so So I'll give you a visual example, since we're recording for, for your audience. And so I'm going to show you a bottle of an orange, fizzy beverage that has around 72 grams of sugar in it, right, which looks roughly like this 18 sugar cubes, which are around four grams each. And so when we sweetened the beverage, like our sweet iced teas, it only takes a few 10s of milligrams of sweet protein, because of the potency of the sweetness, right 1000s of times more potent than sugar. So for

Philip Pape  13:17

the audience, it's a big jar of many, many, many cubes of sugar, versus a tiny vial of a tiny sprinkle of the sweet protein.

Jason Ryder  13:26

Yeah, so a few 10s of milligrams isn't going to get you the protein loading if you're trying to get out and get small. There's lots of other great protein sources for that either animal or plant based depending on your sensibilities. And so what we do is functionally sweetened on that product. And so if you're having a protein shake, for example, we can give you that sweet taste that you're looking for in your chocolate or your strawberry or vanilla. But we can do that with a tiny amount of protein while you're getting the building blocks for all of that muscle from another protein, for example, like whey or pea protein.

Philip Pape  14:00

Love it. And that's actually a great point because, again, most people listening probably have at least one if not two protein shakes a day. And because most people don't like pure unflavored whey protein, they tend to buy the kind of has flavoring which then is associated with usually a form of sweetener, whether it's sucralose or stevia or something else. So we'll get into specific products in a bit. But I do I want to talk a little bit more about this sweetening aspect of it right. We don't add sugar, we will eat fruit and things like that to satisfy your sweet tooth will use these other sweeteners in moderation. If the alternative is significantly more calories, right, because that's what we're trying to do. What's your take on added sugar and our tendency to make things sweet in general, and then artificial sweeteners? You know, because you did allude to insulin spiking. You alluded to gut microbiome and I know some of that science is sketchy and some of it is more solid plus you had the recent who announcement aspartame which is getting a lot of controversy. So what are your thoughts on all of that?

Jason Ryder  14:59

Yeah, So let me describe for your listeners, how sweeteners and in turn sweet proteins work. And so you have a great analytical instrument in your mouth for evaluating the sweetness, right? Because we're, we're hardwired for it, we need sugar for energy, it's the great currency from which we fuel our daily life. And so we have these T one, r two and T winnaar, three tastes receptors on your tastebuds that tell your brain, hey, this is sweet, you should eat more of it. And that never stops, right. But it also we have additional taste receptors in our gut. And they do the same thing. They tell your brain ah, we see sweetness keep eating that but also it alerts your pancreas to make insulin right to ferry that sugar into the bloodstream so that you can use it to fuel your life, and so on sweet proteins work more or less the same way as sugar. And as alternative sweeteners is they bombard your taste receptor to tell you how that sweetness, the difference comes back to the chemistry that I explained before is they're made of amino acids, and they have a folded structure. And so the difference in sweet proteins is once they hit your stomach, which is an acidic environment, or low pH, as scientists tend to think of it, it unfolds and when it unfolds, it loses its activity for tripping, that that taste receptor that's in your gut, those taste receptors that are in your gut, because most of the form of sugar you get are from more complex carbohydrates, where you take those simple sugars and you connect them, you polymerize them, right. And those are, you know, things like complex sugars, multi dextran, I could go on, right. And so you need to be able to tell your body that the sugar is being broken down by enzymes, so you can vary it in your bloodstream. So the sweet proteins don't touch any of those, and so they don't spike your insulin response. That's super important, right? Because even alternative sweeteners can continue to give you that sweetness response in your GI tract continue to bombard insulin production and lead to type two diabetes. And so that's a big difference. Another big difference is your gut microbiome. Um, for those of you that eat protein, or drink lots of protein shakes, or eat high protein products that are sweetened by alternative sweeteners, you call it aspartame, stevia, you know I could go on, you might have tolerability issues, that's a polite way of saying give you gas, you are all walking, talking fermenters, as you have a number of different microbes that are in your tummy that help you break down all of the things that aren't broken down by your normal gi process. And it's a consortium there's lots of different species in there. And when they get out of balance, and they can get out of balance when they're exposed to different different chemicals they're not used to or different food sources that you're not evolved around. And that certainly happens when you have high levels of alternative sweeteners, even stevia and monk fruit. And so the cool thing about sweet proteins is they never get to the gut microbiome, your body has already unfolded them, and is breaking them down into the peptides and amino acids that you normally need to build cells and all that great cellular function I mentioned earlier.

Philip Pape  18:17

Yeah, I think that's pretty cool. I can definitely foresee so many applications for that. Where, you know, protein bars are a big one people talk about, you know, getting bloated and whatnot, because they have the sugar alcohols, there's things like allulose, or there's always some new innovation. And they all seem to have a little bit of a disadvantage in one of those areas, depending on the quantities, you consume them. And so we talked about all right, I think that's amazing. The protein structure fold and how it unfolds when you get to your gut and because the acidic environment and then it doesn't trigger the receptor. This is the science I know we're diving a little deeper, not too deep. It's just Just what I like to hear. What about. So let's talk about the implications of this then, and maybe the food supply, the technology, the psychology of dieting, and all of that some of we alluded to the psychology of dieting. Right? We have an emotional relationship with food. How do you see your work with sweet proteins impacting that? Yeah,

Jason Ryder  19:09

I think we shouldn't hate on ourselves or criminalized sweetness, right? It's a great thing. We associate it with all of the fun things in our lives, like birthdays, for example, birthday cakes. You know, even my kids, they are self self acclaimed. boba tea experts, right? So sweetness comes in a lot of joyful places. And I think normalizing that that's good by separating it from the negative health effects is really important to us as a human society. Because we need to have joy and we also need to have health and we very much view sweet proteins as one of the key tools and helping us reestablish that connection right. Both joy in and health can live in the same place around sweetness.

Philip Pape  19:55

Ya know, couldn't couldn't put it better myself. We talk about sustainability in this program all Time have, you know, no foods are really off limit except maybe trans fats. No foods are off limit to some extent as long as they meet your goals and they serve what you're trying to do. So part of that is our life or lifestyle or social situations. I just today answering the question about carnivore diet and how, you know, when you restrict things too much, then you now all of a sudden you making all these other trade offs and compromises. So if we can use technology to kind of bring that back to a rational space, it's, it's all the better. So as a food technology expert, how do you see this transforming the industry? Because I know you guys I know Googly makes a few products, maybe two or three different products, is this gonna replace traditional sweeteners on a large scale, we'll be able to buy them in, you know, containers and packets in the store, will they be in protein powders and bars and everything at some point?

Jason Ryder  20:48

Yes to that, that is my goal is of course, we're developing a few of our own products to feature our sweet proteins and also establish that relationship of trust with with consumers. I imagine a few of your listeners feel a little jerked around by the stories on, you know, sugar and alternative sweeteners. And even recently, aspartame has been linked to cancer, sucralose, a chlorinated sugar of sorts is linked to genotoxicity. This is scary. And, you know, it's hard to know what to trust. And so we're launching our own products. And we've done our own safety studies, for our consumers to try get curious about sweet proteins drink our sweet iced teas, eat our chocolates, you can go to voobly.com and find all of those, as well as a few stores here in Davis and down in LA. And I think that's a great first step in a series of products that we'd like to launch ourselves through bliss brand, but also partner with others to help rehabilitate products that you know, a lot of your listeners and consumers in general love, but are loaded with sugar. And we know how to formulate and all of those products. And we're working on a platform of these sweet proteins that can get all of them. And so that's really what I'm looking for, throughout the rest of my career with googly is to figure out how to basically go everywhere shutter is,

Philip Pape  22:19

yeah, now that makes sense that I'm looking forward to that, you know, because I put some stevia in my coffee every day because it's, you know, quote, unquote, the making all the trade offs that I can make, it's the best option I feel like I have at the moment. But if I could take a little dropper, dollop of Euro, sweet proteins in there from the miracle barrier, wherever it comes from, that'd be great.

Jason Ryder  22:37

We're working on it, Philip. And so the protein that you'll see and experience through your mouth, and when you buy our sweet iced teas, as well as our chocolates is called the googly fruit, sweet protein that does come from the googly fruit, which is another one of those plant species. And it's berries that grow in West Africa. And it's, it's an amazing, sweet protein gives you a really sugary sucrose taste in your mouth that you crave. And again, it's because that specific plant evolved to trick us into thinking it was sucrose. And so enjoy that. And there's there's several more on the way.

Philip Pape  23:16

That's a good point, right? Because some of these alternative sweeteners even if they're quote unquote unnatural have after after taste or they're bitter. A lot of people don't like stevia, for example, and which is the one in the pink packet that just nobody likes. But I'm curious, so only now I see what are the name of the company comes from the food labeling house? What's that going to look like? I mean, you already know what it looks like because you have to have the FDA labels. What is it expressed as in the food label?

Jason Ryder  23:42

Yeah, we call it ugly fruit sweet protein. As we feel that that's the most direct and honest way to talk about sweet proteins with with consumers in a way that they can grab onto. There are technical names for all of these proteins. I mentioned one, the miracle berry fruit protein is referred to as miraculous. The only fruit sweet protein is also called braising. But but not all of our, our your listeners or even our consumers are protein biochemists and I think recognizing that the proteins are natural they're identical to the ones that come out of plants they just happen to be made via fermentation it's important to know I think we all know in our hearts and heads that natural products are the best ones for us. But you know calling them something a rose by any other name, I think names pretty important. And so for us, we're going to name them by the berries that these natural proteins come from

Philip Pape  24:42

full transparency, what is the what about the macro labeling? Does it is it designed to be shown as a sugar carb or protein? What is it?

Jason Ryder  24:49

It doesn't show up anywhere because it doesn't break the threshold is so small Okay. Routine, right? So we believe me we struggled on that I'm a Scientists and engineer I over communicate by nature, I've probably done a lot of that here. And so we played around with our label a lot to try to figure out how to tell our consumers about our superhero proteins but but also explain why there aren't 10 grams of it, you don't need very much, you just need a couple of 10s of milligrams actually, to get that sweetness.

Philip Pape  25:23

Again, it's kind of like salt. And when they put salt in suddenly it just says salt and there's very little of anything in it. Well, it might show sodium. But what what does so if we if we on your sweet tea, because I actually didn't look at the label yet does it have does it have any other sugars in it? Besides that? It does.

Jason Ryder  25:38

So for example, with our lemon, peach and mango uses sweet teas, we do use fruit to make all of those. And so along with that fruit comes around five grams for our 16 ounce teas. But But again, we don't think that we don't think sugar is a bad thing. But having too much sugar is certainly been a bad thing for us. And so we have the natural fruit that comes along as well as a little bit of agave to round out. And what we're looking for with our sweet proteins is an unrecognizable reduction in sugar that doesn't give you those off. Notice that things like stevia and monk fruit and even aspartame and, and sucralose give you that you can have the sweetness and the form that you expect. And maybe not even though there's sweet proteins in there, we want you to know they're sweet proteins in there for sure. But, you know, your mouth is a very finely tuned instrument around sweetness. And so our sweet proteins along with a little bit of sugar that comes with the fruit is just the right balance for our teas and chocolates. We feel like that hope hope.

Philip Pape  26:50

Okay, yeah, I want to try them. So we'll see I love chocolate. So that you know, it could be dangerous, but that's a that's a good thing. I love chocolate.

26:58

Okay, my name is Lisa. And I'd like to give big shout out to my nutrition coach Philip pape, with his coaching, I have lost 17 pounds, he helped me identify the reason that I wanted to lose weight, and it's very simple longevity. I want to be healthy, active and independent until the day I die. He introduced me to this wonderful Apple macro factor I got that part of my nutrition figured out along with that is the movement part of nutrition, there's a plan to it and really helped me with that. The other thing he helped me with was knowing that I need to get a lot of steps in. So the more steps you have, the higher your expenditure is, and the easier it is to lose weight when it's presented to you like he presents it it makes even more sense. And the other thing that he had was a hunker guide. And that really helped me so thank you below.

Philip Pape  27:42

So you mentioned the sourcing and the types of berries they might come from and where they're located. Let's talk about the fermentation process, because I am curious about that how that comes into this.

Jason Ryder  27:52

Sure thing. So we brew our sweet proteins much the same way you would brew beer, we use a foodsafe yeast just like you would use for brewing beer. And so we does require a little bit of sugar. But again, that sugar is upgraded. And a lot of ways given that the sweet protein is 1000s of times more potent. So it takes a lot less sugar to make or sweet proteins than you would in practice using these products. And so I mentioned on the sustainable bioprocess engineering. So all the steps that follow fermentation are simple, simply some mechanical separation filtration and drying, to make that that sweet protein ingredient that I'm holding up here. And it's great again, if you think about the sustainability aspect of what we're doing. Sugars grown about 65 million acres across the earth 65 million acres that, in many cases used to be arraigned for us, in all cases could be rainforest again, or be growing more nutritional crops, right, most of the sugar grown has to put into drinks and candy bars. And so for us, you know, every six 600 Or every 1% reduction in sugar gives us 650,000 acres back for us to do that. You know replant the rainforests so that the Earth can breathe or grow, you know, better crops to solve the world's sort of food disparities. And so I'm super excited about that. And also the fact that you don't have to ship that sugar in the places where it's grown. Brazil, for example, is a huge exporter of sugar requires a lot of fuel to get it to the ports and a lot of fuel to put it on barges to ship where it needs to go. That's carbon in our air that we don't need. And so the great thing about precision fermentation and in our case, making these sweet proteins as we can make them very close to where you use them and avoid a lot of those costs, not just the agricultural ones, but the shipping costs. Because it's again, you need a A lot less mass for sure. 1000 times less.

Philip Pape  30:03

Yeah, people, people care more and more today as they should about how their products are made and sourced. And if there's a net, if there's a net benefit, where it's not a government, industry, government agency coming in and telling you have to do it, and it's just innovation, I mean, people typically get on board with that. What is the competitive landscape look like? Are there other companies doing the same thing? Is, is the scalability there? Or are there some still challenges in that realm?

Jason Ryder  30:29

Sure thing, yeah, there for sure. A few other companies that are exploring sweet proteins, it's still a relatively new area for folks to commercialize. We commercialize the first one and the first products behind it, we also were the first to publish safety studies around using these as ingredients. But but they're, they're more focused on the way I'd say what differentiates us from some of the other folks that are doing this is we are manufacturing on three different continents now, which is great, building a robust supply chain, so that we can make sure we can get all of our consumers that want it. And we're also focused on natural proteins, those that are there that are present in the plants and nature, there's always an opportunity, when you're you're making proteins to, you know, to make mutant proteins, right? Molecular substitutions that give you a different sweetness profile that can give you a different flavor profile. And I'd say that might be important to consumers in the future. It's I think most folks are focused on on natural products now, and I think that's a good thing. And I'd say, you know, in the future, when that's important, and when the safety of those new proteins has been established, I'd say it's a great time.

Philip Pape  31:48

So speaking of safety of your products, you mentioned safety studies, I'm gonna assume the that your company is funding them, maybe not? How do you ensure the independence of those studies.

Jason Ryder  31:58

So we do all of our safety studies with third parties, okay. And we partner with the FDA, who also has a great interest and at least in the US on on consumer safety. And they're all scientists that review our data packages. And even before that, we have an expert panel of independent scientists that are even independent from the FDA that review our package. And so our first one, the ugly fruit, sweet protein, we've established what is called self grass, are generally recognized as safe for using Doobly fruit sweet protein as an ingredient to sweeten. And that was signed off on by independent scientists in nutrition and toxicology, etc. And it's a similar process at the FDA is you submit the package, you meet with them, I've met with the FDA several times to talk through that. And at the end of the process, after you've established that they progress are generally recognized as safe, the FDA gets a chance to ask questions, and once they're out of questions, they give you a note questions letter. And we have established the safety of the ugly fruit sweet protein, but a lot of the large scale, you know, stores that distribute would like to see that no questions letter to put them on on the big store shelves.

Philip Pape  33:20

Fair enough. Fair enough. Yeah, I mean, I interests are generally aligned with these things. So I just want to ask it to the listener has some more information. Yeah. And then you're at UC Berkeley. So how does your role there contribute overlap to your work with the sweet proteins here.

Jason Ryder  33:35

So I have a great passion for sustainability. And all forms, I tend to refer to my students as mass and energy balances hugging the Earth. My students are by and large, bioprocess engineers trying to learn how to use biotechnology and bio processing to solve problems across climate, food and health. And I hopefully make myself relevant by the work that I do in industry, keeping one foot Iblis and the other foot at UC Berkeley, to for my students, many of them are taking their last steps on their academic path before a long one in an industry where they're going to solve these problems. And so I bring my work into my classroom, not just the work that I'm doing and do bleed, but all of the work I've done beforehand. And I also bring a lot of my colleagues who are working on similar problems into the classroom. And that's a great way to build community Connect community, not just with the older folks like me, that are out doing it at a more advanced stage of life, but also making sure we're growing and developing the young ones who will continue to work on these problems many many decades into the future. So for those my students that are listening to this Go Bears

Philip Pape  34:46

Yeah, no, I think it's great when you're combining industry and and university. A lot of the folks in the fitness and nutrition space that I really admire and follow are the other ones who specifically look for studies that can involve all subjects doing real things that we all want to learn from and do and then kind of bridge the science to say, you know, the bro science is right or it's not. But so extending that to what you do are other studies where you work with, I don't know, nutrition scientists, nutritionists, people that deal with either, you know, weight loss, physique, anything like that in the health and body realm or obesity, you know? Yeah, tell me about that.

Jason Ryder  35:25

We're interested in all of those things. And so I mentioned UC Berkeley, where I also teach but the company who Billy is right next to UC Davis, which has a hospital as well as many of those experts that are working in the field of nutrition, and health. And so we have a number of studies that are ongoing to evaluate the impact, if any, of you know sweet proteins as you replace sugar and alternative sweeteners, so that we can publish that data for all to see, I think that's an important currency for us, as a society to have objective truth and science to make sure that when we are bringing, for example, new ingredients to market, of course, we have a process from which to establish that they're safe. That's the Grasp process I mentioned before. But it's not all encompassing. It doesn't touch on other things, right. That you just mentioned, overall impacts on health, and more importantly, what changes when you replace something like, you know, an alternative sweetener or, or sugar with a sweet protein. So we're interested in all of this.

Philip Pape  36:37

Yeah, I am as well, there's even in the established sweetener and artificial sweetener realm, as we know, being studied for decades, there's still confounding data when you try to interpret what happens, for example, when we talk about diet soda, and obesity, that the idea that you know, replacing sugar beverages with unsweetened actually helps obesity and then others will argue that, well, no, it triggers you know, appetite, and then it goes against it. And then others will say, well, it's people who are trying to lose weight are the ones drinking the more diet soda. So you tend to confound the variables. It'd be interesting at some point to see if these affect things like that, like if you have googly sweetener, and only that kind of sweetener in a in a food, would it then because it doesn't spike insulin? Would it then that have the same effect on your appetite? Right things like that. I don't know if any of those questions sounds like haven't really been answered yet. Because your focus is on safety and going to market? Is that fair to say?

Jason Ryder  37:33

Yeah, I'd say, you know, it's easy to assume that they don't. But I'd say it's really important to validate that it's not true. And what I'd also say if for any of your listeners that, you know, would like to collaborate or partner on this, we think this is important to the whole world. Me and my partner, Ally Wang, are here to bend the Global Health curve on things like diabetes, obesity, heart disease, and we can't do that alone, right, we're certainly going to try with our products, and I mentioned partnering with others. But this is a systems level solution to climate, food and health, we'll need a lot of folks and all of the different, you know, their respective expertise and experience to help us and we're learning all the time. I'm a lifelong learning AI. And I'd really like to learn everything there is to know about these sweet proteins. So if you're out there and would like to collaborate, drop me a line,

Philip Pape  38:32

there we go, there we go. I could probably throw you 10 or 15, names on top, my head two that are just very respectable scientists in different realms of health and nutrition that I'm sure it'd be interested in, this will fill

Jason Ryder  38:43

and we can make this sweet protein, we make a lot of it. And that was important in the early days from which to formulate products and still is, but we now have sufficient quantities to launch products, and also do all of the studies, we're interested to do what I think the only thing I struggle with is his time and bandwidth, right? But I find it, there's anybody out there, I will find the bandwidth and the time.

Philip Pape  39:08

And I'm certainly willing, it is very exciting. I mean, anything new, like this is exciting when especially when it's from a plant, which has just been on the earth for millions of years. And you're like, well, we can do something new with it. Which makes you wonder, always wonder what else is out there? What are the criticisms or skepticisms? Let's just, you know, cover the other side here that you hear about sweet proteins.

Jason Ryder  39:28

Yeah, most people don't know they even exist, and they've never had them. And I think we have a natural fear of the unknown, which, in my experience, education is a great assault for and so a lot of what we're doing in Dubli is getting the good word out about sweet proteins. Hey, if you hadn't had them before, try them. We've had many different events and programs that enable folks to get discounts and in some cases, even free chocolates to try them and we put a lot on our website, we've been participating in a lot of great media forums, like your podcast to get the word out and also published our safety studies so that all can read. So we're going to continue to do that education in all forms, establishing that relationship with trust with with our consumers, as as we all learn more about sweet proteins and all of the great places, and our food and beverage system than it can replace sugar. I think on the opposite side, we know a lot about sugar. The more we learn, the more it validates, you know what, what we know that it's not good for us in excess. And I'd say we're learning a lot more about the alternative sweeteners. None of it is good. And so consumers much like you mentioned with stevia, as they're looking for an alternative. You're making trade offs to do it often on taste, and my joy and making sweet proteins as you don't have to have that trade off. This is revolutionary. It's really a game changer. So I'm excited for you all to try it.

Philip Pape  41:04

Pretty cool. Yeah, me? Yeah, me too, for sure. So you since you are so excited, I could I could sense it. I mean, what, what's your vision for the future here? You know, I mean, you've sort of alluded to it, of the research of getting the product into more hands and more products. Is there anything else we didn't cover that that excites you about the future?

Jason Ryder  41:22

No, I get excited every time I walk into a grocery store, and I look at a product that I hadn't thought about. And there aren't very many left to be honest. But but it gets me excited about the next five or 10 years when we can get products and all of those areas that people love and enjoy sweetness from. And I you know, the way I would like to see that manifest is and true drops and the the growth rate first for obesity, diabetes and heart disease. And then the direct correlation, I would love to be part of the studies that demonstrate it was OOB Lee's suite proteins and the revolution that we created that started the bend on that curve and started bending it in the opposite direction. So that's, that's what I'm excited about in the future.

Philip Pape  42:09

What would you say is one or two of the products that would have massive impact? I can think of one and I think it's diet soda personally, if that's a possibility. And I would love to hear how you would incorporating that, because that's one, one of my vices. And I have no problem saying that because the alternative would be other things and probably have a lot more calories. So yeah, well, what are those products,

Jason Ryder  42:29

for sure. And I think you hit on that one, because 40% of the sugar we consume comes in the form of beverages, many of them are fizzy, like that soda. And so the cool thing, as I mentioned, this bottle of orange soda that I start showed you earlier in the 18 sugar cubes that go in the only function that the sugar cubes do with this bottle of soda is sweeten it. And so that's a great product for us to formulate around regardless of whether or not it's, it's, it's a tea, which is one of the beverages that we're selling now, or a fizzy one, which we plan to sell in the future. And so that gives us coverage of 40. And some would even guess as high as 50% of sugary products and, and they're they're essentially drop in replacements. So that's great when you can make it easy. In other cases, like chocolates, right, that's our other product, it's a little more difficult because sugar makes up by bulk 50% of the chocolate bar. And so when you replace when you remove all that sugar, and replace it with sweet protein, you can give somebody half of the size of the chocolate bar there, that's immediately going to give them a ho hum effect, right and so or you can replace it with something better. And so in our case, we've replaced it with fiber, which is something that's come out of our diet with Ultra processed foods is we just don't eat enough fiber. net net. And so rebuilding products with more healthy ingredients, natural ingredients that people can pronounce the names of without PhDs is also a passion of mine. Again, I appreciate it. I'm you know, I'm doing science at the cutting edge. And I also teach it at UC Berkeley, but I'm still an Alabama kid at heart and trying to solve problems for everybody. Right. And certainly the problems that we're seeing across climate, food and health are touching everybody.

Philip Pape  44:28

Yeah, yeah, I think that no doubt would be a massive impact. I mean, if you go into the grocery store and just go down the aisles, everything is sugar, just everything. I mean, pretty much you can randomly stick your hand out unless it's you know, in the canned goods or something that's gonna have sugar. You mentioned fibers that will kind of fibers added to those.

Jason Ryder  44:45

So we work with a couple of different fibers like Acacia fiber is one of those chicory root fibers is another. There's several What are widely viewed as healthy fibers, plant based fiber As of course, all fibers is plant based, but but can be good for you and help you either as a prebiotic, or just a healthy addition to a product replacing what we're used to what the diet we evolved around and have removed because of, you know, the the advent of ultra processed foods.

Philip Pape  45:20

Yeah, I wanted to ask us some some of the cheaper products, we'll just use the corn fiber. So I was curious about that.

Jason Ryder  45:26

I didn't know, fiber and maltodextrin. In general, we view those as a backdoor to diabetes. And so you do have the enzymes in your GI tract that can break down much of that soluble fiber and corn and make simple sugars, which take you right back to spiking your blood insulin, or your blood sugar level and your insulin and type two diabetes, and so on the types of fiber that we select for, and our products don't have that capability, as we really are working for those folks that want to get their sugar under control, without giving up taste.

Philip Pape  46:05

It's always an interesting topic, right? Because I know you don't listen to the show religiously. But I definitely touch on carbs a lot. And in the beauty of carbs and the benefit of carbs, and you know, everything from whole grains to starches to vegetables and fruits for energy recovery performance. And even for, you know, when you have a healthy lifestyle, and you build insulin sensitivity, it's good to have the carbs. Sometimes you want to spike your insulin when you have to work out, for example, to draw circles on you have muscle mass, but what we're talking about here is the mass of humanity that unfortunately consumes like 50 to 60% processed foods. And if you're not going to necessarily change it at the root. You can like chicory root, just getting change at the root then at least changed the available options in the environment, right, because the Western food environment is a big obesogenic factor that you know, you can you can blame people for their choices. But the it's out there, you know what I mean? It's very hard to get away from it.

Jason Ryder  47:03

Yeah, and I do. I have listened to a couple of your podcasts, particularly the misconceptions on protein, because I'm a huge protein lover. And, and building muscle over 40, I think was was the title of it. And I let your listeners guess which side of the 40 I'm on. But I think it's important and not to demonize carbohydrates. Right, I think what you're telling your listeners is, you're a chemical engineer, right? As you're solving mass and energy balances around people, much like I'm trying to solve them around the planet. And that that, you know, make sure that in minus out, you know, equals accumulation or loss and you want that at steady state, right is how we got ourselves into this situation with diabetes and obesity and heart disease is by eating far too much of one type of carbohydrate, that sugar. And we did it because it's recklessly abundant and cheap. And I'd say it's an opportunity for us to take a step back and look at not just what we're eating, but what other folks are making and selling to us and saying we want something different, right? We don't want to compromise on taste, or health. And we need foods that respect both of those things. And so I think that's largely what you're speaking to is going back to a diet that matches our lifestyle, certain from certainly from how much energy we're consuming, as well as the types of the carbohydrates that we're consuming, that they match our needs of our body that we evolved around. And don't put us in a position where our mass and energy balance gets out of whack.

Philip Pape  48:33

Yeah, for sure. And the choices out there should be as abundant as possible. So that when we make those choices for our lifestyle, we can still be sustainable. We could still have our our social time and still make baked goods and birthday cakes and all of that because again, I you know, I will tell people look if you if doughnuts are non negotiable. Enjoy your doughnut, let's just fit it in. But if you can have a doughnut made with a little bit better ingredients that just nudges us more in that healthier direction,

Jason Ryder  49:00

though, I like the way you think and I like your ideas. I think I just got a new one.

Philip Pape  49:05

Do you want to share it or is this?

Jason Ryder  49:07

You mentioned doughnuts. Doughnuts are also a big thing for where I come from two. So hurry to work on after this podcast.

Philip Pape  49:15

Yeah, I mean, you still have the fried dough part of it. But you know, we can at least get the frosting and

Jason Ryder  49:21

all good things in moderation, right? I can certainly help you with the sugar and the sweetness part of the donut.

Philip Pape  49:27

Sounds good. Okay, so I like to ask this of all guests. And that is what one question Did you wish I had asked and what is your answer?

Jason Ryder  49:36

What one question that I wish you had asked. I think it was more around the sustainability. But But I sort of seated my own answer there as most folks don't connect sweet proteins. With sustainability. It's the problems on health and food are the obvious ones. But But sustainability is not Yes, and I'd love to leave your listeners with some of what I've seen in my life. I spent a lot of time in Brazil earlier in my career, building bioprocess facilities that use that sugar to make bio based products. And there's a lot of sugarcane in Brazil and a lot of the tropical areas of the planet. And it's, it's a terrible crop for us to be growing from an environmental perspective. And so, I'd love for folks to think about sugar reduction, not just in terms of their own bodies and their health, and our food system, but also in terms of our global climate. And, yeah, that's, that's the question you didn't ask, but I think I answered a couple of times anyway.

Philip Pape  50:45

No, I appreciate ya know, for sure I was focused more on the health side, but that is that is going to be valuable because when you hear stories about the rainforests and deforestation things like at the end of the day, it's it's it affects all of us at some level, the wildfires and all that no matter what, what side of politics you are, there's, you know, a very strong, factual part of all this, we need to be aware of

Jason Ryder  51:06

that it's like all things if you don't get a chance to see it on a daily basis, that might be easy for you not to think about it. And so I'm encouraging folks to think about it, as all of your choices have implications. And we as a human society, can make better ones together and solve this whole system of problems we're facing across climate, food and health. I often don't refer to these as challenges or problems to my students, I only use the word opportunity because they're at that early stage in life and they're they're you know, all ready to get out and tackle all of these these opportunities and I say get after it.

Philip Pape  51:43

For sure. I'm gonna call my friend Alan when he says the obstacles the way right there

Jason Ryder  51:47

you go. Alright, so Phillip thank you for that.

Philip Pape  51:53

So where can listeners Jason find out more about you your work Uli any, any discount any study whatever you want to send them, I can throw all those links in the show notes.

Jason Ryder  52:03

Yes, please do visit our website www.weebly.com. That's Iblis spelled o bli. And you can buy our sweet iced teas, both our rather our peach, our lemon and our mango, yuzu, as well as our chocolates, dark chocolates. For now we do have milk chocolates on the way that are dark chocolates or silky cacao. We also have sea salt and raspberry bits. And so try them. And please share your feedback. Feedback is a gift. Certainly the supportive but also corrective. I'd love to hear how you feel about our products and our sweet proteins in general, as we're making them for you. So I'd love to hear from you.

Philip Pape  52:48

Absolutely. So ui.com sweet iced tea, dark chocolate. That's my favorite kind. So I'm going to try those out. Jason is a pleasure to have you on um, you know, I learned a lot I'm sure the listener did. I'm looking forward to more of the sweet proteins in our in our food supply.

Jason Ryder  53:02

Wonderful. Well, I appreciate the time and the ability to go a bit deeper on sweet proteins with your listeners. And I look forward to coming back and telling you more in the future.

Philip Pape  53:13

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

Ep 102: Q&A – Home Workouts, Antioxidant Supplements, Food Logging Hacks, Best Grains for Carbs

Today, we are doing a Q&A to answer questions from the free Wits & Weights Facebook community, emails, and messages from listeners.

We have questions from four listeners about training at home with a video vs. your own program or a template, how supplements impact your immune system based on dosing, some of MacroFactor’s features and how they actually work, and options for grains and cereals as a carb source.

I’m sharing some of my favorite strategies for all of these, and refer to a few past episodes if you want to dive deeper into specific topics.

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Today you’ll learn all about:

[2:02] How should I program my home workout?
[13:48] Do exogenous antioxidants (supplements like Vitamin C) negatively impact the immune system when consumed in high quantities, and how much is too much (if there is a case of “too much”)?
[21:54] Does MacroFactor allow you to pre-log the day before?
[25:41] Is it only via your body weight that it figures out how to change calories and macros?
[29:57] Can you change the macro amounts? For example, I eat pretty high protein for my weight, as I am a petite female. Or does it do a standard like 1 gram per pound?
[32:09]  Aside from oatmeal, are there any other cereals or grains that we can incorporate? Also, do high-protein cereals such as Kashi Go ( which I love with plain Kefir or Greek yogurt) or Magic Spoon offer an acceptable alternative? I guess the main question would be, should we avoid going down the cereal/granola aisle and stick with plain oats?
[41:00] Outro

Episode resources:

• Wits & Weights Facebook community

• MacroFactor app – use code WITSANDWEIGHTS to extend your free trial to two weeks

• Ep 98: Is Your Food Logging App Sabotaging Your Fat Loss and Physique Goals?

• Ep 6: Set Your Fitness and Nutrition Habits on Autopilot

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Transcript

Philip Pape  00:00

All the things that your body does to burn calories in a 24 hour period are going to be very complex and almost pretty much they are impossible to measure. But you don't need to measure because guess what? All of that energy that you burn causes your body mass to either go up down or stay the same because your body either stores or uses that energy. Welcome to the Wits & Weights podcast. I'm your host Philip pape, and this twice a week podcast is dedicated to helping you achieve physical self mastery by getting stronger. Optimizing your nutrition and upgrading your body composition will uncover science backed strategies for movement, metabolism, muscle and mindset with a skeptical eye on the fitness industry. So you can look and feel your absolute best. Let's dive right in. Wits & Weights community Welcome to another solo episode of the Wits & Weights podcast. I hope you enjoyed our last episode 101 The truth about postpartum recovery and empowering women after childbirth with Peter Lappe about postpartum recovery diastasis recti and the unique challenges women face post pregnancy. Today for episode 102. We are doing another q&a to answer questions from the free Wits & Weights Facebook community and emails and messages from listeners which I always love to get. Whether it's a question whether it's feedback, a comment, maybe something you didn't like, whatever it is, I'm all ears and I'd love to hear from you. We have questions today from for listeners about training at home with a video versus your own programming or template. How supplements impact your immune system based on dosing, some of macro factors features that's the food logger and how they actually work and options for grains and cereals as a carb source. Now definitely listen all the way through because I'm sharing some of my favorite strategies in the answers to each of these questions. And I will refer to a few past episodes as well if you want to dive deeper into specific topics. Let's jump right into question number one. The first question is from tionesta. And she says I was a regular gym goer before COVID. Then I moved to another state and now workout strictly at home. And since I work from home, it's most convenient, I totally get that because I also work out from home. I'm more successful with following along with a video workout versus some programs I own that either have just a PDF with exercises, sets or reps or a five minute video showing the moves. But then you have to pause the video to execute. Is this just a mental block I have to get past I've accumulated a variety of home equipment that makes it convenient to stay home. When you follow a video. It's like having a trainer right there with cues. One of my strength programs as a fillable PDF that gives freedom to choose moves based on methods such as push pull, squat, push, pull, carry, squat, push, hinge, etc. Maybe I just need to take the time to compose the plan and start day one to execute. Okay, there's a lot here, but I'm sure many of you listeners can relate to what Ginetta is asking about this is the classic dilemma between having the structured guidance of let's say a video, a personal trainer or a class, right many of us have come through doing classes, whether it's boot camps, yoga, aerobic classes, strength training classes, CrossFit, et cetera. And it's the difference between that and essentially doing it by yourself to some level by either following an existing program, or designing your own or somewhere in between. And so I want to break down each piece of this because I think they're even though it's kind of one overall question. I think there's different aspects, we want to attack one by one. Because my overall philosophy with anything like this is, what is the true source of the problem? Where's the root cause? And where's the most friction? Because the surface level assumptions may not be the real answer, let's say. So first of all, the fact that you like video workouts, right? This suggests that maybe you're, you're doing a program that is too complicated, meaning the fact that you have to have a video to walk you through all these moves, and then every session is going to be new moves. It reminds me kind of like p90x Beachbody, that kind of thing that I used to do back in the day, that wasn't super effective. But it definitely required you to watch the video because it was always different. Well, when I see something like that, I think it's actually too complicated. And perhaps you're trying to do too much. And what we want to do is simplify our programming and make sure that it meets the basic principles of building strength and muscle. Are you are you performing more or less the same or similar movements from session to session, or every other session, depending on your split, and progressively overloading via the weight on the bar or dumbbells or the rep reps or sets? If instead you're doing something different every single time I mean, maybe coming back to the same move like four weeks later or five weeks later, or almost never, it's not going to be very effective. And it can be very complicated. And you will feel tied to having to do video workouts. So that's the first thing I would ask myself is, is it just am I trying to comp too much stuff because I want it to be, let's say fun. And I'm all for things being fun, but they also have to be effective.

Philip Pape  05:24

Another way to simplify your workout, if you're doing too much as some people are, for example, in addition to the workout, they're doing all sorts of warm ups and mobility exercises, and stretching and cooldown. And you don't need any of that you don't need quote, unquote, mobility, most people, okay, I'm not talking about physical therapy or rehab set sessions, or somebody with an extreme physical limitation that needs to get over that 95% of people just need to warm up with the movements. So if you're going to squat, just warm up with your squat, you don't need to do 20 minutes of quote, unquote, mobility, because mobility will come from working through the full range of motion on those movements. So just warm up with the movements. If you have different full body movements during a workout you want to, and you're going from, say legs to upper body, you definitely want to warm up the upper body as well. But if you're going from a leg movement to another leg movement, you're probably already warmed up. So what I want you to do is check out Episode 15, way back in the archives, it was called maximize your lifting sessions, warm ups, supersets, rest periods, and more about that. But continuing on my question, Shana is what is it that you like about the videos? Because let's focus on the positive as well, not just what you're not doing? Let's focus on what you get out of the videos. Is it the cues, right? They say, Okay, now do this do this, is it the tempo? Is it the immediate visuals you get on the form. And again, I think a simpler set of movements that you can master first, like, for example, most of my newer lifters, or people who start with me, after lifting for maybe three to six months, they're doing something like starting strength, or some other compound lift base program where you might be doing three or four sessions per workout at most. And these would include the big lifts, squat deadlift press, overhead press, and then some maybe rows and or chin ups and pull ups, for example, well, if you only have five movements to work on, it really simplifies the learning process. And the only cues you need are your own personal cues to focus on the things that you're working on in that moment. And this is where the mastery of these lifts is going to come in handy. And you may want to hire a personal trainer for one or two sessions to go over those and get the cues that way. But then once you have them, it's really up to you and your budget and time and all that you should be able to continue mastering those moves for the rest of your life. Now, you could also join a group where you can put form checks up on the group like the Wits & Weights community, we can do that for you as well, you know, totally free, where you film your squat, you upload it, you say what am I doing here, and I and others can let you know what the cues might be. And so that's that that again, comes down to simplifying and making sure you're not trying to do like 50 different movements, a whole bunch of aerobic or muscular endurance type movements, but rather, a few key strength base lifts. And then as you get more advanced, adding in a few accessories that support those lifts. Okay, so you also mentioned a mental block, right? Perhaps just hear me out, perhaps it's not you so much as the programs you've picked, and making it harder, harder on yourself, thus creating what seems like a mental block. For example, you mentioned a fillable. PDF. To me, that sounds like a lot of work that the work has put on you to design your program. That's a big source of friction of resistance. And I would say in my opinion, 95% of people out there or more can just use a good template. I mean, I think you mentioned templates as well. But when I say a good template, I mean one that again, is very effective focused on the lower rep ranges, the big lifts with some accessory movements, done in a way that maximizes rest periods of recovery, and works along with your your goals and your nutrition. So, you know, personal trainers may not like me saying that because their job is to program for you. But I don't think you need someone to program for you 95% of the time. A middle ground would be to be in something like a club like a barbell club. For example. I'm in Andy Baker's barbell club. I have been for probably three years now. He's one of the best programmers on the planet. And he writes a program for each week that everybody can follow. So it's not customed to you, but it changes so you get the variety. It's fun in that way and you get different options to choose from you get a four day split, you get power, or what do you call it? A basic barbell split For three days, and then you get a six day bodybuilding split, you can choose one of those to follow. And something like that is more than adequate for pretty much anyone other than if you're trying to be a competitor or something like that. And you need something very custom. So instead of a fillable, PDF, why don't you get a fixed template that is effective. So some programs that I I recommend for people starting strength, Mike Matthews for women thinner, leaner, stronger, and he has an app called stacked that's free that has the programs in there. So if you'd like using apps, you could just jump right into the app and pick one of those programs. Cody McBroom of tailored coaching method has a brand new app that came out I don't I don't mind plugging that for him no affiliation. And I think that's when you pay for it's like 29 bucks a month. But you also get access to tons of what I know are going to be effective programs for different goals. My good friends Katie and Heather at stronger than your boyfriend have a program called stronger. It's a four day split. It has a nice combination of big lifts and accessories that are kind of unique, some moves that you may not have seen before just to make it fun. But it it goes on a three month cycle like a 12 week cycle where each four week block, lowers in rep range. So you go from sort of a call it I hate to say hypertrophy rep range, but the higher rep ranges of eight to 12 down to like six to eight and then you end up at like one to four something like that. But it gets it kind of eases you into it that way, any of those would be effective. And you could easily learn the most basic movements by watching videos, learn the cues, and then execute them. And hopefully that helps you get over some of these blocks. Now, another block could be that you are not planning ahead. And you kind of alluded to that in one of my very early episodes, episode six. Okay, set your fitness and nutrition habits on autopilot. I do talk about how to pre plan for everything in your week, including your workouts. And I don't know how well that episode has aged but the principles are still the same. And what I like to do personally, and what I recommend to clients is anything you can do ahead of time, well, when you're thinking logically and you feel refreshed and have energy, like on the weekends for many people is going to reduce friction during the week. So simple way to do that is take the template that you're going to use now, let's say it's starting strength, where you know that there's a Monday, Wednesday, Wednesday, Friday workout, and go ahead and pre log, the exercises, the sets, the reps, and the loads that you plan to work to use for your top sets for your working sets. And go ahead and pre load those in your app or your notebook, whatever you use to track so that all you have to do is go into the gym, do it and then check it off. And of course, if you you know, if anything changes as you're working out, you can note it there. Pre prepare your gym clothes, your squat shoes, your belt, your pre workout or protein or creating all that stuff, just prepare all of it ahead of time. So that you get up Monday morning, boom, ready to go. Let's do it. And then that's just one less excuse. So the last thing is I'm a big fan of using resources and communities to figure this stuff out. So whether your medium of choice is a book or videos, but not videos in real time, but more like YouTube videos to learn the form. I like starting strength. I like barbell logic for the big lifts. Hiring a personal trainer for a few sessions, or even using an online community like Wits & Weights to post your lifts. And then of course, if you wanted to work with a coach like me, I'm a nutrition coach, but I do provide

Philip Pape  13:36

form checks. And again, I'm not dragging this directly you should edit but just in general, for folks to know that there are many, many options out there that that are kind of an in between for the answer to your question. Okay, hope that answers your question. I'm gonna go to number two. Now. The second question is from Christina. Do exogenous antioxidants. supplements like vitamin C negatively impact the immune system when consumed in high quantities? And how much is too much if there is such a thing? And yes, there is such a thing as too much. Let's get into some of the details. My general advice for people, my clients and just anybody listening is Be judicious about supplementation and use it for a specific known purpose for you as an individual, including nutrient deficiencies. So this is where you would use a multivitamin. Maybe you take magnesium, maybe you supplement with vitamin D, and the dosing and the need for or depending on your deficiencies for performance. So this is where creatine comes into play. I think everybody should be taking creatine honestly. And probiotics right for digestion and gut health which can be obtained from food but many of us like to supplement with that as well. Now I'm okay dosing with vitamin C, vitamin E, selenium, zinc, copper, whatever you need for deficiencies or immune function in moderate amounts in the amounts that you would normally See on an over the counter product. But an excessive amount of anything is going to be at best useless, meaning you get diminishing returns and at worst, toxic, right? We know that anything in too high of a quantity can be toxic. I mean, it depends on if it's water soluble or fat soluble, things like that, like for example vitamin C, it's hard to overdose on that versus a vitamin D. So you kind of have to understand those nuances. But the key is to keep it in a moderate dosing level per the recommendations. Now, the first source of all nutrients should be what food right period. This is why I prefer a diet of something like 80%, or more whole foods. Notice I said 80%. I didn't say 100%. I didn't say you cut everything out. We we are not about restriction here. This is more that if we are trying to improve our body composition, we're trying to manage our hunger. And we want to manage our health at the same time, we're going to seek out lower calorie density, higher satiety, higher fiber, lots of variety, fruits and vegetables, whole grains, all that a lot of which has been actually conventional wisdom for many years. But because of our modern food environment and the level of processing, it's hard to do that. And the more processed foods you have, the less nutrients you're going to have and the more deficiencies you're going to have. But I also like data, you know that you know that Christina and everyone listening, I love data, I love closing that feedback loop. And here you can track specific nutrients and micronutrients. If your food logging app can do that, and this is where I talk about macro factor all the time, we went into detail about it on episode 98. But it can now do that in great detail. You can track your macro micronutrients, you can set targets, you can automatically set targets based on what the science says. And that will give you a really good idea as well, if something is too much, right. So things that can be at a toxic level of intake, they will often have an upper limit to find not always but but they will in many cases, like for example saturated fat. So like anything, there is a minimum effective dose that you might need to to fill in that gap. And then there's often a toxic dose. And it varies based on the individual, right your age, your dieting, history, medical history, your activity, your diet, of course, one simple reference, if you're looking for numbers, Christina is the recommended dietary allowances the RDA is, and as much as there might be controversy over government sponsored recommendations, it's at least a starting point, right? Because they tend to be on the conservative side anyway. And you can look those up for specific nutrients and see if a particular supplement or antioxidant is way out of bed from those recommendations. As to your specific question about their impact on the immune system. A few things come to mind. First, the the supplements form of anything. So if you get anything in a pill instead of from food, it may not have the same benefits as the things in food, right? Because it's not complemented by the other nutrition and the other the other nutrients and the other compounds in food. So I think I talked about this, what did I talk about this on Oh Is my bonus episode about the carnivore diet recently, where I talked about how real food like fruits, vegetables have other compounds that aren't necessarily tracked. And they may have complimentary effects with these nutrients that you're trying to seek out here. They may not have the same benefits. And they might even act as what's called a pro oxidant which can cause oxidative stress, which is the opposite of what you want. We want antioxidants, not pro toxins. The second thing is that high doses could modulate the immune system in ways that we don't understand. Right meaning you're actually causing an effect on the immune system to compensate in some way. And this is beyond the scope of this podcast and should shouldn't be a concern if you're not taking unreasonably high doses of these antioxidants. So long story short, keep it simple. Don't use supplements as a shortcut. They are absolutely the lowest priority thing. When I work with clients after energy balance, macros, micros, fiber, hydration, even meal timing are all more important than supplements, but supplements can fill in that gap. Okay, so that was the second question. Let's move on to question number three from mn. She says I loved your recent episode 98 about food logging apps and macro factor in particular, great info. And by the way, I've gotten a lot of feedback on that episode. When I created it. I wasn't sure if it would come across as just like a sales pitch for the app. But a lot of people got back to me said You know, I was on the fence. I've been using, say my fitness power or something else for all these years. And it was on the fence because it's a paid app. And I jumped in based on your episode which clearly outlined why these other apps are problematic. And now all of a sudden, like within days or week of using it. I absolutely love what it's helping me discover about myself and helping me reach my goals. So thank you everyone who wrote in about it. Anyway, continue with the question she has no has three questions built into this one question? Does macro factor allow you to pre log the day before? Is it only via your bodyweight that it figures out how to change calories and macros? And can you change the macro amounts? For example, I eat pretty high protein for my weight as I'm a petite female? Or does it do a standard like one gram per pound? Okay, I love these questions because they go to the heart of features that make food logging apps helpful or not the very principles I was talking about in that episode. So I'm going to answer these one by one and then I will repeat and questions as I go along just so everybody can follow what I'm answering. Before I do I get again, I want to remind you to check out Episode 98, which is titled, is your food logging app, sabotaging your fat loss and physique goals? Go check that out. So you have some more context. Hey, this is Philip. And I hope you're enjoying this episode of Wits & Weights, I started Wits & Weights to help people who want to build muscle lose fat and actually look like they lift. I've noticed that when people improve their strength and physique, they not only look and feel better, they transform other areas of their life, their health, their mental resilience and their confidence in everything they do. And since you're listening to this podcast, I assume you want the same things the same success, whether you recently started lifting, or you've been at this for a while and want to optimize and reach a new level of success. Either way, my one on one coaching focused on engineering your physique, and body composition is for you. If you want expert guidance and want to get results faster, easier, and with fewer frustrations along the way to actually look like you lift, go to wits & weights.com, and click on coaching, or use the link in my show notes to apply today. I'll ask you a few short questions to decide if we're a good fit. And if we are, we'll get you started this week. Now back to the show.

Philip Pape  21:54

So NS first question was, does macro factor allow you to pre log the day before? The answer is yes, you can log foods meals or not meals, foods and what they call plates, which is multiple foods and a single time. Because macro factor doesn't use meals because meals is a limiting construct manufacture allows you to log to anytime you want. So if you eat 10 times a day, you can log it that way. Very flexible. So you can pre log or you can log a day, the previous day, you can log future days as far out into the future as you want. Even better as I encourage this practice as a way to meal plan for yourself. And to also solve problems that have been a struggle for you. So let me break those down. The first one, using macro factors a meal planner is is a beautiful thing because you can for example, if you know you're gonna go out on Saturday night, for a big dinner or to a restaurant and you know, it's going to be pretty indulgent, you can pre log that whole day and figure out what it's going to look like you can say, okay, walking back from right to left, I'm going to put in my dinner first. And I'm going to have you know, buttered butter dinner rolls, I'm gonna have that appetizer of fried onion rings, I'm gonna have a Caesar salad, I'm gonna have you know, a steak with butter, and I'm gonna have potatoes or I'm gonna have dessert, whatever, just right, I'm just randomly rattling off things. And you come to find that it's 1800 calories. And it's, you know, blown through your fat budget most likely, and your, your calorie needs or your calorie targets or let's say 2500 calories. So now you know you have 700 calories left for earlier in the day. And you go ahead and you plan out a light protein, veggie based lunch and breakfast. And maybe maybe it's more than 700 calories because you know you don't you know, you don't want to starve yourself, you want to have enough energy, you want enough carbs and protein throughout the day, you want to distribute protein and all that. And you don't want to feel like you have to binge. So you go over by maybe 300 calories. But guess what, that's just 300 calories, you've already figured out what you're going to do, you have a plan 300 calories is a drop in the bucket compared to if you didn't do that. And then you had a big breakfast because it's Saturday and then you know you had a big lunch and then you maybe your normal snack, and all of a sudden you get to dinner you've already eaten, let's say 1500 calories. If you still eat the way you are, you're going to plan to eat now you're going to be 1000 calories over your budget. So it's great as a pre planning meal planning tool. The other way to do this, as I mentioned was if you have trouble hitting a particular macro like protein, that's very common one you have trouble hitting in protein. Actually, a lot of my clients also sometimes have trouble hitting carbs because I'm asking them to eat more carbs than they ever thought they could eat, and still, you know, lose fat, improve their body composition, but it's true. And so, what I what I asked them to do is use macro factor and plan out their next day, let's say a routine day like today's a Wednesday. Tomorrow's a Thursday and I want you to plan out the day as if it is 100% successful right 100% macro and calorie adherence meaning, you know you hit it right, pretty much close to the ground, even though reality is never going to work. count that way, and that's okay. It will immediately tell you based on the food, you start to log, where you're off. I mean, it's pretty simple, you see that you need or you want 150 grams of protein and what you've logged as 100. You know, you're short 50 Now you have to start moving things around. So it's a perfect, logically driven, case, cool headed in the moment, non emotional way to tell your future self, hey, get real, what you're doing isn't quite getting there, we need to make a change. And now I'm pre planning how to make that change. Okay. So the answer is, yes, you can pre log. And then I just went on two big reasons how you why you want to do that, actually. And second question was, Is it only via your bodyweight, that the app figures out how to change calories and macros? So what she's asking because I'm going to reword this, what I get from a lot of people is where do I enter my activity? Like my exercise? Why? Or why don't? Why does it need exercise, right to figure out your expenditure and what the targets need to be? Well, here's the thing, all macro factor needs is two data points, you need your body weight, and it needs your calorie intake. And the beauty of this is that our bodies are a closed system, right. So you have energy coming in, in the form of food, which is measured by calories, you do a bunch of stuff, not just voluntarily, but involuntarily. All the elements of your metabolism, metabolism are happening all the time, every day, right, your organs have to function that uses a ton of calories, your liver, your heart, your lungs, your brain, those are using a ton of calories, your lungs to keep you breathing. All the involuntary movements like flat, you know, blinking your eyes and such. So that's like two thirds of your calories. You move around all day doing stuff, whether you're standing, sitting, walking, cooking, cleaning, all of that you are potentially exercising as well, right? You should be your training, your strength training, you're, you know, biking or walking or doing some sort of cardio, or whatever. And you're eating food as well. And the act of eating food and digesting that food burns calories. So guess what, if, when I hear the question, where do I enter my activity calories? And I know and you didn't ask that explicitly, I'm just extrapolating into what a lot of people think.

Philip Pape  27:16

I should also ask the question, okay, where do I log my digestion calories? Where do I log my, the calories that my organs need to function? Where do I log you get where I'm going, it gets kind of ridiculous. Actually, when I, when I make that hypothetical, that all the things your body does to burn calories in a 24 hour period are going to be very complex, and almost pretty much they are impossible to measure. But you don't need to measure because guess what, all of that energy that you burn causes your body mass to either go up or down or stay the same. Because your body either stores or uses that energy, it stores it in your fat cells, or it releases it from your fat cells, as well as glycogen, right in the form of glucose from carbs, and maybe from protein. If you don't have enough carbs, and your body starts to cannibalize its own protein, it's going to take immediate energy from the food coming in, and then stored energy from your fat cells. And what happens at the end of the day, your weight either goes up or down or stay the same. So macro factor only needs your weight and your calories to know how many calories you're burning, without having to know all the stuff that happens in the middle. Think of a car, think of it as a car. I don't know if this, this analogy will work. But if you wanted to calculate the gas mileage of a car, which is kind of which is kinda like its expenditure, right? Kind of like its metabolism, you're gonna say, how many miles did you drive divided by how much gas did I burn? All you have to know is how many miles you drove and how much gas is left in the gas tank. You don't have to know how much energy is used by all the components of the engine by the tires by all the wasted heat and mechanical energy. No, you have to know all that. Just what goes in? And what goes out simple and precise all in one. So to answer your question, yes, all it needs is weighed in calories. And I encourage you to log those every single day. If you log weight, it needs at least one way in per week. But I strongly encourage you to weigh every day to get better precision. Because if you do it once a week, as I've talked about before, you may be hitting a high point or a low point. And if it goes up or goes down from one point to the next, it may not be an accurate reflection of what's happening in your body. Macro factor will use an average over a three week period regardless, but it's better to have more data points. And then calories. You should be logging your food every day anyway. It's great for awareness and it's great for precision in the data. So it knows okay, I'm eating this many calories my body is doing this, therefore I'm burning this, then you'll know what to do you know, oh, maybe I should walk more and start to push that expenditure up. You don't need to log it in the app, the Apple will realize that you're eating the same amount of food and all of a sudden you're losing weight or you weren't losing weight before Oh, you must be moving more doing something that burns more calories. Alright, and last question related to manual macro factor was Can you change the macro amounts? For example, a pretty high protein for my weight is I'm a petite female, or does it do a standard like one gram per pound. Alright, so in macro factor when you set up a goal, to gain weight, lose weight or maintain, it's going to prompt you to set up your program, your macro program, and there's a few different settings there. And a few settings are universal, I recommend these universal settings, the first one is called coached. So you can either do coached collaborative, or I think it's called manual. And the coach profile is going to set your targets for you, based on your body stats, body composition, and the goal that you set, right based on the rate of gain or the rate of loss. And based on what weight you are right now. So if you want to maintain, it's going to be based on that on not changing at all. So I would use the coached profile for pretty much 99% of people. And then here's the thing, you can change the amount of fats and protein that it uses. So you can set it to low fat or low carb or keto, you can do that it gives you those options. So for somebody who just prefers lower carbs, and wants to give it a shot, do that, again, I usually recommend just the balanced option, which is let the app figure it out for you based on the evidence of a good balanced approach to your macros. And then finally, you can set your protein level you can set it to, you know, low, moderate, high and very high. And I usually recommend high or in some cases very high. And so the high and very high, it's gonna get it close to that one gram per pound. And then the low and the very low will be like around point seven 2.9. But it's all within the range of what the evidence suggests is optimal for results. And by results we mean improving your physique, improving your health, achieving your goals, losing fat building muscle. Cool. So your question was, can you change the macro mounts in that's the way I would do it, I would change if you don't want to do balance your little low fat or low carb or keto and if you don't want to do like very high protein you can go to high or moderate protein. Okay. The last question is from Alan. Cooler weather is coming and many people may turn to cozy oatmeal overnight oats etc for their carb sources making me hungry. I eat oatmeal every morning. Aside from oatmeal, are there any other cereals or grains that we can incorporate? It's a good question, right? Seriously, I love that we're asking explicitly like give me more carbs give me more grains and cereals because I know that those are carbs and they might serve my goals and there's nothing wrong with them whatsoever. Also do high protein cereals such as Kashi Go which I love with plain Kefir or Greek yogurt, or magic spoon offer an acceptable alternative? I guess the main question would be should we avoid going down the cereal and granola aisle and stick with plain oats? I think you know my answer to the question. First of all plain oats are down the cereal granola aisle generally but that's a technicality, semantics. I think when you're talking about grains, most of the options are going to be in the middle aisles of the grocery store, right? Because they're not perishable, like meat, dairy and produce what you would find on the perimeter. So you're going to find them in the middle or maybe you'll find them in the organic or the weak natural section some grocery stores have. But here's the thing. So you kind of know you kind of are leading me with the question, Alan, because you know, I'm all about flexibility and nothing's really off limits like I think you should, every aisle in the grocery store is open to having something that you enjoy that meets your needs period. I absolutely do love oats. I love oats because they're versatile. They taste great. I mean they're, they don't have much of a taste in of themselves. But you know, you can put them with lots of things to add flavor. And they are high in protein. Of course. I personally like old fashioned oats but there's many different cuts to choose from. There's the instant there's the like you said overnight, there's the steel cut, the quick oats, etc, whatever you want. Now, as far as other cereals and grains, I'm going to suggest seven of them. I know it's a big list, but I just want to put it all out there as a nutrition coach. There's a million options, but these are seven good ones. Quinoa. Of course, it's an ancient grain, high in protein, high in fiber. It has that nice nutty taste. Not everybody likes a texture but you can cook it in some broth and it gives it a little bit of a different texture. So you can go from like going from crunchy to soft. So quinoa, of course, Ferro is another ancient grain FA RR O, and it's more it's dense and chewy if you want that. So again, I'm all about mouthfeel I'm kind of a foodie. So if you're into that and cooking and recipes and you want different textures definitely play around with all these grains. And if you're finally back on the carb train after years of being low carb and you're enjoying the beauty of what carbs give you it's it's time to explore and go out go out there and you know pick these up at the grocery store and see which ones you like. So quinoa Farrell, the third one is barley. Barley is good in soups. It's good as a side dish. Yeah, it's in beer too. That's that shouldn't be your main source of it though, Boulder B you LGR is very quick to prepare and that's good in like salads or bowls like when you have those even like the vegetarian bowls, but of course I love adding meat to vegetarian bowls so it kind of defeats the purpose. The next one is rice. I mean rice should be on the list for anybody rice is a mainstay both white and brown rice, all the varieties, all the fragrances Jasmine basmati you know, brown rice is a nice wholegrain alternative if you want more fiber and decrease calorie density, but it is a little bit more. You know, because it's rougher and texture, it's not as smooth mouthfeel and if you're on let's say you're in a building phase Allen, which you are and you want to get a lot of carbs. You know, it actually may be too filling to just eat brown rice and you may want to have white rice I think white rice is is also versatile and delicious. So rice, the sixth one is couscous. Couscous is just made from wheat, it's effectively a form of pasta just in a different shape. That can be a lot of fun. Kids tend to love it as well. And you can, again very versatile. And then millet, it's a small grain right also very versatile cheese in portages, things like that. Now, some of these animals never eat and some of them I eat a lot of like I eat a lot of rice. I eat quinoa, couscous occasionally. The other ones not so much. It's just you know, how much do you want to keep in the pantry? And how much variety Do you want to have at home and try? Okay, so you also asked about high protein cereals. Now here's the thing, I personally have a subscription to magic spoon, I get a few boxes every few months or whatever a very small amount in case I get that cereal craving or you know, I want a cereal fix. I don't get a lot of cravings these days. It's something that you find happens when you go more toward Whole Foods You don't you don't have these massive emotional cravings like you used to which is part of why we do it. Keep in mind though, things like magic spoon, they're still processed foods right in terms of the spectrum but they're not. They're not crazy, like ultra processed side of the spectrum per se. I went back and looked at my box of magic spoon and most ingredients are fine. I mean it has chicory root as like a fibrous filler. That's that's a natural filler. I'm okay with that. It uses alue Lowe's, which is a non nutritive sweetener from fruit, it actually does have a few calories. I think for every 10 calories, you absorb one. So it has some impact on calories. But products like magic spoon, I think were developed for like the the low carb crowd and I kind of wish there were some high carb high protein versions like just kind of normal cereal with good ingredients that add protein. But you're fine with these honestly, because the food science is incredible. It's okay to take advantage of it where it serves you. And when you look at something like magic spoon, it's kind of like a protein bar. You'd have it occasionally don't have it every single day necessarily. Well, I mean, even if you had it once a day, it still probably would fit within your goals. To be honest, I don't want to be that restrictive for anything. But

Philip Pape  37:58

it's it's impressive, right? And they're tasty. They have all these now, they have not what they call natural flavors, which is really not natural per se. I mean you can you can go research what that means. And there were like two other ingredients. Honestly, there weren't too many. I think it's the the primary ingredient is Man, I wish I had it with me, I should look it up. But the primary ingredient is just, I think whey protein isolate, right? It's whey protein, something like that. That's where the protein comes from. That plus the chicory root gives it that, you know, Harvey texture. Okay, so here's the thing, I'm gonna let you in on a secret Alan, and everybody listening, the 1000s of people listening. If cereal is like the most delicious thing to you, it's the thing you just have to have. It's your non negotiables you just love it. And I know people like that with cereal, which by the way you can pour almond milk in and you know you don't have the extra calories from milk if you want to do that. And here's the thing if you have the calories and macros for it in your allocated targets for your flexible diet. All right, a bit of your favorite cereal, even if it's not high protein can absolutely fit in a sustainable diet. Yes, even those, okay, I'm gonna say even high sugar cereals made for kids. gasp There I said it. Right, some cinnamon toast crunch is not going to kill you if it's in your 10 to 20% budget for indulgences. Alright, and when you're eating 4000 calories and building muscles. Sometimes your indulgences come from interesting places. And in granted in a fat loss phase, these are the first things that we tend to limit, right because they don't serve our goals. Something like high sugar cereals just not gonna be very filling. It's processed, yada, yada, it's not going to have much in the way of nutrition although you'd be surprised at how much they fortify these things with after the fact. Anyway, that's what we mean by flexibility and not restricting yourself and so take that fear mongering fitness influencers. Okay, that's it. That's all the questions I have for today's episode. And I think that was enough so please send them in if you want your question answered in an upcoming QA In any episode, the best way to do that is send me a message on IG at Wits & Weights, or Facebook, either directly to my profile. I think my link is in the show notes but better off, go through the free fit a free, the free Wits & Weights Facebook community, those links are in the show notes. So our next episode 103 titled, sweet proteins, food science and the future of sweeteners with Jason Ryder. Wow, I couldn't have planned that any better. To tie off with that last question from Alan. We're going to be diving into the topic of sweet proteins. If you've never heard of these, neither had I before I met Jason. I obviously researched for the episode but even then I wasn't fully understanding exactly what they were until we talked. So check out that episode we're going to explore the science behind sweet proteins, their health benefits in your nutrition strategy, and then what foods you might find them in now and in the future. Maybe a magic spoon who knows? As always stay strong. And I'll talk to you next time here on the Wits & Weights podcast. Thank you for tuning in to another episode of Wits & Weights. If you found value in today's episode, and know someone else who's looking to level up their Wits & Weights. Please take a moment to share this episode with them. And make sure to hit the Follow button in your podcast platform right now to catch the next episode. Until then, stay strong

Ep 101: The Truth About Post-Partum Recovery and Empowering Women After Childbirth with Peter Lap

In this episode, I talk to UK post-partum recovery expert Peter Lap. Peter will dispel myths and offer post-partum recovery tips, from diastasis recti to women's specific health concerns.

We'll explore the physical, mental, and emotional journey after motherhood, challenging your assumptions and changing your view of women's health and fitness. This episode is also for men since we all want to support the women in our lives.

Peter is an expert in postpartum recovery with 12 years of experience. He has authored hundreds of articles on post-partum recovery, diastasis recti, and back and neck discomfort. He also advocates for more affordable access to women's health professionals.

Peter hosts the Healthy Post Natal Body podcast, which interviews experts and answers listener questions on post-partum topics. He has also appeared on various podcasts, radio shows, and panels.

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Click here to apply for coaching!
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[2:02] Becoming a male expert in women’s post-partum recovery
[6:57] Understanding and managing diastasis recti
[14:01] Effects on the core muscles, alignment, and core function
[17:49] Basic exercises for core and glute strength
[23:31] Training protocol for women who trained during pregnancy
[25:36] Post-partum recovery: timelines, misconceptions, strategies
[28:26] Measuring diastasis recti and testing muscle functionality
[31:20] Progression for postpartum recovery
[37:01] The societal pressure to lose baby weight post-partum
[42:03] Addressing and coping with post-partum depression
[50:20] Unethical practices toward post-partum women in the health industry
[55:30] Advocacy for better post-natal health support
[58:39] Key insights from the Healthy Post Natal Body podcast
[1:03:26] The question Peter wished Philip asked him
[1:05:50] Where to learn more about Peter
[1:08:58] Outro

Episode resources:

• Peter’s website – free program after you sign up for 90 days, then goes deeper after the 3 months, then ~$10/mo for 5 months - https://www.healthypostnatalbody.com/

• The Healthy Post Natal Body podcast

• Email: peter@healthypostnatalbody.com

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Transcript

Peter Lap  00:00

post partum is not about focusing on burning calories. And we all know as as personal trainers, the best way to actually burn some calories to some muscle gain some muscles and do your strength training and and have your basal metabolic rate go up and you can sit on your bum and burn more calories.

Philip Pape  00:21

Welcome to the Wits & Weights podcast. I'm your host Philip pape, and this twice a week podcast is dedicated to helping you achieve physical self mastery by getting stronger. Optimizing your nutrition and upgrading your body composition will uncover science backed strategies for movement, metabolism, muscle and mindset with a skeptical eye on the fitness industry so you can look and feel your absolute best. Let's dive right in. Wits & Weights community Welcome to another episode of the Wits & Weights podcast. In this episode I'm discussing postpartum recovery with Peter lap one of UK is leading authorities in this critical area of women's health from unraveling the complex condition known as diastasis recti. To the unique challenges women face post pregnancy, Peter will address misconceptions and share actionable strategies for postpartum recovery. We'll get into the physical, mental and emotional journey that follows childbirth, uncovering truths that will challenge your assumptions as always, and transform your perspective on women's health and fitness. This episode is for men and women alike because we all want to support the women in our lives. Peter is a post natal expert with over 12 years of helping women recover from pregnancy and giving birth. He has written hundreds of articles on postpartum recovery diastasis, recti, postpartum back and neck pain and advocating for better and more affordable access for women to women, women, to women's health professionals. He's also the host of the healthy postnatal body podcast, where he interviews expert guests and answers, listener emails on anything postpartum related. And as appeared on various podcasts, radio shows, and panels. Peter, thank you so much for coming on the

Peter Lap  01:58

show. Thanks very much for having me, Philip, thanks so much for the very kind introduction.

Philip Pape  02:02

Likewise, yeah, I'm looking forward to get into this. It's not a topic we really just really covered here. And I just want to start with the obvious, right? You're a man working in a field focus on women's health? How did you find your way to becoming an expert in specifically postpartum recovery?

Peter Lap  02:16

Yeah, this is like my, my what went wrong story, so to speak. So I used to have a proper job long, long time ago as a project manager, and then I retrained to become a personal trainer. And as most PTs in the UK, do, you go to personal training school, you take a course or whatever, and then you go work in the standard gym for for a little while until you build up a client base. And I worked for one of them slightly more higher end gyms because they needed people. And I joined. And I found that most of my clientele tended to be women between the ages of 25 and 35. And one of my American friends who was a personal trainer in New York, and have the same clientele same sort of same sort of market. And he said to me, he kept losing clients all the time. Because at that age, now women start families and have kids or they already have one, but then the other second, and if he wasn't postpartum qualified, and 12 years ago, believe it or not, that wasn't a big thing at all, was God and qualifications weren't as popular as they are now. But he said, so he couldn't really he didn't feel comfortable training them anymore, even though he had a whole bunch of clients that wanted to keep training with him. But he was not really comfortable training them. And I just thought, well, that's a silly way, as a business person, that's a silly way to lose clients. All you have to do is take a course and become comfortable with this style. So then I went to have a look at some courses, there were some courses available and take my money, and I took the courses and all that sort of stuff. And before I knew it, I found that within the city where I live, which is Edinburgh up in Scotland, Scotland's capital, and there wasn't anybody else doing, it was nobody else doing postpartum exercise for women at all. And I've always written a lot of articles, that exercise and blog posts and all that sort of stuff. And the more information I kept putting out there, the more Google like, because 10 years ago, hardly anyone was really writing about diastasis, recti, and all that sort of stuff. And I was just contacted more and more, but people were saying I've never heard of it, again, postponed. The postpartum feels wasn't the same as it is now. 10 years ago, women's health wasn't the same as it is now 1010 years ago, and before I knew what it was all I was doing, and so I kind of fell into it for as I kept my clients, which was awesome, right? But then it kind of just became the guy that does postpartum stuff. And the more I don't know whether you experienced this as as as a, you know, white guy, you might be younger than I am. Don't know how old you are, but I'm 48 now, right? So I'm your typical middle aged white guy. And problems tend not to exist until they happen to me It might just be understand. And therefore, and because my wife and I don't have kids, we never went through this process. But the more women I spoke to, the more I found out that women's health, despite recovery for women, just was completely unaddressed by a lot of people. Also, by the health care system in the UK, at least, you know, in other countries, you get quite a bit of help postpartum in the UK, that just isn't a thing. And then I found out in America, it also kind of isn't a thing. And so yeah, before you know it, that's why I found myself. So this is kind of all I do now.

Philip Pape  05:40

That's, that's pretty cool, right? Because I think it bucks the trend of the 99% of the time, when you ask somebody, where did they get to where they are now, it's like, well, I my personal story led me to this exact thing. That's like, of course, you couldn't have necessarily personally experienced it. But like you said, even in your own realm of your wife, or whoever else, you may not have either, but it was because of your clients and the demand and a lack of supply in the market for that. And even just tangential to women's health in general, I can see it through my clients, and through my wife, the huge gap in knowledge research, you go back to, you know, decades ago, and you could see reasons why women weren't even included in sample sizes for research, and we lacked all this information. And yeah, we're two white guys in our 40s. And I'm 42 We're gonna be 43 who are nonetheless we care, we're passionate about helping people who we can help. So I love that. And I think it means nothing's off limits for people if we care about it. And people receiving that kind of care, I think, you know, if they can find somebody who has expertise, almost shouldn't matter who's delivering it as long as it's helpful. So let's let's get into the topic, then. Because there's a lot here, including the pronounciation of diastasis recti, which is there. So let's, let's talk about diastasis recti. Right, the the as I understand it, the separation of the muscles, but it's pretty common, like both during and after pregnancy. So what is it? And what symptoms can it cause?

Peter Lap  07:11

Yeah, sure. That's an excellent question. First of all, the pronounce it, I call the diastasis. Some people call diastasis. This potato for data. It's a dead language.

Philip Pape  07:20

It's Latin. Yeah, exactly. It's not No, I asked my daughter on how it's pronounced cuz she's taking Latin. I'm like, How do you pronounce it?

Peter Lap  07:28

That's probably that's probably the only way to do it. Because that's it. But there is not going to be like an ancient Roman for jumping on the podcast. And

Philip Pape  07:35

you mispronounce this stone tablets. Yeah,

Peter Lap  07:37

it's awkward. So I don't really mind how we pronounce it. Basically, you're right, it is separation of dystonic muscles along that middle line that we all have that runs from the Sturman to the sternum to the pubic bone. So basically, where your belly button is, right, that that's in the center, like the center point of the body, that's kind of where, where the muscles start to move away a little bit. And that is like the center of of it then tends to be so the muscles move, focus, you know, when you're, and I always say that, so director, the cause of it is internal pressure, not necessarily pregnancy, it can be an injury, it can be just a build up. Have you seen a lot of people who have raised too much, I have a lot of valley that, that get it because they lift heavy things. And they're, they're holding their breath as they lift heavy things. And then it becomes a sort of a repetitive strain injury, almost, because that's fundamentally what it is prolonged internal pressure on the core muscles, and a beast that everything just moves up. Now, obviously, during pregnancy, that is because you're growing a human in there. Which is an awesome thing to do so well,

Philip Pape  08:56

before you get there. So I've never heard of this happening to like a man who lifts weights and uses a belt and then literally having the brace but does it how often is it?

Peter Lap  09:07

Not that much. You find it a lot in people with recourse? So

Philip Pape  09:13

if you've built it up over time, maybe Oh, yeah, I

Peter Lap  09:16

mean, if you're an experienced lifter, and all this stuff, because then what you get if you're a serious lifter, and all of a sudden, you have an injury that tends to be a hernia and what we do find with people who are office workers, and people in wheelchairs, believe it or not, people in wheelchairs have this a lot because every time they have to get in and out of the wheelchair, if they push themselves up, and they're bracing that core because you've been sedentary all day, that cord just isn't strong enough to constantly deal with that internal pressure. So yeah, it should have been in Geisinger, and

Philip Pape  09:47

I don't know I'm so curious. I was curious about it. Yeah. But but it does happen in

Peter Lap  09:51

men. So if there are guys listening to this, you know, the big I always said it's you see this a lot in the UK I'm guessing a lot America, as long as alpha guys listening to this, you know how you have some people that look amazing and a T shirt, they look phenomenal. And now you get to the belly and the belly is round. Right? That is internal pressure on the core, fundamentally. And you might find that when you adjust that, actually, there's a bit of separation of the stomach muscles, because the internal pressure is just constantly there. Now what is actually happening is that your muscles are out of position, that's fundamentally what's causing it, like you said, separation. And that's along that linear. So that's that middle line that I spoke about belong the belly button, and all that sort of stuff. Now there's a facial shutdown of a fascia sheet. And that is essentially the bit that is stretching. So that's why men can also get this because you constantly have a, a bloated belly, so to speak, then that fascial sheet stretches and then when you bring it together, all of a sudden, the fascia she just stretched, right. So it's

Philip Pape  10:56

this is not visceral fat from drinking too much alcohol, I'm just gonna, there's different, there's different things,

Peter Lap  11:01

it's a different color. So to understand, because understanding that this is not caused by practices quite, it's quite a big, it's just caused by internal pressure. And that really matters for postpartum recovery. Because 100% of women who are pregnant have diastasis, recti 100%, you physically cannot grow a baby in there and stay completely flat, that is impossible, it is never been done. That doesn't mean it's a problem for everyone. But that's a different beast altogether. Those fighting we find that after six weeks, about 80% of women still have some form of diastasis recti. If you use a narrow definition, I won't go into much detail. But fundamentally for diastasis recti, what matters is the width of the gap, the depth of the gap. And in my humble opinion, muscle functionality is actually dictate whether your core still does what it should be doing. So when we understand is caused by internal pressure, then you can realize and most guys listening to this advice, and most women listening to this who are postpartum at some stage, and doesn't matter whether you're 10 or 20 years postpartum, you'll find that sometimes when we eat food, that bloats our belly as well. But I can't have a dominance without my belly immediately swelling up to the size of a balloon that matters if you're trying to heal diastasis recti. Okay, because it's really difficult to put everything back in its place, if the food you're eating is constantly increasing pressure, do it, I mean, we're trying to flatten the balloon, so to speak, if you're constantly putting air in that balloon, then of course, the balloon is never going to shrink. So understanding that matters, because it means that quite often postpartum, your body responds differently to different types of food, and every woman in the world will understand what I'm talking about that you used to be able to do used to be fine with apples, pre prenatal, and all of a sudden postpartum. You look at an apple and a stamp bloating already. That means that whilst you're trying to do this rehab exercise, which essentially is what postpartum recovery exercises, it's the same as a frozen shoulder and doing shoulder rehab. You just want to lay off the apples a bit as well. Because if they're causing the bloating, then they're not helping you in the moment. Yeah, it doesn't mean you always need to cut out apples. It just means that in the moment for rehab, that's kind of where they need to be. I'm sorry, they felt that way too boring, perfect.

Philip Pape  13:39

But no, I'm fascinated by it. So I always say, Look, we're coming up on 100 episodes, if my audience is bored, and I'm not, then they're not my the ones that do well, listen, so All right, what? Why is it a problem, I guess is another thing I want to understand. I love all the things about preventing the symptoms by paying attention, your food, and then also how it's different for different women. And it's the principle of the separation, not so much that it's caused only by pregnancy, but it's put affects all pregnant women. So

Peter Lap  14:10

why is it a problem? And that is the big question. Because for a lot of women, it used to be an aesthetic problem. They didn't like the way it looked. And that's completely fine. That is a valid reason for addressing something I mean, I go to the gym predominantly to stay healthy, but also to look have reasonable, right? I want to look half human by the time I'm 6070 years old, that's why I got so I always say aesthetics is a completely decent reason to address a problem. The main issue for the SSS Rector is that muscle functionality is quite often impaired when you have diastasis recti. And if your deep core because that's quite often the the one of the problem areas your your transverse abdominus and all that sort of stuff, which is the the middle layer of your three layers of core muscles for anybody listening, right? If that is not working properly, that means sooner or later, other muscles will start to kick in, and work to heart. Right. And in 99, out of 99 out of 100 cases that I come across, that tends to be the back muscles that will start to kick in, especially deep core, back muscles, your QL, and all that sort of stuff. Right. And again, that is just for anybody listening, that is not the superficial muscles that you feel this is your deep core stuff that basically the most important of all the core muscles, these are the ones that protect your spine. And that makes sure you can rotate without any pain and all that sort of stuff, this is not the get a Swedish massage. And then that is a drop down type type stuff that when muscles are out of place, as a physio will tell you, which you kind of tend to have with diastasis recti and a weak core things, your body tends not to be in alignment, your glutes aren't quite firing up properly. And that needs to be addressed because your imbalance is affected. You're, if you're an athlete, your athletic ability is severely impaired, if your body isn't functioning optimally, but just in daily life, if you think about what women have to do women with kids, what they have to do to get from point A to point B car, they have to carry buggies and travel systems and a bag full of stuff. And you can have a toddler that is fighting against you and throwing a little tantrum that is constantly jerking into you, and all that sort of stuff. If you're, if your core isn't doing what they're supposed to be doing, that's when injuries happen is what I always say, it's a life, it's a life thing, much more than just say, other muscles don't work out, we'll deal with it. This is why back pain kind of comes from.

Philip Pape  16:59

Okay, I love that you brought up all that. So for those who listen to this show, not long ago, probably about 10 episodes ago, we talked to Dr. Ryan Peebles about core training and the deep core, and how it propagates into back pain. And it's very nice tie in here to all of that, and I hear what you're saying, because we often hear of injuries, in any context, not even this, just this context of often happening when you you know you're doing something beyond your level of strength or movement capability that you haven't trained for. And so you often hear even somebody who's very strong, they'll go, and they'll reach way over for something to put it on a truck. And that's when they'll their back will have an issue, not the 400 pound deadlift that it's kind of funny. So yeah, glutes not firing, your balance affected, there's a whole propagation of issues. So it's very important. It sounds like to address this earlier than later. So that leads to the question, what kind of training or therapy do you recommend for managing it?

Peter Lap  17:54

Yeah, that's an excellent question. Because it's exactly the issue is exactly what you said it was it is exactly your body is not capable of doing the things you're asking it to do. Right. That's fundamentally how injuries happen. And that means that when you do any sort of rehab training, and like I said, Then it says, back to recovering any sort of postpartum training, in spite of that, you have to go slow. Your muscles aren't doing the things they're supposed to do. So I always say, the first three to four weeks. And this is how long is a piece of string sort of scenario, right? If you were really active during pregnancy, your muscle activation will be better if you were still squatting up until the day before your due date, and all that sort of stuff, your glutes will be much more active than someone who's been sedentary for the entire, entire, like 678 Diamond periods. But I always start with a nice steady, get the body fired up again. So we start we do some glute bridges and all that sort of stuff. And I think top of my head, the first full week home program that I do is like, this is not a sales thing, right? So this is just that I do with all my postpartum clients. We do some heel slides. We do a choreograph. That's the first thing learning how to breathe properly, is essential. With some heels slides that you just lay on the floor, you stretch one leg out, and you bring that back in and see how you respond to that. We do some glute bridges, not even a single leg glute bridges that just a bog standard laying on the floor blueprint is no way to squeeze your bum. We do some squats, we do some reverse lunges. And that's pretty much if basic stuff. And we've tried to do 10 to 15 reps of all this sort of stuff. Not because we're looking for and I'm sure you've discussed high rep ranges and all that sort of stuff a lot on this product, not because we're looking for hypertrophy we're just looking for. Because I get asked this question a lot. Why is it 10 I'm not trying to get a bigger bump. By doing some bodyweight glute bridges. No one's ever built a big bomb in that way. We're just looking to make sure that your glutes are doing the work and not hamstrings. Because how often do we see someone walking into a gym, and then banging out some amazing looking glute bridges with a big barbell, but there's a hamstrings doing all the work? For sure. Right? That is just another way to get injured. So that's where we starting. So it's just building that up. And the more we ask of the body, over a three to four month period, again, how long is a piece of string, some people will be a bit longer, it depends on how your pregnancy went when he had a C section, but it's your second or third child, whether you've been active beforehand, or whether it's six weeks ago, or 20 years ago, right? It's a muscular problem. So it can always be addressed by exercise. That's what I always say, doesn't matter if it's 20 years ago, but your recovery time will increase rather exponentially. If you do, we just ask a bit more of the body every three to four weeks. And the thing is, because it's a rehab thing, we do this every day. Right? That is quite often the key going to the gym once a week for an hour with a personal trainer won't help. Unless you do your home exercises. It's physio stuff, it's I don't know if you've ever had a shoulder injury or anything like that loads of

Philip Pape  21:12

I'm recovering from rotator repair right now, the rotator cuff repair. I haven't started my physical therapy only a month out.

Peter Lap  21:20

The recovery for that will be boring as anything, it's not going to be fun to do big shoulder presses, Military Presses, all that sort of stuff. It's boring, is repetitive. And it's absolutely essential that you do it otherwise you won't heal properly. And it's going to cause you a problem later, you can any sort of we have stuff frozen shoulder over with your tongue, I love to show because everybody has shoulder pain. So I love given that as an example. But all that sort of stuff, we can all rush through it very easily. It is not a problem to rush through shoulder stuff, and then be fine with life and just have a niggling shoulder for the rest of your life. Right, it'll just be that old shoulder injury. Yeah, the problem is, sooner or later, you're gonna have to take a couple of weeks off, because your shoulders flaring up massively after you did some big shoulder presses and all that sort of stuff. And you know, all of a sudden, you can't really train clients anymore, because you can't show them how to do proper shoulder press, because overhand movement is a bit tough, you just end up and therefore it starts impact on the way you live your life. Right, all of a sudden, you have to ask your wife to reach for things off the top shelf, because you know your your stiff shoulder. And, and that's what I always say Wisconsin postpartum recovery as well. But it is dull in the beginning, it's not exciting. In the beginning, you just do 10 minutes every day. But you have to do them every day. Because you have to retrain your body to use the right muscles, again, that they haven't used for three, four or five months at least if you're talking about postpartum recovery. So this is a I

Philip Pape  22:57

love this specificity of your answer, you know, telling us specific movements and rep ranges, that's really good because people get an idea of what you're talking about. And it is a rehab protocol. So you're not, you know, you're not hitting high intensity three days a week, you're hitting, you know, a high high rep range. For, you know, the light resistance, I don't know if it's gonna be bands or by weight every day, which which makes sense. What about what's the difference between women who might have been training beforehand and after should is how valuable is this training protocol versus easing back into whatever they were already doing? And the body just recovering back to normal on its own? You know?

Peter Lap  23:37

Yeah. That's again, that's a great question. Because women who train during their pregnancy are athletes, I've trained one or two tennis players, and all that sort of stuff, and they don't stop training just gets her pregnant, but they're still new competition, they've got money to make, these are not like top 10 level in the world tennis players. I'm not talking to Serena Williams, I'm talking about people who tour and have to tour and make 30 grand a year, whilst working like a beast. They, they find that their postpartum recovery is simply much better, because their muscles still know what to do. Right? That muscle hasn't been inactive for three to four or five months. And therefore, the early stage of postpartum recovery is simply shorter for him. Nothing fancy, I mean, the first four to six weeks of muscle activation, that's usually two to three. And that's fine, and they're completely fine. And then we can start to to place more of the demand on the muscles. So they progressed through the program a bit quicker. And some of them only need a post a recovery program really short because this is all individualized, right? In an ideal world. Personal Training. The important part isn't the training element. It's the personal element of it. In an ideal world, everybody gets their own personal personal program. So for these four Some of these women, I've seen them for like a month, and then they're like, okay, I'm good to go, I can do whatever I wanted, because they know what to do. I'm sure as as a PT, a few myself as some sort of, you know, you have those rotated belts in a restaurant, you just pick your thing. That's why I'm an assembly line, I have a client I six, I moved the map, simply because I think it's rehab stuff, I don't want to I love working with some people for eight 910 years. That that is not my that's not my goal. I want to fix people so I can help the next person. So for some women, that is a month, and then they can go about their merry business for other people. And this is tends to be the case of women who were not active during the pregnancy or haven't never trained all that much on different things. Prenatal. So if you do a lot of cardio during your, during your pregnancy, that is awesome. And that is phenomenal. And it is fantastic. And I'm not knocking it. But it's not going to help your postpartum recovery when it comes to rehab stuff. Because lots of women, lots of women do do this, because they get told to you know, when you've just given birth, the best exercise to do is what they're told is to go walking. Yeah, no, it isn't. Just isn't the best exercise and and postpartum walking is awesome. And you need to leave the house anyway. So I'm not quite sure what that comment is aimed at. There's you should be doing it anyway. Yeah. But but it doesn't help you postpartum recovery from a rehab perspective doesn't get your glutes fired up. Unless you're walking up a hill, or indeed down the hill. Your core activation won't necessarily improve unless you're off balance, or you're asking your core to, to do stuff or just walking does very little for them. So so that is kind of the type of activity you're doing prenatal. And during the practice, it really matters for your postpartum recovery. But predominantly, the program is any sort of rehab program is kind of the same for most variations of diastasis recti have three or four different variations. But the recovery is kind of the same for absolutely every single one of them.

Philip Pape  27:14

Yeah, it sounds just like any time you are going to have a change in your situation, like you said, surgery, I've had two surgeries. And in both cases, I kept lifting right up until the surgery, and then the recovery is really fast. You know, it's the same thing. But I don't know how many I don't know how many I can't speak for women. I don't know how many women who are pregnant or are very aware that this is can be thought of in that way. Right? Like I'm sure it could be I don't remember my wife talking about it. So she may not have experienced it to an extent that it was an issue. But I guess that's where I'm going is how do you know? It's it even needs recovery? I guess you said all women get it, but he didn't get a test. Do you measure something? Is there you know, circumference measurements? Like what do you do to kind of figure it out? Yeah, that that action? Yeah.

Peter Lap  28:00

That's a good question. Yes. For most women, what happens is they get a six weeks postpartum checkup, right? They go, you go to your GP after six weeks. What the GP tends to do, they may look at the baby for 10 minutes, and then it gives you a quick, cursory glance to make sure you're still alive. You're good. Yeah, he's still alive, you get you're not gonna kill yourself, right? That is very, to be very blunt to get asked about postpartum depression. And but that's kind of what it is. Sometimes, you get a good GP and they say, Okay, let's also check your, your core muscles and see how they go. They basically lie on the table, and put a couple of fingers along that linea alba and there's tons of videos on how to measure the assessors RekSai. online on YouTube, it's on my YouTube channel as well. I have a slightly different way of doing it. But predominantly, you lay on your back, Leisha middle fingers, these are finger along that that line that I spoke about, and you just see how wide that gap is, how deep you can put the finger and all that sort of stuff. That doesn't test muscle functionality at all. Right? That is just it with measurements. And as I always tell everybody, that if you're going to measure the assessors, right, and that way, it's completely valid to do it that way. Make sure you get a tape measure. Because I have this big sausage fingers. And if I measure you, you're gonna have to center two fingers separation. And if you measure yourself and you are built, like my wife is, for instance, was much smaller hands than I do. You can fit three fingers in them. And if you take that home, and I tell you, you have two fingers separation, and a week later you measure yourself and you tell yourself I've got three things separation. The first instinct isn't, oh, my fingers must be smaller. The first instinct is oh my god, it has gotten worse. Right? So we need to get a tape measure out to make sure I always get my clients to measure their own. I sit next to them and showed them how to do it and say use your own fingers. Your fingers won't change that much insights and knowledge and even dentists will use the technique. Then what I do is just a basic exercise Can you lift your legs without your stomach? Tommy? Can you do that? With bent knees? Can you do the straight leg some have a leg raise, as most of your listeners will be familiar with the exercise. But there is a leg, which was a tremendous amount of pressure on your core. How many people do we see that their stomach bulges when they do a leg raise, or they start bouncing up and down and they do a leg base because it's predominantly their hip flexors and momentum doing all the work. But want to make sure the right muscles are doing things like I said, with glute bridges. Is it your glutes that are doing the work? Or is it your hamstrings that are doing the work? Those questions those those two things are actually the main ways that I discovered, okay, what's your what's your muscle activation, like the side plank of dips is also a nice way to do it. Because want to know if your obliques are doing their job. And not everybody has equipment in the house to do like woodchopper type exercises, and then off presses and all that sort of stuff. So those three things, right, so you put your fingers in there, you see how wide the gap is, you see how far you can get your finger in there to see how deep the gap is. And then you do some glute bridges, you do some leg raises. And you do a side plank with dips, and they'll tell you but your muscles are working.

Philip Pape  31:12

Very straightforward. very prescriptive. Love it.

Peter Lap  31:14

It's so yeah. But that's

Philip Pape  31:16

why that's the thing, that least sexiest solutions are usually the most effective. So we know how to maybe recognize it, we know why it happens. We know the differences when you are training versus not training and the importance of strength training, not just cardio and walking. And then you mentioned the the recovery period. Besides that form of recovery, you talked about the rehab is there are there any other strategies for recovery, and not eating apples, if that doesn't work for you.

Peter Lap  31:45

The main strategy for recovery is kind of still keep challenging your body as whenever you can. So that's something that we tend to forget quite a lot. As personal trainers in gyms at least, you know, everybody listening to this will probably have signed up to a gym at one stage. And you get your induction with a personal trainer this way, usually you get your first free program from the gym, right? These are exercises you need to do. And they'll say that this is a program and then you do the program for free for five months. Right. And that's usually one session that is not an actual program, they usually give you a session plan exercises new for a month and then say come back to me in a month's time, and I'll sell you a new one. And no one shows up for a second appointment, right, because all of a sudden, it's gonna cost you money, and all this sort of thing. The issue is that if you do the same stuff that you're meant to do for a week, or two weeks, or three weeks or a month, for four or five, six months, you're wasting your time for at least four months of that. Because you're not challenging yourself. And the whole point of this is that any good program has to be progressive. And that includes for postpartum exercise that includes doing the things you want to do. One of the things that I used to forget a lot about is that, you know, I used to be one of those guys that said, hit high intensity interval training. That's the best way to do it. Man. That's amazing. That's the most effective way of training. And I'm kind of completely in a different camp. It's amazing to love hit, you do it every day. That's phenomenal. You do hit once a week or you do Zumba classes seven times a week. Zumba is going to do more for you than the hit classes. Not as a standalone, but as the results you'll get from constantly and consistently doing Exercise and Movement. That's a no brainer. So make sure that if you like kettlebell stuff, there isn't anything scary about a kettlebell swing, if you postpartum if your glutes are working your coursework and go take a kettlebell class, do your thing. Any exercise you have, and this is the biggest takeaway and anyone can get I think from any sort of postpartum thing. Once your muscles are working nicely, you can do whatever you want. And that is essential because it means you can go back to the gym. If you'd like to kettlebell classes, if you'd like to deadlift, I've heard so many stories about people saying I can't hold a plank postpartum because I have diastasis recti. Right, your your your muscles working. Yes, that means the plank will help heal your diastasis recti. strengthening muscles up is an essential part of a rehab program that lifts I had clients that gave birth to twins so that the plan C section and one of my clients was squatting 100 kg, the day before him today. one rep. We didn't go nuts. She just wanted to make sure you know she wants to she wants to go in to the O R. And she was a surgeon herself. She was so she was going to be operated on

Philip Pape  34:42

by her colleagues two plates. That's two plates for people to 25 for America. Yeah,

Peter Lap  34:46

yeah, exactly. So so. So I mean, that is she wants to walk into the hospital and just go come off. So I still squatted 100 kg the day before the day for postpartum. So Over a month that she just back to squatting 40 kg. She couldn't go back to 100 the body wasn't ready for it yet. But if you'd like to squat because what doesn't matter and you slowly but surely and you keep an eye on what you're doing any exercise, absolutely any exercise helps with your postpartum recovery. As long as you don't overdo it.

Philip Pape  35:21

I love it. I love it. I mean, so many things, you said, there's gold, you mentioned progression, we talk about progressive overload all the time. in different contexts. You mentioned, don't be afraid of any particular movement, if you do it right. And it's at the right level of where you're at. I mean, treat treat the pregnancy, like a kind of like an injury or like a disruption or detraining event. And work back into it. You probably like my my former client, she was a tireless hero. She was also on the podcast a couple times. She's powerlifter here in Connecticut, and she was posting video right up into, you know, a week before she was, you know, had a baby of just lifting, lifting everything, you know, lighter weights, because by the time you like you said right before pregnancy, you tend to dial it back a little you don't want to over brace and things. But that's a great message for people because we do use excuses, all of us have whatever it is, and I think lifting weights is never a bad thing. Unless you have an injury that that's preventing it. So good, good message. You know, it's it's awesome. Ya know, we're in agreement, I'd have to kick you off the show.

36:28

All right, this is our and I just want to give a shout out to Philip Pape at Wits & Weights for his nutritional coaching. His coaching is based upon science research, intellect, and wisdom. His coaching is safe, supportive, connecting. And an actually has helped reset my compass in terms of how I direct my health, the action steps I do, and really, really has helped me regain trust and belief in what my body can do and how my body can change.

Philip Pape  37:01

Okay, so another side topic to this is the pressure to lose the baby weight. Because I know we're gonna get into some things. Some of them are controversial topics and maybe Oh, absolutely, yeah, yeah, the pressure to lose baby weight that's very pervasive. Should this be on the list of priorities for women postpartum like wanting to lose weight, and I understand everybody has a vanity, or everybody has different reasons, and vanity can be one and that's fine. But But what are your thoughts on this in general,

Peter Lap  37:29

but generally speaking, and I always tell people this because most women don't notice what happens during your antenatal class is, most women go to an antenatal class and if you're your wife or kids, you got to get it right your dance and be basically just yet exchanged phone number. So you can have coffee mornings with women postpartum because the the messages you pick up in most antenatal classes are nonsense. And they're rather toxic. Okay, because there'll be messages such as breastfeeding will help you lose weight. No, it won't. Breastfeeding has never helped anyone loses weight to lose weight, it will bring some calories. Yeah, we can eat eat to compensate for that. Right. So it is it's breastfeeding is a zero sum game, it genuinely is if you do it, right. The reason I always tell people tell women to not focus on weight loss postpartum is because you still have all those hormones flowing through your body. And breastfeeding is a part of that. Prolactin, for instance, which is the hormone that helps you produce foreign breast milk will make you gain five to 10 pounds. For every woman in the world, that is true. So how are you going to fight that postpartum? How are you going to if you want to lose a baby 510 pounds isn't going anywhere,

Philip Pape  38:48

right? You're gonna starve you're gonna be an energy deficiency to do it. Yeah.

Peter Lap  38:51

And now you have a baby that needs nutrients. And so I once wrote, and I think I copied it somewhere onto my new website as well. I once wrote an article called your baby is a parasite. That got me a lot of angry emails. But there's a lot of truth to it. As my parents, I don't mean anything bad about it. I just been the babies will get nutrients from your body. Right? So if you are under fed and and undernourished, especially undernourished. Where's your kid going to get all this healthy stuff? Right. And this is why I find a lot of the time. You see a lot of women obviously they're they're sleep deprived and all that sort of stuff. They're walking around, not quite looking. They don't have their natural glow anymore, because they've been so focused on losing weight and not not focused on eating right, that they become nutrient deficient. They just are the baby will take a lot of this stuff. And this is not talking about breastfeeding. Breastfeeding is in an ideal world. People can feel breast milk is the better way over formula and all that sort of stuff. If you can help if you can do it. That's an awesome way to do it. but it makes weight loss as a very silly thing to focus on, is what I make, I don't like to be harsh about this sort of stuff because I understand that women have a tremendous amount of pressure put on them to bounce back and all that sort of stuff, you know, in a way that I can never understands, I understand that. But to focus on that is just insane. And the more we move away from the and this is, again, the National Health Service in the UK advice is this on their website is to burn some calories go for a walk. Postpartum is not about focusing on burning calories. And we all know as as personal trainers, the best way to actually burn some calories to some muscle, gain some muscles and do your strength training, and have your basal metabolic rate go up and you can sit on your bum and burn more calories.

Philip Pape  40:53

Yeah, I was gonna go there. I was like this is it's kind of like when we periodized our nutrition and some days like because at least from a man's perspective, you know, I want to put on that power belly as I'm building muscle. And I'm cool with it, because I know it's building muscle. But yeah, both while you're in pregnancy, because again, I've had some clients that while they were pregnant, you know, we're like, we're not losing weight, we have to gain weight. So let's just intentionally make the most of that. And then after you're pregnant during breastfeeding, like you said, treating it as a muscle building phase is a beautiful way to do it. Because now it's serving all your goals, and not going against you in the nutrition and health department. The stuff about you know, breastfeeding, we won't get into all the all of that. Yeah, but what about people who know? And that's fine. Now. I mean, I think everybody knows that today. Right? That's yeah, yeah. And not everybody can do it. And there's reasons you can't do it that are for various reasons, right? And some women aren't able to. So that's fine. You know, my, actually, our first daughter couldn't keep down anything. And so we had to supplement. You know, there's all these different Yeah,

Peter Lap  41:54

exactly. There's completely the January system. I always say that your job is keeping your baby alive in the best way. Yes. Anything after that? I don't care about that.

Philip Pape  42:03

So what about? So now what about if a woman is not breastfeeding? Does that that whole thing go out the window are there so other reasons to not rush into thinking about weight loss?

Peter Lap  42:14

Well, I always think that, you know, when we have to prioritize in life, we have to decide what is important to us. And we do the things we can do, when I don't know about you, but when I work with clients who tend to be sleep deprived, as a lot of new moms are like, who have high stress levels, potentially high anxiety, high anxiety, or high depression levels, or whatever, just elevated levels of anxiety, because all of a sudden, you know, things are things you never used to worry about, such as driving a car through city center are a lot more scary with a new baby in the back of the car. Because all of a sudden is this guy gonna stop he's gonna crash into an executive that was a little bit higher. So you know, the hormonal response. I don't. I will say there's people that are anxious state struggle to lose weight more than people who are relaxed and chilled about this is why I have a ton of clients that they go to Dubai on holiday for a couple of weeks, and they come back later than they were when they were working 8090 hour weeks

Philip Pape  43:22

due to their expenditure just jumps. Yeah,

Peter Lap  43:25

they've been stuffing their face. And then but they've been chilling on the beach, living switches. It's amazing. It's a genuine, it's a genuine thing. I'm not making this up the list. So and then we have to prioritize stuff. I have to prioritize my gym time and my work and my family and all that sort of stuff. So I want to do the thing that is going to get me the most bang for my buck. And that is simply get your rehab training done first. Right, get your strength training done first make sure your body functions well. Because part of raising a new healthy human being is being as pleasant to be around them as possible. And what I find is that when you're comfortable, my confidence is loved by looking at my own family My confidence is low because I'm feeling crap or I'm in pain. Have you heard of the pain cycle? You know, when you're in pain, it gets a bit worse. And you know as a nation, that that type of stuff. You start to take that out on people not deliberately I'm not saying you shouted your wife or your spouse or your kid or your you do silly things, but your mood is not what it should be. So part of raising a healthy human being is having the most caring and nurturing environment and taking care of yourself is a huge part of the on weight loss doesn't really come into them. It is just not part of that discussion for me bots Python. If you if you don't breastfeed or eat Want to express? Can you lose weight? Yes, sure. But should it be your focus? Right? In my opinion? Not Not unless you're preparing for a movie, right? If you're Margot Robbie going to do Barbie, you get 10 or 21st and a million bucks, then it's your job.

Philip Pape  45:12

Yeah, like, like you said, it depends on your goals and whether it's serving you and your life. I do love how you talked about stress, overall life stress, chronic stress as a sort of tax on your body, or some firm term that I sometimes use is like your energy stack, your metabolic stack, it's like you want to build this nice, big robust tower of, of energy production in your body, rather than trying to cut and restrict and lose, because at the end of the day, like you said, you may just naturally, slowly get back to the way you want to be anyway. But you're doing it in a healthy, abundant way, not a restrictive way. But the whole thing about anxiety and depression does lead to the other question I wanted to ask about, which is postpartum depression. Because we know this affects a lot of women. I saw the statistics recently, I want to say it's anywhere from like one and eight to two and eight, something like that. The numbers are huge. Yeah, it's huge. Yeah. And even beyond that, in some smaller level, and I've had many women in my life who experienced various levels of this, some to the point where they couldn't be with the child for a bit, you know, is that serious? And there's a lot of gaslighting. I mean, talking about women's health, and talking about like, just, there's differences between generations I've seen or like how older generations like act like it doesn't exist. And then anyway, how do you help your clients cope with this, because it does come into the equation comes into the stress anxiety. And this

Peter Lap  46:33

is a huge issue. And we because we say things like one and eight and two and eight, and you're right, those are the stats, we forget just how huge that number really is. When we're talking actual numbers, like the small city I live in 600,000 people 600,000 5000 babies are born every year to fortify from the different routes or something like that means out of those 40 545, almost 1000 will suffer from PPD. That's just the 600,000. So city, the numbers are astronomically huge. And the deed like you said, there is a this is real. Well, let me put it this way. One of my clients, you won't mind me mentioning this. She had baby number five, and cover two sets of twins and then then a fifth by a standalone baby, so to speak. And she didn't cope with it particularly well. Her husband referred to it as yes, she has the baby observes. And I'm like, Dude, I want to I want to kill you right now. The baby blues? Are we still using that phrase? It Yeah, more, especially when you're talking about people that suffer from intrusive thoughts, as they call it these days? Not necessarily. I want to harm myself. But you know, we can talk a lot can go wrong. When you're when you're feeling that way. I always say that. And this goes for all my clients. Exercise should never be stressed. If our sessions planned with my clients, and they say, last minute, dude, I want to cancel. I'm not I'm not afraid today. Don't worry about it. I don't have a cancellation policy. Unless you text me say, I cannot be bothered because I got drunk last night. I charged for that session, because that's punishment for you for your sins. There you go. Anything else I don't tend to charge for, because of the clientele that I work with. Right. So a lot of the time when I have one hour session going to help us regularly save lots of time regularly. The women will have just bathe the baby cleaned the baby out for me come to the house to do a lot of my clients have home gyms and all that sort of stuff. I go to their houses. And the baby froze up last minute. And now we have to start the whole process again. So now she's running around like a maniac because Peter is coming in 15 minutes time. Just send me a text, I'll be 15 I'll sit in the car for 15 minutes, do your thing. It's no big deal. Removing stress from anyone who suffers from postpartum depression is just a small thing. But it can really help. I just don't want to be part of the problem. I love that. Yeah.

Philip Pape  49:12

See how you can help or at least not interfere? Because I've seen Yeah, I've seen that too. Like, you know, people who are close to the person was wondering why they're not XYZ wondering why they're not responding to me or letting me visit or this or that. It's like, just back off, you know, like they need a little space. Right?

Peter Lap  49:29

Yeah, just Yeah, exactly. Just just respect that. I don't have the solution for anyone's postpartum depression. Now that you know, that's what doctors are for in psychiatry, cynicism. But I can indeed at least not be part of the problem. So I chill. You want to cancel last minute to get canceled last minutes. I've got paperwork to do it is fine. It's never a big deal. And I made that very clear to my clients. So they they don't need to feel guilty about that. Because like I said, that doesn't necessarily Go for old PT. So if I'm working with if it were to work with a bodybuilder and he cancels last minute, he's just being a jackass.

Philip Pape  50:06

Yeah, or compassion that you need for this group of people. I want to respect your time because I know technology wise we got started late Do you have? Yeah, okay, I'll be good. Good. All right, cool. Just Just a few more. So another, well, maybe not controversial, but I think you've mentioned the health and fitness industry is just like ripping off postpartum women, I want you to want to, to elaborate on that.

Peter Lap  50:31

This is something I've found in that it's really odd when we see especially online, because the online obviously people listen to podcasts and all that sort of stuff. So what I find online is that if I want to do a bodybuilding program, or a get fit, weight loss tech program, I pay 69 bucks, right? It doesn't matter which one you go to, you can go to ATHLEAN X, you can go to anyone just got

Philip Pape  50:56

60 969 4797

Peter Lap  51:00

all over the place. It's always down from 200 bucks to 69.

Philip Pape  51:04

Off promotion, as always, exactly.

Peter Lap  51:08

Look for postpartum stuff and find the one that is below 150 bucks.

Philip Pape  51:12

Okay, okay. 297 497. Yeah,

Peter Lap  51:16

the real value, one of my, one of my colleagues had something online saying my program is worth $2,500. I will sell it to you for 250 bucks, or $500, or whatever was the biggest selling those pricing program in the world. And I won't name it here because I don't want to crap on anyone's great, but the biggest selling point of selling in the world has had 18 price fluctuations that I know of in the past five years, they started off at 100, then they thought that we can get away with charging 200 pounds. So $300 The last one that I called them out on because I sent them an email was 99 pounds. So that's what 120 bucks for a year access. This is a 12 week program. 12 modules they call it now but it's a 12 week program. Or you can pay 30 bucks a month. And I said what about people that don't have 100 bucks in sitting in their account? Write it because all most of these programs do what I do. And they talk about how they like to help women. Yeah, but if you only like to help wealthy women, then how realistically would you really like to do and for an online programs, I'm not talking about again, I'm not talking about face to face PT face to face PT is a different thing. And when you're dealing with travel time and all that sort of stuff. But for online programs, there is no reason why a postpartum rehab program should be more expensive than a weight loss program. It's a bunch of videos. It is not it is not extraordinary.

Philip Pape  52:52

It's the level of the level of desperation is probably a lot higher causing that demand right you will

Peter Lap  52:57

and that's the thing and when you look at most of these things that are sold and this is part of the whole unethical practices for me is that the idea that a lot of these people say well when I was pregnant I had to find all this stuff out for myself and therefore I decided to put together the bla bla bla the program like no you didn't have to find anything else for yourself because

Philip Pape  53:21

I know you're gonna market it Are you kidding me if you want to go down that rabbit hole Peter you could you could tear off

Peter Lap  53:27

you can do because what they're selling is that you can look like me sort of thing quite often but I'll definitely get I completely get it but I can't look like the rock because first of all genetically I'm not the same I don't have access to his level of money. I don't do it there's a full time job and I don't take a GA but I said allegedly Oh they'll drain Johnson sewing news probably good from

Philip Pape  53:53

that for me. we all we all love them we all love them but we know

Peter Lap  53:56

absolutely nothing but we all know he takes off. So and unless you live that life and it's part of the unethical program that practices I think when a 20 year old has never had a kid says you can look like me to a mom was in her 40s Who said faith is just not going to happen.

Philip Pape  54:15

You know my only challenge to that and not not not on the supply demand thing because you can be a cold hard capitalist and say that that's what it is. Is isn't this just isn't as widespread regardless. In other words, I don't necessarily want to give a free pass to any other part of the health and fitness industry. I feel like oh though the Healthy Weight Loss This is not the right find the right angle and niche of like desperation to hold on like we're going to take your pain and we're just going to shove your face in this you know bowl of pain until you realize you have to

Peter Lap  54:49

know Yeah, absolutely right. And you know, I'm okay with almost all of that. Usually in the Alpha fitness industry. The reason I struggle with it is because We're dealing with health issues for a wide group of people, like if like you, if your shoulder, your shoulder, if your shoulder is causing you a tremendous amount of pain, and there's a ton of people selling shoulder rehab programs, but then deliberately overcharging for what I think is a health issue that you can't help, then it becomes slightly different from saying, is just another weight loss program. But I find

Philip Pape  55:25

it's, you know, it's an elective kind of thing. Yeah.

Peter Lap  55:29

And you're completely right in that the problem isn't with the health and fitness industry, the health and fitness industry does what it does. And that's make money from a certain level of desperation. That's why I go to the gym. If I could eat Domino's all day feel great to take a little bit, we want our problems. Yes, I think that for sure. The problem is, with the support not being there when it comes to healthcare systems and insurance providers and all that sort of stuff. But if that was freely available, like I think it should be like I think it would be this as a non problem. Right? You Can I can I have private medical insurance, I have the state one and I've private this off, I can get almost anything I want to be just go to the doctor. And as I've got private insurance, he says what do you want, pick it go but different. If you look at France, and Germany and several other countries, when you're postpartum you get six sessions or eight sessions, depending on where you are with a postpartum health specialist, whether it's dog floor or whether that is something that doesn't I do, okay. That means there's no one in in France selling this stuff is unethical. But the fitness industry has evolved, because it's healthcare. And that's kind of where I struggle with that sort of thing.

Philip Pape  56:46

I understand. Yeah. And there's huge differences between the UK, the US systems as well. And so many health, I think of like just lifting weights, I would love for insurance to cover strength training, but it's too, it's too it's not short sighted enough for them, you know, for them, they have to tie it directly to some like immediate disease. It's like the weight loss drugs that have come out, we'll go in the other ones, you know, now that they know that it reduces the risk of heart disease, because you're helping a bunch of people lose weight, whatever you're feeling on using that versus making lifestyle choices, that's a different thing. So now the insurance companies are forced to look at that as oh, maybe we should cover it, because it's actually going to save us money down the road, when people are not getting heart attacks. And maybe if they can make that connection that but that's the insurance company, man, we're not going to solve that. And

Peter Lap  57:36

that's exactly right. I did an interview with someone a while ago about exactly that. She was asking me what I was going to do more research into this. And so now that the research we have to do is how much money will it save people to give women access to this stuff? Yeah, for free. And that can be an I look at this as a women's equality issue. If you're looking at the gender pay gap and all that it's a part of that is going back to the office, feeling confident within yourself feeling happy within yourself, not being yourself and looking your best feeling your best. So that after a year, you can go back into to your bosses obviously you can have a pay rise now.

Philip Pape  58:12

Is it the same with postpartum depression? In the industry?

Peter Lap  58:15

Yes, they're much. Yeah, very much. Yeah. Yeah.

Philip Pape  58:19

Yeah. All right. Well, some some heavy stuff to think about it. You know, I'm curious for people listening should definitely reach out to both of us about your thoughts on this. Because, you know, we're two guys with two opinions, hopefully, well informed with a lot of information that we objectively, you know, analyze and try to be compassionate about, but everybody has their opinions and our experiences. So, I did want to ask you one more thing, and that's about your podcast, the healthy postnatal body podcast. What are some because your 200 Something episodes now?

Peter Lap  58:49

I just for next week is 226. So this weekend will be to 25

Philip Pape  58:54

Oh, so 225 Two plates. All right. So yeah, so you're getting your past into the string phase? Yeah. What would you say are some of the biggest insights or surprises? I know, it's a big question, because you had a lot of episodes, but is there one thing that sticks out is highly memorable that, you know, changed your perspective or taught you something that you now carry with you, Florida? Yeah,

Peter Lap  59:16

that's a good question. I for a long time, I looked at this as a this whole fun thing. I was I was your typical, I guess difficult PT from the personal changes I see around me. I thought, okay, I do this, why doesn't anybody understand that this is essential, right? The same way lots of PTS look at strength training, and and all that sort of stuff. And the more people I spoke to, whether they were psychologists or parenting experts, or whatever they were, the more it made me realize is that people have so much stuff happening in their life that All I can all I can get, especially postpartum women, there's so much more happening than what I ever thought, it's that that mental load of being a parent is a, you'll notice that the mental load of just being a parent and having to do all the things you already have to do, and then add a whole layer of human beings on to that, and different relationships between spouses and all our citizens how to navigate that new world. I mean, I remember what it was like for when, and I'm not comparing the two, just a little bit. When my wife and I got like a dog for the first time. It changes the thing, also, you're just talking about poop, and walkies, and all that sort of stuff all the time. And I thought that the postpartum recovery bid was significantly more important than it actually turned out to be. And I'm not saying that it isn't important, I just thought it was more important than it tends to be for the people actually go through some recovery. And I think I think this stuff is so it meant that I had to change my approach to postpartum training. And that's why it matters, right? So I used to say to people do two to free sessions, 45 minutes with me a week, and you come to my studio, and other very nice studios, amazing, I was all set up, not realizing that means putting them baby and preparing the journey that's half an hour to get there. Praying, the kid stays for too quiet for 45 minutes and go on back. So I ask these women to give up two to three, two hour slots a week for their postpartum recovery. That is insane. And it's just so unfair when you think about just asking somebody and saying the only way you can do this is if you come to my studio and do it that way. And then so I had to complete the lock change, my approach to exercises stays the same. But I had to use find a different way, you have to be able to do it as part of recovery thing you have to be able to do at home. Because you have to be to be able to do it in a short period of time, because nobody has an hour, three times will be we just don't mean I can barely get myself to the gym three times a week

Philip Pape  1:02:12

for an hour and have a home gym for that reason. Yeah, well, 20 minute

Peter Lap  1:02:15

sessions, I don't want to do an hour three times a week, I want 720 minute sessions, or whatever it is. Out. So I'd be less equipment. And that meant making stuff easier for people because I just had to change my whole approach to this stuff and realizing that if people don't think this is important to them in the moment, it's not important for them, it's fine. If you've got other things to do. That is okay. Don't put it off forever. But just realize that when you have things like this as a director, you can wait a year before you addressed it, it is fine. If you don't do it within the first year postpartum. There's no biggie, we'll fix it. We'll sorted just do the exercises a year later, when you can squeeze it just chill about all because it's

Philip Pape  1:02:58

a priority. Yeah, no stress, no stress, no stress and finding a way to make it easier for the client. Which is funny because I have an online coach. And same thing, like I don't want to make all my clients constantly schedule calls, when it's easier to send them videos or when it's easier to like do it asynchronously, because I'm like, You know what, that's stress. So that's pretty cool. I love that I it's not something I thought you were gonna say that I was gonna be some very specific, you know, technical thing or topic. Awesome. Um, last question I asked this of all guests, Peter. And that is, is there something you wish I had asked you? And what is

Peter Lap  1:03:32

your answer? Well, the thing is, you've covered an absolute ton of stuff. Of all the of all the interviews I've done, you're definitely you know, indigenous and well prepared, and all that sort of stuff. So that's awesome. I think, you know, the, the thing. The, what are other postnatal issues that need an easy solution, back pain, neck pain, and all that sort of stuff. And how are they linked? is good. But again, it's a specific question. Unless you're a physio, you're not going to ask it because, you know, don't know that this. And that's pretty much it. They're not realizing that for anybody listening, back pain, those parts of back pain to start a neck pain, all that stuff, postpartum. stiffness, and other stuff can all be linked back to things like diastasis recti, on a given birth, and a weak pelvic floor and all that sort of stuff and all this stuff. All this stuff. My answer is that is a solution for and it's not complicated. None of this stuff is rocket science. A lot of and that's easy to say because I've been doing this for 10 to 12 years. So I'm very familiar. I can knock you've been the PTE for a while you can take a position plan in five minutes because you have years and years of expertise.

Philip Pape  1:04:54

You like ABC and I had to get you from here to there but

Peter Lap  1:04:57

client says I can't do this today. I want to do Something else awesome. Give me five minutes, we'll be fine. But But let's focus on recovery isn't isn't rocket science. It's not complicated. But we have to address all these issues in one, one little ball. And that that is kind of the thing, we have to do more than just focus on the TVA. And focus on includes if you have to do everything in one go. If that comes anywhere close to what your question actually was that

Philip Pape  1:05:26

there's no wrong answer to that, because you just told me a question you wished I would have. So there you go. All right. Well, you're a cool guy, Peter. And I imagine your clients that love working with you, because just I mean, the energy I get from you, and for those listening and watching hopefully get the same thing as a guy who cares who does have the solutions, even if they aren't rocket science can get you quickly to that and is willing to help and is available to help. So where can listeners learn more about you and your work? And that includes, who around the world can get access to you? Or is it local? Or do it online?

Peter Lap  1:05:59

Yeah, this is this is the big thing for me. So a few years ago, I was indeed just a personal trainer around Edinburgh and I had loads of questions. So I set up a website called Health postnatal body.com, handy title podcast kind of big on that, and it was very much we do assess on the Jordan Defense for Health, postnatal, bodyart, calm and, and and all the other postpartum websites. You know, the 13 week 12 week program I talked about earlier that someone says Pay 99 pound a month or a year, I give it to you for free, it doesn't cost you a penny you sign up, you get three months free trial, right? And beauty so you can cancel on day one, you still get three months free access. Then after the three months, the program goes deeper because it goes into back pain and neck pain and all that sort of stuff. And then I charge $10 A month or eight pounds a month depending on where you are for five months, and that's the total copy of lifetime access. And that includes emailing me Peter and healthy postnatal bodyart comm i get emails every week from people saying, hey, how do I do this exercise completely free is all included. The reason I did that is when you're asking who can access it. Not everybody lives in the UK in the US and has a high level of disposable income. I have a ton of Eastern European members that eight to $10 a month isn't a lot of money for most Americans. It's not a lot of money for most British people. It is a tremendous amount of money for people living in certain parts of Asia and all that sort of stuff. So that I just said this, you pay you pay nothing for three months. Make sure you cancel on day one if you've never gone to pay, don't say that with a state credit card, right? Because you can buy those things out say credit cards and after three months they fail I get charged for that stuff. You sign up on day one to pay dollar whatever cancel on day one you get three months free I still ask the emails I don't care and so healthy postnatal volume comm that's where everybody can get access to the full program. Like I said the program is I think I just added month 12 Or something like that because after four months of progress let's up into what you want to work on. Glutes, core of asanas of legs, shoulders, whatever you want to work on. But you know, sign up for three months and then go away it's also completely fine. And of course alphaplus natively podcast is out there for your listening entertainment every Sunday night at 6pm. UK time so both at 1pm Eastern

Philip Pape  1:08:24

Yeah, that sounds about right yeah so five hours Yeah, perfect. So anybody listening you're on your on your podcast app right now go and follow or subscribe healthy postnatal body podcast right now that's the easiest thing for you to do. And then the next easiest thing to do is if you or someone you love or woman in your life you think needs the help with what Peter offers for postpartum recovery. It sounds like you couldn't get a better bargain then free for 90 days and then it's up to you. I promoted way more expensive things in that for guests and others so go for it jump in there's no risk. Awesome very great conversation Peter so much really good information that I wasn't aware of. It's gonna help me and my clients and other women I know so I'm sure the listeners got a ton from it as well. Thank you for coming on my

Peter Lap  1:09:08

absolute pleasure, man. It's been phenomenal.

Philip Pape  1:09:13

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

Ep 100: Top 5 Lessons from 100 Episodes of the Wits & Weights Podcast

This is the 100th episode of the Wits & Weights podcast, and it’s going to be epic!

Today, I’ll cover not just one topic but five, taken from lessons I’ve learned since publishing the first episode of Wits & Weights almost two years ago.

We will uncover 5 of the most important and recurring themes related to evidence-based nutrition, training, and mindset that come up on the show and that listeners are always asking about. I will also mention three episodes related to each lesson, and I’ll give you my current thoughts and strategies on each topic, including the main takeaways you can take action on today.

__________

Click here to apply for coaching!
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Today you’ll learn all about:

[3:07] Listener reviews
[7:55] Lesson 1: The importance of energy availability
[12:59] Lesson 2: Evidence doesn't always mean science
[26:34] Lesson 3: There is magic in maintenance
[35:10] Lesson 4: Nothing matters if you can't be consistent.
[45:52] Lesson 5: Your health is the most important investment
[1:00:30] Outro

Episode resources:

• COACHING GIVEAWAY! Enter code “EPISODE100” and get an extra month of coaching, a free tub of 1st Phorm protein powder, and a 12-month subscription to MacroFactor when you sign up for our popular 6-month 1:1 coaching program.

• Lesson 1: 58, 76, 86

• Lesson 2: 80, 84, 92

• Lesson 3: 66, 69, 77, 98

• Lesson 4: 70, 72, 74

• Lesson 5: 32, 51, 95

Apply for 1-on-1 coaching ⬇️
https://www.witsandweights.com/apply-for-coaching

Or schedule a FREE results breakthrough call with Philip ⬇️
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Ask Philip anything ⬇️

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Transcript

Philip Pape  00:00

I continue to be inspired and encouraged by the compassion, the curiosity, the positive human energy, by the 1000s that are out there who just want to improve themselves. They just want to improve, so they can show up for their families, for their careers for their friends, for their loved ones, and of course themselves. Welcome to the Wits & Weights podcast. I'm your host, Philip pape, and this twice a week podcast is dedicated to helping you achieve physical self mastery by getting stronger. Optimizing your nutrition and upgrading your body composition will uncover science backed strategies for movement, metabolism, muscle and mindset with a skeptical eye on the fitness industry. So you can look and feel your absolute best. Let's dive right in Wits & Weights community Welcome to a very special solo episode of the Wits & Weights podcast. Why is it so special because this is episode 100. And it's going to be epic. Today you're in for a special treat, because I will be covering not just one topic, but five topics taken from lessons that I've learned since publishing the very first episode of Wits & Weights on November 2 2021, almost two years ago. Before we get into all of that excitement, I have an important announcement. To celebrate 100 episodes of the podcast, I am doing a one on one coaching giveaway for my very popular six month coaching program exclusive to listeners of the podcast. So here's what you get, you get an extra month of coaching. So that's seven months for the price of six, you get a free tub of protein powder of your choice from first form, and a full year subscription to macro factor. To apply just use the link in my show notes to apply for coaching. And enter the code episode 100. All one word, that's episode 100. Everyone who mentions the code is guaranteed to qualify for this promotion. So if you're ready to invest in yourself, and you've just been waiting for the right time, this is as good as it gets. Because I only run promotions maybe twice a year maybe. And I've never given away supplements before. So now is the time to go all in on your health and physique so you can finally look like you lift. Okay, today for episode 100. The top five lessons from 100 episodes of the Wits &. Weights podcast, we're going to uncover five of the most important and recurring themes related to evidence based nutrition training and mindset that come up on the show. And you as the listener are always asking to learn more about I will also mention three episodes related to each lesson. So if you want to check out past episodes from our catalogue of, of 99 before this one, and I'll give you my current thoughts and strategies on each of these topics, with of course some takeaways as always, because it is the big 100 I did want to share before we get into those topics, some recent five star reviews, five star reviews from listeners that listen to the show that follow that reached out that took the time. And he's really stuck out at me because they demonstrate why this show even exists, and why I keep making new episodes for all of the incredible listeners like you who are out there. And the first review is from love before 100 information I didn't know I needed super helpful. Philip is informative and very easy to listen to. As someone working with a trainer and coach. I just do what they tell me but it's nice to understand exactly what and why I'm doing it helps to stay motivated to keep going. Thank you. Well thank you love before 100 Because I do strive to explain why we do certain things and I'm glad that it helped you with your training. The next review is from let's see T JAL Britton just what I needed no nonsense, practical real life advice for anyone who struggles with creating a lifestyle that fosters healthy eating and exercise habits. Phillip is the real deal. Really appreciate that one. Thank you. The next one is from moms overcoming overwhelm, a sustainable approach to fitness and nutrition. Philips passion for his work shines through in every episode, his explanation of periodized your nutrition to focus on your goals, rather than restriction was eye opening for me. He's knowledgeable, personable and wants his community to succeed. I can't wait to learn more from him sincerely, Emily. This really means a lot to me because you pulled out very specific things that I'm trying to get across with periodization and avoiding restriction and how important it is to have our community and so love that you are getting that from the show Emily and the last one is new work are nowhere educational, straightforward eye opening. All right, this one's a long one. But I really it really meant a lot to me because of the detail and thoughtfulness of it. Philip delivers health and wellness material in an organized unintimidating direct approach. His advice is simple to understand, and he has a way of hitting all the points for everyone, both men and women, overweight and athletic, beginner and novice. My biggest takeaways are switching to compound lifting progressive overload, eat more protein than you can imagine and find ways to move 10,000 steps each day, including not under estimating the power of walks. I especially love his solo episodes with basic concepts, because he's a very good teacher and lays it out. Well. I've binged mostly all of his episodes and have such a better outlook on getting in shape, which I thought was hit style boot camps and calorie restricting. Phillip clears up the misconceptions and inspires you to be smarter and happier while trying to be healthier. Side note, a for podcast sound quality, and for getting straight to the point without political current events, fluff in between. Thanks for such a quality podcast. I will just leave that there because I thought that was beautiful. I really am glad that all of the listeners are taking something from the show. It's what podcasting has done for me as a listener, and why I created the show, and why I'm just so grateful to get to this 100th episode, and it's just the first 100 of many, many to come. So without further ado, let's dive into the top five lessons from 100 episodes of the Wits &. Weights, podcast. Here we go. When I started this podcast back in November 2021, I had no idea whatsoever how far I could take it, how it would evolve, or even if anyone would listen to it. And then as the emails and messages started pouring in about how the show would help someone learn about their body, finally improve their health or their physique, or understand why their coach or trainer was telling them to do something, or just having the knowledge, the knowledge, the confidence to optimize their lifting in their nutrition. I continue to be inspired and encouraged by the compassion, the curiosity, the positive human energy, by the 1000s that are out there who just want to improve themselves, they just want to improve. So they can show up for their families, for their careers for their friends for their loved ones, and of course themselves. And it was very difficult to pick five lessons from the first 100 episodes. So I did my best to draw out the big but highly relevant themes that will both motivate you, but also give you a practical place to start learning and growing. Whether you just found the podcast for the first time with this episode, or if you've been a longtime listener. And then for each lesson, I'll share what I've learned that I also use with myself with clients. I'll give you three episodes to check out that touch on different areas of the lesson, and the actionable takeaway. So let's jump into lesson one. First lesson, energy availability is even more important than you think. Alright, so there's a concept called energy flux. energy flux is this state where both your intake and your expenditure are high, both of them are high. And this is beneficial for muscle growth, fat loss, overall metabolic health. And more of my focus on this podcast lately, you've probably noticed, and also with clients is on increasing energy availability and energy flux. Rather than restricting even when we're in a fat loss phase, I want fallows to be as easy as quick as possible as painless as possible. I don't want us to have to take breaks or use refeeds or anything like that. And so keeping your energy high, your metabolic stack your stress load low, keeping that up is a good way to do that. And it becomes even more critical for men and women over 40 Because of hormonal changes, the gradual loss of of muscle and bone density that might have occurred because of your lifestyle over the years, let's be honest, I'm in that camp as well, because I didn't really get lifting until I was almost 40

Philip Pape  09:01

The change in your connective tissue, your ability to recover all of those things. So the the lesson is that rather than focus on cutting calories, or what kind of deficit you need to be in, let's focus on increasing energy on having more energy. And for many people, this means living most of the year, not in a deficit. My goal for you and my goal with clients is we're going to get through that fat loss phase pretty quickly and we're going to get you where you need to be leanness wise. And unless you're a competitor and you're trying to be staged, lean, for example, you know, you're gonna get to a point where you've probably never been before you're gonna be happy with your physique or at least much happier than when you started right. And we want to then go back into a well fed a high energy state and live there for six 912 months before we do another cut and get into this cycle where over an entire year you may be in a diet at most for six to eight weeks. That's kind of The goal, right, and there are several episodes that we've done that touch on this topic and I wanted to actually share. Let's say I'm going to, there's three I said I would share three episodes. So the three I'm going to select for you are as follows. Going back to Episode 58 was the first time Brandon Cruz was on the show. So episode 58 is titled, using high energy flux to eat more burn more fat and build more muscle with Brandon to cruise. And that's a good way to jump right to to understand what energy flux is all about. And Brandon is definitely a master of throwing in tons of practical strategies to use there. I learned a lot from that episode, and I'm sure the listeners did as well. The second episode is number 76 Episode 76 diet breaks energy flux, plant based protein and dieting psychology with Eric Trexler. And this we do cover energy flux in there specifically and then some other topics related to dieting and dieting psychology. And then a more recent episode would be episode 86 Energy workout nutrition and performance based strength for women over 40 with Steph Gaudreau. So Steph is well known in the fitness pays for space for focusing on strength and fueling your performance and not restricting. And pretty much all the clients she works with are in that category and not necessarily trying to lose weight. Although one of the pleasant side effects of any increase in your energy availability and your energy flux and perform and improving your strength and performance is that your body just tends to suck up more energy and require more energy. And therefore you need to eat more. And when that happens, you find out that if you want to go into fat loss, it's super easy in relative terms. So those are the three episodes, check out episode 5876 and 86. The big takeaway for this lesson, focus on increasing your expenditure. Don't focus on restricting or cutting, focus on increasing your expenditure through your training, right building muscle training hard training heavy, your movement, keeping your stuff count high, your nutrition, keeping a high protein, well balanced, mostly whole food diet and your lifestyle. Meaning keeping your stress down keeping your sleep high things like that. You want to build muscle to increase your expenditure for the long haul. Because muscle is metabolically active, it's very expensive tissue. You want to have an active lifestyle with lots of steps anywhere from, I'll say eight to 12,000 is a good number to shoot for eat sufficient protein to build and preserve muscle. Eat your carbs, for energy for performance, to spare your muscle tissue for recovery. And because they're delicious, and minimize stressors like poor sleep and too much cardio if you're listening to me too much cardio is a stressor and give your body the chance to build metabolic resilience, which then ultimately allows you to eat more and lose fat more easily. Isn't that what we want? Okay, lesson two. Evidence doesn't always mean science. Evidence doesn't always mean science. One of the valuable lessons I've learned coming from a skeptical perspective, right, that's the premise of the show is skepticism of the fitness industry. And evidence based nutrition, which I am a huge advocate of with my clients is that there is a hierarchy of evidence. And I don't know where I was first exposed to this concept, but I definitely it was reinforced in Alan Aragon's book called flexible dieting it came out I think, just last year might have been two years ago. And we had Alan on the show as well. really generous, super sweet, nice guy. That's, that's why I'd put it just just a really kind soul, who also is very smart and cares, and has a reasonable approach to this whole thing like a reasonable, flexible, sustainable approach. And he talks about the hierarchy of evidence in his book, and the way it goes is that the higher quality information you get, the more you can use it to sort of backup your claims. But at the same time, there are different levels of that hierarchy that all have to be accounted for. So I don't know if I stated that quite clearly enough, but I'm gonna go from the, what we'll call the highest quality kind of scientific information all the way to not what I'll call the lowest quality, but you'll see what I'm getting at. It's sort of the one that everybody dismisses, and yet I think it could have the most powerful effect on the individual. So the highest at the highest level, the hierarchy is systematic reviews, and meta analyses. So this is where they study multiple results for multiple papers, usually all of them having been randomized controlled trials, but potentially other types of studies like observational studies, and they look for the patterns across studies. And it's kind of like weeding out and filtering out and averaging out all the air and all the outliers from all those studies. So if you can find something like that, it tends to be a pretty strong bet. back up for whatever the claim might be. Next down on the list would be randomized controlled trials right? Now, I don't claim to be somebody that's very much into the methodology behind studies, I do have a PhD, I did have to go through the dissertation process and understand a little bit of this, I tend to be the type of person who takes the information does my best to understand it, validates it against good sources, who also make those claims. And also tend to work with my clients and myself to make sure that it works and and give you the prescriptive way to apply it. That's my preference when I do this podcast is, here's how to do something step 123. I may or may not always back it up with the science, right? I sometimes I try to sometimes I don't at the end of the day it is it does come from that place of a genuine attempt to back it up with with what the evidence supports. Okay. So anyways, randomized controlled trials where you have control groups and experimental groups, they are that are random, randomized, and they're controlled. So there you go. Next, we have observational studies, which would be for example, if people had certain lifestyles for 20 years, and then at the end of that 20 years, you know, you haven't been studying them, but you send them a survey and you collect all this information over the last 20 years. And you observe how all the variables interact and try to elucidate cause and effect or at least correlation. Cause cause and effect is very difficult, unless it's longitudinal, right, unless you follow something over time. So that would be the next level. Then we have anecdotes and the media, okay. And this is where we get into the fuzzy gray area gray area of you've got bro science, you've got fitness influencers, you've got folks like me who are just, you know, you you get to a certain level of trust for people because what they say seems to correlate with what you what you've observed works. But in many cases, the hucksters and the charlatans are the loudest voices. And they're also have the biggest conflicts of interest. And so it's kind of trying to tease all of that apart, like I have a conflict of interest in that I am a coach. And so a lot of what I do is to give you as much information to

Philip Pape  17:12

improve your health and nutrition as you can, knowing that you may also want to hire me to help you do that. But I feel like that's an aligned conflict of interest, if you will, versus somebody who is being funded by a supplement company to pitch a certain type of training program where there's not really an alignment between them. And then they hide the fact that the supplement program company is funding them, right. Or the whole carnivore diet, fiasco with with what says Paul Saladino and the liver King and all that stuff, right? Where there, there are so many massive conflicts of interest. And there's just falsehoods like, you know, the fact that he didn't use PDS, but he did things like that. So you really have to be careful in this part of the evidence. And then we get to N equals one, what is that, that's you or me, no matter how many things I tell you are backed up by the evidence, no matter how prescriptive I get, if you follow exactly what I'm telling you in a podcast, and it doesn't work for you. Don't immediately blame me, please. It could be that what I'm telling you works for most of the population, and you're an outlier, we are all outliers in certain parts of our lives. And whether it comes to training volume, how many carbs you need, or want, or can tolerate, how you respond to a deficit, your hormones, and I can go on and on. And so N equals one is the idea that there is a sample size of one, that's you, and is sample size. And nobody's going to know you better than you, your body, your biofeedback, how you respond to things, your tolerances, your allergies, whatever. And when you take all the evidence, and you start applying it to your life, and if your feedback tells you, this is not working for you, and you're sure that you've just done everything the way you thought it was supposed to work, then that's telling you something to that's evidence as well. And I don't think you should discount that. I think in fact, that could be the most powerful evidence. And if you're working with a coach, like if you're working with me, you tell me that you will tell me that you'll say, Look, this suggestion you gave me is just not working, what the heck, what do I do? And then I'll say, okay, something is different here, something's going on. Let's, let's go through the checklist. And let's go through the data. And let's most importantly, understand you. And when you do this over time, and you know yourself better than anyone, or again, if you're working with a coach who tends to understand you and your idiosyncrasies, and how you respond. That's where the magic starts to happen, because then you can tweak things that deviate from the quote unquote science, but are actually the best evidence for how it works for you. So maybe a long winded way to say that we should combine science and research with self awareness. And actually, I'm going to attribute some of this to my friend and client Alan Friedman, who was also on the podcast, because he said something to me in a message. Not long ago, he said that, while the podcast is full of structure with science based recommendations and insight, in addition to that, we have layers of intuition. We have self acceptance for what life gives us along the way. In fact, Alan said recently reminded me that the obstacle is the way, right, that obstacles in our way don't aren't always roadblocks, they could be part of the path. And so we accept these things, we acknowledge them. And then we check in with both our physical and mental status as we move forward. And all of these grounds us in the true cornucopia of evidence, if you will. Another piece of this is skepticism. And when I talk about skepticism, it's not just questioning everything that comes at you. It's questioning everything that comes from you. Meaning, we all have long held beliefs, some of which seem to have been backed by science. And they may be incorrect. Maybe maybe the science that they were backed up by 10 years ago, wasn't quite complete, or it was misinterpreted or what have you. And we want to question ourselves and our own beliefs and have that open mind. And it may not be that there's a black and white, this versus that. It could be the nuances. For example, I recently talked to Dr. Bill Campbell on the show. Okay. And that was that was episode 92. One of the episodes I'm gonna mention in a moment anyway. And one of the things he talks about is aggressive fat loss. He's a, he's researching aggressive fat loss in the lab, and seen with real people in a very controlled situation, right, a randomized controlled trial, that you can lose weight at a faster rate than we thought and still preserve muscle mass, but only if the duration is very short on the order of two weeks. So what we're effectively saying is not that you cannot lose weight at a certain rate of loss, and preserve your muscle, we're just saying that there's a corner case, that's the term I use. But basically, there's a a small scenario, a small set of scenarios, bounded by the variable of duration, where we can do this extra special little thing of aggressive fat loss. And so it just adds a little extra nuance to the situation. And that's why we have to avoid making blanket statements like you can never lose fat at more than 1% a week. No, you can, but only if you limit the duration. Okay, so I think you get my point with all of this, I think I'm hammered home, I'm going to share three episodes related to this topic of evidence doesn't always mean science. The first episode is Episode 80, flexible dieting, evidence based nutrition and protein strategies with Alan Aragon. So again, Alan's the man, he knows all about flexible dieting, he practically pioneered it. And he goes into everything in that realm. And I tried to ask him questions in a way that led him to certain answers, and he just wasn't taking the bait. I love it. You know, he's, he really is about flexibility in more ways than one when it comes to our approach to nutrition. So check out episode 80 Episode 92, I kind of have these out of order, I'm sorry, I'm gonna, the next one I'm going to say is episode 84. So 80 is the one with Alan Aragon. 84 was a solo episode I did called why working out less, burns more calories, and boosts your metabolism and fat loss. And the reason I'm throwing this episode in here, why working out last burns more calories boosts your metabolism fat loss, is it's one of those counterintuitive things we have to be open minded about and change our beliefs on so many people come to me saying, I work out six days a week, and I'm not getting results. And it's all set in a way where the working out six days a week is assumed to be a good thing for getting you results, which implies that there is a belief a belief there that may not be correct, or it may need to be, you know, pushed along into a slightly different direction. And so that episode is one where I tried to address one of those and I have many more where I where I do that because it's quite common that influencers or the media whoever spout off quote unquote truths that are the opposite of the truth. And they just just state it as if Oh, this is everybody knows this, right? Like, oh, carbs are bad, right? Of course not. You know, let's not, let's not accept everything. Okay, Episode 92 is the third one and episode 92 is the one with Dr. Bill Campbell. The title is physique enhancement, rapid fat loss plateaus and processed foods. With Bill Campbell. I'm sorry for my long title. Sometimes I really just tried to cram a whole bunch of keywords in there, you know, but episode 92 is really all about five specific topics related to physique enhancement. And I think you're gonna learn something new and Every single one of those, including the one on rapid fat loss, pretty cool stuff. So what's the takeaway here? I want you to take inventory of your personal beliefs, take inventory of those, and what others in the fitness industry are telling you do your own research, or I know that's tough, we don't all have time to go and read papers, follow people who seem to have a reasonable grasp of reality, rather than an ulterior motive, or a conflict of interest or obvious bias. And again, everyone has biases, everyone has an incentive, everyone has some reason that they're doing what they're doing. I started this podcast as a passion project, and it eventually morphed to align with my business. And that's okay, because what I'm sharing on the show is fully aligned with how I help people with the business and I stayed it over and over again and disclose it ad nauseam. So there are there's a difference in that sense. So just be aware of those of who's paying effectively for the information. Experiments on yourself as well. And don't assume that what works for a population will be ideal for you. If something feels like it's restrictive, and not aligned with your lifestyle, or values, except that there are multiple ways to get to the outcome you want. There really are there's not just one way, you're unique, in some ways, and universal like every other human in others. And we have to find that overlap. What's unique for you versus what, what's universal, and make it work. Okay, lesson three, there is magic in maintenance. And thanks again to Alan, because Alan, I think came up with that quote, either he said it or I said it, I honestly didn't even go back to listen, when I researched this episode. And it doesn't matter. It's like it's gone gone down into the mythology of the podcast. But the idea with magic and maintenance is, is a pretty powerful and profound one. And by maintenance, I'm talking about your maintenance, calories, maintenance, calories are those calories at which if you eat them, you will not gain or lose weight. And one misconception with that is that it is a fixed number, and it really isn't. And so by tracking your food, by tracking your weight, using whatever means possible, but of course, I have more efficient means that I've suggested before like macro factor on the last episode, if you can do that, you can become aware of your true expenditure. That is how many calories you burn every day, your true maintenance calories, right, your true metabolism, there's so many different words we use for the same thing. And that awareness unlocks so much opportunity, and so much potential to take control of your health in many different ways. It's kind of like until you do that, you haven't even found the doorway to all the potential paths, you're literally walking around in a void in like a black room with no light, you can't see where you're going. And then all of a sudden, you find this door and you open it and there's light. And that door is an awareness of your expenditure and your maintenance calories. And then you look through the door, all of a sudden, you see all the paths that you can take, right, some may lead back to the place that you had been before, but many of them are going to lead to exactly where you want to go and different ways to get there. That's how important understanding your expenditure is, and all the food lab, but many of the food apps out there, many of the coaching approaches out there, many of the the calculators and the guides and the programs, or even the coaches who say no, you don't need to worry about your calories at all. I feel like they are leaving a big part of of this awareness off the table. And by by taking the time to just do some tracking and collect some data on yourself, you're gonna have this massive awareness that gives you options. And those options will then allow you to shape your body to shape your body composition, to get stronger and build muscle to lose fat to stay exactly where you are for years and years while eating a well fed diet with Yes, plenty of carbs, to go through a recovery diet after a fat loss phase or maybe if you're a competitor after getting stage lean and do it in a way where you don't gain too much fat, but you also don't delay recovery and so on. So there are a lot of reasons that maintenance is so important. And I think Alan said it best when he said that there's magic in it, because it's actually in some ways harder to to maintain your weight than to gain or lose weight because you're effectively trying to get your body not to change too much. And so that's what gives you the skill, the knowledge and the awareness to do all the other things. Hey, this is Philip and I hope you're enjoying this episode of Wits & Weights, I started Wits & Weights to help people who want to build muscle lose fat and actually look like they lift. I've noticed that when people improve their strength and physique, they not only look and feel better, they transform other areas of their life, their health, their mental resilience and their confidence in everything they do. And since you're listening to this podcast, I assume you want the same things the same success, whether you recently started lifting, or you've been at this for a while and want to optimize and reach a new level of success. Either way, my one on one coaching focused on engineering your physique and body composition is for you. If you want expert guidance, and want to get results faster, easier, and with fewer frustrations along the way to actually look like you lift, go to wits & weights.com, and click on coaching, or use the link in my show notes to apply today. I'll ask you a few short questions to decide if we're a good fit. And if we are, we'll get you started this week. Now back to the show.

Philip Pape  30:57

All right. So I want to share some episodes with you related to this topic. And then I'll give you my takeaway for this. Episode 66 was with Jeff Hain sustaining fat loss results and maximizing recovery for the long game with Jeff hain. So that was episode 66. And it was pretty cool because we all we talked about was? Well, not all we talked about, it was two topics, right? It was maintenance and recovery. So ignore the recovery Part For today's scope. We talked in the first half of the podcast all about sustaining your fat loss results, but specifically what it means to live at maintenance. What are the challenges of maintenance? How do you stay there? How do you avoid, you know, getting out of it, and so on. So that's episode 66. Episode 69 was a solo episode I did called what to do first, lose fat, build muscle or body re composition. And I think this is an important one because it covered seven scenarios that people are usually in, right, what do you have excessive weight to lose just some weight to lose you're trying to build, you just came out of a fat loss phase and so on. And what to do, and all of it is it hinges on the idea of understanding your expenditure and understanding your maintenance. Right? It's again, it's the pivot, it's the fulcrum, it's the anchor, whatever analogy you want to use this the door, it's a doorway to all of these options. Episode 77 was with my man, Alan. So I, we knew I'd throw this one in there, from emotional eating and bariatric surgery to optimal health balance and mindful living with Alan Freeman. Now that episode covered his whole journey, all sorts of amazing inspiration in there. But it also includes the story about magic in maintenance and how he came out of a fat loss phase. And when he was going to maintenance calories, there was maybe some fear there of weight regain or, you know, what do we do at this point? How do we how do we motivate ourselves and keep moving forward? What does it mean and, and he discovered that there was a lot of beauty and magic to being in maintenance and feeling well fed and recovered, but not being afraid that you're going to all of a sudden gain a bunch of weight, it's a great place to be. And it's a place where a lot of people listening want to be. So that's why I think this is a great lesson. And I'm going to throw in a bonus fourth episode here. Okay, and this is only one episode or two episodes ago. Episode 98 Is your food logging app sabotaging your fat loss and physique goals. And that is a thinly veiled sales pitch for macro factor because it is so far the only tool I've ever found that will help you discover your true maintenance. And then once you discover your true maintenance, the magic starts to happen, as we've just been saying, Alright, so the takeaway, the takeaway for this, take the time to track your food and wait for at least three weeks. So what do you do with macro factor with a spreadsheet with a manual process, it doesn't matter. Do it for three weeks. And then you'll understand how your expenditure changes based on your food intake, your activity, your training, your sleep, your stress. One quick caveat, because I hear this almost every day when I'm on calls with people or we're you know, not with clients because clients I've we've gone through the education of this but people in the group and so on is that the activity on your wearable, the amount of calories burned on your wearable is useless. Do not trust it, do not use it. I mean, I can't be more quick unequivocal about that. It has such a high level of error and inaccuracy. It just doesn't mean anything. It's it's literally just a number that doesn't mean anything. So the only way to tell how many calories you burn every day, outside of a laboratory is the way I'm talking about to track your food, track your weight, see how your weight responds to your food period. That will account for all the things you're doing for all your activity or sleep or training or stress. It doesn't you don't have to measure all that stuff to know how your expenditure is changing. You just have to know how your body mass is changing. Okay. So this is very powerful awareness. This is very powerful feedback that will empower you. That's the goal. We're empowering you This is one of the key tenants of Have

Philip Pape  35:01

of motivation is having agency. So now that you can you have it, you can go down many different and flexible paths to your results. All right? Lesson Four, nothing matters. If you can't be consistent. Nothing matters if you can't be consistent consistency, adherence, sustainability, they're all kind of the same idea. The idea that whatever you do in life, I don't care if it's fitness, health, finances, career relationships, your hobbies doesn't matter. You have to do something that you want, or you're going to want to do every day. As my friend, my brother, my fellow podcaster, Carl Berryman, of inspired by impact reminded me in a very touching and compassionate message that he sent me in tribute of reaching 100 episodes. And the consistency required to do that. We all of us, you, me, all the listeners, all of us set an example for others in our life most through our actions. And being consistent with those actions. It's not enough to just do something once it's doing that thing every day, no matter what, and others observing that you're doing that and how important it is for you to get to that goal. Setting that example. It's being that role model. Whether it's listening to this podcast, consistently, engaging with our community consistently to get help going to the gym consistently, or consistently evaluating who you are, and why you're doing this at any given time, so that you are doing the things that serve you serve your goals, and get you the results that you want. So thank you, Carl, for reminding me of, of how just fundamentally critical, I was gonna use the word axiomatic because I'm such a nerd. And then I'm like, how many people I'm gonna lose by saying that, but basically, it is essential, and something you cannot do without to get your goals. Now, how do we do that? That's, that's a question. Okay. It's great. You know, what, Phillip, you're telling me this, and I want to be consistent. But how do I do that. And that leads me to talk about action. Now, again, this is not, this is not a trivial thing. So first of all, action, action leads to results, action leads to results. And by result, I mean, something changes. When you take an action, it's a stimulus response, you take an action, something happens, now may not be the result you want. And so you would take a different action. But once you get that little result you want in the right direction, like when you go to the gym, and you do your heavy squats. And then two days later, you realize you can squat five more pounds. And that's the result you want, because it's getting stronger. This leads to intrinsic motivation. A lot of people think you need the motivation first, but no, you just have to take that action. First, that one little tiny step, get that little win, and allow it to intrinsically motivate you but here's the thing. In reality, many of us we are human, our lives are turbulence, to say the least, you know, in in all different ways. And sometimes we need additional motivation. And we need to reduce friction or reduce resistance. So we need both somebody on the outside to push us in many cases. And then we also need to reduce things that are in our way, in many cases. And again, Alan said the obstacle is the way true. But of course, I'd rather go over a small rock than a giant boulder. I don't know about you. So this is where the idea of self determination theory comes in. So this is all tied in the topic of consistency. Please bear with me. self determination theory from positive psychology is the idea that we have our highest level of motivation when three things are maximized, agency competence, and relatedness, okay, agency is you are making the choice for you. You are empowered, you have freedom, you have flexibility. And this is where the fun comes in. This is where doing things that you like comes in, this is where you do things that you could do every day because it fits your lifestyle, because you can still enjoy going out to eat because you can still eat carbs, because you can still have your indulgences. All of those things are tied into you being empowered to make the choice, not some plan or diet program or book telling you to do it this way in this way only. So agency is important. And if what you're doing right now for your health and fitness feels like it is working against you, and your empowerment and agency could reconsider it reconsider whether there's a different way. So that's agency. The second part is competence. Competence is just knowledge, it's confidence, as well. In other words, if you know something, and you know that some a cause is going to cause an effect. Now you have the confidence next time that when you do this, this is going to happen. When I when I make these choices, I know I'm going to feel good in my workouts. When I make these choices. I know I'm going to lose a pound and a half over each week, right? It can be a very simple thing, or it can be a little more nuanced and complex, right? When I, you know, limit my saturated fats to a third of my overall fat, I know that I have a lower risk of heart disease down the line. I mean, that's a longer term thing. But regardless, having as much knowledge is going to be important. This is where this is where that comments earlier the five star review about how the person's trainer would tell them what to do, but they wouldn't know why. This is where knowledge itself also increases agency. Oh, powerful, right? This is where the more knowledge you have, guess what the more agency you have, because now you have the power of information, like they say Information is power. And now you have the confidence. And now you can take control be like, You know what, I'm in control of my health, I'm going to make the decision. I've done it based on working with others and learning and knowledge, but I don't have to be told what to do. I know what's going to work and I'm gonna make the choice. Alright, the third part of self determination theory is relatedness. And that is having others to, to have a community with to lean on to have in your back, right? Whether it's personal relationships, your significant other, your spouse, your close friends, you know, men and men, women and women, men and women, it doesn't matter all the people you care about in your life, who support you who do not sabotage you. And then more importantly, can you find people who are trying to go after the same goal in a similar way where you can then feed off each other, right? And we call this community and it could come in various ways it could come in the you being a listener of this podcast, right. And it could come in joining our Facebook community, the Wits, &, Weights, community or any other group that has like minded people going after the same goal. relatedness can come from having a coach, absolutely, if I'm your coach, I am totally in your corner. And honestly, that is all I care about. I care about your results, right? Not all I care about, of course, I care about you as a person, what I mean is, whereas others in your life, care about many, many other things and not so much what you're doing in the fitness world. Of that is my priority for you is getting your physical and mental health, you know, leveled up to the best it can be. So agency competence and relatedness. Definitely look at what and how you're doing things. And if those are not satisfied, something might be missing. All right, three episodes related to this episode 74 with my man, Carl carbo Berryman, who I mentioned before Episode 74 He was actually on the show twice and this is the most recent one. It's called bigger gains tracking your food or not. And fitness principles with Carl Berryman. So episode 74 Check that out. We definitely touch on a lot of principles okay principles, which is the which is where it's at. Okay, principles, Episode 70 is the next one episode 70 is tailor your physique for aesthetics, fat loss performance and health with Cody McBroom. Love Cody stuff, he owns a tailored coaching method. Yeah, he's another coach. So of course, he's a competitor like many coaches, but he's huge and established guy and I love to have him on the show. And I learned so much for him. He really helps people cut through a lot of this BS and that's what I find refreshing in that he, he helps you with the knowledge side and the agency side big time. Okay, he's like, look, this, this is how it works. Here's why. All this other stuff is just noise. And it kind of gives you that clarity. So I always appreciate folks like that. So check out episode 70. And then episode 72. With Eric Helms, we talked about self determination theory in that one, but overall, it's just a fantastic conversation, Episode 72, balancing strength, physique, recovery, plus animal versus plant protein with Eric Helms. Again, I know my titles are a little bit long, but we're trying to cover a lot a lot of topics in there. So episode 7470 and 72. Man that was out of order. I should have done 7072 74 But pretty easy to remember. All right, so what's the takeaway from this fourth lesson? The takeaway is to take messy action I love that too. Messy action not perfect action. Not I'm going to do it tomorrow. I'm going to do it next week. Once I have a plan. No, it's right now take action on whatever it is that you know you want to do to move forward. Do not wait. Don't wait. There's something you can do. There's something you can do. Pause the episode right now and schedule with yourself time to do that thing. Seriously. Here's a powerful one. Set up calendar appointments with yourself for the next week to block off your training time. Everybody listening to this episode should already be strength training or about to start strength training pretty much this week. Nothing can limit you can strength training with your bodyweight if you've got nothing else but you can definitely train. So that's what I want you to do that that's your action right now is to pause the episode, and add calendar appointments with yourself. For the next week. Let's see this episode comes out on a Tuesday. So if you're listening to when it comes out, you could set up your training for between Wednesday and Friday of this week. Or if you're listening it to later in the week, set it up for your very first, maybe for the Monday of the next week. But whatever the next training session is, set it up in your calendar, and then resume the episode. Okay. And by the way, reach out to me, send me a DM or send me an email, through the show notes very easy to find million ways to get to me. And tell me that you did that tell me that you heard this and that it inspired you and that you went ahead and you set up an appointment for yourself for your training, or for some other thing if you're already training to make sure you take messy action. All right, Lesson five, okay, Lesson five, your health is the most important thing you'll ever invest in. Health is intangible in many ways, isn't it? It's intangible. It's it's less tangible in many ways than money, and relationships, right with money, we feel it in our pocket, we feel it in our bills, we feel it with our property, right with, with our trips with our cars with all these things. Relationships, we feel it immediately and how people react to us in our interactions with folks, with our wife, with our friends, whatever. Health is a little bit of a long term intangible thing. Now yes, we can experience health physically in how we look. But even that takes a while to shape. And a lot of things related to our health come decades down the road. Now what is health, right, it's literally your body and mind together. And your ability to do things in the world. Your ability to do things in the world now. It's it to me that seems like it enables everything else doesn't it and your physique is is an outward representation of that health, right? But it's also tied to your confidence. Just as human beings, we can't help it. Our physiques, how we look are tied to our confidence period. And, and I speak to those people and I help people who are trying to improve their health and their physique, because I do feel that they all go together. Professional Success, personal relationships, doing the things you love, and doing them for many, many years with the highest quality of life are all built on your physical health. So I do say sometimes that nothing supersedes physical health, not even the person you love the most, because you can't love them and care for them. You can't take care of them without your physical health. Therefore, investing in your health leads to a stronger fitter, longer life full of vitality. But it actually hits you in the pocketbook, doesn't it, not because you have to pay for health but because you have to pay for poor health. Poor health is very costly. long term health care, long term care as you age has been estimated to be something like up to $2,000 a month over the age of 40. When you're in poor health. Now, you may not see that directly as a bill, but it's reflected in your insurance. It's reflected in maybe your life insurance is reflected in trips to the hospital trips to the doctors that just start to add up and then surgeries and procedures and medication, it just adds up. Right So conversely, fewer trips to the hospital, fewer injuries for your illness is going to help you out. And there's even costs that come out of that in terms of your career and your ability to do things that then level up your skills and level up your knowledge and so on. So you can make more money and provide for people and things like that. So your physical health is intrinsically tied to your well being and your everything else. It helps you reduce stress, it helps you reduce anxiety, even symptoms of depression. I know individuals who deal with depression, and health is one of their big go twos, it might even be just going for a walk. And then beyond that, the goals that we talked about on the show achieving strength and dialing in your nutrition, maintain the physique, you want all of these massively boost self confidence, and then that spills over into other areas of your life. Right. So if you tie it all together, it comes down to one big baffling question. And that is why do people rarely invest in their health? You know, we pay 1000s for cars, houses or college degrees. And then we become penny pinchers with our health, you know, not just not just with our money either, but also with our time. And when you think of going to the gym, that's a resource to time resource. And somehow we we make every excuse in the world to not go to the gym. But if you added up all the time outside of work and outside the relationships where you did, probably not such high value activity So let's say like streaming, or just doing leisurely things, it would probably add up to so many hours that you can easily find time to go to the gym. And for many of us, once you are going to the gym and getting results, that becomes a fun distressing experience anyway becomes a form of leisure that you actually do look forward to, which is great, because then it's a twofer, one. Now, as I produced this podcast, meaning as I went through the first 100 episodes of this podcast and started to learn and talk to people in research, I realized how many people are receiving terrible, even dangerous information from the fitness industry, to the point where I had to become a coach, I had to become a nutrition coach, nutrition specifically, because I think that's where the crux of a lot of the misinformation stems. I don't know if I use that phrase properly. But I wanted to help people cut through that nonsense in a very direct, like actionable prescriptive way, like, here's what we can do. Here's why. Here's why all this other information doesn't quite make sense. And mainly, I just wanted people to go through the process that I experienced back in around 2020. When I had been struggling for decades, I had done all the diets, I had done the CrossFit in the boot camps, and the running. And I finally realized that no, you know, I need to get strong, I need to do a little bit less, I need to manage my body and be healthier. I want to eat to fuel my performance. And now I have greater knowledge and control my results. Right, I want to get you the physique results, the health results you want. And I want to do it faster, more easily, and with way fewer mistakes. So this is why I personally hire coaches, for me for my training, for my nutrition for my business, for public speaking for podcasting. I don't always hire coaches for money. Sometimes I have mentors or we mentor each other, or I will swap services with somebody or a former client. Now all of a sudden, we have a relationship as friends and we help each other out. I mean, this is what community relatedness is all about. There's no one right way to do things. But if you're wondering whether I hire coaches, oh, yeah, because I've hired coaches for a single session and gotten more out of it than I could have learned myself in five years. If I did learn that, you know, training form, or how to effectively write emails, I mean, I don't know little things that I could have just wasted time and spun my wheels for months and years. I'm a smart guy. So of course, I have a lot of pride. And it maybe that was a proud statement to say I'm a smart guy. But my point is, I'm an engineer who thinks that I could get the answer to anything, just by looking it up myself. That's my point. Okay, just try to add a little bit of modesty back into the equation here. But because of that, it prevents me from thinking that others can help me more than I can help myself. And I know better by now. Like, that's almost a form of, of wisdom via age. Like it took me decades to figure that out of lots of mistakes. So let me ask you as the listener, before I get too long winded here. Have the strategies you've used before worked? Have you been able to be what we talked about earlier? Consistent? Have you nailed down that exact plan that works for your lifestyle? Based on the evidence that works, right? N equals one, it lets you enjoy all your favorite foods, it lets you still improve your body composition and get to where you want. Are you getting the most out of your training? And do you look like you want? Do you look like you lift? With all that hard work that you're doing? If the answer is yes, then I am thrilled for you. Maybe it's because you're listening to the show or like me, you're just extremely self motivated, you go out you find the information. Maybe you have a community maybe have mentors, and that puts you in the tiny, tiny, tiny percentage of people who have been able to figure it out on their own. And even that it's me, it's not quite on their own right? If the answer is no, ask yourself, why not? What are you going to do differently this time? Given that health is the most important thing you can invest in? That's the whole point of this lesson is that if health is the most important thing of all, and you haven't put every resource into it possible to get what you want for it, why not? This is one of the most important lessons that I've learned through 100 episodes of the podcast that investing in the most important thing to you in the world, your health is absolutely essential, and that you will find a way for something that is that important to you. Okay, so three episodes related to this topic, Episode 51. So going a little bit back in the archives to the halfway point, mental resilience and commitment to training despite adversity, earthquakes with Heather clinger. So Heather is a longtime client of mine, who went through a very challenging situation in Turkey when they had the earthquakes last year and she talked all about it Episode 51. And how committing to her health in multiple ways ended up giving her the massive level of resilience that she never thought she would have during highly stressful time. It's the kind of result we don't put on billboards, we don't put in our marketing, hey, you know, learn to lift weights and you'll be more resilient, like it's doesn't sell to say that. And yet, without it, I think she would have been in a very different place at that time. And so there's meaning, and there's intangible benefits to help all around us. That's kind of the point here. So check out her story in Episode 51.

Philip Pape  55:42

And then the next episode, going a little bit out of order here is farther back in the archives, Episode 30, to fix your nutrition for a healthy, balanced lifestyle with Tyler cero. Now, Tyler was my very first client, the one that inspired me to get into this. And she recorded an episode early on with me, we talked about powerlifting. And such that was before she was a client, but this one came a little bit later. And she talked about her journey since that point. So it gives you a good idea of how, you know, investing in your health can really pay off for what she went through. And then the final episode, I wanted to mention here is 95, how Carol lost 20 pounds and 14% body fat set a lifting PR and gained food freedom in her 40s. And this was very recent, I talked to another client, Carol, who shares her body recomp and fat loss and all the cool things that she learned in terms of her relationship with food, and her lifting love getting a love for strength training, working with barbells. And, of course, being able to now eat a lot more food and not feel like she's restricted in any way and having plenty of energy. So the takeaway for this is that if getting results with your health and physique, are the things that enable you to upgrade every other area of your life, then, Isn't it worth more than anything else you invest in more than your house, your car, the college degree, your career? Definitely more than new clothes or another service, you know, streaming service, even your relationships and mental health are dependent on your physical health. Because without your health, none of these matter. So ask yourself this question, what happens if I don't invest in my health? And am I okay with that? Right? I didn't invest in my health for many years. And if I went back to my, say, 25 year old version and said, ask myself that question and gave him all this context, he would have said, Hmm, I see what you mean, what am I doing not investing in my health? And I didn't until much later but I'm glad I did. So ask yourself, What happens if I don't invest in my health and my okay with that, and then that will give you clarity on how important this is to you. And if you are not, okay, that you are currently not prioritizing invest in your health, you're going to find a way to make it happen. Last thing, if you are interested in one on one coaching with me, because you're ready to invest in your health today, and see, this is the whole conflict of interest I mentioned earlier, I'm a coach, this is what I do, I help people, I'm gonna get you results, we're gonna get them fast, we're gonna get them easily with very few mistakes. And I'm proud to say that, and I know we can do it together. So if you're ready for that, if you want to get results within six months, six months in the scheme of the many, many years, that you may have been spinning your wheels, to get those results that have eluded you. Just click on that, click the link in my show notes and apply. And then here's what I'll do. I'll send you a few questions, literally five, at most, three to five clarifying questions. I'm going to gauge whether we're a good fit. And if you are, we can get started that same day. And here's the thing, if you missed it in my intro, I have a very special very limited promotion. To celebrate 100 episodes of the podcast, I'm doing a giveaway with my coaching. So if you apply, if you apply with the code from this episode, you're also going to get an extra month of coaching. So at seven for the price of six, a free tub of protein powder of your choice from first form, and a full year subscription to macro factor. And by the way, if you have macro factor already, I will credit you a full year regardless. To apply just use the link in my show notes. Enter the code Episode 100, all in Word, Episode 100. Again, anyone who mentions that code is guaranteed to qualify for this promotion. So take advantage of a good deal to finally invest in yourself. Invest in your health and get the results you want right now. All right for episode 101 Peter Lappe is on the show to talk about postpartum recovery from unraveling the complex condition known as diastasis. sis are diastasis recti to the unique challenges women face post pregnancy. Peter will address misconceptions and share actionable strategies for postpartum recovery. Please do me a solid and follow or subscribe to the podcast so you are notified when that episode and many others are published. And again, thank you so much to all of you for sticking with me through to Episode 100 and I am not slowing this train down. We will have many more incredible solo and interview episodes coming up. So keep listening and sharing. letting others know about the show is one of the best ways that we can spread the word. As always, stay strong. And I'll talk to you next time here on the Wits & Weights podcast. Thank you for tuning in to another episode of Wits & Weights if you found value in today's episode, and know someone else who's looking to level up their Wits & Weights, please take a moment to share this episode with them. And make sure to hit the Follow button in your podcast platform right now to catch the next episode. Until then, stay strong

Ep 99: How to Make Fat Loss Feel Easier to Get and Stay Lean with Brandon DaCruz

Today I have the pleasure of talking to Brandon DaCruz for his second appearance on the show. Brandon is an online nutrition and physique coach, educator, internationally published fitness model, and National Level NPC competitor. He uses an evidence-based approach to help his clients achieve their goals sustainably.

On episode 58, we talked about energy flux and the high energy flux lifestyle, which is a way of eating more, burning more fat, and building more muscle. If you haven't listened to that episode yet, I highly recommend you check it out. It's full of practical strategies to improve your health and body composition.

We're going to talk about how to make fat loss feel easier to get and stay lean. We all know that losing fat can be challenging, so we're going to discuss some strategies and scenarios that can help you overcome the obstacles and make dieting more manageable and sustainable.

__________

Click here to apply for coaching!
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Today you’ll learn all about:

[4:33] Personal struggles with fat loss and fitness modeling
[15:01] The importance of energy balance in fat loss
[20:02] Proactive dieting vs reactive training
[27:20] Energy density and comparing food sources
[31:34] The importance of food choices and satiety
[39:20] Constructing fat loss diets with whole foods first approach
[46:47] The importance of viewing food choices holistically
[52:53] Setting clients up for success in fat loss
[58:10] The importance of tracking in body composition progress, and improving awareness and relationship with food
[1:05:30] Self-monitoring techniques and weight maintenance thresholds
[1:09:35] Energy intake, expenditure, and movement
[1:15:15] What Brandon is up to now and where to learn more
[1:17:10] Outro

Episode resources:

• Brandon's podcast: Chasing Clarity: Health and Fitness Podcast

• IG - @brandondacruz_

• Email - bdacruzfitness@gmail.com

• Ep 58: Using High Energy Flux to Eat More, Burn More Fat, and Build More Muscle with Brandon DaCruz

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Transcript

Brandon DaCruz  00:00

Although fat loss sounds simple on paper, which is why many people will just tell you that all you need to do is eat less and exercise more. That's a statement that's truthful, but it isn't helpful for many, which is where I really think that it's, you know, focusing on the nutritional aspect of that loss is pivotal because let's face it, 99% of us do not have the time and energy to create a deficit purely from exercise and to out exercise a poor diet.

Philip Pape  00:23

Welcome to the Wits & Weights podcast. I'm your host, Philip pape, and this twice a week podcast is dedicated to helping you achieve physical self mastery by getting stronger, optimizing your nutrition and upgrading your body composition. We'll uncover science backed strategies for movement, metabolism, muscle and mindset with a skeptical eye on the fitness industry so you can look and feel your absolute best. Let's dive right in. Wits & Weights community Welcome to another episode of the Wits & Weights Podcast. Today I have the pleasure of talking to Brandon to Cruz for his second appearance on the show. Brandon is an online nutrition and physique coach, educator, internationally published fitness model and national level NPC competitor, who uses an evidence based approach to help his clients achieve their goals sustainably. Back on episode 58. We talked about energy flux and the high energy flux lifestyle, which is a way of eating more moving more burning more fat building more muscle. If you haven't listened to that, go check it out, Episode 58. It's full of practical strategies to improve your health and body composition. Today we're going to talk about another topic that many people struggle with how to make fat loss feel easier, because we all want to get and stay lean. We all know that losing fat can be challenging, especially if you have a busy or high stress lifestyle. So we're going to discuss some strategies and scenarios that can help you overcome those and make it more manageable sustainable. Brandon, thank you again for joining me on the show. I'm super excited to dive into this topic.

Brandon DaCruz  01:51

Phil, thank you for having back on the show my man. It's an absolute pleasure. You know, I always look forward to speaking with people, but especially like minded individuals like yourself. And it's really cool to connect again, and be returned guests on your show, especially as I know, You've been working hard. Like we've been chatting off scenes, you know, in DMS and emails and things of that sort. I know you've been really working hard to continue to grow the show. And you've had a stack lifts of guests since I've been on last time. So you've had a lot of some of my mutual friends within this industry and people that I really respect mentors like Alan Aragon and Eric Helms and guys like that. So I feel like I'm in good company first and foremost. But it's also nice to see your growth. Because podcasting is something if you look statistically most people don't make it like most podcasters don't make it between a beyond like the three to five episode mark. Because it's such a saturated industry, a lot of times it's hard to gain momentum, both in terms of your own ability to present information, especially when you do it on a one on one format. Also your ability to connect with people get them on to podcasts, just like you know, I'll be completely I'll admit it and be completely transparent that schedule with me, it's really difficult because I have such a busy schedule. And so as a podcaster, and a podcast host yourself, you have to be really flexible, working around people's schedule. So a lot of people behind the scenes like listeners, they don't realize, and I know this now because I was I was talking to you off air about this, but I've done you know, close to 200 podcasts at this point. But at this stage on that episode 70 of the chasing clarity podcasts, which is my own podcast, but you know, the other 130 I've been a guest, so I never had to worry about the back end stuff in terms of setting things up scheduling, editing, everything that goes beyond, you know, behind the scenes, these, this is a lot of work that people put in like yourself, which I respect. And I hope that the audience really appreciates that. Because we go above and beyond what we could be doing other things, but we really try to get back and make an impact on the community as a whole.

Philip Pape  03:32

Yeah, man, it is so true. And you do get better and better at this, the more reps you put in, like anything else, I go back and listen to my first five episodes, and I'm almost like embarrassed, you know, like, I don't want anybody to hear them. But that people will come back and say, you know, really doesn't matter. Because the content, you know, came out what you're saying was genuine and it taught me something that I didn't know before. And really, that's what matters. So that's why we put in the reps. And yeah, you I think you were the first I'll say like big name, person I had on the on the podcast, if you will, but I have no problem reaching out saying yes, or asking you guys, knowing the worst I can get as a no. And the best I can get is to connect with people that I also appreciate and follow. So anybody listening, there's probably a lot of folks listening who are also super busy, they have these kinds of lifestyles, they run their businesses, and they're like, I I can't also, you know, binge a million podcasts and learn everything that that Brandon knows about nutrition and fitness. So they want to hear it straight, right? They just want to hear kind of here's what you do. And so we're gonna get into some of that today, Brandon with the topic. I'd like to make it personal at first though, for you, because I think you can relate a lot to the listener or vice versa and your clients. So what is your personal experience with struggling with fat loss and then maybe even making it more difficult than it needed to be in the past?

Brandon DaCruz  04:47

Man, that is a great topic to start out with because a lot of times people you know if you go to my profile now you will get some of my photos whether it be from photo shoots or from contest preps, a lot of times people will say, Oh, you must have always been lean or it must Easy for you. And when it comes to my personal experience with fat loss, I believe the reason that I've become so interested in this topic of fat loss, and I have made so much content, and so many podcasts and been on so many other individuals podcasts like yourself about this is twofold. And first, it's because it's a goal that I initially struggled with to achieve early on, especially when I first got into fitness modeling, because I started with fitness modeling in college prior to going into actual competitive bodybuilding. And I found myself trying every single popular approach at that time. But due to the limited amount of quality information that was around at that time, what I was doing was definitely suboptimal from all aspects to be honest with you. So we're talking suboptimal from nutrition from training from fat loss and a muscle retention standpoint. And during my first few years of fitness modeling, I literally tried every single popular diet approach, like even fad diets, like things that I'm, I'm honestly, you know, embarrassed to admit to, but I also think that it's good to be aware of our failures, some of the things we've done, the past mistakes we had, and also be transparent about those things so that other people realize, Hey, listen, you know, 15 years ago, I was exactly where you are. So, you know, I did everything. You know, I first started fitness modeling in 2010. So we're talking 13 years ago, and I did every fad diet you could think of we're talking keto we're talking cyclical keto, we're talking intermittent fasting, I did rapid fat loss diets via Lyle McDonald. And at the time, I don't even know if his rapid fat loss book was out. So I think I got it from the boards itself from his his body composition website, I did bro bodybuilding diets were literally all I ate. And this scores me to this date, all I eat for 12 week was tilapia, and broccoli. That's literally the only things I still cannot eat tilapia to this day. And then I also did your If It Fits Your Macros, where I tried to fit in all the fun foods that I loved into my diet, which was literally a disaster. So basically, you name it, I tried to in during those first few years, I noticed that I either struggle to achieve achieve the Lean book that I desired. Due to struggling with an inability to manage my hunger for I had a little bit of the opposite, I was able to get lean, but I quickly regain all the weight that I lost. After as at that time, you know, if I really go back there, and I think about it, we're in such a privileged state. And a lot of people don't realize that if they're just getting to finish, but realize we're in the age of information. So there are so many evidence based outlets for information, whether it be research reviews, or podcasts like we do, where you can get really evidence based and experience backed practices towards fat loss towards muscle gain. There was none of this when I was getting into this. So there was no such thing as a post diet, reverse, or recovery dieting approaches, and there's definitely no such thing as maintenance phase. So I found myself during this time, you know, weight cycling, like a lot of other people who are probably listening to this can relate to so I remember, I worked with a popular bodybuilding coach who was known for turning many guys Pro and for my first contest prep, and this was in 2014. And it was the first time that I had truly gotten shredded. And granted, those were the days where we do like the dirty bulk prior to a prep. So I needed to lose over 50 pounds. So I want people to realize that I've been overweight, I've had insulin resistance, I've had terrible bloodwork, like I've been through the gambit of these things. And now I take a much different approach. But that came through the experiences and failures of my past. And so I remember the day after my show the morning after you know, I'm a young guy, it was my first contest prep, I did really well. And I wanted to know how to improve going forward. So the day after my first show, I emailed my coach, and I asked him how I should approach my nutrition going forward. And he literally told me to go right back to how I was eating prior to the 12 week prep that I did. And he told me that the intention behind that was to take advantage of the quote unquote post show rebound. And the reason I'm doing quote unquote, is because now many of those those fallacies and things that we used to think you know, these myths that we used to be told by coaches and people will distort during that time, I've done many podcasts on about how that's literally the opposite of how our physiology actually responds. Because honestly, if anything, you're primed for an adipose rebound, not a anabolic rebound in terms of muscle gain, you're more primed to regain fat after a fat loss phase than you are to regain lost muscle tissue. Now, mind you, I was dieting on less than half the calories by the end of my prep that I was getting prior to starting the prep. So within the first week, I had gained back around 10 plus pounds. And I continue to gain fat at a rapid rate. And I literally felt like a failure after this first contest prep. I put in all this work to get stage lean. And within a few weeks, I looked like I hadn't prepped at all. And honestly, you know, it's excuse my language, but it was a mindfuck to see at least like it really struggled with my body and with my my desire to go forward my motivation, all these different things. So after that experience, I started diving into why this occurred. I really wanted to know, why did my coach telling you to do this? And why didn't I respond? Because at first I thought there was something wrong with me. Like I followed his instructions to a tee I was very diligent on the planet and exactly the calories and the macros that I had eaten prior to that I didn't understand why was my body now that I had went through a fat loss phase not responding the same way that it did 12 weeks prior when I weighed 50 pounds plus and you know, obviously now we know about metabolic adaptation, and all these other physiological changes that occur during a deficit. However, I didn't do any of that. But, you know, I was lucky in the fact that I was really following evidence based practitioners at the time so I had just recently attended a muscle camp held by Leigh Norton. So I was following all his stuff at the time and keep in mind And there was no, he wasn't doing YouTube and all that kind of stuff. However I went in person, but at that time he actually had, and I'm sure if any OGS our in the audience, you have done this for a long period of time you have a podcast with Sophie Lee, that was called physique science radio. And one of the episodes he had on Eric Trexler. And honestly, at that point, I believe this was so early on, we're talking 2014. So I think Eric Trexler has had been a master student, he wasn't even a PhD. But they were talking about metabolic adaptations that physique athletes go through during a prep. And that's what he, you know, kicked off my interest in metabolism, metabolic adaptation of that most physiology, which obviously, I've continued to dive into this day. So basically, my initial fat loss phases, were disastrous, be frank with you. But by making mistakes and experiencing failure, it made me gain a greater interest in learning not only how to get lean, but how to stay lean and maintain more of the progress I had made. And at that time, you know, going back, you know, close to 10 years ago, I was about 10. I was about one year into coaching. And because I had gotten lean, I had so many people at my gym, and on social media asking me for help with their own fat loss efforts. And I initially was able to get them to achieve their fat loss goals if they could stick to the diet. And the issue here was that we would only do 12 week coaching phases. And it would just be a 12 week package, and then they go on their merry way, we didn't have this continuous dieting program, it was really just like this one off thing. So I was able to get clients lean, and then we'd stop working together. And a few months later, they'd contact me and say that they had regained all the weight that they lost, and they wanted to go back into a diet. So at that point, I realized that there had to be a better way. So since that time of around 2014 to 2015, I've researched, studied and experimented with as many evidence based strategies as I can find, and I've trialed them all myself and collected data. And then if they've proved to be a successful strategy with myself, I would start utilizing them with clients. And I've continued to refine my methods over the past decade, I've been coaching. So I know that last time that we spoke about the high energy flux approach that I take with my clients, but you know, honestly, that actually came way before the term energy flux was even in existence. So I actually started doing that. Because around 2015, I looked at a study in literature from Rosenbaum and Leibel, where they showed that around 85 to 90% of the decreases, we see in total daily energy expenditure during a deficit come from me. So I got a Fitbit. And I started tracking my steps. And then I started having clients do the same. But initially, I didn't start with them, you know, setting a step target, I just had them track it on their own. And I just let it fall where they did naturally. And I noticed that during diets, I'd have clients that were saved between eight to 10,000 steps during a building phase, that we're now taking like four to 5000 steps during a fat loss phase, which would equal you know, a few 100 Calorie decrease in energy expenditure. So that's when I started to set step counts for them on a daily and weekly basis. And I noticed that their fat loss progress was much more consistent and predictable. So over the last 10 years, I've done 15 contest preps, and I've also done over 100, photo shoots, and all of which I've had to get very lean for it, whether it be to contest shape, or at least photo shoot, shoot. So believe me when I tell you, I have done more diets than most people could ever imagine. And through those experiences, as well as through working with, at this point over 1000 individuals, 1000 clients, I've been able to refine my skills, my approaches my strategies towards fat loss, both for myself and then for clients. So that fat loss feels easier, and maintenance is more attainable. And this isn't to say that losing a significant amount of body fat is ever easy. But in comparison to how I used to do things, and how many other clients and certainly other individuals within our space, have approached it in the past, I've found both approaches and principles that I can tailor to an individual to help them get to their goals in a manner that's far more sustainable and effective. And that feels easier, especially in comparison to what they've done previously.

Philip Pape  13:31

Man, this is this is incredible, because I know the average person goes through over 100 diets in their lifetime easily. And like you said earlier in your story, people might mistake you for being this lean, shredded guy your whole life and it comes easy. But because of your physique goals over the years, you've actually probably deliberately tried to do fat loss in quote unquote, the right way. And many, many different times even more, with more iterations in the average person. I would say I think the average person will will try things but you went to that that next extreme yet there's a lot of relatable things there. So just just to list them out again, so people who are listening, you know, the the trauma with your tilapia, like eating the same thing over and over, strikes me as you know, it's in the bucket of is this sustainable, right? Can we just eat a certain diet that you cut, cut foods out, your ability to get lean, but then gain it all back? Again, yo yo dieting, weight cycling, body fat overshooting all of those concepts, the fact that physiology is really really important here that we can't just think in terms of a deficit, we can't just think in terms of right the the calories that were primed to regain fat more quickly, the mental and psychological aspects. And then I like most of all the in there you talked about kind of the hierarchy of evidence, not just the people you follow and the things that you read, but experimenting on yourself, and then even experimenting with your clients, them allowing you to do that and trusting you through that process. So this is a great segue. because when we talk about making fat loss easier, we're not talking about doing it quickly necessarily. We're not talking about making it quote unquote simple in terms of like, just do this. It's more of let's make it easier on ourselves so that we don't have all of these negative consequences, especially the longer the duration, and the more we have to lose. So what does that mean, then? To make it easier? Why is that important? And we can segue into the specifics.

Brandon DaCruz  15:24

Absolutely. So really, when it comes down to making fat loss easier, I really think that this comes down to nailing energy balance, which is the key principle that governs fat loss, meaning we need to look at both sides of the energy balance equation, because a lot of times when we talk about dieting, people only talk about calories, they only talk about the food, but they're not talking about both aspects. And really, we will focus on calories and food because that's going to be the main intention. But I do suggest and encourage those out there to listen back to our high energy flux podcast, because that's going to focus more on the calorie expenditure side of things. So when it comes to losing fat, effectively, we basically have two main levers that we can pull, we can increase our calorie expenditure, or the amount of calories that we burn per day, which is best done through increasing physical activity and meat as we've covered in the previous podcast. And we can also decrease your calorie intake, and you hit the nail on the head, Phil, where you said that this isn't simple. So the thing is that, although fat loss sounds simple on paper, which is why many people will just tell you that all you need to do is eat less and exercise more. That's a statement that's truthful, but it isn't helpful for many, which is where I really think that it's, you know, focusing on the nutritional aspect of that loss is pivotal, because let's face it, 99% of us do not have the time and energy to create a deficit purely from exercise and to out exercise a poor diet. And even if we did, doing so wouldn't help nearly as much with hunger and appetite management as focusing on our diet, which is the main issue as to why people struggle with losing fat and keeping it off especially so one of the biggest struggles most of us have encountered or will encounter and experience during a fat loss phase is dealing with increased hunger and issues with appetite and satiety management. And hunger is one of the most common feelings dieters experienced during a fat loss phase, this hunger is a natural response to an energy deficit. So this is an inherent part of that loss process. But how we approach our diet and the hunger management strategies and tools that we do or don't use can make or break our ability to successfully get lean and stay lean. So the issue with hunger is it generally builds and increases the longer you diet and the leaner we get. As you you know, as you move more and more body fat, the more of an increase in hunger, you'll notice that the more of an increase in appetite you will experience, which can threaten your ability to stick to the diet and adhere to the calorie deficit needed to continue losing body fat, which will continue to go down. So we have to make sure that we're thinking about the long game. It's not just about what you can do, you know, in terms of the calorie deficit, you can induce in a day or week, we have to think, what is the trajectory? What is the long term, let's let's back cast, essentially, if your goal is to lose 20 pounds, let's look at this as if we're doing you know, 1% of, you know, point five to 1% of weight loss per week, and that comes out to one pound for you. We need 16 to 20 weeks. And this is you know, we look at hunger, we look at appetite. This is a completely natural and evolutionary response to being in a deficit. And it's a sign that you know, when you're you know, a lot of people get scared when they're hungry. But honestly, feeling hunger is a sign that you're losing body fat and depleting some of your body's energy source. So experiencing hunger isn't a bad thing. But it is something that we need to focus on managing. And this is why I've spent so much time and energy focusing on learning how to manage hunger and mitigate its effects. Because this is something that I've personally struggled with, and I know that many others have as well. So by implementing a different nutritional approach to fat loss diets and adding in certain hunger management strategies within my clients plans, I've been able to enhance my clients adherence to the diet and ability and improve their ability to get lean and stay lean. So really, when it comes down to making fat loss easier or feel easier, at least, I'm focusing on different aspects of the diet, such as the calorie density and food volume, I'm looking at taking a protein centric approach, I'm ensuring sufficient fiber intake, and I'm modifying the tolerability and processing level the diet by doing what I call simple foods swaps. So really, what that means is we're using a whole food first approach, which are all individual topics we can dive into as you know, I know that part of this podcast, you really want to look into the importance of like things like food selection, food quality and satiety during a fat loss phase. And these are all aspects to diet that I focus on when constructing a fat loss diet. That's both of high quality and provides a ton of satiety per calorie, which is what is going to help make that loss easier because the number one detriment to fat loss it you're the one number one bottleneck or anchor that stands in people's way or presents a challenge or even holds people back from getting as lean as they want is dealing with issues with hunger, and thus, the downstream effect that hunger and appetite has on their ability to adhere to the diet.

Philip Pape  19:39

Yeah, so I'm really curious then about behind the scenes, right if if a client was working with you, and let's say they have the basics down, you've got them primed for the fat loss phase already. They're training they're moving, they're tracking in some way tracking calories, check tracking macros. We don't have to get into too much detail about the fact that that's going to be it necessary to an extent how do we develop an awareness of the hunger? And what to do about it? And do we get ahead of it? As we get into the fat loss phase? Do you have a plan for those substitutions? Do we have a plan for If This Then That, our tracking, biofeedback, all those things, because what approach is, start to diet, get some results, get some wins, and then deal with hunger as it comes up for that person, because some people have more hunger than others. And another is let's just get way ahead of it start substituting right from day one. What do you think about that?

Brandon DaCruz  20:32

Yes, so I'm really something that in terms of dieting, I'm proactive, and when it comes to training, I'm reactive. So what I mean by that, let me extrapolate out on that is that when it comes to dieting, I know that there are an inherent physiological implications and ramifications that all people experience, we see that when we lose body fat, we see a decrease in leptin, we see an increase in ghrelin. So essentially, what that means is we see a decrease in satiety and an increase in hunger. And that is a natural and inherent part of fat loss dieting, and I'll tell you, Phillip dieted hundreds of individuals, I've never had someone that has told me when they're losing a sufficient and a significant amount of body fat that they had an experience hunger, so I like to get ahead of that. And really, how I do that is I look at several dietary factors that I focus on to increase satiety and manage hunger for clients who are in fat loss phases. So generally, the first thing I'm looking to do in terms of food selection for fat loss, dieting, is looking at the calorie density of the foods we choose during a diet, because really, what I want to do is I want to create the most satiating plan for them to be able to manage hunger throughout the entirety of the phase and I have a thematic approach to this. So you'll see as I go more into like the methods that I use, that it is a periodized approach. So yes, there are different tools and different strategies that I use throughout the fat loss diet that become, you know, they garner more benefit as we get leaner and leaner. But there's things from the start that we can educate clients on. And we could focus on from the from the bat. And so these are things that I'm utilizing. So for instance, calorie density and food volume are strategies and areas of a diet that I'm utilizing to set a client up for success, because here's the thing, you know, we could forecast that this diet is going to take 12 to 16 weeks. But if a person isn't able to get past the first three or four weeks due to lack of adherence and dealing with hunger, and the big thing that I find that's an issue is that a lot of people only focus on the calories and macro aspect of dieting. So what do they do? They take their existing diet, they know they have to create a 500 calorie deficit and all they do is portion control, meaning that they use the same hyper palatable energy dense foods that they have, and just eat less of them. So say that they eat, you know, higher fat, you know, meat sources, they have, you know, a ribeye every single night. You know, they went from a seven ounce ribeye to a five ounce ribeye, well, all we're seeing is yes, you're you're decreasing the calories, but you're also decreasing food volume. So a lot of times when people think eat less, and exercise more, they think you have to eat less food, which really, I'm going to go through this, but a lot of my philosophy is I want them to eat more food weight and food volume, but less calories. So really, the first thing that I look to do is calorie density. So within calorie density this is also referred to as energy density. But this is the amount of calories contained in a given weight of food. So essentially, it breaks down to how many calories are contained in one gram of a food source. And I like to leverage the calorie density of the food that I use in a fat loss phase. So as we get deeper and deeper into a diet and experience more hunger and a heightened level of appetite, we're consuming more low energy density, high volume foods that provide a ton of satiety per calorie and are more filling and help to manage hunger better so that we can get as much fullness per calorie within the treats of our current target calorie budget. And the best way that I found to do this, when going from say a building or maintenance phase to a fat loss phase is to transition from high calorie density food sources to lower calorie density food sources. So this could look like going from fattier cuts of meat and poultry and dairy to lower calorie leaner sources of protein and, and to include more low calorie density items like fiber containing vegetables, fruits and whole grains that provide a ton of fullness, yet less calories than their higher energy density counterparts. So by making this switch, we're able to get more bang for our buck in terms of the amount of fullness and satiety of experience from the amount of calories we need to eat to continue losing body fat. And it's really important to be able to distinguish between low energy density and high energy density foods, not only for constructing your regular baseline diet that you're going to use, you know, Monday through Sunday dirt, you know, when you're locking your fellow skis, but also we have to think about this, that I now you know, I've previously worked with a lot of professional athletes, a lot of competitors. But at this point in my career, I've worked with a lot of lifestyle clients, a lot of business owners, people that are busy, and that have other priorities other than fitness. So I'm always trying to make fitness a part of their life, not their entire life. And that includes the nutritional aspect of fitness. So if someone wants to lose that, we need to be able to navigate and also look ahead and see what are going to be certain bottlenecks or certain anchors in their way or are certain obstacles essentially. So one huge obstacle is eating out. And so within that, if you're able to know and you have awareness around the energy density of different food sources, you know when you might not be able to always weigh and measure out every portion size of foods that you're able to eat, whether it be you're at a restaurant where you're eating At a family member's house and you're not able to prepare and wear your foods. However, you can use the calorie density of different food sources to make food choices that are more in line with your goals and help you more easily maintain a deficit. So for instance, I'll give you an example. When I go out to eat, the first thing that I look at on the menu is the protein options. And I know that lean sources of protein such as grilled chicken, turkey, burgers, and tuna are going to have a lower energy density than things like fried chicken, your bacon cheeseburgers or ribeye, so I'll go with a leaner protein source. I've already saved hundreds of calories there. Then onto Corp. I'm gonna look at you know, when it comes to different port sources, I'm looking at lower energy density cartridges that are more satiating. So I'm looking at something like a baked potato or veggies instead of your fries, your potato skins, your pasta with cream sauce, like things that are going to have, you know, 1000s of

Philip Pape  25:44

extra calories on the appetizer menu. Absolutely. So as you know,

Brandon DaCruz  25:47

I knew in my mind that a baked potato and veggies both have a lower energy density, but for the same amount of food we as those other options, but also from a satiety index perspective, they're much better at increasing fullness. And I also like educating clients and making them aware of high calorie density items that can we can reduce from the diet, especially when going out to eat that will help them to spontaneously or easily reduce the amount of calories that we eat in a meal so often advise them to revolve things like your dressings, your cream sauces, your oils and your butters and high calorie condiments and spreads like say barbecue sauces, or mayo, as all of these are very high in calorie density however, so so they pack a ton of calories to a meal, but they provide little to no satiety benefit. So you're getting all these calories, but you're getting no fullness from this. So this is just I don't want to say wasted calories, but think about it in the constraints of a budget. It's almost like if you had a financial budget, and you knew that, you know you had certain expenses, you have bills to pay, you're gonna prioritize that. But you wouldn't like frivolously spend on things that are just a waste of investment that provide no return on investment provide you no satisfaction, no fulfillment, no enjoyment, you will make smarter investments, the same thing can be said with our food choices. So we can even switch from using like high calorie condiments like Korean based sauces and condiments to lower calorie condiments like yellow mustard or hot sauce and save hundreds of calories in the process. And these are really simple simple swaps and having the knowledge of the calorie density of different foods from having spent time tracking can really help you make better food choices during a diet in terms of getting more bang for your buck in terms of food volume and satiety for your calorie budget. Now, next, the next strategy that I like to use, and I can do this from the start.

Philip Pape  27:21

Yeah, but before we get there, just just so some more practical strategies for folks. If someone is completely uncertain as to calorie density, what's what's an easy way to do it? Is it is it a calorie per gram type of deal where you just kind of compare it that way. Is it a satiety index? Is it a guide, where you just have here all the cuts of meat from highest to lowest protein density? You know, what do you think? Yeah, so

Brandon DaCruz  27:44

honestly, the best method that I found is I always tell clients, because technically, if you look in the literature, energy density is defined as calories per gram, one gram, but no one eats one gram of food. So that's unrealistic. So this is how I like to look at it. I like clients to think about a 100 gram serving, because 100 grams of a vegetable or fruit or even, you know, 100 grams of a protein source is a sufficient amount. So I like them to compare the calorie density of different food sources within the same bracket. So for instance, if we look at something like, I know this because I often had this conversation with clients, but additives to protein shakes. So a lot of times I have clients that want to utilize like, they want to do a protein smoothie, or right now Creek ninja cream is really popular. So everyone's doing those ice cream concoctions with like whey isolate, and they want to add things in. So they're always asking me about sides. So I know this off the top of my head, because I've went through this, like so many times with people and I always try to compare different energy densities of food. And here's the thing, just because the food is healthy does not mean that it's it fits your diet or that it has a low amount of calories. So for instance, the best example I can give you with this is in terms of what to add to protein shakes, or even to Greek yogurt, and things like that, or to your oats and things, you know, things like that. And so the two most common things were additives or signs are going to be your fruit or it's going to be a nut butter. And so the greatest example I can give you with this as 100 calories of strawberries, or 100 grams of strawberries is 36 calories. Now for that same 100 grams of peanut butter, which keep in mind, it's the same amount of food week, you're getting the same thing. But if you were to measure 100 grams on a food scale of peanut butter, it's going to be far less than food volume, far less fiber, it's going to have less micronutrients, less poly phenols less of all these beneficial antioxidants and you're gonna get less fullness because 100 grams of strawberries is a nice cup of strawberries. So keep that in mind. However 100 grams of strawberries is 36 calories. 100 grams of peanut butter is around 632 calories. So that's a massive discrepancy about 20 times difference between the two however, you added the same thing into your shake. So really, when we look at energy density, I like going by 100 grams. So you can do that in terms of protein comparisons. So you can do 100 grams of grilled chicken skinless chicken breast versus chicken thighs, where you can do even more drastic, you know, manipulations for comparisons and just really feel and just look at it. And I always like looking at things like a budget because I tend to work with a lot of First typing individuals and then very business oriented clients. So I have a lot of other coaches that I coach, a lot of other fitness professionals, gym owners, you know, you name it that I work with, especially from a fitness professionals perspective. But these are business owners, these are busy people. And they're also those that are invested not only into their fitness, but into business. So when I always when I, when I go back to these financial budget analogies, it always makes sense for them. So I'm always trying to go back to the fact that would you make if you had a certain monetary budget in each month, and you needed 50% of your, you know, if we're going to do financial investments, you would spend on your the things that you needed necessities, and you would always prioritize those? Well, that should be your nutrient dense whole food sources, that should be your low energy dense food sources that are going to give you a ton of satiety per calorie. And then if you had like this other little discretionary income, so say the 10 or 20%, then it could go towards higher energy density, tastier foods, but you shouldn't make that the predominance of your diet. And that's really looking at the energy density of foods, and really doing a comparative analysis because we can look at 100 grams of fruit compared to 100 grams of chocolate, the chocolate might, maybe more, you know, preferential towards an individual. So a lot of my women, they love chocolate, a lot of my female clients, but I always tell them, Listen, we shouldn't be making the decisions, which are going to leave you feeling hungrier and less able to stick to the diet because you're you're, you're prioritizing those options over the things that could really provide you with the best bang for your buck in terms of fullness per calorie satiety per calorie, your micronutrients or fiber intake and all these other important and building blocks. These are the big rocks of your fat loss phase first and foremost.

Philip Pape  31:34

So here's an interesting thing. Speaking of a budget, we all have our calorie budget, do you set try to compare that to grams budget for those calories, like x calories per gram total for the day? Do you ever do it in that way? Like so if your budget as 1800 calories? You're gonna say, however many grams, well, would that be like one and a half would be extremely high? Extremely low density? And then more than that, you get what I'm saying? No. So I just think they're too complicated. So

Brandon DaCruz  32:01

no, no, I've never I do know those statistics off the top my head. So for instance, we look at things like carrot we look at Strawberry, we were looking at point six calories per gram, or under in terms of energy density. When we actually look into the literature on energy density, I never get into these nuances unless it's like a fitness professional. But we see that we don't have an ability to moderate our intake physiologically. So naturally from a hunger and appetite and satiety perspective, over 1.5 grams, or 1.5 calories per gram in terms of our actual response to energy density of foods. So we see that all of the hyperplane edible foods are at a way higher spectrum of those. So if you look at like condensed fats versus one gram of a fat source is going to be nine calories per gram. So really, even if we do a calorie comparison between like a whole food, carbohydrate and a fat source, that's why we see a huge discrepancy in terms of energy density between these items. So for instance, 100 grams of butter is going to be far more calorically dense than 100 grams of sweet potato. And so I never do those, because I know that they gets really into minutiae with clientele, I don't give them like, I don't want a black and white perspective, I really want them to think of things as what is more conducive for my goals, like what foods choices are going to suit my goals best, and what are more conducive foods and less conducive foods. So if we're looking at really low energy density, food source, your vegetables, your fruits, your whole grains, your main protein sources, these are going to provide a ton of satiety and very low calories for the amount or a very low amount of calories for the amount of grams and the food weight that they provide us with. And then if we have extra in our budget, just like we would have with a discretionary income, then we can allocate towards some teacher foods. But you'll see as people get leaner into the diet, I'm gonna start prioritizing different things, because that's where really, I guess my expertise comes in both from, you know, working with so many people being through, you know, getting so you know, lean so many times myself that that's where you really have to get very specific with food choice, palatability, and different aspects of that. But even before that, I get into different nutritional and nutrient aspects. So from here, generally, what I do is, I first focus on energy density, and then I'm giving them certain targets to hit but it's not just from a macronutrient perspective, because like you mentioned, they already have the basics nailed. They had their calorie intake They've tracked, they have their protein, carbs and fats, and that's what everyone in this industry talks about. And those are important, don't get me wrong. So the one thing I do want to hit on that the rest of the industry does is protein intake, because the next strategy that I use to increase satiety and manage hunger during a diet is to utilize a high protein diet as protein is the most satiating macronutrient, so it helps us feel fuller and manage hunger better. And there's this theory called the protein leverage hypothesis, which describes why protein is so important for satiety his research on the protein leverage theory has found that we eat until we get enough protein and we will not stop until we hit that point. And so we need to reach this this threshold essentially, when we're eating aluminum to reach our natural level of fullness. And there's also research that has found that increasing the protein intake of a diet from 15% of calories to 30% of calories led to a spontaneous reduction of over 440 calories per day throughout a 12 week period. However, the best thing about this Study is this was an ad libitum diet, or this was an ad libitum study, he was not a dieting study. So these individuals created close to a 500 calorie deficit just due to feeling fuller from eating a high protein diet, which is why privatizing protein is a major key when dieting for fat loss. Now we know that in terms of that is something that we should all be doing. However, beyond that, then I'm looking at different nutrient values of things. So yes, I'm telling individuals, here's your, your calorie budget, here's your protein target or your protein range. Those two things are what most of the industry do. The next thing I focus on, instead of going to carbs or fats, that's not really what I'm focusing on, what I'm focusing on, is fiber intake. So what I want to make sure is to ensure a sufficient vibrancy. And besides protein, the other main nutrient or the other food component that I focus on, that's been shown to be highly filling, you know, aspect of the diet is fiber. So this is another aspect of the diet that I look to leverage. So hyper fiber foods can increase fullness and reduce hunger, as high fiber foods generally provide a ton of food volume. So we're getting back to that energy density aspect with the food volume for a low amount of calories and the allow us to feel fuller during the meal, but also after, and the delay or gastric emptying rate so that we feel fuller for longer periods of time, and we don't feel, you know, the worst thing in a diet is where you've had a really tasty meal. And it's been incredible, it tastes great. However, you're just as hungry after that meal as you were when you started. That's not the intention of food, especially when dieting a lot of people eat and make these macro creations. And they do this macro Tetris and stuff, where the food tastes great in the moment, but it drives them to want to eat more. The intention of eating fruit, especially during diet is to manage your hunger well enough that you're actually full after a meal. And you can go a few hours and not be completely food focused. But when we actually look at research on fiber, there's research that has found that for every 14 grams of fiber consumed, it decreases someone's ad libitum calorie intake by 10%. So this is significant. And usually the more fiber that you have in your diet, the fuller that you will feel. And it's also a good sign that your diet is nutrient dense as most of our dietary fiber should be coming from food sources, whole food sources, essentially, like your fruits, your vegetables, and whole grains, which are also packed with micronutrients, including vitamins, minerals, and cofactors. So this is where we get into the food quality aspects like we can't neglect that a lot of times when we only think about macros and isolation, we think about your protein, your carbs and your fats. We don't eat macros in isolation, we eat food. So we really got to focus on other nutritional aspects look, let's look at the fiber. Let's look at the micronutrients. Let's look at the vitamins the poly phenols the the minerals that are contained in these foods, which is really why you want to be getting your fiber from whole food sources rather than from protein bars or fiber supplements or these, you know high carb you know high fiber tortilla, you know, things that a lot of people use. So one thing that I specifically like to include in my diet is one big salad in all my fat loss diets for salad packs a ton of satiety per calorie. So with every bite of a salad, you feel fuller, despite taking in such a low amount of calories. And a salad helps to slow down your eating rate, which is another thing of literature that we actually see that slower eating rates actually induce greater feelings of satiety. But when you eat processed foods, if you look at like Kevin Hall's research, you see that higher ed rates are with processed foods are associated with a much higher calorie intake. And so we want to not only eat things that are going to make us feel full, but are also going to help us slow down and practice some mindful eating techniques. Because a lot of reasons why people have issues beyond just the fat loss phase itself, but in just general life and they over consume calories is because they eat mindlessly, they're distracted. They're not in the moment, they're not focusing. And they also consume foods that allow them and exacerbate that effect. So if you have fast food, yes, it's fast, because the delivery to you is fast, but also because you can eat too much tonic calories before you ever get through satiety signals from your stomach to your brain that you're actually satiated.

38:36

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

Brandon DaCruz  39:20

So another thing that's great about high fiber foods, they generally tend to be lower energy fancy food sources that contain a great micronutrient profile. So they have, you know, they're low energy fancy, but they have a rich nutrient density and provide a ton of volume and are highly satiating as a result. And then I think this is the last aspect that we can get into that you may be most interested in because this is where we really get nuanced with things and where there are very specific nutrient manipulations. So this was when something gets really lean. So at the beginning of a diet, I almost do like this hedonic, you know, descent down a staircase, and really what that means is we're going from more palatable foods to less palatable foods throughout the course of a dieting phase because as you get leaner, it's going to be harder and harder to stick to a deficit. So really when it comes down to it, another aspect of constructing fat loss diets that I found a massive benefit from, which not only increases satiety, but makes dieting for fat loss, far easier is modifying the palatability and the processing level of the diet by making simple food swaps and utilizing a Whole Foods first approach. So as we get deeper and deeper into a diet, and we get leaner, a few things happen that magnify our hunger levels, and increase our likelihood of veering off the diet and not being able to hit our calorie macro targets if we don't manage them properly. And that's the fundamental thing, we could talk about all these nuanced aspects of nutrition and training and movement and all these other things. If you can't adhere to the plan that you're on, you're never going to be successful. So that is what we have to ensure. And that's why I like to get ahead of them with the other three strategies that I employed and that I discussed. However, when things get harder, I always have levers, I always have tools in the toolbox to be able to integrate into the diet to make things easier for my clients at that time. And so when we get deeper into a diet, we get leaner, we see certain things happen. So we see leptin levels decrease source or satiety levels decrease, or ghrelin levels increase, which increases our drive to eat. And then we also see that our food focus increases, all of which make energy dense hyperplane. Well, delicious foods more appealing. But it also makes it more difficult for us to moderate our calorie intake from these items. And this is because the more palatable or more tasty essentially, a food is, the more this food triggers the reward center in the brain, which increases our likelihood to, you know, over eat that food. And this is where being too flexible with food choice can be a slippery slope, because a lot of times when you're including these tasty foods, as you get deeper and deeper into that, when you get leaner and leaner and your calorie budget becomes more and more constrained, these things become more and more tempting. And so if you're playing macro Tetris, and you're fitting super tasty, hyper playable processed foods into your diet, you're going to be more likely to slow down or stall your fat loss progress due to you know, lacking adherence, but also over consuming calories, even if you don't need to. And this is what's referred into literature as passive overconsumption meaning this wasn't done purposely, this is just a drive to eat. And sometimes you don't even realize because like I said, a lot of people eat mindlessly, or they eat distracted, or they're busy. So they don't even realize that he took down, you know, 800 calories in a meal instead of 400 calories. So really, when it comes down to it, I often have these conversations with clients, especially when they're getting leaner and really have to get down to the brass tacks. And we say that although you can eat whatever you want, so I'm not trying to put like this pink elephant in the room, or this dichotomous relationship with food. I'm always like, listen, although you can eat whatever you want, and lose fat isn't realistic once you get leaner. So just because a food fits your macro targets, doesn't mean that you should try fitting it in, especially on a daily basis. Because if you constantly include and expose yourself to higher plateau, playability foods, you're going to need to use more willpower, you're going to need to use more discipline and a lot of more mental currency to try to not over consume them. So you're in this constant battle with yourself, you're really hungry. And now you're putting yourself in a situation. It's almost like, you know, negative exposure therapy, essentially, where you're kind of just torturing yourself. It's almost like if you had a temptation food that you always need to binge on, like utilizing that in a diet. It just makes no sense to me. And this is why I find that a great way to mitigate the situation is you simple satiating and less palatable food services, which include more whole and unprocessed foods to be really beneficial during a diet as they provide more fullness per calorie, yet less calories per serving. And they also don't inherently drive up our appetite so that we want to eat more of them, like hyperplasia and processed foods do so to manage hunger throughout the course of a diet. I'll often lower the palatability of the foods I'm eating as hyper palatable. Ultra processed foods are less satiating per calorie first and foremost. And they also have been shown to drive up this passive overconsumption, which is why we're more likely to overeat on them. And this is where I've really found sticking with minimally processed Whole Foods to be highly beneficial for both myself and clients, especially as we get leaner. Because these are going to provide us with more satiety per calorie, they're going to help us feel fuller for longer, while eating less calories and being in a deficit and they also help me managing our calorie budget more effectively as they're easier to moderate or consumptions of. So generally, the advice that I give to clients and I would even give to anyone that asked me for this type of advice is if your goal is to lose a significant amount of body fat aim for especially as you get leaner, eat for satiating, yet, you know, simple yet satiating foods, that suit your goals can fit their calorie budget, to help manage that budget like you would your bank account. So I'll tell you how I go about this, because I do do these financial analogies a lot. And it's something that I realized that it often speaks to people and it kind of sticks with them when I look at it like this. So this is personally how I go through my own fat loss phase. So we discussed some of my fat loss failures, but then also my successes. This is the mindset that I've utilized towards that loss that has made me successful up into this point. And so how I personally look at this one I'm constructing my own fat loss diet is my total daily energy expenditure determines and dictates my calorie budget. So how much I'm moving and how much my basal metabolic rate and all these other components of my total daily energy expenditure, that is what dictates how many calories I can eat, and still afford to lose weight. And I need to manage my calorie intake like I do my financial budget. And to do so I weigh the calorie costs of each food choice in terms of the satiety provides and the calories it contains, and then make choices that most closely aligned with my goals and my budget, because in order to improve your body composition, you need to make sure the food you choose fit your budget as your choices can either make or break the bank. And we also want to look at like the difference between hyper palatable foods and food processing and all these different levels of things. We have great data that shows the vastly different effects that the two have. So we have, you know, metabolic Ward research from Dr. Kevin Hall that specifically looks at the different effects of diets containing either mentally process Whole Foods versus a diet of ultra processed foods on body composition. And this study found that when they provided participants with meals that were matched for calories, and they match all the macros, so we're talking protein, fiber, carbs, and fat. And then they allowed clients eat to fullness, these individuals ate an average of 500 calories more per day when their meals were comprised and made up of processed foods as compared to when their meals were simple and made up of whole foods. So when they were on the ultra processed IBS, they naturally over consumed calories and green fat. Whereas when they were on the minimally processed whole foods diet, eat 500 calories less per day and lost body fat without even purposely trying to do so. And what's really interesting about this study is that they looked at the satiety levels, and they asked, you know, individuals to subjectively and objectively measured these different levels of appetite and satiety. And they found that they had the same level of, you know, satiety and fullness, however, it took 500 more calories per day, to reach that same amount of fullness with the processed diet, as it did the whole foods diet, which shows how less satiating these ultra processed foods are, as you know, compared to Whole Foods, and why we're more likely. And so, you know, it happens so common that we overeat them. So, you know, one cookie turns into a dozen, you know, all these things, it's like a downstream spiral. So it's important to be more intentional. And also, when you approach that last item to be really informed, but also intentional about the food choices and the selections you make.

Philip Pape  46:47

We can we can take that entire clip brand. And that will literally give you everything you need to know about why you're making these choices during fat loss. And you don't want to mention that it's, quote unquote, healthier, good, bad, you know, all the traditional tropes of these things that, you know, make people think that they have to make a moral choice rather than something that's in line with their physiology. I mean, I took so many notes, and I've heard all these in bits and pieces before but the way you put it together, how Whole Foods versus processed foods stack, the benefits stack on top of them on top of each other time. And again, when you talk about the fact that we get fuller, right, and we will eat to our natural fullness, the how fiber helps with this as well. The, you know, you said having the salad every day again, that salad I was also thinking about fruit when he talked about cravings and you know, fruits this off limit thing for some people, it's kind of insane, you know, in the fitness industry, but I'll tell you what I want to fat loss phase, man, give me the sweet cherries, give me the bananas give me the blueberries. And it's like almost like eating, you know, highly palatable food that's actually not. So

Brandon DaCruz  47:49

I really actually want to hit on that because a lot of times when I do discuss this with clients, or I've done presentations on palatability and modulating and modifying the palatability of food sources, sometimes people are like, Man, why would I want to switch from like all these tasty foods to plain foods. And here's the thing, we have to view things, we have to stop viewing things. dichotomously foods are not good and bad, tasty and disgusting, you know, gray and bland. Like we have to stop looking at it like that. First of all, we're blessed to be able to pursue a goal like that well. So this is a choice that you made, no one has forced you pressured you nothing. This is an active choice that you've made to better your body composition, better your physique, better your metabolic health, there's so many downstream benefits of fat loss sighting that go from the physiology to also the psychology. So a better, you know, body image, a better confidence level, you know, feeling better about yourself, just feeling better in your clothes, how you feel around your family, really impacting people around you, whether it be your children or your spouse, whatever it may be, there's so many positive benefits. And if you weren't in the privileged position where you could pay and hire a coach to help you get to your goal, you are one of the very fortunate individuals out there. So I always want to make this apparent. I always tell clients about this, especially when I have someone that has had a really tumultuous relationship with dieting in the past, they've been through chronic dieting cycles, where they feel like a failure, and they feel like they're just going to compete. Continue to repeat their mistakes in the past, I always tell them listen, this is a fresh start. Just like for instance, if you were to slip off your diet, you're always just and I want people to really understand this and I'll say it twice if I need to. You're always one meal away from being back on track, you are always one meal away from being back on track. If you slip up, don't just say f it. Just like if you had a flat tire in your car, you wouldn't slash all other three tires. Because of that incidence, you would you know, hopefully what you would do is call someone or you'd replace that tire and you keep it moving. And so really when it comes down to it, we shouldn't look at these things through this dichotomous relationship. You know, this rigid restraint mindset where we look at things as black and white good or bad on diet off diet. We should look at these things as shades of gray This is a spectrum so what I talked about with palatability meaning you went from a building phase where you were hypo or hyper caloric you were eating in a surplus you have more than enough energy availability, good sufficient amount of calories and probably by the end of it, you're at your highest body fat point first and foremost, you're also your leptin is high your ghrelin is really low. You probably have no appetite like your it's almost like a tree For to get these nails down. And we've all been there that have really pushed ourselves for muscle growth, where we've really had to push calories for a prolonged period of time, then you go into a dieting phase. And as we get leaner and leaner and our calories go down, we just make better food choices. We make simple food swaps, we switch to more, you know, whole foods that are going to micronutrient dense, because remember, when you're in a calorie deficit, you're more susceptible to micronutrient deficiencies, because by proxy, if you went from eating 2500 calories, and now you have the 2000, we're now you know, you're three months into a diet and you're at 17 or 1800 calories, you have lost a considerable amount of your calorie budget and also your micronutrient budget. So let's make every single calorie count. And really, when I say that, I mean that from a satiety perspective, a fullness perspective and enjoyment perspective, you know, making this from an adherence perspective, but also from a micronutrient density perspective is really, I do a lot of expensive blood work with clientele. And I have a lot of people come to me that I can't even express how many times I have, especially females come to me, that has many nutrient deficiencies, I do a full analysis on micronutrient profiles when someone comes to me and does a consultation and decides that they want to onboard with coaching with me, and I'll tell you, I've been a coach for 10 years. And I will say that maybe one out of 100 clients that new clients that comes to me, in the course of the year does not have inherent micronutrient deficiencies from a lack of food quality from a lack of supplementation from you know, lifestyle, especially if you're a chronic Dieter, but this is especially susceptible when you are in a fabulous space. And here's the thing. For instance, if you had your a deficiency of three cofactors, let's look at selenium, iodine, and zinc, those were all down regulate thyroid production. But if we look into literature on those with full thyroid hormone, it can decrease your basal metabolic rate, which accounts for 50 to 60% of the calories you expend per day, a low thyroid level. So clinical hypothyroidism can decrease your BMR in the literature by up to 25%. That does not mean that every single person that's hypothyroid sees a 25% decrease in their total daily energy expenditure. But you have up to that. So let's look at it from this component. If BMR makes up 60% of your total daily energy expenditure, and now you have a 25% decrease, that means your total daily energy expenditure is decreased by 15%, because of multiple inherent problems, and one of the many reasons that I see that people come up on lab work as being hypothyroid is because of nutrient deficiencies, high stress and chronic dieting. So these are things we have to work on. On the back end, we have to be very intentional, you know, this industry, it's really interesting. This industry has gotten so into macros and calories that we've neglected everything else. And really, if you're a nutrition coach, or you're a nutrition professional, we need to speak about nutrition because people don't eat macros. They don't calories, the food. And so we need to talk about food quality, food choice, food selection, really educate people. And that's where I really tried to take this modifying palatability approach because I want to leverage these different tools to be able to set people up for success. And here's the thing, the reason I do it almost in like a descending curve is the leaner, you get the hungry, get the leaner you get, the more your appetite goes up, when you get them, the longer you've been on a diet. So the more diet fatigue you have, the more mental currency has been drained, more willpower that you're lacking. So we need to employ different strategies towards the tail end of the diets a ensure that when you're at your hungriest, we're utilizing strategies that are going to ensure that you're as full as possible. Now hunger is an inherent part of dieting, so I'm never going to tell someone, you're never gonna experience hunger because honestly, if you're in an energy deficit, and you're liberating, and oxidizing body fat, that's, that's just par for the course, we're all gonna experience hunger, but it's about making these, this approach as minimal as possible. And when is that most essential, it's not only during the beginning, it's also towards the end, where you're at your highest susceptibility to just veering off the rails and falling off. And that's why a lot of people, they start that while sights, but they never actually get to their goal. So we see that in the literature, that seven out of eight individuals that go on a diet will lose weight, that doesn't mean they hit their weight loss goal, but they will lose a significant amount of body weight. So around 86% of individuals that go on a diet will lose weight. Now here's the thing, when we look at the diet recidivism rates, we see that within three years of having died, most people 95% 90 to 95% of people will have regained all that weight they lost. For more we see, you know in terms of or more, we look at 33 to 66%. However, let's look at the dieting rates per year. So if you actually look at the dieting rates per year, in westernized countries, industrialized countries like US, UK, Canada, we see that between 42 to 63% of the population reports going on a diet every single year. These are the same individuals going on a diet every single year to lose weight. And why is it so on is happening so constantly and so repetitively because a lot of people Yes, they'll lose a couple pounds, but then they regain it, they go through these the cyclical fashion, they never get to their goal. So really what I'm trying to do is utilize methods, I'm doing educate clients, I'm utilizing things that are going to help them in that moment and through that phase, so that they can get to their goal and we could utilize that 12 to 16 weeks phase to get them to their fat loss goal, get them lean and then focus our other time on recovering from the diet, maintaining living to learn it maintenance and then focusing on building muscle and going into a state of abundance in terms of energy availability, focusing on fueling our training and getting out of this mindset. They always have to be in a energy deficit you always have to be in fat loss it because so many people look at fat loss as like this permanent state this permanent phase. That's all they do because they never get to the goal. So really what I tried to do is set my clients For Success, which is why I never put a client right into a fat loss phase, we always go through a primer phase verse, you know, I believe the healthy bodies responsibility. And that's the way the method that I used to get there. So I set them up for success at the start, then we go on to say their, their goal is fat loss. And we've done our lab work, we've seen all their physiological markers or psychological markers, they're in a great place, we've eaten sufficient calories for an extended period of time, they've been out of a deficit for a prolonged period of time, we've reversed any negative metabolic and hormonal adaptations, as you may have seen from previous sites before coming to me, then we go into a deficit we're trying to get in and we're trying to get out, that doesn't mean Rapid Fat Loss, what that means is effective fat loss, meaning 1216 20 weeks, whatever your goal necessitates. Let's get in. And then let's get out. And let's focus on recovery, getting back to maintenance, reversing these metabolic adaptations, and then going into a state where we're focusing on performance, and fueling your training performance, which is really going to drive your body composition progress moving forward, so that the next time you do die, see that's a year down the road, or 1618 months down the road, you're going to be a better version of yourself, because the next time you get leaner, you're going to be more muscular, you're gonna have much better habits, you're gonna have been out of a state of being in a deficit. And in the state of both physical and mental restriction, we're now you're looking forward to it. Because I'll tell you, there's been so many times that a female has come to me and has done diet after diet after diet, and to get them into a state, a mindset of abundance. So we're doing the high energy flex model, they're moving more, they're eating more, they're getting used to the fact that they can maintain their body weight on much higher calories, you know, then we go into a fat loss phase, we get them lean, but then we focus the next year on building muscle. And the next time that they go to the diet, they fear they face for less challenges, because they haven't been in this restricted state all year. So it's not like they're feeling like they're the first week of the diet, they're already like in hell, or they're in Purgatory, because they've spent so much time in a state of being in a surplus. And so it's almost like something that they're encouraged to do as well as they're, they're really excited to get into a deficit, because you're like, listen, you've been pounding food down my throat, this whole phase, I really want to get into a state where like, I'm, you know, I'm not feeling full all the time, I just kind of want to feel light on my feet and like, then you're looking forward to these things. And that's really where I'm taking a phased approach and utilizing nutritional periodization, going from one phase to another, making sure each phase is as effective as possible. And the same thing applies. So the palatability of foods, I'm lowering them throughout the course of that last night, however, then when we get out of there, and we get into a state of abundance, and I've gotten you back to maintenance calories, and we've reversed a lot of the metabolic adaptations, we can start increasing availability. And so it's never a permanent thing. This is a transient state, just like metabolic adaptation, a lot of people look at this as metabolic damage, which has been disproven 10 out of 10 times in the literature. However, these things that you face the situations, you go through the fact that you have to, you know, sustain an energy deficit, that's a temporary state, and no, we should, it should be a temporary state to get your goal. And then we focus on maintaining that by utilizing more sustainable habits going forward.

Philip Pape  57:41

And your energy is so passionate about this brand. And I couldn't agree more with everything. But what I really love about this is, even when you talk about being in that energy deficit, even when you talk about food choices, it's really keeping you in the highest energy state you can be getting through the diet with without having to constantly interrupt it, maybe take breaks, refeeds, whatever, potentially, and getting it over with and I agree, like if you can build for most of the year and get support, you're taking these mini cuts, and it's hardly a blip in your life, that that's where people want to be regarding the palatability and all that. I think you talked about body composition and the overpass of overconsumption. I think recently, you also talked about how thermic effect of feeding could be higher. And you just mentioned how nutrient deficiency could cause a reduction in expenditure. So these are all really good things for people to think about how just the food choices could make it easier to diet. Besides the hunger and the satiety, which is awesome. I want to respect your time. I know we're bottom of the hour, we probably have to wrap up Do you have a few minutes, let's you know

Brandon DaCruz  58:45

what let's do the principles to track I know that that will probably tie us up in a really good situation.

Philip Pape  58:49

Let's finish principles of tracking. Let's do it. Alright.

Brandon DaCruz  58:53

So I'm a big believer that what isn't measured and tracked isn't managed as well and manipulated to truly yield optimal body composition progress, especially when we're in a fat loss phase where it's really challenging to induce and maintain an energy deficit when we aren't tracking. So a few principal areas that I like to have clients track are their food intake, your body weight, your step count, other sleep and our stress levels. So we really have to realize and I often say this to clients, because I have a lot of people come to me and they've never tracked in their lives. And I know that they're a little bit I guess averse to it or you know, it's really an introduction, I always try to meet people where they're at, but I always remind them listen, whether we count calories or not, they always count. So regardless, if you count your calories, they still count. But if you've never tracked your calories, you're gonna have very limited awareness around the calorie density like we just discussed previously how important that is, you know that very little awareness around the calorie density of foods, which can lead you to making food choices that don't align with your calorie budget and your goals. Which is why the most effective way for most individuals to improve their body composition is by real body composition by losing fat gaining muscle or recapping this attractor dietary intake. So that's the first fundamental component that if I'm gonna have someone track, the first thing we're looking at is food intake, because that's really where I find a lot of bottlenecks in the system. You know, someone might have some issues with training, but it's not like it only is inherently coming down to the fact that they don't log your lifts like yes, logging your and tracking your lifts can really go a long way. But often what I noticed is, I have a lot of individuals that are advanced trainees that are intermediate or to death, they've been training a long period of time. So they track their lives, and they have all these spreadsheets, but they've never tracked your calories and macros. And so that's really where I try to introduce them to this, especially when it comes to a fat loss phase. And really, when it comes to tracking, you know, we want to know what's in the food you're eating from a macro and calorie perspective so that you can account for it, and to see if your dietary approach is getting you closer or further away from your physical. Also, another reason why we should track is because intuitively, our brain doesn't know how many calories we've eaten a meal. And this is because satiety is delayed sensation. And it takes different nutrients, different amounts of time to digest and send satiety signals to the brain to tell us to terminate a meal. And really when it comes down to it or stomach since food weight and food volume, not calories. So if you don't make a meal, say you know high energy dense meals, so say we do like something like a sandwich, we do a peanut butter and jelly. So we have bread, we have peanut butter, and we have jelly, it's going to take much more calories from a PB and J to get hold them from a whole food meal that consists of something like chicken breasts and sweet potato. And this is because our stomach or you know, our stomachs have gastric stretch receptors that sends pressure when we eat. And when these receptors sense a lot of food volume and stretch, they send a signal to our brain that we've eaten enough and are full. And the great thing is there's a lot of low energy density foods that provide a ton of food volume for a low amount of calories, which allows us to get a lot of satiety per calorie or fullness per calorie. And these include these food sources include things like your vegetables and your fruits, especially those with a high water content like your salads. And even like we were talking about BERRIES BERRIES are perfect strawberries a great option for high no low energy density, high volume foods. So if you include more of these low energy density food items into your diet, you'll naturally eat less calories than if you eat highly processed energy dense food items that can override our hunger and satiety signals. Just like we saw on the Kevin Hall study when they eat processed foods, it just overrode their natural ad libitum eating habits where they eat 500 calories per day more per day. And so when it comes to tracking food intake, there are a lot of you know, a ton of benefits, spending at least a significant amount of time learning how to track can provide us with such as the fact that tracking improves our awareness around what you're eating and your habits and behaviors around food. This is really important from like on mindfulness perspective, because a lot of people they have like these mindless habits where they have, you know, tastes, looks, the bites looks and tastes and little things that they don't even realize unless they're tracking things. And that's where they really say, oh, Brandon, you know, I didn't even realize how many times I just took a scoop of peanut butter or Aida a handful nuts or I took a snack in the kitchen or I eat my kids chicken nuggets like the rest that were on the plate. So you know, it teaches us about the calories the macros and micros different foods provide, it also allows us to discover what foods are higher or lower in calories and what macros they provide. And it helps us determine what foods are more or less conducive for your current goals, which is extremely helpful when trying to lose or maintain weight. And another aspect of tracking that a lot of people don't hit on a lot of times, you know, there's this dichotomous relationship with tracking where a lot of people within like the intuitive eating space essentially are adverse people that are non dieting, you know, he's moving and stuff someone's gonna say, you know, tracking or dieting, it causes disordered eating. First of all, we don't see that in literature, if you do not have a predisposition or an existing eating disorder, we do not see tracking, increasing your likelihood of experiencing that. And there's clinical trials and, and very rigorous data that has looked at that if you are someone that is dealing and currently has a clinically diagnosed eating disorder, then tracking could exacerbate that. Those are two different things. When we're talking about clinical pathologies and normal physiology, they're two separate entities and we really have to be able to differentiate and not pull data from one and then try to apply it to another. And this is something I'm really big on. You know, oftentimes I speak about research, but if I'm talking about a female specific topic, I'm only looking at research that was done on females, I'm not taking it from male data and a pie into a female because they have a different physiology. So we really have to be intentional with the information that we provide. But we have to realize that often, you know, I actually find people develop a better relationship with food, when they're able to track and become aware of what's in their food. And this is the reason why I felt the thing is a lot of people had only what they've heard from pop culture from the media, they look at foods as black and white. These are good foods and bad foods, they know nothing about nutrition, but they they know about these demonized seed oils, or they know about you know, you know, artificial sweeteners or sugar or, or fruit like you said, like fructose of the devil, and they feel that they cannot eat these food sources. And they, you know, essentially exclude those from their diets. And they have these really, you know, highly, you know, for instance, we'll have people that come to me all the time, they've never tried a macro or calorie in their life, but they're, you know, they're gluten free or dairy free or free. They're sugar free, every free that you could think of, but they haven't been able to attain their goals and they're living a extremely restricted lifestyle and have a poor relationship with food. They have a very limited food list that they can work off when I get them to track and I show them what's in food, the benefits of different food sources, and it's not that you have to eat everything you have to Know that you can eat pretty much anything unless it's the only thing. I don't demonize any food on this earth, except for trans fats, because there's enough clinical data that shows cardiovascular disease risk, just from a 3% intake of stock, you know, trans fat. So

Philip Pape  1:05:12

that's the only thing that will be nice. But besides that, it's all par for the sport and for the most part anyway, exactly. And

Brandon DaCruz  1:05:17

so when it comes down to tracking, that's one thing that I really like having people do. And then from there, you know, other than having them track their diet, I liked doing scale, we and I know that's another controversial topic. But there's a very specific reason that you're not

Philip Pape  1:05:27

on here, right and not on here, your listeners are all on board.

Brandon DaCruz  1:05:31

Perfect. So you know, you know, this is something that I have most clients track and take multiple times per week, and even up to daily, as this is a great tool for a determine a client's energy down status. So whether they're in deficit, threat maintenance, or they're under surplus, and it's a great awareness tool over habits and behaviors around nutrition activity levels, which can help us determine if we're moving closer or further away from our face specific goals that we're working towards. And self monitoring techniques, like frequent weights have been shown in the vast majority of literature to lead to better weight loss outcomes, as well as greater success with weight loss maintenance. So it's a habit that increases that awareness. If you see your your weight ticking up and trajectory going up, it's something that can easily help you reel back in your habits are making certain adjustments to realize, hey, maybe I'm over consuming things, or maybe I've been a little bit too loose with my diet, let me clean things up. So I can get back to a weight stable or weight maintenance threshold, you know, what's comfortable for me, where I feel good, I'm healthy, and it's within my goals, you know, subset, essentially, then another

Philip Pape  1:06:28

frequent word is important that you said, it's not just random every once every few weeks or something.

Brandon DaCruz  1:06:33

No, it's actually the meta analysis that we have on this, we have several of them wing has an incredible meta analysis on this, this is she's looking at daily weighing, or at least multiple times a week. And here's the thing. So when you actually look at successful habits, weight loss dieters, we have, you know, information from the National Weight Control Registry that shows us we have wing is one of the researchers that has done an immense amount about successful weight loss, and then weight loss maintenance. She's also the person that came to the industry with diet breaks. So she was the first person to ever, you know, introduce diet breaks to the industry in 2003, with her wing and Jeffrey steady. So just a little, you know, food for thought or just like a little A fun fact about wing, but she's done incredible research. And what she has shown is there's this discrepancy, or there's relationship between vein frequency and weight loss outcomes and weight loss maintenance success. So what the she her research has shown the meta analysis she's done, and the systematic reviews on the literature has found is that when people go during a fat loss diet, and they weigh in more frequently, they're more successful with their weight loss. When they maintain those habits, they're more successful with weight loss maintenance. However, when someone decreases their frequency of self monitoring habits, like self weight, like food tracking, physical activity levels, so at that point in the literature, they weren't really utilizing step count, but it was like minutes per week, when they decrease any of those three aspects of self monitoring techniques or tools, they see a regression, meaning that they're regaining more weight than those who have maintained and sustained the habits that got them there. So really what it comes down to and weight loss maintenance, a lot of people know, they see that the statistics of weight regain are so high, but it's really about maintaining a lot of the habits, and making them and putting them as a component of your new lifestyle. So it's not that you stay in an energy deficit, we increase your food intake. Absolutely right. Outside of the deficit, we're done with the fat loss phase, let's get right back to maintenance. However, let's maintain a lot of the positive habits that lead you to success. So that's things like monitoring your food intake, weighing your foods, tracking your food intake, doing nutritional habits, even if it's stuff like listen, you're not going to track every single meal, let's make sure we get an adequate amount of protein with every single meal, let's make sure that we have a sufficient amount of fiber per day. So when we really look at it, statistically, Americans reading between 11 to 18 grams of fiber per day, if we actually looked at nutritional overseeing bodies, the recommend 30 to 35 grams per day. So really, we're getting 1/3 to one half the amount of fiber we ship per day. So vast majority of individuals are clinically they're essentially deficient or insufficient in fiber intake. And actually, fiber is one of the four nutrients of concern that the US has put out in governing bodies and guidelines that this is something we have to pay attention to. So these are just little simple things, making sure that you hit a vegetable and fruit minimum per day. All these little habits are things that we can track, even just habits and this is something that sometimes I have clients that are super busy, or they're not a data type of individual and I have a lot of work with a lot of professionals. A lot of business professionals love it guys, things like that. They love the data tracking, but then I have your busy household mother that doesn't like that. So I had to do it have a checklist, where it's protein intake per day reading three to four servings of a sufficient bolus of protein, we're making sure to get either a fruit or vegetable with each and every single meal. We're eating mostly Whole Foods, we're going on post mill walks, you know, we're we're taking you know, a certain minimum amount of supplements like vitamin D things that they're deficient. And so these are we can really scale up the amount of things we track but it doesn't have to be like all or nothing. It doesn't have to be like I track things or I don't track anything at all. It can be expectrum Essentially, this the shades of grey. Another component that I'm going to track and this is because I am such an advocate of the high energy flux lifestyle is I track you especially with clients whose goal is to lose body fat I'm going to track you know their daily step count as a proxy for me and their overall off his activity levels. And this is because being a deficit causes an unintentional and subconscious reduction in our NEET levels. And this is a natural part of the processes. It's one of the many defense systems and mechanisms that our body has in place to reduce our energy expenditure exactly during a deficit, it's trying to conserve energy. So it's going to do that in any single way. However, the the insidious thing about me is that this reduction happens subconsciously. So often, you won't even notice that you're burning less calories per day throughout the process of dieting. So reductions in meat are generally proportional to the amount of energy deficit you put yourself in. So the larger the calorie deficit you create in your diet, the less you'll move as a result of putting less energy in the system. So we have to realize that energy intake and energy expenditure are intrinsically tied. So as energy intake goes down. So it is your energy expenditure. So we have to offset that in some type of capacity. And so there are a couple of ways to combat this. First, I want people to track so through aware of they're aware and conscious of their daily activity levels. But also I like to intentionally increase movement activity, seeing as the amount of subconscious movement you're doing sucks, you're fidgeting, you're standing, you're walking, you're blinking is going to be reduced. So let's offset that by making sure that you're moving around a sufficient amount. And then the last kind of component that I track with all clients is there sleep and stress levels, both through objective and subjective ways based on the client that I'm working with. So sometimes I'll have been tracking reporting their sleep quality and sleep quality, as measured through a device like aura, which gives us more objective readings. But then sometimes I have someone that doesn't do well with data tracking. So we always have to, you know, fit the methods. So I had many checking sheets that it's really going towards, you know, it's not a one size fits all, not everyone's getting the same check in form. For me, it's really based on the individual themselves. So sometimes I have an individual they don't do well, without a tracking. There's actually something in the clinical research or literature called ortho Samia, which is where people actually inhibit their sleep quality because they're so worried about getting insufficiency. So it's, it's almost like orthorexia, or any of these these issues, anything with ortho in front of it, is they're becoming obsessive about the quality. So it actually inhibits these things. So tracking that with an individual like that, that's really worried about sleep quality would actually be a negative, it would do the opposite. So in that case, I'll simply have them report on a scale from one to 10, how well they believe they've been sleeping, and how they feel in terms of energy levels, and how rest and refresh they feel when waking up. And it also really believed that we can't separate our psychology from our physiology. So I tend to ask a lot of lifestyle questions from clients. And I try to build a very like open and honest line of communication between the two of us, I really think that coaching is a relationship. This is a friendship that we've we've garnered together that we've built up and it's really something that I like to get this open line of communication around, especially around their stress levels, as oftentimes just looking at some objective markers, like their calorie intake, or their skill weight, or their training performance doesn't show us the full picture of what's really going on. So I really feel that one of my main roles as a coach is to be a detective, and to dig in deeper to peel back the layers of the onion, to find out some of the bottlenecks and some of the anchors in a client's life that go far beyond just what they're doing in the gym or in the kitchen, that could be potentially causing a slowing in the rate of fat loss progress, or a plateau and fat loss. So if I didn't have these conversations, maybe I would always think And dude, I've been doing this 10 years, I definitely don't have this, this, this mindset at this point. But often, if we only looked at the spreadsheets, if I only looked at scale weight, or calorie intake, and things like their pictures and just objective markers, if I only looked at the data, as it was without really considering the individual client that I was working with, maybe I would think, Alright, they sold this week, it could be metabolic adaptation, it could be a lack of adherence, let's just slash the calories even more, let's bring down the macros like, you know, make these adjustments. It's just this, this excellent knows of calories and macros and you know, training sets and reps. Instead, I really need to dig in deeper to the person that they're dealing with stress issues, if we're seeing stress and you support, you know, cortisol return card, cortisol induced water retention, if I'm seeing that they have really hectic life, so maybe it's time that maybe physiologically they've only been dieting for three or four weeks, they don't need a diet break. But psychologically, they do need it. So we have to consider both sides of the equation and really realize we're working with humans. This isn't just data analysis. This isn't just data collection, and just spitting things out like an algorithm, which is why I really think that things like aI coaching and chat GBT and all these different things, they're going to be revolutionary for a lot of industries. But really, when it comes down to coaching, this goes for like quality coaching goes far beyond the X's and O's of just nutrition in terms of calories and macros. And in terms of training with sets and reps, this is about digging deeper getting to know someone really customizing your approach to that individual that you're working with. And really being a guide in your life and looking not only to help them make physique transformations, but lifestyle transformation. And that's something that no AI device, no app, no chat GPT is ever going to replace us for.

Philip Pape  1:14:31

That is so true. And it's like you could have an entire huge Encyclopedia of all of this data that you just talked about. We can have the exact answers for every possible scenario and no matter what you do, the human body and the psyche are so complex, and knowing that person and having that relationship with them in the compassion and understanding and listening, active listening, so important to say, You know what, over this, this other thing has been happening in your life. It's not reflected in the numbers, but it's causing something downstream. And I get what it is. So let's understand it together. Man, this is so awesome because you just peel back every layer and people listening just have a ton to go with. So I'm gonna probably be touching on multiple, multiple of these concepts in the future. Brandon, I always learned something talking to you. Is there any last thing you want to say? Or if not, you just let listeners know what you're up to now and where they can find you.

Brandon DaCruz  1:15:20

Absolutely my man. As always, I first and foremost want to say that I'm very appreciative to be on your show, I always appreciate the invite to share information, and really provide a positive impact on this industry. When I got into this when I started in the actual fitness industry 14 years ago, and I remember where it was at. And always my intention with everything that I've done, since the beginning of my career, I've always lead with integrity lead with a real drive and purpose and passion. But also my intention within everything that I do is that I'm going to leave this industry better than I found it. And when I find individuals like yourself, that that seem like motivation and drive and passion, I really only respect and I know that recently I had reached out to you and just commended you on that. You're doing an incredible job with the podcasts, you're building things, you're really putting out great information. I respect that first and foremost. And also, I kind of mentioned to you off air, that we're one of the good guys in the industry, we're one of the few and this industry is getting saturated, but unfortunately, it's not saturated with great individuals. So if we're able to just align with ourselves in terms of a group where we're able to share evidence based information, but also experience anecdote like real, like client led coaching, and what we've learned in the trenches, it's going to help this industry as a whole. So I have an immense amount of respect for you for your show. And I'm appreciated beyond here. For anyone out in the audience. If you guys liked this podcast or you're interested in any other further information, please be sure to check out my own podcast which is the chasing clarity health and fitness podcast available on Spotify, iTunes, or even YouTube. Then also find me on Instagram I post daily content literally I'm someone I'm Mister consistency, so I would not miss an educational post one day since 2017. So you will find you know, an immense amount of posts and always like things like this will be on there. I'm constantly sharing podcasts that I'm on, you know, whether it be a guest or even things that I do on my own. And so that is going to be on Instagram at Brandon Cruz underscore and if anyone has any inquiries, questions or any you know things that they want to follow up with, feel free to reach out to me on my private email, which is betta Kristin is@gmail.com

Philip Pape  1:17:10

And your and your podcast Jason clarity for anybody listening, definitely follow it and listen all the way through because there's gonna be something you learn every time every time so definitely check it out. Put the idea put the email in there. I really appreciate the words about me that you just said Brandon that that means a lot. I appreciate it and look up to you and all the guys in the industry like that. I agree. We all want to line good guys unite and women and help each other out. So thank you so much for being on the show. It's a pleasure.

Brandon DaCruz  1:17:37

Absolutely, man. We'll be happy to be back whenever you want to happen. Absolutely.

Philip Pape  1:17:41

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

Ep 98: Is Your Food Logging App Sabotaging Your Fat Loss and Physique Goals?

Today, we are going to explore the value of using a food logging app as a tool to serve you in reaching your health and physique goals, and how many people hate the idea of food tracking because most apps completely fail in this mission.

I'll discuss the importance of food logging, what the science says, and why most food logging apps fail, not just in features and usability but also because they are not based on body composition science, don't adjust to you and your goals, and encourage an all-or-nothing approach that leads to failure every time you use them.

I'll then talk about MacroFactor, the food-logging app that changed my life and helped me transform faster and more successfully than I imagined possible. I think MacroFactor is the only app that fills the gaps in other apps because it was built from a different perspective by nutrition and physique scientists.

I've used it since it launched, all my clients use it, and in full disclosure, I'm an affiliate because I recommend it to everyone who wants to attain their goals quickly and easily. To find out why it's a cut above the rest, make sure to listen to the whole episode.

__________

Click here to apply for coaching!
__________

Today you’ll learn all about:

[3:32] Why you should track your food intake
[7:09] The areas where tracking apps fall short
[13:50] How MacroFactor changed my life
[23:38] Easy food logging with MacroFactor
[26:30] The app is fast and requires fewer taps to use
[29:10] True weight trend with the weight trend algorithm
[31:37] Metabolism tracking with the expenditure algorithm
[36:33] Dynamic adjustments based on your data
[38:06] Full macronutrient tracking, including targets
[39:37] How MacroFactor creates a positive feedback loop
[41:13] Other features worth mentioning
[43:30] Why a nutrition coach would recommend MacroFactor
[47:36] Outro

Episode resources:

• MacroFactor app – use code WITSANDWEIGHTS to extend your free trial

• Ep 78: Stress-Free Macro Tracking, Nerding Out on Metabolism, and Fitness Science with Greg Nuckols

• Ep 95: How Carol Lost 20 Pounds and 14% Body Fat, Set a Lifting PR, and Gained Food Freedom in Her 40s

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https://witsandweights.com/free-call


Learn about 1-on-1 coaching ⬇️
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Transcript

Philip Pape  00:00

It's the psychology of dieting, and how these apps do everything in their power to make you feel terrible. When you don't hit a goal. Tell me tell me I'm wrong. Tell me this isn't your experience. Because if you've ever had an app that doesn't do that, it's it's doing something right. Even if you're a calorie over on some of these apps, you'll get a warning or notification, a red indicator, you'll get something that says it's bad. And so this, there's this moral choice, it's good or bad. And then you end up feeling guilt, or you end up feeling like you failed, and then you start lying to yourself in line in the app.

Philip Pape  00:36

Welcome to the Wits & Weights podcast. I'm your host, Philip pape, and this twice a week podcast is dedicated to helping you achieve physical self mastery by getting stronger. Optimizing your nutrition and upgrading your body composition will uncover science backed strategies for movement, metabolism, muscle and mindset with a skeptical eye on the fitness industry, so you can look and feel your absolute best. Let's dive right in. Wits & Weights community Welcome to another solo episode of the Wits & Weights podcast. I hope you enjoyed our last episode 97 where I talked with di Manuel about the importance of fun in fitness, challenging yourself to reach new heights in your life, how to recognize self sabotage and challenge your past beliefs and how to find your optimal in your fitness journey and in life. Today for episode 98 Is your food blogging app sabotaging your fat loss and physique goals, we are going to explore the value of using a food logging app as a tool as a tool to serve you in reaching your health and physique goals. And how many people hate the idea of food tracking because most apps completely fail in this mission. I'll go over the importance of food logging in general, what the science says and where the vast majority of food logging apps fall short, not just with their features, and usability. I know it's fun to talk about that stuff. But more importantly, because they're not based on body composition, science, they don't adjust to you, they don't adjust your goals. And worst of all, they feed into an all or nothing approach that leads to failure every time you use them. Then I'll talk about a food logging app called macro factor that completely changed my life, and allowed me to go through a personal transformation more quickly and successfully than I thought possible. In my opinion, macro factor is the only app on the market that I've ever found, that addresses the gaping holes with other apps, and was designed from a completely different perspective by people who understand nutrition and physique science. So I've been a user since it launched, all my clients use it. And in full disclosure, and I'm proud to say this, I'm also an affiliate, because I endorse it wholeheartedly for anyone who wants to reach their goals with as little fuss or wasted time as possible. I'll explain exactly why it's a completely different experience in the episode. So make sure to listen all the way through to get those details. If you're impatient to try it out right now if I'm already kind of selling it up for you, and you want to see what it's all about. Pause right now before we get into the details of the episode, so you can download the app look for macro factor. And then if you want to support me in the show, use my code Wits & Weights to get an extra week on your free trial. Just search for macro factor in your app store, or click the link in my show notes and then use affiliate code Wits & Weights when you sign up for the free trial. Okay, let's jump into today's topic is your food logging app, sabotaging your fat loss and physique goals. I want to start with why we track at all and the importance of tracking now I didn't look up the episode number before but I did do an episode A while back, called why you should track your food, something like that. So you can find it. But I go over that in great detail I wanted to cover on the major points here. So the first point is that the evidence is clear that those who track their food intake are more likely to achieve and maintain their goals. Usually these are in the context of weight loss because that is where most people struggle, you know that I like to use the term fat loss because we don't just lose weight, we also train to hold on to muscle and thus improve our body composition and our physique. But nonetheless, part of the equation is losing body mass losing weight. And there are definitely some myths and misconceptions that tracking is can cause some sort of disordered behavior. And that is absolutely not true in people who have a history of disordered behavior. It could, it could play into that but not because of the tracking itself. It's more because of the person's individual history. Actually, tracking shows quite the opposite because when you log your food, you immediately increase your awareness and mindfulness about your consumption. It starts to unlock the logical side of your brain and connect it to what you're eating, as opposed to the emotional side of the brain, always making decisions for you. Now, just because you have that awareness, it doesn't necessarily follow that you're just going to, quote unquote, clean up your whole diet and be perfect. But it does mean that you know how the feedback, the feedback loop works, you know that what you put into your mouth, causes this change in my body and this change in my weight, it causes me to feel this way. And now I have the data. And what it then does is actually cause you to change your behavior. It gives you a sense of accountability to your dietary choices. And it starts to create this virtuous cycle of improving how you eat and how you look at food, your food quality, whether you're hitting your macros that you want, like your protein, and so on. And the challenge really then comes down to how do you do all those things. And the smart person listening to this podcast, which is you is going to know that that takes education time skill information to get there, but at least you have the data from which to make those decisions, very important. And then what is what does it do? Well, consistent food logging, then correlates with more significant weight loss and better maintenance of your goals. And so I am a huge advocate of tracking your food, if the goal is to go after a specific result. And you've struggled in the past, because whatever you were doing in the past is obviously not working. Even if you want to be an intuitive eater, okay, and intuitive eater, you can't develop that to intuition without the awareness. So that is the importance of tracking. All right. I don't want to spend too much time on that because I want to talk about why most apps on the market fall short, and I'm happy to name names. There are apps like My Fitness Pal, lose it chronometer, what else we have carbon, there's probably a few others that are pretty commonly used. And they all have different features. Some have features that others don't and do things in different ways. But there are some general things that if you just lay them out on a table, almost every single one of these apps shares one of these downfalls, I'll say the they fall short in one of these areas. The first is that they are just tedious. And we can't discount the value of when you use a tool, you want it to be so easy, you don't have to think about it. And it's fast and easy. Right? You will don't want food tracking to be a hassle. Because anything that's a hassle creates friction creates resistance. And this is a general principle I like to apply to everything, everything. If you're having trouble being consistent with your workouts, where is the resistance, where is the friction, because to say that I just need to be more disciplined or more willpower or have more willpower is not going to cut it. The most driven high performing people in the world might still have trouble in areas where there's just too much friction. So if your food logging app just feels like it's a hassle or crashes, or it takes multiple tabs every time to do a simple thing. That's gonna be a problem. If it's hard to find your foods, if it's hard to find the brand, that's gonna be a problem. Because every time you hit that wall, you're like, Ah, now I got to spend, you know, five minutes figuring out what to do. Or I have to go Google, you know, instructions for how to do this. Okay, so that's the first one. The second one related to that is the speed. So even if you can do things, I find that apps are just not optimally designed to load as quickly or their interfaces are clunky, you have to tap too many times. And that's tied to number one, the tediousness. But the speed is also important because even when you figure out how to do something, every time you do it, if it takes, you know, five seconds, instead of one second, or four taps instead of one tap, that's going to be frustrating. The third thing that these apps fall short, and this is probably one of the biggest is the lack of dynamic response. They do not adjust to you to your body, to your lifestyle or changes in your lifestyle. They don't adjust to your health goals, they don't adjust to your conditions, whether you're lifting, doing cardio have a certain amount of body fat, you want you like to eat low fat, high fat, low carb, high carb, high protein, and on and on. What do you want to cycle your carbs, and then they don't adjust to what has happened in the past. So if you if you take one of the more standard apps on the market, they will calculate some goals for you based on an estimate. But then they leave it there. And you are now hitting this estimate week after week after week. And there's no change. They don't adjust to it. Now some of the apps may adjust. But none of them quite do it in the way that that the app I'm going to talk about today does it I mean, not even close. And that is actually the deal breaker for me. Because if I have to tell the app, what to tell me. It's the app is not really doing its job is it's just a data repository. It's just a place to store stuff, right? That's not helpful. Most of the apps lack any sense of dynamic response. The kind of related to this is a lot of them have one size fits all recommendations. And so for example, they use ratios of macronutrients, I don't use ratios. If you've ever heard me talk about how to calculate your macros, we always start with protein. And the protein is based on how many grams per pound of body weight you want to hit, then we calculate fat and fat is more or less based on preferences. And then the rest is carbs. Those aren't ratios because guess what happens when you go in a fat loss phase, and your calories are much lower, your protein is going to be about the same or higher in absolute terms, and therefore it's much higher in percentage terms. And so percentages just are meaningless, right? When you think of something like I don't know, the Zone diet or, or 3040 40 type ratios. It doesn't account for your individual needs and your goals and where you are in the process. The last thing now I said, I said dynamic response was probably one of the most important, this one that I'm going to tell you now could be the most important, and it has nothing to do with the recommendations with the targets with the food. It's the psychology of dieting, and how these apps do everything in their power to make you feel terrible. When you don't hit a goal. Tell me tell me I'm wrong. Tell me this isn't your experience. Because if you've ever had an app that doesn't do that, it's it's doing something right. shaming tactics, right, many of the apps use warning messages for even the tiniest deviation. I talked to Greg knuckles about this when he was on my podcast. He is he's behind macro factor, how even if you're a calorie over on some of these apps, you'll get a warning or notification, a red indicator, you'll get something that says it's bad. And so this, there's this moral choice, it's good or bad. And then you end up feeling guilt, or you end up feeling like you failed, and then you start lying to yourself in line in the app. I've done it in the past, when I used to use food logging apps, before I discovered macro factor, I would just flat out lied say, Well, if I put in that extra meal, I'm gonna be over my number. And then it's just going to make me feel bad. And why would I do that? Let me just keep keep keep it off of there. Right? It also seems to bias toward weight loss, and doesn't really think about what if you're building muscle, you actually want to be a little bit over your calories because you're trying to push you're in a surplus, you're trying to push the weight? And so does it distinguish between those. So all of this stuff, these rigid standards, and not accounting for real life, and the fact that you're gonna go to a party, you're going to eat out some days you want more than others. And you're going to choose to do that if things are done in a healthy way, in a positive psychological way, you're going to choose to do those things you're going to plan for them. And the app you want to use has to account for that. And if it doesn't, it's not a good app for you. Right? It's just misaligned with what you're trying to do. So to me, those are the big sort of principles of design of these food logging apps as a tool, and why so many people fail with them, right? Why they are sabotaging your goals why we feel like food tracking overall is somehow not the way to go. And I see macro tracking and food tracking lumped in with diets. And it's quite the opposite. If you look at the science on rigid versus flexible dieting, flexible dieting, where you have macro and calorie targets that you get to choose your food is associated with a positive experience with weight management and long term results management with a healthy relationship with food. But it's these tools that sort of make it a poor experience. So that's why I wanted to create this episode, not just to be a show for macro factors. Even if I am at an event, I'm proud of it. And if you don't like it, hey, you don't have to listen to the episode, right? But here's, here's the story. Okay, so now let me get into the next part. And I'm gonna talk about this app. Okay, to me macro factor is it's not even in the same category as the other apps. And I don't mean that in a salesy way, I mean that in an actual objective way, and that the way it works, for it was built from the ground up. From a different perspective. I think all the I think all the other apps come from the same place, have a place to store your information, and then we're going to ding you when you miss your numbers. And that's what it is. And I feel like manufacturer has a different perspective. But let me tell you my personal experience, okay. For years for years, for four decades of my life, and so primarily from, I'll say, my 20s and 30s, from college on, I was always trying to lose weight, and I would be successful multiple times along the way, and then gain it back. And this is a very common story that I hear from all my clients of trying specific diets or approaches or the latest and greatest thing and a book that that was, you know, something different like intermittent fasting, the lean gains protocol, right, or even die It's that sound cutting edge like carnivore keto, all of these words. They're so extreme that that's the attractiveness of them, if that makes sense, right? Like, oh, wow, I'm just gonna eat pretty much meat. That's amazing. And it can get me my goals awesome, I can live that way. And then three months in, you're like, oh my god, I have to have another, you know, steak or whatever. And I can't have any of these other wonderful foods that I would I would normally enjoy carbs, fats, fruits, and so on. So I went through that experience as early as my 20s, doing SlimFast and Atkins to later on doing paleo and keto, and just random low carb diets and some weird things along the way. I did fasted training, I did lean gains with EAS, B BCAAs. I did all of it. And then in a few times during that period, I did try tracking and I tried it with, I think it was called my macros plus, at one point, I know I did chronometer, because when I tried it years later, I had an account that was like 10 years old, that hadn't been used. And I definitely tried My Fitness Pal, and probably a few others along the way, like lose it. And some weird, you know, it was always a free app, too. I was like, I'm not paying for this, right? You know, this is, it's not that important to pay for. So I wouldn't pay for it. And you get what you pay for generally. But what would happen is I would find that they were slow, clunky, hard to use, frustrating a chore. And they weren't really giving me anything back for the effort I was putting in meaning I would go weeks at a time and it would have this number in there. And I basically had to tell him to tell me how much to eat. And what was that doing for me nothing. Because the numbers I was given it. I didn't really understand nutrition science, I didn't understand the right targets. I was going by some defaults that it was suggesting, pretty much worthless. And so I would give up every time, I would just give up, I'd start lying to the app, I'd start skipping days and meals. And then we'll give up. And one day I was going for a walk while listening to stronger by Science Podcast. And again, I've had both Eric Trexler and Greg knuckles on the show. And I know Eric Trexler has since moved on from the podcast. And now it's Greg and Lindsey, his wife doing the show, which is awesome, super long. But if you want the deep dive into a topic, that's where you're going to get it. And so this was back when Eric and Greg are hosting it, I was going for a walk. I always listen to podcasts when I walk, you know, habit stacking. And they talked about their upcoming app. And I think they were in beta at the time. And I wish I had jumped in during beta but it doesn't matter. I wasn't giving it a second thought I was like, well, that's interesting, what are they talking about. And the more they mentioned it, because they weren't really selling it, they were just mentioning occasionally, as far as the background work happening. And the science and algorithms behind it. The more they mentioned, the warm I was like is this this is like a food blogger, right? That sounds pretty cool. And so I one day one came out, I downloaded it did the free trial. And of course, the rest is history. Because I've since been a user, this was in 2021, I think came out. So two years now. And I have to say, of all the things I pay for my life, it has to be the best bargain I've ever paid for because of how it has changed my life and my trajectory for the rest of my life. And what I mean by that is I started using it. And like with what many people discover, all my clients tend to discover this not all of them do not tend to they all do is that you immediately realize something is different. And that's something are some of the details I'm going to get into in a moment here that allow you to get the feedback you need to know to make that connection between the food logged and what's happening with your body. And that is where the lightbulb moment occurs. Because now you can adjust each week to continue making progress toward your goals. And if you're not making progress, you'll know it but you won't be shamed for it, you'll simply have the data that says okay, I know I made choices. This is what happened. And it actually encourages you to to log everything. Because if you don't log it, you don't get all that helpful data. And in fact, it could give you the wrong information if you don't have all the data, right garbage in, garbage out. And it's a beautiful kind of experience that closes the loop like the other apps don't. And so what happened? Well, we're talking late 2021, I had been strength training pretty effectively. For a while, I've been gaining a lot of weight by just eating whatever drinking a lot of milk, I knew I was gaining weight probably too quickly. But I didn't know any better at the time. And I was gaining muscle, which was a lot of fun. I could see the muscle, I can feel it. I can see it in my shirt. But I was also gaining a lot of extra fat faster than I could have if I knew better. And so manufacture comes along just in time for me to get to the point where I had gone from say, one 160 pounds to 195 pretty big jump over a fairly short period much faster than you should. And I started using the app and logging my food and I realized wow, this thing is easy. It's fast. It's I can find the information. I can enter a barcode and it's right there. I can copy and paste. And then by the way, look at these other features. And on Monday when I check in. It tells me my new calories amount macros, I've never had anything that can do this so seamlessly. And now I know what to eat this week. And then the next week in the next week, and before long, I had a goal to lose something like 25 pounds of fat. And in Latin, let's say six, whatever it was 16 weeks, I don't remember the duration. But it was within the evidence within the range of evidence of rate of loss that you want to go after, which the app knows, because it's based on all these scientific principles. And it will recommend it to you. And really, it'll warn you when you actually try to go outside that suggesting that, hey, you might lose muscle if you go too aggressively. And so based on that, I ended up losing all the fat I wanted to lose over the time, I wanted to lose it super effectively. Now, of course, I had to log my food, right. And I had to actually stick to those principles. But it significantly improved my chances of doing that. Okay. So as I was doing this, I was posting my results on Facebook, on Reddit all over the place, and it caught the eye of and I may have even mentioned it on my podcast, which at the time was just getting started. And the owner of manufacturer, Greg knuckles reached out to me by email, which is just really cool. And he said, Hey, we are inviting some people who are really passionate about the app or big users who have a following who are doing some sort of practice related to to this, we're offering you to be an affiliate. And you know, here's how we make it work. And I'm like, yeah, why not? Like, why wouldn't I try to make a little income from this? Because I use it, because I tell everybody about it already. And interestingly, months later, when I started my nutrition, coaching journey, and helping people, and I experimented with the app with them, and they were just floored at how effective it was for getting their goals. One of the doubts in my mind was, well, I'm a nutrition coach, is this kind of taking away from my job, right? Is this doing what I'm supposed to do? And I realized, you know what, any good tool that makes your job easier, you want to go all in and use it. And if I can help my clients accelerate the results that much more, because one, normally tedious, annoying thing is now off the table. That only increases adherence that increases commitment that increases accountability. And that gets you results faster, and frees us up to work on other things. Okay, so that's my personal story, why I became an affiliate, it's still it's still something I use, I still log every day. The only time I haven't logged in the app is two vacations that I took, right two week long vacations, I just didn't log, no big deal.

22:30

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

Philip Pape  23:15

So we're going to talk about the features of the app. Right? But this is not going to be a what do you call it? This is not going to be a kind of a YouTube video comparing, you know, multiple apps, this is just what are the big things that stick out? And what makes it different. So that you understand what you're getting into and are fully informed in the context of the evidence, which is, I think, where the beauty lies. All right, so the first thing that I want to talk about is just the food logging experience. And there's a few things you really want to know, because I've seen some Miss Information or misunderstandings, right? People will say, Well, my fitness pal seems to have a lot more food. Yes, true. Why? Because my fitness pal allows anybody and everybody to just randomly enter whatever they want. And so you have tons of duplicates that have wrong information, you have tons of of entries that just have wrong information, right? Nothing's verified, macro factors database is verified. And that's a huge difference. Right? Some apps may also use verify databases, but not some of the big ones. And it gets the information from two sources. First are vetted databases. And the second is human verified entries. So there are some user entered entries, but they go to a human to be verified first, you know, like a nutritionist before they go in the database. So they're all verified. And I honestly I've been using it two years, and everything I enter seems to be right. Like it passes the sniff test, with very, very, very few exceptions. I mean, very, extremely rare exceptions in my opinion. It also has a barcode scanner like most of them, and and it's all it's all part of the normal, very inexpensive subscription price. Not like some of the other apps that charge extra for that. And they've been expanding the database over time. So if you live in you Europe, for example, they added the European products a while back, they've been adding other countries. But for the most part, if you're in the US, it's fine. Like, you'll find everything in there. With the exception of like, really, you know, really small boutique companies that may or may not make a lot of product. The the other other features that has some of these are typical of other apps, some are not, it allows for custom foods and recipes. And you can share those recipes. So you can share it as like a little export file, and then it ends up being a link, and somebody else can click the link and it'll import it into manufacturers. That's pretty cool. It has a timeline style food log. So instead of meals, which I know some people are used to meals and snacks, it's simply logged by time, which is actually more flexible, because then you know, you might snack eight times during the day at all random times, it's not going to force you into specific meals. It's a little bit different getting used to but it's really cool. Once you do, it has a smart history, right. So when you enter new, when you go to log a food, it's going to show your recent foods and it's it uses AI to show to determine what to show based on things like the time of day, or even what you start to type. It has a lot of copy paste features. So you can copy an entire time or a food or an entire day to another time or that day or the same time that day or two right now. I mean, there's so many options. Once you figure it out, you realize it's like boop, boop, boop. If you eat pretty routinely, it's going to take you seconds, mere seconds to log your food. The next thing is it's really really fast. Okay, now this I just I'm so frustrated with slow technology or buggy technology. And I'm sure you are as well. It's like, why can't you guys get this right? You focus on all these other features, but you can't get just make it fast. And in some cases, I imagined the developers have painted themselves into a hole by how they buy the architecture of the app. And I don't want to get into software here because that was my background. But it's probably what it comes down to, it's probably too hard for them to make it fast at this point unless they redesigned from the ground up. But macro factor from the beginning, they thought about how many taps it would take how much friction you can reduce from every single workflow from every single thing that you're trying to do. So not just a single action, but like, what are the typical things that someone does, right? When I go to have breakfast, I know I have to look up a food app to find it, I have to change the grams or the serving. And I have to log it to a certain time. Well, they made it where every single one of those is either down to one tap or zero taps in some cases, if it's like defaulted to the best option. And then the last thing is really cool. It's called a I describe. And what it allows you to do is either type or use your text to speech, what you're eating for your meal in like a big blob of a list or text, and it will separate it all out into the various foods and amounts and log it for you. You know, and like anything else they add, it's not perfect, and it probably get better. But you could say, you know, I'm having a salad with Romaine with cheddar cheese with croutons and this and that and the other, and then it'll try to separate all the foods and log them for you. Okay, so those are, that's the food database. stuff up, maybe it's slightly on the boring side of things. But I wanted you to know that it's in and of itself, it's superior to other apps, which I think is important, because the other apps, that's pretty much all they do. So they've already licked that part of it. Now I'm gonna go to the part that I love. Okay, the advanced algorithms and the dynamic adjustments. Okay. So again, I am a walking sales pitch for this app, because it's like, how do I put it, it's like if you went back to the Stone Age, and you had to gather a bunch of wood, and everybody bartered wood, and you all of a sudden came across a solar powered chainsaw. And you would be 50 times more efficient than the next person, you would want to use that chainsaw. Like you wouldn't even think about anything else that That, to me is how separated this app is, at least at the moment, hopefully, like anything else with competition. They'll encourage other makers to try to catch up. But it's going to be tough. So the advance algorithm, I'm going to try to simplify this, there's two pieces to this. There's the weight trend, and there's the expenditure. The weight trend algorithm, I'll say is, quote unquote, simple because we know exactly what the math is behind it. The weight trend algorithm, the way it works is when you log your weight, and you're and you're supposed to log your weight at least once a week in the app. As I've always said, I recommend logging every single day. Because when you log every single day, it no longer becomes an emotional thing. It's just another data point. You get used to all the big fluctuations day to day, you realize that no, you're not gaining a bunch of fat overnight, just because your weight went up two pounds, definitely not possible. It's because of other things like water and inflammation, sodium and carbs and so on. And so when you weigh every day, it makes it a more left brain logical type of thing. Macro factor will give you the best Precision, the more you enter weight. So I also recommend doing it every day in the app. And what it does is it takes a 20 day, exponential moving average. Alright, so just in technical terms, that's what it is. And what it amounts to is, instead of it looking like up, down, up, down, up down, like your weight normally looks, it smoothes it out and shows you the true pressure or trend of your weight over time over over a roughly three week period. And it gives more weight pun intended to the more recent data points, which makes sense, right? Because you're not really the person you were three weeks ago anymore. But the change since then does tell us what's been happening to your body. So that's the weight trend algorithm. And when I work with my clients, every week, we do our check ins, I will focus on the trend, and I don't really pay too much attention to the scale. Now. No matter what guaranteed, clients will mention their scale weight, it never goes away, like Oh, my skin weight dropped two pounds. But then you say, my skin weight went up two pounds. And in both cases, my responses generally like, okay, yeah, we see that. And we see that that doesn't really reflect what's going on with your body. Because the trendweight has still been going in a single direction this whole time, right? Just because you had this big pop or this big drop, doesn't mean that that is your true change in fat mass, right. So the weight trend is really important in the app, because it's right on the dashboard. And every day, if you're wondering how much you quote unquote, way, rather than going by the scale weight, you can go by the trendway. And it smoothes it out over time. And it makes it a less stressful experience. So that's the weight trend, which you could do in a spreadsheet without the app. Yeah, but it's just a lot of work, then we get to the expenditure algorithm. Okay, so this is the beauty of the app. This is the beauty from the from the data side. Macro factor continuously updates your energy expenditure, which is your metabolism, how many calories you burn every day, based on two things, the food that you're logging, and the trend in your weight, how your weight is changing over time. So if your weight trend is even over time, if you're not gaining or losing weight, and your weekly average calorie intake was 2000, then it's gonna say your expenditures 2000. But then the next week you're expending, you might have logged 3000 calories every day. Yeah, this is totally hypothetical. Let's say you just ate a ton more the next week. And all of a sudden, your weight trend still stays the same. Well, what does that mean? Well, the app is going to say, Hmm, you actually ate a lot more food, but your weight didn't go up, therefore, you must be burning more calories. So we're showing a higher expenditure for you. This, this can happen in real life all the time. So for me, I recently had surgery on my left rotator cuff, and my expenditure in the weeks that followed, shot up like a rocket. And it did that because of the healing process. Most likely, also, I was getting more sleep, and that could have helped, but most likely from the healing process. And if I wasn't tracking with macro factor, I would have started to lose a lot of weight, because I'm burning more calories, but I wouldn't have known I would have eaten the same amount and I would have lost weight. And so macro factor helped me keep eating enough and actually increase what I ate over the last few weeks to maintain my weight and keep the energy coming in. So I can heal the best heal, I can recover as fast as possible, because that's the phase I'm in right now. And that's my goal. And so you can imagine all different scenarios where your expenditure changes quite rapidly, your lifting habits, change your walking, amount of walking changes, and so on. And unless you know how many calories you're burning, you don't know how much you should eat. And we're gonna get to that part. But my point is the expenditure algorithm algorithm and macro factor is probably the most science backed, unique feature that it has. Because it says here is how your weight trend has been changing. Here's what you're eating, based on your body composition, based on your lifestyle and preferences based on your macros. All these things go in as variables to the algorithm, we know how many calories you're burning. Now I get this question a lot, I get the question. Well, I don't see a way to connect my Fitbit or Apple or Apple Watch to macro factor to get the calories burned from exercise or to add my exercise? And the answer is because it doesn't need it. Two things. First of all, the calories burned number on your wearable is useless. The error rate is so high as demonstrated by the evidence that you cannot trust it at all. It's based purely on a calculation on an estimate. For an average, it may have nothing to do with your actual expenditure. Don't use it and therefore macro factor doesn't use it, nor does it need it. Because all it needs to know is here's what you've been eating. Here's how your weight has changed. Therefore we know how many calories you're burning. For all the complexity of the human body when it comes to what causes us to burn calories and it's way more than exercise right exercise is like 5% It's way more than that. You don't have to know you just need to know the in and out. I ate this much food. My body changed by this much weight, boom and it gets more complicated under the hood, but that's that's the general idea. Okay, so the expenditure algorithm is huge, because on any given day, I can tell you how many calories I'm burning. I have graphs over the last two years that show when I go into a cutting phase to lose weight. And this is seen with all my clients, you'll see it gradually go down, down, down, down with metabolic adaptation as your body mass decreases, and all the other things, you know, your activity level goes down, and so on. Conversely, when you're building phase will see it go up, up, up. And that's, this explains why some people think they're hard gainers, they have to keep eating more and more just to stay on top of that curve to actually gain the muscle and gain the weight. And also, it helps you remain it's so when you come out of a fat loss phase. One of the most challenging things for people is how do I sustain this, and you could listen to Carol's story on episode 95. And she talks about that, I think Alan Friedman also talked about a while back, what they find is even maintenance can be a little tricky, because your metabolism is starting to recover. So it's actually going to go up up up, but it may not go up like I think he may stall, it may go down a little may go up a little. And it'll help you each week, adjust your calories to stay at maintenance. And if that surprises you if the idea that when you're at maintenance you, you don't necessarily eat the same week to week. That's why you need the app. That's why you need to track your food versus your weight, because then you'll actually see what happens with your body. And you might find that, for example, Hey, I'm gonna start walking more, I'm gonna start walking an extra 4000 steps a day. And you'll see your expenditure go up maybe a couple 100 calories now you can eat more food without gaining weight. Isn't that where we want to be? So that's the expenditure algorithm. And then that leads to what Well, that leads to the gold in the app, which is the dynamic adjustments. This is where a lot of nutrition coaches are really just macro coaches that they calculate this stuff for you, you can calculate this stuff in a spreadsheet yourself, you can Google TDE or metabolism and calculate it. But guess what that number is a fixed number in time for statistics, that may have nothing to do with you macro factors taking your actual expenditure. And it says okay, this week, because you're recovering from surgery and your expenditure went up 200 calories. On Monday, when you check in with the app, you're going to eat 200 more calories a day just to maintain your weight. And as a result, your protein goes up maybe a little bit, and then fats a little and carbs come up quite a bit. And here's our new targets for the week. This is the feedback loop I was talking about it adjust the recommendations based on your logged intake and your weight trend change. And you can make this a tiny bit easier. For example, if you have a smart scale, I use a Bluetooth smart scale where I just get on the scale open the app, it beams the number to my app, my app goes Apple Health, Apple Health connected the macro factor. And boom, the weight is in there every day with and all I have to do is step on the scale. I don't have to do anything else. Right. So you can make make things easier. But anyway, the gold in the app is that it adjust your weekly macro targets based on your expenditure. This is huge. Okay, so enough about that. I think you get the idea. A few other things that I wanted to mention. First of all, is the macronutrients. Recently they came out with a huge update, literally just within the last few weeks with full macronutrient tracking. So in the past people said, well, macro factors not as good as say chronometer, because chronometer lets you have targets for your nutrients. And that was like the only distinguishing factor. Well, now macro factor does that. And I think it does a better than everything else. Because like, all the other features of macro factor, it takes the evidence, and it takes your personal data, and it combines the two to give you nutrient targets, for example, it will tell you, here's your iron target, if you're a male of this age, or if you're a female to say so for example, a female

Philip Pape  38:44

who's 30 years old is going to need probably more than double the iron that a male needs or postmenopausal female. And it knows that based on the evidence, all that stuff's programmed in, it knows you your gender, your height, all these things. And it says here's your target. Now, you can obviously change the targets as well. But it will automatically give you targets for everything for selenium, magnesium, calcium, saturated fat fiber, on and on and on. Even the sub elements are the amino acids under protein. So it's all the macros and micros, the vitamins, the minerals, even choline, everything's in there. And you can decide which ones you want to show on your homepage or pin them or whatever. You can decide which ones are really important. But at any given time, you can look at all of them for a given food or for your entire day. So it's awesome. So they just added that in case you're wondering and that's important to you. I use that with my clients if we're tracking saturated fat for example, or fiber and it's really helpful. Okay, the next thing is before earlier I talked about the psychology of dieting Okay, and I haven't even touched on that yet with macro factor. Why does macro factor not to shame you and not make you feel bad about yourself like the other apps? It's because it doesn't use any notifications, warnings colors, labels, judgment It doesn't consider anything good or bad, it simply shows you the data. So just to put it break it down really simply, if you are in a fat loss phase, and your target is 2000 calories a day, and you eat 2100 calories, it is simply going to show that data, it's not going to say that it's red, or you're over or anything like that. Now there is a little display on the food log at the top, where if you swipe, it can show you how much you are over under your target. And I like using that I like to see a negative number, when I'm in fat loss. Or if it's positive, that means I'm over. But it literally is just the number. Again, it doesn't tell you that that's good or bad. And you can hide that you could actually hide that in the settings. And you could just swipe and not look at it. It even gives you the option to not show alcohol, for example, if that's a concern for you. So it encourages consistency. Because the more data you put in, the more accurate you are, the better data you get to make those decisions. And then that creates a feedback positive feedback loop so you don't feel ashamed about your choices. And that's what we want that that's what leads to long term success. Okay, so it is amazing for that. And then, and by the way, I think Greg Knuckles, and I dived into that whole thing about psychology as well and the episode that he was on, if you want to check that out. Some other features it has just before we wrap up it, they recently added a couple other features before and after photos and body metrics. So again, this is something that users asked for. And by the way, they have a roadmap where they prioritize all the features based on what's most in demand. So if people really want something, they're going to add it, right, they're gonna have a desktop version, they're gonna have a coaching version, at some point, they're gonna have all sorts of things that people are looking for, before and after photos, so you can track your visual progress, body metrics, I've been using this myself every week, on Sunday morning, one of the things on my reminder list is do my circumference measurements. So I do my neck, my chest, my waist, my thighs, and my biceps, put them in there. And then over time, I can see progress toward my body composition, you can track your period. So for the women, this gives you kind of a holistic view of your health because you can track your period relative to your expenditure. And so if you're, if you have the type of body that's over responsive to your period, between the follicular and luteal phases, this can give you some insight into Hey, the here's how many calories actually burned more or less based on my period, if everything else is sort of consistent, and then you can export your data as well. So I'm sure a lot of the apps let you do that. But it's nice because it pretty much includes everything in one spreadsheet. Okay, now that you know I love this app so much, because I want tools that serve me, I don't want them to work against me, I don't like wasting time, I'm lazy. Let's just put it that way. I'm lazy, I want the best tool for the job. And so of course, I encourage you to try it out. Just to recap, macro factor uses dynamic adjustments based on your body, and lifestyle. It is built around the psychology of dieting and the scientific evidence of nutrition. So it makes it this fun, positive experience. And it is so easy to use from a usability perspective that you're gonna forget that you're really tracking food, I mean, it's gonna take longer to measure your food on a food scale than to log it. In some cases, use my link in the show notes, or search for macro factor in your app store. And then, if you want to support me, and support the show, enter affiliate code Wits & Weights when you sign up for the free trial, and you'll get an extra week to try it out. Last thing, I touched on this a little bit, but I want to mention it again. You might be wondering why a nutrition coach is telling you to use an app that calculates your expenditure for you gives you weekly calorie and macro adjustments and hold you accountable. Isn't that what a nutrition coach is for? And I love, love, love this question because it allows me to separate what I do from the 1000s of macro coaches out there. In my opinion, the job of a good coach is to help you get results as quickly and efficiently as possible. While and this is the important part while also learning the skills and behaviors to be successful. For the rest of your life. I want you to fire me when you're done and say I don't need you anymore. Thank you. I'm good. That's what I want. For example, okay, there, here are all the things that that don't have anything to do with macro tracking that you still will learn working with a coach, being consistent with your meals, logging, hitting your targets, balancing your food quality, your timing for your workouts, on your goals, supplementation, learning how to use a food scale, estimating food at restaurants, learning how to meal plan for your week for things like holidays, for travel, adjusting your training for fat loss or building muscle, managing hunger, managing emotional eating, managing stress, managing sleep, the list goes on and on and on. And the average time that I work with a client is six to 12 months, which isn't that long in the scheme of your life, but it's long enough to teach you everything you need to know because that's what I'm all about as education knowledge teacher, I want you to know. In fact, I tried through these podcasts and so Michael intent to get as much transparency information out there. So if you pieced it all together and did it yourself, you would be successful, right? But a lot of people need the extra guidance, right? And you're trying to get the results that you've been struggling to get with all the other programs and diets they've tried in the past, I've been there. And you want a sustainable approach, like if that's what you're going for something that fits you your preferences, your lifestyle, your body, so you're not dependent on anyone but yourself, to maintain your results forever. That's where coaching can help. So tracking your food is like 5% or less of the process, right, and it becomes almost like zero, once you get used to it, it's just a thing you do. It's a habit. And it doesn't actually matter that much after a while because what matters more is everything else. And I'm happy to let a piece of software do that part of it, so that you and I can focus on the deeper, meaningful changes to make better decisions for success. So a coach offers professional guidance support an objective set of eyes along the way. And I mentioned that my clients use macro factor from the first day in fact, from day negative four, because I asked them to start logging their food before we actually get on boarded. So we have some data to start from right away and hit the ground running. And they all love it. They all love it. What they love more, though, is how they don't have to stress about what to do, how to do it, how to deal with the roadblocks along the way. They can just take action. And then they have a coach by their side. They know what to eat, they know how to train, they know how it all works and why it works. So that they won't lose muscle or they won't gain the weight back. And at the end of our time together. They often decide I don't want to even track anymore, but then they have the confidence to reach their goals anyway. So if you're interested in my one on one coaching, which is perfect for individuals who are driven, focused, understand the value of strength training, and what those results that have been eluding them, click the link in my show notes to apply. I'll send you some questions and make sure it's a good fit. And if it is, we'll get started right away. Again, click my link in the show notes to apply for coaching. Don't wait if there's no time like the present, I'd like to say for episode 99 Brandon Cruz is back to talk about how to make fat loss feel easier to get get and stay lean. We all know that losing fat can be challenging, especially if you have a busy lifestyle, a lot of stress or a history of yo yo dieting. So we're going to discuss some strategies and scenarios that can help you overcome these obstacles and make it more manageable and sustainable. Go ahead and follow or subscribe to the podcast do it right now. So you get notified when that episode is out. That's all for today. As always, stay strong. And I'll talk to you next time here on the Wits & Weights podcast. Thank you for tuning in to another episode of Wits & Weights. If you found value in today's episode, and know someone else who's looking to level up their Wits & Weights. Please take a moment to share this episode with them. And make sure to hit the Follow button in your podcast platform right now to catch the next episode. Until then, stay strong

Ep 97: The Fun Side of Fitness and Finding Your “Optimal” with Dai Manuel

Today is all about FUN, a FUN-ctionally fit life with my guest Dai Manuel. You’ll learn how to balance personal and professional roles while prioritizing fitness. We’ll explore the concept of what “optimal” means in fitness and life, the role of ‘fun’ in fitness, and practical strategies for finding balance while living a fit life.

Known for his award-winning digital thought leadership and best-selling publications, he’s an extraordinary blend of business acumen and contagious enthusiasm. Dai’s journey as co-founder, COO, and CMO of an eight-figure retail company and a sought-after lifestyle mentor and executive performance coach is impressive and inspiring.

Navigating the balance beam of life’s responsibilities while keeping health and happiness at the forefront, Dai knows the struggle of the juggle. His philosophy is based on the 5 F’s: fitness, family, faith, and finances, all wrapped under the roof of fun, and built on a foundation of health.

__________

Click here to apply for coaching!
__________

Today you’ll learn all about:

[3:17] Meaning of fitness and fun in a FUN-ctionally fit life context
[7:43] Instant gratification fun vs. true meaningful fun
[10:10] Role of ‘fun’ in difficult but effective fitness activities
[15:36] Coping with constraints in achieving personal goals
[17:59] Definition of “optimal” in life and fitness
[25:31] Personal optimization considering individual circumstances and trade-offs
[28:32] Max thanks Philip for helping him prioritize his health and dropping 45 Lbs
[31:04] Having a big enough "why"
[35:15] Handling uncertainty and variability in personal optimization strategies
[43:13] Gravitating toward something that makes you nervous
[48:08] Giving people power and agency to go after a goal 
[52:01] Role of data and feedback in the optimization process
[54:39] One question Dai wished Philip had asked
[57:21] Where to learn more about Dai and his work
[58:45] Outro

Episode resources:

• Instagram: @daimanuel

• Linkedin: www.linkedin.com/in/daimanuel/

• Dai Manuel’s Whole Life Fitness Manifesto: 30 Minutes a Day for a Healthier Body, Mind and Spirit - https://amzn.to/3O4La9D

FREE 30-minute results breakthrough session with Philip ⬇️

https://witsandweights.com/free-call


Learn about 1-on-1 coaching ⬇️
https://witsandweights.com/coaching

Ask Philip anything ⬇️

• IG: @witsandweights

• Email: philip@witsandweights.com

• Podcast: Q&A voicemail

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

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Transcript

Dai Manuel  00:00

I understand what Optimal means for me, I understand what my expectations are of me and I also know why I'm doing it. And I think that is the clarity piece that people require to really fully answer the question that you've asked depends on what aspect of the our lives or life that we're looking to optimize, you know, because I always

Dai Manuel  00:21

recognize that there's probably areas that need more attention than others. And yet, we all like to do things that we do really well.

Philip Pape  00:31

Welcome to the Wits & Weights podcast. I'm your host, Philip pape, and this twice a week podcast is dedicated to helping you achieve physical self mastery by getting stronger, optimizing your nutrition and upgrading your body composition will uncover science backed strategies for movement, metabolism, muscle and mindset with a skeptical eye on the fitness industry, so you can look and feel your absolute best. Let's dive right in. Wits & Weights community Welcome to another episode of the Wits. & Weights podcast today is all about fun, a functionally fit life that is with my guest diet man. Well, you'll learn how to balance personal and professional roles while prioritizing fitness. We'll explore the concept of what Optimal means and fitness in life, the role of fun in fitness and practical strategies to find balance while living a fit life. In the world of business and lifestyle coaching there are people who talk about living a balanced life and then there are those who embody it meet demand Well, a man on an incredible mission to positively impact 1 million role models around the globe. As a super dad who leads by example, partner who keeps the flame alive by dating his wife of 21 years, and a high octane life enthusiast die showcases what it truly means to live a functionally Fit Life. Nova is award winning digital thought leadership and best selling publications. He's an extraordinary blend of business acumen and contagious enthusiasm some of that I've already gotten to meet before the recording here. days journey as a co founder CEO and CMO of an eight figure retail company as well as a sought after lifestyle mentor and executive performance coach is not only impressive, but also inspiring. Navigating the balance beam of life's responsibilities while keeping health and happiness at the forefront. dinos the struggle of the juggler is philosophy is based on five F's, fitness, family, faith, finances, all wrapped under the roof of fun built on a foundation of health that is a dynamic speaker, author and thought leader who's here to inspire you to take action and become the best version of yourself die. Thanks for bringing your energy to the show.

Dai Manuel  02:35

Thanks, Phillip. That's, oh, man, I'm stoked to be here. I really am honored for the opportunity to have this conversation with you today. So I know we've had lots of back and forth and lots opportunity to creep each other on social. And, dude, I totally love everything that you stand for. But also the fact that we're both, you know, we've got word fathers of daughters, man, and you got to band together my man band together,

Philip Pape  02:59

ya know, for sure. I mean, we both we both are at different stages of our lives, we can relate so much. And I'm sure the listener can as well. This is a fitness related podcast, as we talked about, and your foundation of or your philosophy or approach is based on a foundation of health and what you call functionally fit life. So I am about bringing the energy enthusiasm. So what does fitness and fun mean to you in this context?

Dai Manuel  03:24

Yeah, I guess. I mean, let's be to be fair here. You know, there's a lot of will say misinformation and redirects, especially when you start going down the path of trying to define for oneself? What does health mean to me, right, or what is being optimal? mean to me, and there's lots of different directions, we can go and we can objectify those answers, we can also objectify them. And it's usually best to have a bit of a blend, but it's the personal experience aspects, you know, that really solidifies everything or takes it from knowledge to wisdom, right? It's that application of the knowledge to create a certain result. And I'll be fair, for those that probably don't know my story, but I wasn't someone that naturally came to fitness. They came to it little bit later in life, you know, I'm gonna say later in life, like in my teenage years, I discovered fitness at 15. But prior to that I had, gosh, I was in a massive state of unhealthy you know, I was morbidly obese. And, along with that, a lot of other, you know, stigmas, especially on the mental health challenges and the bullying and, you know, I was just, it was tough place, you know, a tough place like anyone that's struggling with chronic health conditions, especially if it's more lifestyle orientated, you know, you can't help but look in the mirror all the time and be like, Ah, is that me? And and, you know, and that was an everyday occurrence and at 15 You know, looking in the mirror one day I was just like, I don't like who I'm looking at, you know, and I don't want to be like this anymore because the fear of stuff A stain that way, was not as great, or it was actually greater than the fear of changing. Yeah, and that's when most people are really ready to make a change. And, and so I started that, you know, it took me five years to get to that stage when it took me about, or just shy of two years to take off the weight and to develop a new lifestyle. And that really set me forward in this trajectory of wanting to help others with health and well being changes, you know, and taking control of their situation to maximize and optimize, really the life that they want, you know, and more or less get out of their own way, right and let things happen. And so, over those years, you know, now almost 30 years working in this space, I've heard it all. And I've done a lot of things. And so this philosophy has emerged, you know, the Whole Life Fitness manifesto was the book I published, almost eight years ago now. But it's really just a lot of very common sense type things. But as we all know, with common sense, it's not so common. And, and, but fun. You know, if you're not able to smile every day, there's room for improvement, you know, and I find that no matter what challenge I encounter, that inner confidence, I gained through the fitness aspect, you know, this ability to do hard things, to challenging things, and know that I have the resilience to not only bring me through it, but also to pick myself up when I fall because I do fall. And I follow a lot, you know, figuratively and legitimately. And so that fun and fitness aspect are so critical in that foundation of health, because when that's the foundation, solid, family relationships are better. My working relationships are better. You know, I show up more present not only for those in my life, but also for myself. And so that's sort of what emerged in the five s is really just alliteration to give people sort of some simpler and easier to follow context, when they start to use those filters to apply to their own life. Yeah, and there's,

Philip Pape  07:02

there's so much there to unpack. But I do want to dive in more on the, on the fun piece of it, right, because a few things come to mind, right is you've mentioned doing hard things. And I know from personal experience, even just doing heavy squats, it's it's a simple mechanical thing that you're doing with your body. But it's also a form of meditation and growth that like very few things in life that you're able to control and change your body with. And that then causes you to be confident with other things. And I just spoke to my client, Carol, who by the way, is going to be on probably the episode before this one when it comes out. And she talked about how she used to be very, she wouldn't speak her mind. And now that she lives, she speaks her mind. And so, yeah, I love that. So when we talk about fun, how can we separate the idea of instant gratification fun, from true, deep, meaningful fun?

Dai Manuel  07:57

Well, yeah, that's a great question. And and it's, I wish I had a very straightforward answer. And I think as simple as I can answer this is, you know, fun, and fulfillment, I think, coming hand in hand, you know, and I think all of us are sort of on a path to want to optimize our level of fulfillment, joy and happiness in our lives, right. And we can't help it. But when we're having fun, you know, adrenaline's going, we've got some other neurotransmitters that are firing in our brains, you know, giving us that dopamine, that serotonin, and that lightening of our mood, but also gives us that little bit of an edge to maybe push ourselves to do things that otherwise we would deem we're not capable. And I find that if you can keep it fun, keep it real, and just trust that things are going to be okay. Because it usually is that, that good things happen, you know, that's where it really change, not only takes hold, but we gain that, that ability to see ourselves as the change makers for our lives. And, and, and I'll be fair in the statement, because, you know, there's been periods in my life where I felt more like a victim of change, you know, and it's a tough place to be, it's really hard to find motivation, and to not continuously procrastinate or find other excuses to not do the things that we know, if we just did the more consistently, we feel better, you know, and, and, but it's a tough place to be, you know, and so that's a long winded answer to a very simple question.

Philip Pape  09:29

No, but it's, I think it's required to really think about and step back because some of the things resonate very much with me as a person who will be accused of will be accused of making light of things or being too positive about things. For example, I had rotator cuff surgery a month ago, and I've seen about it and everybody's like, man, it's really positive and then we'll have people that say, you know, I, I had a similar situation. I have to have more surgeries. I'm not looking forward to it. And I noticed there's just a different And in mindset of how people approach things, in terms of like positive psychology, and we want to be sure not to have what the term I've heard is toxic positivity, right, just like thinking that it's positive fun. So the idea of of the neurotransmitters and pushing us to do things we're not capable of, it sounds like what you're talking about, again, is, has to do with purpose, right? It has to do with growth, personal growth, purpose moving forward. And what what do you say to somebody who wants to take a journey of growth, let's say it's physical health, and they just don't like what it's going to take. So they know that that, that they need to do something in a training room, something nutrition room, and you give them 10 options. And for whatever reason, it's just because of their life experiences. I don't want to do that. I don't like to do whatever. How do you do you try to make that fun somehow? Or do you have something that gets the flywheel momentum going, that then makes it fun, because of the results?

Dai Manuel  11:02

That's awesome. I love that. I love how you frame that Phillip and and because these are conversations that you and I both have very regularly with our clients, you know, and just probably our conversations on social media, because people know that we do suffer from a chronic ailment called PMA. And for people that don't know that it's positive mental attitude. And it's chronic. And yeah, my wife and I are, we're guilty, we're sick of it. We're sick of with PMA. And so I can appreciate that sometimes people will just say clam up, you know, if they get around people with that kind of outgoing energy. And, you know, I am sort of more introverted in certain ways, but I'm also extroverted in certain ways. And, and I think everyone has that ability. And here's the interesting thing is to answer your question, you know, when we think about change, all of us at whatever stage we are in life have experienced a tremendous amount of change. You know, like to get to wherever we are, we've gone through lots of changes, and it's, it's a given, it's a truth, you know, Buddha like 2600 years ago, he's like, hey, you know what, this whole universe of ours is completely impermanent, constant state of change energies, exchanging from one thing to the other, and, you know, law of entropy science caught up, you know, about 100 years ago and said, well, Buddha was right, you know, everything, just a bunch of space, and everything's changing. And, and yet, I think a lot of us feel like Indiana Jones and Raiders of the Lost Ark, you know, there's a big boulder barreling down up behind us. And it's a great metaphor for change, you know, and we feel like we're just trying to escape it. And what I like to do is invite people to share with me, tell me their stories of where they've experienced changes, that created a positive result, even though the experience of the actual change might have been negative. And because we've all had that, you mean, change isn't necessarily easy. Otherwise, we'd all sign up and say, Hey, can you give me some more change, please, you know, like, people aren't really lining up for it. Right? And especially when it comes to health changes, because yeah, are they hard? Yeah. Are you having to rewire the brain to now create a new habit to override an old habit. And if that old habit was a 10 year habit, it's not going to just go away in one or two workout, or one or two salads, you know, like, it takes a commitment and consistent effort and a frequency. That is enough that it offsets the negative, you know, and, but it takes commitment. And so I find when people share a story, I'm like, Man, you can handle change, you've done it before. Why is this health change so challenging? You know, and often, you've probably heard about 1,000,001 excuses. And I always say excuses, because they really are, you know, for the most part, and when your fears in the same excuse more than once, it's a habit. And so it's just a matter of having a good conversation to help people see that they are capable. And I find once they have that belief, and that inner confidence that at least is enough to get the momentum starting or create enough for nursing for that first step, that first squat that first squat off the couch. Right before you take your first step on this new journey. And, and that, yeah, and I mean, what are your thoughts on that? Like, I'm sure you've had so many different conversations on this. Yeah, I love how

Philip Pape  14:25

you put when you mentioned a frequency, that's enough to offset the negative. What came to mind to me was the idea of attacking resistance of now we have two sides of the scale here. One is our actions. And you can call that willpower or discipline or taking that first step. And on the other side are all the things whether they are excuses or just real things that are very hard for people to overcome. What can you do to reduce that side of the ledger, right, that's actually easier potentially then taking that action, and then taking the action becomes even easier now. Now some of that also might be extremely look like coaches, and your spouse or people who support you where they're just pushing you to do it. And that's your that's what you need. And then you are taking the action. You're like, I don't like this the next day, I don't like this. And then the third day, well, look what happened this week, I'm feeling great. And like you said, the result produces the motivation from there. They're Correct. That is my, that is my thought die. But I do like a spectrum of people, because there are people who are very just inherently, you know, yours, they're yours. And it's okay, it's okay. They just need a different type of communication style and maybe love from people.

Dai Manuel  15:37

Well, I was gonna say, Philip, like, even just listening to your podcast, I think this is a wonderful example of a positive input. You know, it's like, what do we feed our minds with every day? Right? Like, because there were our brains are sponges, you know, it has the ability to pick up and learn new things, to adapt to evolve to, to be resilient, you know, and allow us to, to grow into whatever vision we have for ourselves. But, you know, we have to challenge the inputs, if the outputs are not the results that we want in life. And, you know, so that means the, like, Jim Rohn, used to say, what are the net, some of the five closest relationships that we have are the people that we tend to hang out with the most. And I think there's a lot of truth in that, you know, there's power in association. And so if you're hanging out with a bunch of people that are also yours. I mean, you don't know any other way. You know, like, it's just that's normal to your world. It's just Yeah, it's exactly right. It's your world perspective. And, you know, and I've been down that path, I've had many points in my life where my perspective, was not serving me, but I wasn't really aware of it. And nor was I willing to open my eyes to it, you know, until Usually, you have one of those, Oh, heck moments, you know, where it's like, wow, there's a big change that's looking like that boulder that's coming down my path. And if I don't make a change, right, now, it is going to squish me. And there's going to be drastic shifts in my life that are going to happen as a result. Do I want that? No. Why don't I want that? Well, here's why. And then getting back to that, why, again, that purpose that meaning, which, you know, as Nietzsche said, you know, like, it's like, with a strong enough why we can endure anyhow. And I think there's valid, you know, if you have a big enough purpose, it doesn't matter, the challenges that come it will help you through it. I agree. I agree.

Philip Pape  17:26

And having and once you have that purpose, it sounds like another area that people struggle, and you alluded to this was the the input output system, right? You mentioned inputs and outputs. And that speaks my engineering mind is that we can either have an open system or closed system, and if you don't close it with feedback on the output to the input, then you just aren't aware, you're just not aware of all those models are helpful for people to understand of why we do things, why we track something or you know, collect, or listen to a podcast and so on. So that leads me just quite naturally, not intentionally, but quite naturally talk of optimization. And what is optimal mean, right, like, in the context of physical mental health. To me, when I hear the word optimal, I at least have been conditioned on the word optimal from all the podcasts and things in the world. It's, it's as close to perfection as you can get. Right? That's the, but then the other side is, you're never going to be perfect. So what's best for you? And is that optimal? So what does it mean to you? What is it for me to do?

Dai Manuel  18:35

Well, so here's something that I had to learn, and I kind of learned it the hard way, because I think I was resistant to it initially, especially as I was aging, you know, enter into my 30s, mid 30s, especially, you know, I was still able to train at high intensities, like very, very high intensity really challenged myself and, and yet, my body was changing. You know, it was there were certain shifts, like things that we do in my 20s, where if I tweaked something, the next day, I'm, well I can go lift again, or I can go train again, like I just would sort of work through it. And it felt like my body was more resilient, or just had this better recovery ability. And, and, you know, it may have been true, it may not have been, you know, it could have been just my 20s and my my stubbornness to just push through it. But then as I got into my 30s, and as my kids were getting older, I realized that I had to sort of shift things because my life was shifting. And so I had to challenge sort of my belief systems around what is optimal, especially when it comes to health and fitness. Because it's such a big part of my life, just like yourself, like it's been an integral foundational piece for me. It's really what got me started on this trajectory that had been on you know, since I was 15. And I don't discount that, you know, it's important to me and yes, I have to keep honoring that piece. in me that knows that if I maintain certain levels of fitness, my health resiliency, my ability to manage stress, my autonomic nervous system, you know, it's in a much better place. And in my mid 30s, in the years, there was a sort of that critical moment where I really had to own this. And it was forced upon full disclosure forced upon me, you know, I did a Tough Mudder it was the first time they came to Canada, they did it up at Whistler BC. I went out for it, we had a number of friends that came and did it with us, it was amazing. I love those kinds of obstacle course races, like I really enjoy it, like Spartan, Tough Mudder. Like, I just, I love them, I love them. And I don't do it to race it, I do it to complete it, just to say I did, and I can and I will do it again, you know, and, and after that first Tough Mudder experience. And full disclosure, I'm not a runner. Okay, I'm not a distance runner, I'm a straight sprinter. I do not do long distances, because I do have a lot of muscle mass, and I just I don't really enjoy running long distances. I'm preaching to the choir here. But but my thighs got chafed. And a little bit of a rash. After all that, you know, it's like just about, it's about a half marathon distance. And I'm not conditioned for that. So I got this little bit of scrape within the next 24 hours, this this infection to cool, and my body was systemically shutting down. And we rushed me to the ER, they took a quick blood test. My neutrophils flatlines. And neutrophils is what neutralizes viral infections and bacteria. And they were like, like what's going on here, they thought maybe I had a form of leukemia that I was undiagnosed. And so there was a lot of fear setting in at this point, right. And I ended up being hospitalized for 10 days, you know, and they had me on this like massive antibiotic drip, and they're pumping me full of Neupogen, which is a common biological drug that they use to treat people that are finding various forms of cancer because it bolsters your immune system and gets your bone marrow over producing neutrophils and other important pieces for our ability to recover and defend ourselves. And anyways, my immune system crashed, and three bone marrow biopsies later and a series of other tests, we are able to determine that I have an autoimmune condition that I've probably had all my life up to that point, but I've never really been challenged to that extent. And so all of a sudden, I became hyper aware that wow, certain ways that I eat certain ways that I manage stress, certain ways that I train, you know, especially if it creates huge inflammatory responses that can be really challenging on my immune system. So all of a sudden, you're I'm in my mid 30s. And I've done things a certain way for so long. And I was like, you know, what, I'm gonna have to adapt, I need to change, I need to adapt, I'm gonna train because I've got this underlying chronic health condition, that's not going to go away. But yet, I do not want to compromise my quality of life, I still want to be able to do all the things that I want to do, I want to experience all the things I want to experience I want to I want to live life, you know, to its fullest, no matter my age, and it's not an excuse. It's an input. No, it was and but it was challenging, because I had to discover new ways of doing things new, especially around training. And nutrition. Nutrition was the the biggest one actually, and but after I enjoyed that, and work through it, you know, it took a couple years to really develop a new lifestyle from that. It unlocked something in me, you know, and as I pivoted into my 40s, and now I don't, I'm just looking down the barrel of the gun at 47. I'm actually the fittest and healthiest than I've ever been in my life. And it didn't happen by accident. But that critical moment at 35 shifted my trajectory entirely. And I had to learn a new way of doing things, but man, it helped. And so my idea of being optimal now is really, it's all about longevity and vitality, being able to be the best version of myself and be present for myself and my own life. And to live a life where I can say yes to the challenges that presented to me, you know, and I had a client of mine, he wanted this year, we always like to send a big physical goal, you know, because there's also a huge mental piece to those big physical goals. And we decided to do the West Coast Trail, you know, he was going to do it. And it's an 80k hike and off grade out in the bush in the western coastline of Vancouver Island and very rugged hike. And I was like, You know what I'll do it with and if I didn't have that belief in myself, and that confidence in my health, my ability to to just navigate that. I wouldn't have said yes. And I would have missed out on one of the greatest things that I've ever experienced in my life, you know, so that anyways, big, big, long winded story that sort of tried to give you some context there around what Optimal means to me

Philip Pape  24:46

a lot and context is everything. Because that that that that leads to some follow ups that I wasn't planning on asking in a sense when it comes to anyone determining their optimal because you mentioned health, longevity, vitality, you know, and these are great words, but we want to, we want to define things. And we also want to talk about what's relevant to different people, because here's where I'm going different people of different ages, different phases of their life, like you said, in your 20s, very different from your 30s. And then when you discover your autoimmune condition, and many of us as we get older, have injuries, and you know, stress is higher, and there's lots of changes. So where you're starting on where you want to go, and the balance, there are trade offs. So where I'm going is there are trade offs to everything. So for example, if someone is, is just getting started with their lifting, and said, Well, I want to live a long life, do they? Do they compromise some aspects that you care for, for longevity, because they really want to focus on getting super strong, and eating more food, which they wouldn't do forever? Because it could impact on longevity, you get what I'm saying? I do all the all the health goals, we have performance, physique, longevity, they sometimes conflict. And so what are your thoughts on that?

Dai Manuel  26:02

That's a great point. Wonderful point, actually, Phillip, and I appreciate you giving me that sort of clarity around that question. You know, and I guess I just to play with the example that you shared with someone had this goal to be super strong, right. And it made me put on quite a bit of muscle mass in conjunction with that. So obviously, their calorie intake is gonna go up. But also their volume, you know, the training volume will probably go up as well, especially when it comes to loading time and attention, all that other good stuff, but my biggest question is going to be why? Why What? What is it about that goal that's really pulling me right now? You know, and it is a goal should be pulling, not just pushing, right? You're pushing yourself to go for the goal. But that goal? Is it like a magnet pulling you towards it? And why? What is the outcome? Like? What does it look like when you're there? Can you define what there is? Yeah, because I think it's important for them to understand what is that motivation, both intrinsically and extrinsically? That's helping them channel this energy and commitment, because you're right, everything comes with a cost, you know, I'm gonna say yes to this, there's gonna be inevitably things we have to say no to, you know, it's like, oh, I wanted to drink my first Ironman, I'm like, Well, you want to do that and get super strong. You know, what, that may not work very well for you, you know, it's gonna be you're gonna be really eaten a lot. And you're gonna be training all the time. And then yet, you're running a successful business, you know, you put in 56 hours a week plus your family time, like, when you're gonna make it all happen, right? Like, let's get real, that struggle with a juggle is legit. And, and so that's just one example. I think it has to be more context through conversation and clarity through through dialogue, you know, and, but I know for myself, when I have those inner conversations, it's always nice to talk to somebody externally, you know, whether it's a coach, a mentor, an accountability partner, I mean, whatever that is, it's nice to say, have a sounding board to sort of speak through the ideas and the things that we want to accomplish or do and yes, and recognize, it might just be a season of that. You know, and that season could you know, I'm not saying it's like three months, like a quarter in a year like it maybe it's a couple of years that will be your commitment. And I'm like I look at professional bodybuilders I mean, they have an offseason guys and so it's recognizing this and that the seasonality of it all as well.

28:33

That's a Philippe an awfully for a long time and know how passionate he is about healthy eating, and body strength. And that's why choosing to be my coach. I was no stranger to a dieting and body training. But I've always struggled to do it sustainably really helped me prioritize my goals with evidence based recommendations, or not over stressing my body and not feeling like I'm starving. In six months, I lost 45 pounds without drastically changing the foods I enjoy. But now I have a more balanced diet. I weight train consistently. But most importantly, I do it sustainably if I scientifically sound healthy diet and a Langstrom body is what you're looking for. Really paid Easter guy.

Dai Manuel  29:18

I competed for the first time again in the CrossFit open this year. But I taken a hiatus for about six, seven years. I had a couple of hernias, and he talked about injuries, a shoulder injury, I could list off all the injuries I've had right and and so I just wanted to take a break from the competition side of things. So I could just get back to a place of just feeling great waking up in the morning not feeling any aches and pains and but it took a lot of time for me to really focus on mobility, flexibility, as well as conditioning with bodyweight exercises, calisthenics. And so I took a break from lifting for a while, you know, and my body thrived. And it was awesome. And, and then I started to introduce weights again, but I'm not gonna go for one rep max is I think going for three rep max is that real often, you know, unless it's a testing cycle and the beginning or the end of like a cycle of training. And that works for me. You know, it works for me. And because I understand what often means for me, I understand what my expectations are of me. And I also know why I'm doing it. And I think that is the clarity piece that people require to really fully answer the question that you've asked, you know, yeah,

Philip Pape  30:26

yeah. And I want to I want to come to the why I have a question related to that. But first, the the concept of mixing things up and all these things you've tried and experimented, that strikes me as a very valuable thing to do, as well as sometimes you don't know. Why not? Not that you don't know, the deep why behind your overall activities in your life, but sometimes you don't know whether or why to do something specifically, right. Like, like you said, the CrossFit Games, somebody might be interested in that. And when you ask them why, just because because I want to, there may not be a deep way to that one, in my opinion, I think because because of personal experience, even though there's a bigger why to their life. So Right? In trying to figure out your why I'm assuming there's no wrong answer, right? Everybody's wise or why, right? How does how does someone do that? When they when they just want to try something for the first time, let's say they want to get shredded, you know, like, like they, they've gone around, they built all this muscle. They're like, You know what, but those bodybuilders do I know, it's crazy. Everybody said they're miserable at the end of the cut. I don't care. I really want to see if I can do it. Is that a good enough? Why? You know what I mean? So what are your thoughts on that?

Dai Manuel  31:30

I think that's it, I think it's absolutely correct to say is a is it a big enough? Why for them it is, you know, just to prove to them, because it does require like to get to that level of leanness is a commitment. And it is not easy at all, you know, I, for a longest time of my past company, one of our key guys, you know, was professional, natural bodybuilder, you know. And so during the season, though, especially when he was cutting for competition, I was miserable. Really walking around on eggshells, and he had his watch and his phone, he had all these redundancies set, walked around with this massive cooler, and it'd be like, I'm not gonna go talk to that customer now, because my watch went off a minute ago, and I gotta eat right now, you know, and there was like, just the level of rigidity. And non negotiables. It was, was immense. And, but for him, it was the mental challenge of it all, you know, like mentally sound like I have never met somebody so committed to to an end result. And it's also why he's been extremely successful. You know, in every competition he's placed in the top, you know, and it's phenomenal. But it came with a lot of, I'm gonna say the word sacrifice, for sure. You know? And so, the why, and I think this is kind of the interesting thing, you know, we think about, like, what's the meaning of life? While it's like, well, what's the meaning of life to you? And whatever answer that person gives, great, that's true to them. There's no right or wrong. It's that's their perspective, you define the meaning, you know, in life. And I think the same can apply with the why. And if it's just to prove that, hey, I can do something really hard, just to say I, I've done it, and I've done things like that, too. And I did stand up comedy as an example, like, I needed a challenge. And it was something that intimidated the heck out of me. And I was like, gosh, getting up on stage for five minutes and trying to make people laugh. Well, that sounds really freaking hard. That scares the poop out of me, you know? And I was like, You know what, though? I want to do it just to say I could I did it. And you know, and then after I did it, I was like, Man, can I do it again, I repeated it. I did it a second time, you know, and now I've had a break for a number of months, but it was just, it was nice, you know, to do something that I was so intimidated by. And to come out on the other side after it all happened and realize, you know, what, it wasn't as bad as I envisioned it was gonna be. Yeah, and, and so that's, you know, again, some stories to sort of get some context here. But that's some of my beliefs around.

Philip Pape  34:03

Yeah, but that's another very powerful thought that doing something intimidating. You said, quote, doing something intimidating was nice. And there's a lot of in that, Steven, because I can think of any time I've done something scary. Like for me in Toastmasters, doing speech contests was scary. They're still scary and still do them. And I've actually blinked out on stage and I still do them. Because I know there's some growth that comes from that regardless, and things are easy, you just don't get that growth from right there. You know, they're easy. There's, it's kind of like in positive psychology, there's a model of oh, what is it here? It's flow, you know, the flow model getting into flow, where the optimal state of flow is the right balance between skill and challenge. So if your challenges and is too high, you're just gonna have anxiety because there's no way you could possibly deal with it right now. But if the challenge is just past your skills, It's getting in that state of like deep, undistracted flow toward that. Anyway, I'm also getting off on tangents I know,

Dai Manuel  35:07

it's I think it's all relevant to the conversation we're having. I love it. I absolutely love it Filipino, I love the way your mind works as well. So, continue, continue.

Philip Pape  35:16

So if somebody, somebody says, here's how I want to do this, you've had those conversations, they challenge themselves, maybe have good people in their life to challenge them. Yeah. And then they want to take the steps forward, we know that on day two, your plan goes out the window like this. And so, you know, at least the way I put with my clients is like we don't, we're never almost never going to be on the path, but we're going to be somewhere near it. And we'll end up in the destination. Right? Right. And so you've got to have the if then kind of choices and, and contingencies along the way. So given that there's uncertainty, that there's change, that there's complexity, how do you adapt your strategies to quote unquote, optimize? So you keep, keep going forward? Yeah,

Dai Manuel  35:59

I guess it depends on what aspect of of the our lives or life that we're looking to optimize, you know, because I always recognize that there's probably areas that need more attention than others. Yet, we all like to do things that we do really well on, you know, and so it's also finding sort of that, that ability to shift between those two areas and recognize that now, there's gonna be some of these things, I'm gonna have to develop new skills. You know, it's things I haven't done before, I've never done very well, well, it's gonna need some extra time and attention, maybe some extra resources, maybe I need to hire a coach or someone to support me through that. You know, like, I do workshops frequently. I recently did with my younger daughter, you know, we went and did a gymnastics workshop that focus predominantly on rings and handstands. And why because I'm a big dude, man, I'm too tan, you know, like six wine. And there's nothing light about me and trying to do gymnastics, especially in rings. This top, you know, really tough, it's hard on my body. And but I also know, it's like, I don't, I believe I have the strength. But I know, I don't have the technique and the skill. So you know, we did a six hour workshop, and it helped by the end of it, you know, I was doing muscle ups. And it was awesome. I was like, wow, you know, like, and and so that confidence and that confirmation that I can do something that I believed I couldn't do before. That was the piece that really solidified Why are committed to doing it, because I love having those little self discovery moments. Where it's like, holy smokes, I did it. Wow. Wow. Like I always laugh about Nike just do it. What a great slogan. It's awesome. But you know, what's better than that? I just did it. You know, like, That is freaking amazing. Because it's the completion or the result of the action that we committed to doing especially when a lot of times there's huge uncertainty, we don't know the future thing, or what will happen when we try that thing. You know, and so it's self trust, I believe that we did, we sort of foster in ourselves as we just navigate these paths, as you mentioned, and but also remember, and sometimes you gotta go bushwhacking. There might not be a path there for you to follow. So it's okay. It's okay. You know, you're capable, you're in what's the worst case scenario? You know, I always Tim Ferriss, that TED talk. He did not. I mean, I don't know how long ago, maybe 1516 years ago, but you know, he talks about fear setting exercises, you know, this idea of just asking yourself, you know, what's the worst thing that could happen if I go and try to do this thing? You know, he's taking that sort of stoic philosophy, and he's applying it to that, you know, and just saying, like, what is the worst case scenarios? Yeah. Because when you start to look at it, you can actually logical take over, because a lot of it's fear based, right? And then all of a sudden, when you let logic sort of look at, it's like, Does that really happen? I mean, I guess it could, could aliens come down? And you know, like, yeah, man, it could happen. But well, now I'm gonna be able to do Spartan that day. That is true. And so but I found that exercise really, really powerful for myself, because it helped me eliminate a lot of these fears that I knew were there. But it couldn't necessarily articulate or reason through. And sometimes you just got to go through that process, you know?

Philip Pape  39:13

Yeah. Now the exercise specifically, you're talking about, I was just asking, what's the worst that can happen? Is that what you're saying? Yeah. No, I love that. Because even if so, I had mentioned before flow and challenge and everything, but even if something does seem insurmountable, why not try it anyway, potentially, and at least push yourself toward that, you know, thing. You mentioned that new challenging things require extra resources that stuck with me too, because it brought up two things. One is the idea of balance of you can't be doing challenging things all day necessarily, because you get burned out. I can tell you I can go all day and when my brain is starting to feel tired before my body feels tired. I know I've just been doing too many just on things and I have to go and sit or go for a walk to talk to my Why for play video game? I don't care what it is something that requires no brain power whatsoever. Yes. That and then also, the fact that when you have a new, very challenging thing, especially when it's brand new like, it can be, like you said, lifting the bar for the first time, or whatever for me when it was 12 years ago, joining Toastmasters for the first time, and I had never done this before, of taking the time and decide what do you need in your life to support that, like, don't just walk around, you know, hoping that it'll work in the same way all of your high strength existing skills work, but rather, do I need a group to join? Do I need to read a book? Do I need to join a course I get a coach, just take time to think about it in my daily schedule and so on. I'm not really asking a question here other than trying to connect with everything you said, because I think it's great.

Dai Manuel  40:50

I agree. I agree. You know, Toastmasters for me, it opened up a whole new path in my life. Yeah, because I was intimidated by public speaking. You know, like that, that idea of speaking in front of a group, especially large groups of peers, or people, even people in my own industry, even though people that I believe I'm part of the same tribe like that intimidated the heck out of me, like, very, very much fearful of it, you know, and definitely, Toastmasters was that thing that allowed me to channel through it. And I'll do I still get nervous as all heck yeah, I do you my hand sweats my heart rate race. Yeah, it all does. But I can channel that that sort of anxiety or anxiousness into something that can make an impact. And that was why I wanted to do it, because I believed I was being called to do something more. And I think we all are on that path. You know, we all have that Inkling. And so it's pulling us to do something greater than we thought we were capable of doing. Because we do have that potential. That it's just unfortunate. And a lot of times it goes unrealized, you know, and all it took was a mentor to tell me like when I asked him, I said, Listen, that you were amazing at this, like, What's one thing I could do to just be a little bit like you. He's like, I'll give you one word, Toastmasters. That was a Friday conversation. I went home and I Googled on the Toastmasters website, I found my nearest club location I showed up at the Monday morning. And it was called Early Edition Toastmasters because they meet at 630 Monday mornings. And it became a part of my every day for the next four and a half years and then eventually moved on because we moved and relocated. So I found a new club, but it's always been a part of my life, you know, and it's helped so much, so much. I think it's

Philip Pape  42:23

an amazing organization. And it's I've talked about on the show multiple times, and I've met guests who I had no idea and after afterward, they're like, Hey, have you heard of Toastmasters? I'm like, yeah, absolutely. I everybody I tell everybody about, at least for me two things that will improve your confidence dramatically is lift weights, heavy weights and join Toastmasters. Like both others, right?

Dai Manuel  42:42

Yeah, but you're right, though.

Philip Pape  42:45

Yeah. Yeah, I agree what you meant. So you mentioned also the nervousness. And somebody somebody mentioned recently, she was starting a, she just started a podcast. So I love talking to people. So I'm coming up on episode 100. And I feel like I just started and I'm still have a lot to grow. But then I realized people just getting started, you know, have a lot of anxiety about the technical side, and speaking of people, and so on, and I said, you know, that just means you care. And it's something you should be doing, like everything that makes me nervous in my life, I continue to gravitate toward because I think there's value there. What do you what do you think? Oh,

Dai Manuel  43:20

I agree. 100%? It's my just, you know, sort of looking at that, as opposed to my own life. And you're absolutely correct. You know, and was it hard to make the commitment to even push myself to try those things? Yeah. Yes, I just trying one thing, but showing up the second time and a third time, you don't do sort of long winded circle here. You know, to get back to your questions like day two, the plan goes out the window was just that, but you showed up for day two, you know, you showed up for it, you did it day one. And then like I I still coach CrossFit, you know, I'm the film guy at the gym, like so just if the other coaches are sick, and they need someone to cover I'll go in, and I'll cover because I love the community element. I love coaching and helping people. And so I like to be part of that community and support it that way. And I always say to people, like, you know, especially when you get these new people here, I'm like, Yeah, sure they show up for that first session, right. And they might have done a Foundation's, and then they show up to class for the first time. Or maybe they just came from, you know, a regular sort of a Globo gym, you know, where they've had more of a traditional sort of history of training. Now they've been introduced to CrossFit for their time, which is very different than than what I was accustomed to prior to joining toes, sorry, CrossFit trying first time, but those people that show up for the second time, I'm like, good on you. You know, good on you. And I think it's phenomenal. And I'd like to remind people because I often will have these conversations with women and we talked about lifting weights and getting stronger and the confidence is for them. And so many women I've met and said I'd love to just be able to do a pull up. I love you know, the pole my dead weight on a bar to get like, you know what, that's a great goal to work towards. And you know, it will start with you know, maybe some ring ropes you know, maybe we'll get some some led to teaching rose will use a band on the bar will start to condition your body to be able to handle that. And here's the cool thing. I know you can do it, and you're gonna get there, and the day that you get that first pull up. That's 100% improvement. How often do you get to say I have 100%? Improvement? Like that's perfection right? Now after that it's diminishing returns. But yeah, regardless, to go from zero to one is always the most rewarding part of the process. You know, always and, and the confidence and belief that comes from that achievement is remarkable. And so I always encourage people this, yeah, you're gonna get started. And you're going to hit that first milestone, and realize it's the first of many, but that first one is so critical, because it will set the tone, as well as the path for you to follow after, you know, and so it's just maintaining your self commitment to that first milestone.

Philip Pape  45:56

Well, and I'm making a connection between that, that that first of something, and kind of the dopamine hit you get and like you talked about fun, that is a version of fun, and it's knowing that it's hard. Embrace that, right? Because knowing that it's hard means when you do it, it's gonna be fun. And we kind of connected it all back. I was thinking just this week. So I started lifting again last week with Max three limbs as the shoulder I'm not allowed. But I try to one arm deadlift, not a one legged deadlift one arm. And I was like, this is pretty cool. But I was all wobbly and weird. And you know, stabilization wasn't there. Because it's like, like, you're a newbie again. And it was all wonky and out of balance, but I did it. And then this today, I did it again. And like it was super solid and felt light. And it always reminds me how quickly, you know, you make progress. Like you said, eventually it's diminishing returns, but that initial burst, and that adaptation you get from it applies to anything, not not just physical. Don't you agree? That's right, everything. Yeah, absolutely.

Dai Manuel  46:56

I've really, you know, it's, it's awesome. But it's the, like, why I keep and why I've been coaching and mentoring people for almost 30 years now. Is I love being able see I told you. So I saw that potential in you. I teased it out a little bit. And you did it. And now you know you did it. And you did that you did that? I didn't do you did that, you know, and that is that fulfillment piece that I get? I just absolutely love that moment where they're like, Yeah, you did tell me and I did do it. And it's like, just seeing that in their eyes is like, oh, man, it's awesome.

Philip Pape  47:30

It's awesome. I agree. And I think it comes from maybe our confidence as well be knowing that it's going to work for them. So then that the counter to that just to be on the little slightly negative side here is true, people have self doubt, because they've tried many things to get that outcome. And we know and health fitness, this is all the time because I hear like, I hear people say I've, I'm in my 40s or 50s. Now the weights not coming off or whatever is not happening. And what I used to do doesn't work anymore. Or, you know, I run a lot and I work out seven days a week, why isn't it working? You know, I've been cutting calories for three years, why isn't working right? And be a little facetious. But how does someone get that confidence back without being manipulated or thinking that they're gonna meet up with another huckster or charlatan? Because there's so much out there? Yeah. How do we? How do we give people their own power and agency to recognize that and find that person?

Dai Manuel  48:26

I think the agency word is great, because that's really what it boils down to. Right. And but trying to think of an example, I guess, if you think about health, because, you know, this is talking about health, it's talking about fitness, you know, it's it's helping them achieve that first, when I find people with that sort of negative mindset, or that that maybe that disbelief that they can do it, because they've had so many previous experiences that has been able to prove this new bias that they have for themselves, right? Like it says, it is bias. It's like I have this underlying bias that I don't believe I can do it. And I'm like, Well, do you I understand what these biases do. You know, it's like little programs that run in the background, and you're gonna do whatever you can, especially your subconscious to prove that that's a correct belief. And so that idea of self sabotage is very, very real, man, I know how many times I've done it, okay. I don't think anybody is immune to it. But recognizing when it's happening is a skill that can be developed. You know, that self talk can be developed, it can be nurtured. And I think that's a good place to always begin, you know, it's that awareness piece, that mindfulness piece of oneself and some of those past beliefs being challenged. And I find the simplest way to do that is helping them achieve a win very early on very early on, you know, something that does give that little dopamine hit, right, but also it's like, whoa, okay, I didn't believe I could lose this. This extra five pounds. And yet, I just did You know, and I'm like, Well, you didn't lose it, you released it. It's gone, man. It's never coming back, you know? Right, right. And they're like, oh, yeah, you're right, you're right. But But this belief, this belief is now being redefined. And it didn't take a massive shift and for 180 change in direction to make that happen. And also, it started with that smallest of wins. And I find that if you have that, and you have it early enough on, it's going to be the unwinding of a lot of those belief systems that might have been ruling your life up to that moment. And the, here's the crazy thing, is those belief systems, they're connected to all areas of our lives, all areas and impacts every, you know, every person, it's not just a fitness thing, it's not just a nutrition thing, you know, it's not just a men's health, it's everything. You know, and, and if you believe that it's an isolated thing, that doesn't affect other areas. I'm just gonna say, Iran, Iran, and if you look at the web of your life, you'll see that everything's interconnected. And so the way it there's that, quote, I forget who said it, but you know, the way you do anything, is the way you do everything. It's true. You know, it's true, like, you'll see that, that that belief system repeat itself in other ways. And so it's, it's important to learn a new way of doing things, you know,

Philip Pape  51:18

that, yeah, what you just said, reminds me of the broaden and build theory, from psychology, I think it's Barbara Watson, that last name, I should know this, broaden and build the idea that your personal resources spiral upward. Once you get these wins, or once you start to change your belief, like you said, on one thing, it just makes the others it unlocks the rest and it spirals. Opposite of a downward spiral. Right? Very good. And that's true. So the other thing that came to mind there die is like when we say I can't, if we can just use our logical brain and really dissect are we talking about a physical limitation in the law of physics, right? Like the law of the universe, like I can't fly. Okay. Logically, that's true. But 99.9% of the time, the I can't is more of a self limiting belief, like you said, not. And so just assume that you can, and see what that does for you. I don't know that's, that's my thought on it. Like,

Dai Manuel  52:14

yeah, I agree. And I'll challenge me when I hear that I'm like, No, I'd rather you just choose not to, you know, like, I want you to to be fully aware that you're choosing not to do this, it's not a matter of you're limited that you don't have the ability to do it, you're choosing not to do it. You're choosing not to prioritize yourself, you know, that's like, that's okay. But it's not, listen, you are talented, you are capable, you have been gifted this life, to accomplish cool stuff. And he keeps saying you can't do it, it's not a matter of can't, it's just that you're choosing not to own it. And if you own it, I'm okay with that. And you should be okay with it, too. You know, and stop complaining about it. Stop talking about it. Just own that that's your decision, you're not gonna do it. Like I had to get to that place of surfing. As an example. You know, we were living in Bali for two and a half years before the pandemic. And I was like, everybody serves here, man, it looks cool. I want to try it out a bunch of lessons can try in it and try it. And then I got to a place I was like, you know, I'm doing this because it looks cool. I'm not actually doing because I enjoy it. Because I don't enjoy it. Keep getting pummeled. I'm a sinker, I'm not a swimmer. Okay. And I was just like, No, I'm just I choose not to do surfing. I choose not to surf. I'm okay with that. But I had to get to that place to own it, you know, because I found myself saying I can't surf. I found myself saying that I hate it. My wife is like, she's really funny. But she's like, No, that's a four letter C word we never say in our house, you know, and

Philip Pape  53:43

like you choose not to serve, right? Yeah.

Dai Manuel  53:46

So I gotta get to a place to say I choose uncertified I'm, I'm okay with that. And I own it. And I've got no problem with that. I don't think about like, oh, man, I failed or I didn't like I got up this is just, I just choose i There's other things I'd rather do. You know? Yeah. And so, yeah, you're right, the way we talk to ourselves, the way we speak is so critical. And that's also something really valuable we went through Toastmasters right so that practice and feedback it's amazing to see some of the defaults that we have when it comes to communicating not only with ourselves, but especially with others

Philip Pape  54:16

agree and that feedback just gives you more knowledge of who you are and what you can do and you know the counter to the surfing example because that that reminds me of something that you you maybe could have gotten good at but you just chose not to do because he didn't enjoy it. The opposite would be you might be good at things and not enjoy them as well. Right? And it's okay just choose not to do them and Okay, so I want to respect your time. We only have a few minutes. I did want to ask one I could talk to you for hours. I this has been awesome. I

Dai Manuel  54:45

love the jam, jam and I love this man. It's been great conversation that

Philip Pape  54:49

but I do ask this of everyone on the show. So I don't know if you heard one of my shows toward the end and that is what one question Did you wish I had asked and what is your answer?

Dai Manuel  55:00

Well, you know, I heard this question and I've been thinking about it. And you know,

Dai Manuel  55:10

for me, it's rather cliche to be honest with you, you know, it's like, if given the opportunity to do anything different, would I choose to do it differently? Yeah. And I think about some of those really hard moments in my life. You know, really hard moments, like when I struggle with alcohol and narcotics, you know, is a great period of my life, there was really dark and you know, it's easy. There's a part of me that's like, I wish that never happened. Because there was there was a lot of shame and guilt wrapped up in that, in Ireland, a lot of a lot of self ridicule. And it's hard place to come from, especially when you're trying to make changes in Ireland because you feel like yeah, this Balanchine that's just dragging behind. Yeah, and, but it's those amazing struggles in my life. And I couldn't say amazing. Now, we're going through it, I wouldn't say it was amazing. But in reflecting, and after introspecting, and looking at where my life went, as a result of me saying, You know what, I'm worth the change. And I'm choosing my life over this thing that was consuming my life. I would do it all same. I would, you know, even knowing that that was the path I was on. And that was common, and I was gonna have to go through it again, I would do it. Because my life right now is a result of that moment in time that I had to go through that struggle. And that's something that I always think about, you know, like, and if I could redo things when I redo it, and because it's amazing how the mind works. Plus, I love sci fi, you know, you can sell my common butterfly. Yeah, just alternate realities.

Philip Pape  56:44

Yeah,

Dai Manuel  56:46

totally like the metaverse. Right. And and so I

Philip Pape  56:49

love you know how that story goes, though. The alternate reality, it's always worse. Correct?

Dai Manuel  56:55

Yeah. Well, that's what they tend to keep hammering that home. Right. And if it would seem that new Flash movie, they really hammered home in that quite well. But it wasn't a great movie. But anyways, I digress. But yeah, that would be the question. That would be the question.

Philip Pape  57:09

No, I love it. I thought initially, you were saying that my question was cliche. And I was like, where did you go with this? By No? Second? Yeah. Cool. Cool. All right. So last question, of course, is where do you want folks to learn more about you and your work? Hi. Well, thank you,

Dai Manuel  57:27

Philip, again, for today's conversation. And thank you for creating a space to capture these conversations. And now, all of us get to be flies on the wall and learn all these new perspectives. But also, it's hearing that one little nugget that shifts everything, right, it's just a min. And so thank you for putting so much value at all of us. And, you know, for me, I'm very active on Instagram, LinkedIn, I'm fairly active on Facebook, but I would say Instagram and LinkedIn, you know, easiest places to find me if you can spell my name right? You'll find me because I'm like, the only you know and dies a Walsh name for David dai men, well is Portuguese. And man, you El. I know people are like, whoa, that's weird. And I'm like, Yeah, it's weird. But I'm Canadian. Don't worry about it. Okay, so I'm just to blend and yeah, reach out Connect. I love having conversations. You know, I love hearing what people are proud of accomplishing, you know, what are they working towards? I just, I slept during story. So please, share, share, share, share.

Philip Pape  58:29

There it is. And thank you for filling this space. I mean, you talked about the space but thank you for filling it with so much energy today. To Burstein it was wonderful. I will I will throw the links in there for your IG your LinkedIn and also your book The Whole Life Fitness manifesto. I can see that thank you. People find out and that's it. Thank you again for coming on the show was a blast.

Dai Manuel  58:49

Philip, thank you. I honestly really honored and finally I'm in the process of prepping to get my own podcast. I can't wait to get you on so I can grill Yeah.

Philip Pape  59:00

I would love it. I love James. Good. Good.

Dai Manuel  59:02

Yeah, it's on. Take it easy.

Philip Pape  59:04

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

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

Today’s episode is about reverse dieting. This popular but controversial concept claims to boost metabolism, prevent weight regain, and make future weight loss easier by gradually increasing calorie intake after a period of calorie restriction.

I will discuss why reverse dieting does not work as advertised, the misconceptions behind it, and an alternative to reverse dieting that is more adaptive, less stressful, and allows your metabolism to recover more quickly from a fat loss phase, as well as scenarios where some of the approaches from reverse dieting might still be helpful, but for entirely different reasons.

__________

Click here to apply for coaching!
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Today you’ll learn all about:

[2:05] What is reverse dieting, and how it actually works
[4:52] Does reverse dieting really "fix" your metabolism?
[6:46] Does it boost your metabolism?
[8:26] Does it prevent weight regain?
[10:32] The four illusions that make it seem like reverse dieting is effective
[15:52] Stephanie shares her experience with her one-on-one nutrition coaching with Philip
[16:37] What is a recovery diet, and why it is better
[20:04] What is dynamic maintenance
[22:05] Psychological and physiological benefits of recovery dieting
[23:27] What to expect when you come out of a fat loss phase, and some scenarios
[27:17] Recommended tool to track your progress
[31:33] Outro

Episode resources:

• MacroFactor app – use code WITSANDWEIGHTS to extend your free trial

• Eric Trexler's article – Reverse Dieting: Hype Versus Evidence

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Transcript

Philip Pape  00:00

Reverse dieting is a slow torturous approach to coming out of a diet and recovery. Dieting straight to maintenance is simple. It's stress free, helps you recover faster, it gets you focusing on your new maintenance phase or building phase, rather than continuing to feel the effects of dieting longer than you have to. Welcome to the Wits & Weights podcast. I'm your host Philip pape, and this twice a week podcast is dedicated to helping you achieve physical self mastery by getting stronger. Optimizing your nutrition and upgrading your body composition will uncover science backed strategies for movement, metabolism, muscle and mindset with a skeptical eye on the fitness industry. So you can look and feel your absolute best. Let's dive right in Wits & Weights

Philip Pape  00:45

community Welcome to another solo episode of the Wits & Weights podcast. I hope you enjoyed our last episode 95 Where I interviewed my client Carol, who transformed her body composition and her mindset discovered a new love for strength training, losing 14% body fat and finding a deep seated confidence in herself and her abilities. Today for episode 96 Why reverse dieting doesn't work like you think. And what to do instead is about reverse dieting, which is a popular but controversial concept that claims to boost your metabolism, prevent weight regain, and make future weight loss easier. By gradually increasing calorie intake after a period of calorie restriction. Shocker, it actually does not do any of these things. And I will discuss why reverse dieting doesn't work as advertised the misconceptions behind it. And an alternative to reverse dieting that I use and my clients use, it's actually pretty simple. And it is more adaptive, it's less stressful, and it allows your metabolism to recover more quickly from a fat loss phase. But I will touch on a scenario where some of the approaches from reverse dieting might still be helpful, but for completely different reasons. So let's jump into today's topic, why reverse dieting doesn't work like you think and what to do instead. Alright, let's define reverse dieting. This is a very popular post diet strategy, it's been around now for probably 10 years or so maybe a little bit longer. It involves gradually increasing your calories over several weeks or even months to prevent weight regain or weight gain as you return to your calorie level. So imagine that you're on a in a fat loss phase, you're in a diet, you're in a deficit, maybe it's eight weeks long, 12 weeks, 16. Maybe longer than that maybe you're a competitor, whatever, and you want to come out of the diet. So reverse dieting says oh, here's what you need to do. Whatever you were just eating, increase it by 100 calories next week, and then do it again and again and again until your body recovers. And that way, you're not going to gain a bunch of fat right back. Right. That's the premise. And there's other claims that are made as well associated with the we're going to go into in a second. Here's the thing, there is no scientific evidence that reverse dieting is effective in increasing metabolism or preventing weight regain. And full disclosure, I spoke to Eric Trexler. On the subject. I read his article, the one about the hype versus evidence posted on the macro factor app. I and my clients and everyone I talked to that I recommend using food logging, use macro factor. And he has a financial stake in macro factor. And he addresses this in the article as well. But also, in from practical purposes, the science is clear. And the alternative that we use instead makes a lot of sense. And I use it all the time because I just find that it is super sustainable. And everyone who uses it loves it, you'll understand why and it works. It works more effectively than anything else. So the last thing about the whole Eric Trexler thing is that he effectively coined the term originally, so he kind of had an interest in seeing it be a real thing that was validated. And when it wasn't, you know, he threw up his hands and said, Hey, that's what the evidence is showing us. And that really comes down to the premise of our podcast here, which is skepticism. And I recently posted online, the idea that skepticism goes both ways that we have to not only question what everyone else is saying, we have to question our own beliefs. And that is something I will continue to do. And if whatever I talk about today, some day turns out to have a superior alternative. I will definitely you know switch to that if that's what the science shows works. But right now there's there's pretty clear, anecdotal, research based and coaching and experience based evidence that what I'm about to talk about is is kind of the way to go. And that's why I wanted to make a whole episode about it. So let's start with the claims about reverse dieting. And there, they're probably more than these, but I'm going to talk about the three big ones that come up all the time. The first one is this idea that it quote unquote, fixes your metabolism. And nothing can damage your metabolism, and therefore nothing can fix it. And what I mean by that is, when you are in a deficit, your body will adapt, your metabolism will adapt, we call this metabolic adaptation. And this is a natural response to weight loss, it occurs for several reasons. One reason is you're just losing body mass. But probably the bigger reason is the your hormones respond to the fact that you are in a deficient energy state, you don't have enough energy coming in. And so you just don't have enough resources to support every metabolic process in your body, and your body starts to triage, it starts to prioritize, and it will down regulate certain things up really up regulate others to get you back to that homeostasis. And that is why you get hungry. That is why you feel more stressed, there are many symptoms, most of which we would call negative that happen, as measured by our biofeedback during fat loss. But none of this is permanent. That's the beautiful thing about it is it's not damage, therefore it can't be fixed. And when you are ready to come out of the fat loss phase, and yes, you're hungry, and yes, you have more stress. And yes, you have more sleep and all these symptoms, and maybe hormonal dysregulation going on reverse dieting, is actually just going to slow the process of you coming out of that. And that's one reason, the claim just doesn't make any sense. Okay, your metabolism is going to recover regardless. And reverse dieting is going to make it take longer. And you're like, well, well, how do we do it faster? Well, I'll tell you that in a bit, that'll be the second part of the podcast today. The second claim is that it boosts your metabolism. So the first claim was that it helps it recover or fixes it or something like that, this claim is that it boosts it in a way that is beyond what you would get just by jumping up to your maintenance calories, or, you know, even in a if you wanted to take a break, let's say a diet break, and then you wanted to go back no fat loss phase. I've heard this many times and it's completely false. So if you're listening to this, and you believe this and you've heard it, or another coach is telling you this as a way to sell you into their program, please don't buy what they're selling. And that is, hey, if you take a break from your diet, and you do this reverse diet, it's going to increase your metabolism. So when you go back on the diet, you're eating more food to to lose the same amount of weight, nope, Bs, I'm calling BS on that, that does not happen. When you go back into your deficit, you adapt right back to where you were, the break a diet break, and I cover this in other episodes, a diet break is psychologically beneficial. And that's it, it is not physiologically beneficial, other than the things you take advantage of while you're in that break, like being able to push your lifts a little bit, or get more sleep or something like that, that then helps you recover. But it's not because of the extra calories in and of themselves. So that's one and reverse dieting may also give you this kind of false sense of security, when you think that that it's actually increasing your metabolism. And so then it causes you to over eat maybe or to binge eat once the phase is over. There's all sorts of side effects that we're not considering here that we should. So that's the second claim. The third claim is that it prevents weight regain. Okay, and this is the claim that, hey, once you're at the end of this diet, if you jump your calories too quickly, you're just going to gain a bunch of fat. This is not supported by the scientific research, which shows that the rate of calorie increase does not affect fat regain, or body composition after weight loss. Very important understand. So if you increase a signal, even if you increased way beyond your maintenance, and you jumped way into a building phase, you're still not going to gain any more fat than you would if you did it slowly over time and eventually got to that surplus. And in the process, you're prolonging the effects of the diet, you're prolonging the effects of the calorie deficit. And this actually is a negative for your body composition because it can increase the risk of muscle loss and hormonal disturbance, right? Because you're still your body still thinks it's in a deficit. This is actually in my opinion, the biggest problem with using this approach is that all the things people claim it's doing it's almost doing the opposite. You know, in a way it's not it's not damaging your metabolism. It's not artificially reducing your tablet. What I mean though is that it keeps you in a state that prevents you from full recovery for longer than you need to and what we are we trying to do when we come out of a diet we're trying to recover back to homeostasis homeostasis so we can get all the energy back we can get our hunger back down, we can get more sleep, reduce our stress, so we can go to the next phase. The next phase And our nutritional plan in our goals, whatever it is. Okay, so those are the big claims. Now in the article I referenced earlier, which is called reverse dieting hype versus evidence, and I am gonna link it in the show notes I have to give full credit to, you know, Eric Trexler. And everyone who's been behind all of this, he suggests for illusions, illusions, he calls them that make it seem that reverse dieting is working, or that it's superior to alternatives. And so I wanted to address these guys who think they're another lens to another perspective and think about this from the first illusion. Okay, so therefore, again, the first one is that the improved consistency from reversed from reverse dieting. Okay, meaning you're, you're only coming up a few 100 calories. And it's this very kind of rigid plan, stepladder approach, that the consistency from that can be mistaken for success, right. And I think this comes down to the fear people have, if they don't reverse die, the fear that they have, they jump up right away, then all of a sudden, it's going to throw everything off, they're going to gain a bunch of weight, and then it's going to cause them to want to go back in the diet or something like that. There's a lot of different reasons. But that's that's one illusion from reverse dieting that makes it seem more effective. Perhaps another illusion is that maintenance calories are, are this fixed number, right? When in fact, they are a range, right. So your maintenance calories have a lot of tolerance like we have, we have this ability for our body to maintain weight within a decent range of calories. But it's pretty fascinating too. Because if, if you've been in maintenance for a while, and it's pretty steady, and then you want to start building muscle, or going on a fat loss phase, you might find that if you just take a small, tiny nudge in that direction, your body doesn't really respond like it might actually take a lot. Now, eventually it will probably respond. But the good news about that is that when you get back to maintenance, the fear about all of a sudden gaining a bunch of weight is not really something to worry about because your body is very tolerant of those changes in calories. So when we get back to maintenance,

Philip Pape  12:14

we consider that somewhere around plus or minus three pounds, which is quite a bit for some people depends on what weight you are. And this leads to a misunderstanding of what we mean when we say reverse dieting. It's not like we're trying to find the magic number, right? We're not trying to find a magic number. I think some people have a fear on these first I'm like, I'm gonna eat my way up, and I might carefully tiptoe up there, and eventually I'm gonna find that magic number, but it's not fixed, it changes every day. Illusion number three, that the immediate calorie intake, versus the delayed weight gain from reverse dieting. makes it feel like you're going to gain a bunch of weight, right? Or it makes you feel like you're actually maybe in a surplus. Like there's this idea, there's this fear behind coming out of maintenance that my to maintain my weight, I need to eat not much more than me now. But I need to eat something higher than I am now, as opposed to a much higher than I am now. And there's a weird psychological and I see this all the time with clients where their maintenance calories might be 2300. And they've been eating in a 500 calorie deficit at 1800. And their diets over I'm like, Okay, well, let's go right back to 2300. And it's like, Well, wait, aren't I gonna gain? Like, that's 500 more calories a day? Aren't I gonna gain a pound a week with no, no, because you're actually losing a pound a week. So now you go from negative one to zero, right. And I know it sounds like simple math, but there is a pig psychological aspect to that of like, Oh, I'm going to gain a bunch of weight. So people don't want to all of a sudden eat a ton more food the next day thinking I'm going to gain a bunch of weight. Okay. And then the fourth illusion is not understanding cause and effect when it comes to weight changes. And I think this really comes down to when you come out of a diet, your body is going to start recovering. And the faster you can get back to maintenance is going to recover even faster. And as it recovers faster, that means your expenditure is going to go up and you're actually going to able to eat be able to eat more and more while still maintaining your weight. And again, this this kind of ties into the last one where people think of that big jump in calories and the associated with a big jump in weight. But when you're tracking when you're aware and when you know your expenditure. That's the beauty in this process is that now you are in full control to know what's going to happen. So we're going to talk about what that all means. If you want to know more about these illusions because I didn't really get into all the nuances. I don't want to take away from the original article. Eric goes into all of that. Check it out. Again, the link will be in the show notes. Here's the thing. Reverse dieting is not all it's cracked up to be. It's not even close and in fact it's worse I'm not, I don't like to use it at all with anybody and I would never recommend it. It doesn't repair boost your metabolism, it doesn't reduce fat gain. And it can prolong your deficit, it keeps you in metabolic adaptation. And it risks further muscle loss and hormonal dysregulation. And a lot of people might be listening to this, maybe coaches, maybe people have been preaching or talking about reverse dieting for a long time. They're like, No, no, this actually works. And I will admit, under a controlled situation where you, you do know your expenditure, but you're just taking longer to get there. And then eventually you get there. And there's some psychological reasons for doing that, which I'm actually going to touch on toward the end here. I think there's a place for that kind of approach, but not for the reasons that people claim, we do it not to fix your metabolism not to boost it not to prevent weight regain No, no, those are not valid claims.

15:52

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

Philip Pape  16:38

So what do you do instead? Alright, it's actually pretty simple. And I've mentioned it a few times already. Some people call this a recovery diet, instead of a reverse diet, whatever you want to call it. Or if you don't want to give it a name, that's fine. The idea is that when you're done with your diet, just increase your calories straight to your current maintenance calories. The key word there is current, okay, and the quandary here is that you have to know that number, unless you're properly tracking your expenditure. And what I mean by that is not a wearable device, or you know, the machines that you use, or what your phone says that you're burning every day, all those are up to 80% inaccurate, you cannot use those for expenditure. Instead, you have to be using either a spreadsheet or an app like macro factor. Based on two data points, you're changing weight over time, and you're changing or not, you're changing your calorie intake over time. Otherwise, it is a guessing game. And it is very reactionary. And that's probably why people use reverse dieting, because they really don't know their true expenditure right now. And so this is why I've always talked about the why it's essential to track scale weight and food intake during a fat loss phase. And by scale it I mean every day, so that you can get a moving average over time. And by food intake, I mean, you know your calories and macros every day. That way, you can easily come out of the fat loss phase when you're done. And then if you don't want to track at that point, great, but you'll at least have a starting point for your maintenance. So for example, with my clients, we track a 20 day moving average of weight, and we track weekly averages of calories. Okay, so now we have our scale weight and food loves to give us that information. And then we can make weekly adjustments. And as you're going through your fat loss phase, guess what's probably happening, those weekly adjustments are probably going down. Now there's a lot of fluctuation throughout the phase, depending on your movement, depending on your lifting on your recovery, if you're healing from an injury, and so on. And again, this is why we want to track this because it does fluctuate doesn't just go down. But but generally on average that kind of like the stock market up, down, up, down, up, down, but it goes in one direction over time, in this case down. On the very last week of your fat loss phase, we know your expenditure is this number. So let's say you started your deficit and you were burning 2800 calories a day. And now after 12 weeks, you lost a bunch of body weight, you've experienced metabolic adaptation. And now you're burning 2300 calories. Right? So you started at 2800. And now you're at 2300. Well guess what? That is your current expenditure. And we can recover to that immediately the next day after your fat loss phase is over. So if you're, you know, Sunday, you hit your goal and you're like, Okay, I'm done. I'm happy. I feel great. You know, I have the physique I want. I'm good to go back to maintenance and look with excitement toward whatever the next phase is. Okay. So what you can do is on Monday, set your new targets at 2800. Or no, I'm sorry, 2300 2300, because that's what you're burning right now. Now, people who use reverse dieting might not know that number. And they knew that they used to burn 2800 calories. They know that they're eating less, but they're not quite sure because it's not they're not eating and maintenance, right. They're doing it in a deficit. So they're not quite sure if they're exactly in a certain deficit. Whereas if you know your expenditure, you know that deficit is and you know that you won to close that deficit back to zero, and eat at those calories. Now, macro factor, which is the app I use, they call this dynamic maintenance, which is just a fancy term for your current and maintenance on on a given day, as opposed to an estimate a calculator a guess what a lot of people use. If you know this number, you can increase your calorie target to match. And then what I usually recommend is aiming for just a little bit above that number, when you start to eat, just to make sure that your body fully recovers as quickly as possible. And you're still going to maintain your current weight. I mean, this is a no fuss strategy, this is boom, come right back to maintenance, overshoot it just a tiny bit to make sure kind of to be safe. And why I do that is because as soon as you start eating more food, guess what your body's gonna say, Oh, thank you so much. I was dieting phase was getting a little long in the tooth. And now you're feeding me you've got you know, I've I've had protein, that's great. You've never really, you've never really deemed me on protein, which is great. But now you're giving me all you know, some extra fat and a lot more carbs, right? Mostly carbs. And, and now I can start you know, reducing your hunger and I could increase, I can reduce your stress, and regulate your thyroid and all these other things better than I could before. And all of a sudden, your body starts to become even less efficient, which is what we want, and it starts to burn more calories. And you actually then need to eat more to stay at maintenance and not continue to be in a diet. That's the crazy thing. If you were reverse dieting, you would be in a deficit for a long time. And even as you started to get closer and closer to that maintenance level, once you started to get to a true maintenance where your body started to recover, you're actually going to have to keep going up and up anyway. So let's not prolong the process. Let's go right away. And we're going to eliminate, we're going to eliminate this ironically, much more rigid, stressful need to track small jumps over many weeks in an unhelpful guessing game that drags out that recovery. We also know that this approach, the approach of recovery, dieting, of jumping right to your current maintenance is psychologically beneficial. Because you not only get to eat to the level, your body truly needs, what we were just talking about what it needs to kind of release itself right release itself from that stress now to get back to homeostasis and full function, but the resulting physiological response, like the weight gain and the energy and so on, it enforces that sustainable positive relationship with food. It's actually opposite of what we might think, right? People are worried that if I jump up, all of a sudden I'm gonna gain a bunch of weight, and that's going to cause some sort of disordered eating. And we actually find the opposite. And that's because your biofeedback quickly improves your hunger improves your energy, your recovery, your sleep. And here's the thing, even if you are afraid of a bunch of weight regain, because you jumped so many calories and I I see it all the time, I have clients who were getting to the end of the fat loss phase, they're super excited. But they're also a little bit trepidatious. About the maintenance, because it's like, oh, no, am I gonna get a bunch of weight? Am I gonna just start eating a bunch of junk food that I used to love my guests are binging and so on. And of course, we find that none of that is really caused for for concern, because we've put in place really long term practices during the fat loss phase. So it actually just becomes a less stressful, easier version of that when you get back to maintenance. But a couple things I wanted to mention, okay. First, you will regain some water weight from the increase in carbs and gut content. And this would happen regardless of your approach, it's just going to happen quickly, instead of overtime. This is not fat regain. It is not it's simply fluid. Secondly, if you slightly overshoot on the weight, which I really don't see that happening, in fact, what often happens is what I said before the body recovers really quickly, it becomes inefficient with its calories, it starts to burn more calories right away. And you actually sometimes have a little dip, I actually sometimes see a dip where you got to backtrack. And like what happened here, I thought I was at maintenance, I'm actually losing more weight, or I've had clients who are like trying to get that last pound and I say you know what, let's just stop. Let's just stop stressing the body and not worry about it. Let's bring up come up to maintenance. And guess what the next week, everybody dips down to that last pound because you've now given it that relief. Very interesting how the body works for sure. And we can always play those little games. But if you slightly overshoot and actually see an increase on the scale, like by an extra couple pounds or even three pounds, it's okay, it's only going to benefit you to have that extra energy. And because we're tracking the expenditure, you can then just adjust calories and the subsequent weeks to nudge it down just to nudge it down a bit. I said earlier in the show that plus or minus three pounds is a good range for maintenance. So if you've gone up like two pounds since the end of your fat loss phase, you're really still at maintenance. And again most of that is fluid so no big deal. Really no big deal. because you just went through that successful fat loss phase, guess what you could always get where you need to go. So there is one small caveat. And that is something Carol talked about in the last episode. And this is that if your fat loss phase was fairly aggressive, so this is this is you in a very large calorie deficit, and it could be six 800 1000 calorie deficit, which is very common for me and guys, and men and women who are more advanced trainees who have higher metabolisms. You go as aggressive as you're able to with without losing muscle, because you can because you have higher calories to work with, and you want to get the diet over with quickly, right. So if you're, if you're in that situation, you may not be able to jump up that amount of calories in one day, right go from, say, 2000 to 3000 calories. In fact, I know when I've come out of fat loss phases, and sometimes I go straight into a bulk now of jumping like 1200 1500 calories, I usually don't do it in one day that that is kind of insane for a lot of people. And so you can just take a few days and get there. And it's okay. But that's not really reverse dieting. Reverse dieting is over weeks and months. And it's like you're limiting yourself, it's kind of like a diver who is making stops along the way, you know, to avoid getting the bends. Right, it's like you're making these artificial stops along the way to avoid whatever to avoid, you know, weight regain, or whatever people are scared about, that we already talked about. But if you just simply can't eat a ton more food on the next day, that's fine, there's no need to force yourself. This is a logistical and a psychological short term reason to stretch things out a bit, and a far cry from a reverse diet with the smaller jumps over several weeks. Okay, so to recap, reverse dieting is a slow torturous approach to coming out of a diet and recovery. Dieting straight to maintenance is simple, it's stress free, helps you recover faster, it gets you focusing on your new maintenance phase or building phase, rather than continuing to feel the effects of dieting longer than you have to. So let's be smart about this. I am all about efficiency, right? Not wasting time I talked about all the time, like if you want to work with me, we are not going to waste time with silly games like reversed, I am not going to do it. One final reminder that again, the tool that I 100% percent recommend a user myself, all my clients use to figure out your dynamic, dynamic maintenance. To make precise adjustments to avoid reverse dieting altogether. It's called macro factor. In my opinion, it blows away all the other apps, I am an affiliate, I always say this with pride because I was asked to be an affiliate because I have been a user since day one. And I talk about it all the time, you know, for free, because I love it. And I think it's effective, and it helps people. So use the link in my show notes and use the code Wits & Weights, and you'll get an extra week on the free trial to try it out. If you don't like it fine. But I've actually never heard someone that doesn't like it, who started to use it. So that's pretty cool. I will be diving into food logging and macro factor in particular in an upcoming episode, because they just added complete nutrient targets and tracking. And I want to talk more about how to get the most out of the app. So if you use the app, there are a lot of cool little features and tricks and shortcuts. And then now they have the nutrient tracking, which allows you to track to a specific target, and then see how every food contributes to that, which is incredible. And then you can look at graphs over time and all this fun stuff. For all of us that love the data. But it even it even identifies your targets for you by default. Like you can just say, hey, use the default targets and it'll say okay, you know, you're you're a 42 year old male, this height, this weight, whatever. This is your fiber target. This is your Selenium target. This is your saturated fat limit and so on. Pretty cool. By the way, by the way, this approach all of this we're talking about here of using science backed strategies like dynamic maintenance, like recovery, dieting, that actually work. That is exactly what I use with my one on one clients, where I help them achieve the physical results they desire. It's physical results, but I'll tell you, it leads to so much more than that. So if you want to look more to find muscular leaner, lose two to four inches in the waist, lose three to 5%, body fat, whatever your goals are, along with the confidence, the mental resilience, just like Carol talked about last week, to know how to continue building your body and fueling your performance. This isn't about restriction. This isn't about dieting, this is about being the best. You can be strong, capable, healthy, and you want to have sustainable, long term results long after you ever work with a coach. That's what it's all about. So this is a six month program, where we combine evidence based nutrition, like recovery, dieting, along with your training and lifestyle so you don't have to waste time you don't have to waste time getting the physique you want. It's perfect for people with demanding lifestyles, and I can empathize with those Folks who lift but they want to shed some body fat or break through a plateau. If you're interested, just click the link in my show notes to apply for coaching. And I'll respond back with some questions to make sure it's a good fit. And if it is, we'll get started right away. We don't waste time people I'm in, I'm as impatient as they come. I don't like spinning my wheels. So if that's you, and you don't want to be in the same place, you are now six months from now or a year or five years from now. Click the link in my show notes to apply. Okay, our next episode 97 is an interview with dai Manuel, where we talk about the importance of fun in fitness, challenging yourself to reach new heights in your life, how to recognize self sabotage, and challenge your past beliefs and how to find your optimal in your fitness journey in life. And ladies and gentlemen, I already recorded this just this week, and it was incredible. It's a an amazing episode. It's one of those where you're not sure how it's gonna go because it's not like a very specific technical nutrition topic. But wow, there are there's one insight after another I was taking notes Fast and Furious and you definitely want to tune in so make sure to follow or subscribe to the podcast so you don't miss that episode. And that will help others find the show. So I really appreciate it. Don't just download and forget about it. If you like this show, definitely follow or subscribe. I also appreciate reviews and I absolutely love the most of all emails and messages on social from all of you about anything you took away from the podcast or how I can improve it. As always, stay strong. And I'll talk to you next time here on the Wits & Weights podcast.

Philip Pape  31:41

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

Ep 95: How Carol Lost 20 Pounds and 14% Body Fat, Set a Lifting PR, and Gained Food Freedom in Her 40s

Today, I’m excited to share a motivating chat with Carol, my client. She’s a teacher, a mom of two wonderful kids, and a happy wife for 26 years. When she’s not in the classroom, Carol might be walking on the local greenway, hiking, reading, cooking, baking, or practicing yoga.  But what impresses me most is her passion for strength training, which shows her commitment and perseverance.

Carol achieved amazing results in four months. She dropped 23 pounds of fat and gained 3 pounds of muscle, lowering her body fat from 30% to 16%. Carol learned to eat well, manage her macros, and overcome unhealthy habits. She also reached impressive strength goals, like bench pressing a personal best, doing 10 pull-ups in a row, and finding new confidence in herself and her skills.

Her journey isn’t just about personal wins, though, it’s about the positive influence she’s become on her children, the mental resilience she’s developed, and her relentless pursuit of goals she once thought were unattainable. Carol’s story is a beautiful example of the physically AND mentally transformative power of strength training and fueling your performance.

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Click here to apply for coaching!
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Today you’ll learn all about:

[2:55] Carol's fitness journey
[6:44] Introduction to strength training
[8:21] Discovery of Wits & Weights
[11:29] Setting personal goals
[13:29] Nutrition and health strategies
[21:51] Navigating the fat loss phase
[28:32] Celebrating body recomposition success
[33:31] Transitioning to the maintenance phase
[40:01] Mindset changes and personal growth
[42:58] Importance of community
[46:05] Managing stress through fitness
[48:27] Advice for fitness beginners
[51:01] Importance of strength training and online coaching
[54:32] Surprising outcomes from your fitness journey
[56:36] The question Carol wished Philip had asked
[59:51] Where listeners can learn more about you and your work
[1:00:33] Outro

Episode resources:

• Wits & Weights Facebook community - say hi to Carol

• MacroFactor – use code WITSANDWEIGHTS to extend the free trial 

• STRONGER training program – use code WITSANDWEIGHTS for $5 off 

FREE 30-minute results breakthrough session with Philip ⬇️

https://witsandweights.com/free-call


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Transcript

Carol  00:00

lifting heavy and just like being able to lift heavy things and get strong just really changed my mindset to you know, I can do this like this. I'm not going to limit myself anymore I think. I think as women a lot of times we like put self limitations on ourselves and it's mind blowing because if you'd have told me like that I would be eating this many calories a day and not gaining weight. I'd be like, kidding, like, you know, significant weight. You're choking. That's not possible and it's just crazy to actually be living it out like

Philip Pape  00:35

Welcome to the Wits & Weights podcast. I'm your host, Philip pape, and this twice a week podcast is dedicated to helping you achieve physical self mastery by getting stronger. Optimizing your nutrition and upgrading your body composition will uncover science backed strategies for movement, metabolism, muscle and mindset with a skeptical eye on the fitness industry, so you can look and feel your absolute best. Let's dive right in. Wits & Weights community Welcome to another episode of the Wits & Weights podcast. In today's episode, I am thrilled to bring you an inspirational conversation with my client Carol. Carol recently celebrated her 26th wedding anniversary. She's a proud mother of two amazing children and a passionate teacher. When she's not shaping minds in the classroom. Carol might be walking on the local Greenway hiking, reading, cooking, baking or practicing yoga. But the true testament of her dedication and discipline is your newfound love for strength training. In just four months, Carol transformed her body composition, going from 30% body fat to an impressive 16% Losing 23 pounds of fat while gaining three pounds of muscle during a fat loss phase. She's mastered the art of nutrition, balancing her macros, overcoming disordered eating habits, and enjoying full and satisfying meals without feeling restricted. More importantly, she's hit significant strength milestones, bench pressing a personal Max going from one to 10 consecutive pull ups and discovering a deep seated confidence in herself and her abilities. Her journey isn't just about personal wins though. It's also the positive influence she's become for her children, the mental resilience she's developed and her relentless pursuit of goals. She wants thought were unattainable. Carol's story is a beautiful example of the physically and mentally transformative power of strength training and fueling your performance. So Carol, it is a pleasure to have you on the show.

Carol  02:28

Wow, thank you so much. I'm I'm really thrilled to be here. That was like the most glowing introduction ever. Thanks.

Philip Pape  02:36

Absolutely. I mean, it is just the truth. And I know sometimes it's hard to hear our own like story told back to us and are harder or helpful or whatever. But it's really nice to talk to you in this context, because we're usually on a coaching call, right? And now we get to really explore all the wonderful things that we've been through together and your journey. So let's talk about how you got to this moment. Tell us what your health and fitness journey look like before the recent transformation. And then and then leading to the moment that you realize that you wanted to step it up and do something different?

Carol  03:09

Sure, absolutely. Um, so I guess I've been on this whole health and fitness journey for about 10 years, maybe it really first started after my husband and I moved with our two children to a new city. And at that time, my son was in school and my daughter started preschool and I knew that I wanted to do something more active than what I'd been doing. And I have a little bit more free time on my hands. I was a stay at home mom. So I started running, I just started running and I loved it. I really enjoyed it. It was a great outlet. And I'd never done that before. And so I made some pretty, you know, fast gains and just really loved it. I started doing five K's and that sort of thing and really got into it. My husband likes to run to you so it'd be fun to run with him. And then eventually, I just started doing some strength training at home on my own with dumbbells. I don't know if you've heard of Kathy Smith. I'm gonna date myself here, but I had a couple of Kathy's and have a video. And I would do those like, you know, I'd alternate upper body, lower body, I just do my home after I go for my job. And then eventually there was a crossfit box that opened up about 15 minutes from our house and I'm gonna do that. So I got into CrossFit. It was really fun. I loved it. It was I think what I loved most about it was the community aspect. Because I was really seeking that and it was just fun. It was great and you have accountability and you have support and you can like compete with each other but it's all in good fun. So that was great. I loved it. However, I guess after about three months or so, I injured one of my legs and my right leg and I think it was because of it deadlifts not certain but I was essentially sent for an MRI, nothing major was found it was just I was diagnosed with like, anterior tibial tendinitis, or you know, it was kind of like this weird vague diagnosis. However, I didn't have to wear a boot for like, I don't know, maybe a month, I don't really, really remember. And that was during the summer. So that was pretty, not fun. You know, my kids go to school, and I'm stuck in this boot. And after that, I just kind of thought, you know, maybe CrossFit isn't really for me. And so then like, I shifted more towards running again, once my leg healed, and oh, fast forward a few years,

Philip Pape  05:44

just to stop you there. Right? So this is a very valuable tool. I'm sure a lot of people get into these various things and myself to CrossFit, you injured the leg prop, maybe from something you did in CrossFit. And that that was the sole reason you stopped doing? It wasn't anything else, right? You liked the community and all that but thought this is maybe too dangerous, or maybe not the mode of of exercise I want to attempt?

Carol  06:05

Absolutely. That's so true. Like, I loved everything else about it. But then I was like, oh, gosh, I got injured, and I was like, out of commission for a long time. It's awful. Yeah. Yeah. So um, I, like I said, I kind of I kept on running a lot. And then eventually, I just sort of did all running altogether, I was still doing some dumbbells at home. But then eventually, I just kind of stopped doing that I, I returned to a full time job teaching. And I just didn't really have a lot of time. So like, all I could do was go for my run in the morning. That was really all the time I had. And so finally, I guess this was maybe like, a couple of years ago, I was seeing a doctor at the time for just some health problems. And he, you know, he was like, I really think you're taxing your adrenals too much, you need to give the brain a break. And I'm like, I don't I don't want to do that. But I did. And so it was at that time that I really started doing the weights and I stopped running, I decided I would just walk instead of run. And then I started doing a lot more weight training on my own in the time that I would have spent running. So I didn't go on my own. For about a year and a half, maybe ish. Just doing the YouTube videos, I had a couple of channels. Carolyn Gervin was one and I would just, you know, use the dumbbells. And that was pretty much it. I do like maybe 3045 minutes a day. And so then, I guess, more recently was when we about a year, any last fall, I should say last fall, I was when I really got interested in doing it more like just just with dumbbells. And it was probably really in December that I decided I was just gonna go for it. Because we have all the equipment at our house, my husband, like totally decked out our garage, and it's a home gym basically. Fabulous. It's so great. And I'm, I feel so lucky to have that don't have to go anywhere. It's just, you know, right there. So, um, I feel like it was maybe in December or January that I heard you on a podcast interview with Karen Martell. I had started working with Karen to address some health problems I was having. And she interviewed you. And it was like, the best interview and I knew, I've got to start lifting heavy. And you like you knew everything, you had all the right answers. And I was like, I've got start doing this. And so I basically just kind of started out there with the barbell training going up from the dumbbells, and I've been just doing that ever since

Philip Pape  09:01

love, I love it. So that whole story is, is not so uncommon. I mean, except the part about, you know, finding me and saying that was the perfect interview. So I appreciate I'll just let that let that image sit there. But um, you mentioned the hormones, right? You mentioned the adrenals, for example. And I think a lot of people do find it surprising. When, like, if somebody asks me, What do I do, I've got all this stress and like you're doing too much, and maybe you should lift heavy No. And and the confusion is often there. How does how does lifting heavy weights, you know, help with your, your stress and adrenals. And we find that the recovery, right? The recovery versus the stress that you're placing on your body, it just shifts in a completely different direction. And it sounds like you've started to discover that and then you you did the dumbbells and then you started to get into barbells. Now, what was it and I'm not stroking my ego here, but what was it that you heard on that interview? You that you're like, I have to do this.

Carol  10:03

Um, well. So I've been doing the dumbbells on my own for so long, and I just felt like I wasn't progressing. And I mean, there's only so much you can do with dumbbells. And so I think it was really that and I just, I felt like I had maxed out on that. And also, I was getting a little burnout on it. How's my skin kind of boring? You know, I'd like to try something new. And back in the day when I did CrossFit. I loved it, you know? And I just, yeah, so it just sort of reignited the fire in me to get back into it.

Philip Pape  10:34

Yeah, so that's great. So it's a plateau, which I think is important for listeners, because that's one of the biggest problems people have is plateaus in their training, their nutrition, their physique, and it and like you said, it could come from doing the same thing over and over again, in something not changing enough to change you. And there's something has to give, right? And you recognize that it was the load on the bar. And some some people tiptoe around this. But like, if you ask me, what is the quote unquote, best way to lift I'm probably going to say barbell training. And then you can say, Well, what about dumbbells? What about bands? What about bodyweight? I'm gonna say yes, yes, yes, those are effective for a while, for a while, because as you get strong, it's just a function of going against gravity. And like you said, the dumbbells get kind of burned out, because, you know, you have the same movements over and over again. And you're not going to be lifting 150 pound dumbbells? Probably, before you probably instead, switch to barbell. So you know, what, one of the things you did you hit a PR on your bench, right? While we work together, you're really excited about that. And I just want you to talk about that excitement as in the context of this so that people understand how fun barbell training can actually be?

Carol  11:42

Sure, sure, absolutely. Well, usually, when I'm doing my strength training, it's, it's in the morning by myself in our gym, or home gym. And I don't ever have anyone spotting me, I get up really early, because I have to leave the house really early to get to work. And so we were on vacation, and there was a local gym that I'd looked into. And so we decided to just pay the one week fee and join it, and my husband and I, and then sometimes my son, we would all go together. And so since he was there to spot me, you know, technically it was supposed to be a D load week, like I told myself, I was gonna do a D load. You know, he's here to spot me, so I'm just gonna go for it. So um, yeah, no, it was really fun, who was just great. Not only the I got a PR, but also just having the encouragement of him. And then some other folks around there, you know, that we're watching and stuff. And so yeah, it's just nice to achieve a goal that you have in your head and be like, Oh, I really can do that. You know? Yeah. So that's been really fun. I did since then I've done I did a one rep max on my body weight for the bench press, which was pretty cool.

Philip Pape  12:55

That is amazing. As a big milestone. Yeah. It's just just so fun. You know? Yeah. So you got into strength training, this was late last year, correct. Leading into the beginning of the year, or not got into straight barbell training,

Carol  13:09

barbell training was really probably more like January. Because in the fall, I was still doing the dumbbells and I was so heavy, I was having all these health problems, and I gained some weight. And so then in January, I was like, you know, I'm gonna do this barbell for me, you know? Yeah.

Philip Pape  13:26

So then you got into that. And let's, let's also turn into the nutrition side, because that's a lot of where we worked on together. How did you I know, you found about out about me through the podcast, but the coaching practice and Wits & Weights in the community, you know, how did you find out about all that? And what resonated with you and your goals?

Carol  13:45

Yeah, sure. Well, after I heard your interview with Karen, um, I, of course, subscribe to your podcast immediately. And I started like listening to every single one I could. And so start

Philip Pape  13:56

from episode one. Did you do that?

Carol  14:01

I don't think I listened to Episode One. But, I mean, there's so educational and so informative, and you cover all the basics, and it makes it very, like just anyone can do this, you know, like, anyone could do this. And so that was really, I guess, where I got started. Just listening to your podcast. And then I guess I reached out to you. Because like, I mean, one thing that really impressed me about you was just your genuine desire to help other people. I mean, like, You're the real deal, you know, like there's no gimmicks, none of that. And I knew that I could do like a one on one call with you, just as like a basic introduction kind of thing and not not have to pay for it. And I thought, This is amazing. So that was when I reached out to you and we did the one on one and then I feel like you really gave me some great guidance like first steps things to do to get me on the path to where I needed to be

Philip Pape  15:01

And what were those things that were like? What were you remember? What were the things that you really wanted? When I'll say, Well, we started working together because eventually became a client. But even in that initial call, which as you said, it's not the way I do them, it's not like discovery calls, sales calls, because I can't stand those tactics. And I don't like the like, let me get you to call on that. I'm gonna tell you, I don't even mention that in my coaching unless you ask, but it's really like, how do we get you from A to B? Because for me, that's what frustrated me for years and years and years, is just knowing exactly how to do it. And that how to do it is often not what we think there's so many beliefs that we have to shift from what we thought to what they really are, what were the things you really wanted and your big goals at the time?

Carol  15:42

Yeah, so I'm just real quick to say something you helped me learn to shift was my attitude towards training, like I was like, all in, but like too much all in like, I was way overtraining, like I was, I was hardcore five days a week like, and sometimes Saturday, and Sunday, just never allowed my body a chance to rest and recover. So like, You really helped me make that change for sure. That it's okay to take a rest day and to recover. And that's part of the process. So that was awesome. And then the other shift was with nutrition, because like, any other time that I had, like, tried to lose weight, I would just restrict, restrict restrict a lot like restrict, you know, every day, like Monday through Friday, and not eat enough. And then on the weekend, I'd be starving. And so then I just like eat all the things, which just, you know, I was just like totally backpedaling, any progress that I've made, and it was totally not sustainable, not sustainable at all. So you helped me really see a sustainable way to pursue nutrition in a way that allowed me to reach my goals. And so like, my, my primary goal was really just to lose weight. Because I just wasn't comfortable with my body weight, I didn't feel good and healthy. During the fall, I'd had some health problems, and I hadn't been able to work out at all for like, maybe a couple months. I don't know. So that was my biggest goal. But also I just, I just wanted to get back to where I felt strong and fit and healthy. You know? So

Philip Pape  17:19

yeah, so much there. So the first thing you mentioned was that less is more, and I can't tell you how many I would say the vast majority of the conversations I have with people is do less just just do less, and you get the kind of the look really right. Or, or the concern that isn't my metabolism gonna go down if I do less, right. And I think I even did a recent episode, because I get that question so often, and it was about how working out less can increase your metabolism. So I'm glad you took that message and found that, hey, I could have more time in my life, more time to myself and still make progress.

Carol  17:58

Right, right. Yeah. You first told me to do just like Monday, Wednesday, Friday, like the compound movements Monday, Wednesday, Friday, I was like, that's just three days a week. That's insane. I couldn't like it was so hard to make myself do that. To only do three days a week, but But it definitely was what I needed.

Philip Pape  18:15

It is and it's it's counterintuitive to me to this day to Carol, it really is. And there are some strength training programs that are like just do, you know, heavy singles or triples twice a week? And do one movement? You know, yeah. And you still make progress. And it's crazy to think that some of these things work. But your your growth in your strength in your muscle is really an adaptation, right? It happens as you sleep, it happens as you recover. So if you reframe and say what my lifting session is giving me the most maximum stimulus possible, as short time as possible, so that I can let that recovery process work. If I'm working out seven days a week, and if I'm running every day, I'm just constantly interrupting that process and never letting myself

Carol  18:59

that's what I've been doing, which was just ridiculous.

Philip Pape  19:01

Yeah. Yeah. And then the nutrition, the weekend binge is also very common. And I say common Carol, right? Because I want that, that you've got a lot of listeners who I know are going to learn from this conversation, just like you said, the podcast likes to cover the basics and teach you things that anybody can do. Carol did this. anybody listening can do this. And the things she's going through the things that a lot of people go through the weekend binges where people say I don't understand why I'm gaining weight or not losing weight. I'm really good Monday through Friday. And you don't realize how much you deviate on the weekends. Right? Whether it's was it I don't know if it was alcohol or just mindless snacking or just going out like what was it for you?

Carol  19:42

It was pretty much it was there was some mindless snacking for sure. But also like just some emotional eating tied to like daily stressors, you know, like just the buildup of stress and things like that. This is like self sabotage, you know,

Philip Pape  19:56

so yes, yeah, yes, but somebody said recently on a show on another The Park as I was listening to that, you know, emotional eating is a learned behavior to learn behavior. And it sounds like you were able to either unlearn it or learn something to replace it. So I don't know if that's a simple thing that occurred for you if it happened over time, but what do you think was the catalyst for that?

Carol  20:16

Well, I think just the process of really dialed into my nutrition with you, and especially once I started using macro factor, and eating enough calories on a daily basis, and like not feeling restricted, and not feeling the need, or like the ones to overeat on the weekends, because it was all good, you know. So that really, just that process really taught me a lot about emotional eating and the triggers for it, and you know, what's the cause of it? And this is why it's because you're ever restricting. So yeah, perfect.

Philip Pape  20:53

Yeah. So you became aware of what you were doing? And that awareness itself sounded like it already unlocked the vast majority of that, that journey, right, because so many who would just don't know what's happening. And now that you know, and now that you're tracking, and this is important, because people think tracking is obsessive or causes disorders, what all that is, is bunk, right? We know from the evidence, and from experience that unless you have a prior disorder, tracking only helps like tracking your budget, right, like tracking your schedule for your meetings, and tracking everything else makes you aware and gives you control. And then the other thing you mentioned, was eating more. And that's the other thing that's counterintuitive for people is, so many people are not eating enough. And if you eat enough and let your body you know, relax and destress and not restrict now all of these other issues go away. Right? Absolutely, yeah. Yeah. And I'm just, I've just paraphrase everything you just said it wasn't a question, but it's good to re emphasize how important all of these are. Okay, so I think about a four month period, you've gone through mostly a fat loss phase during that time. And just so the listener understands, like Carol is lifting, you know, she's lifting properly with progressive overload. She's, you know, pretty self discipline that, in my opinion, like, there's different levels of discipline people have just naturally, and not that discipline, and willpower necessarily have to be high for this to work. That's where accountability comes in. But she's been able to take the things we talked about, like the sleep and the stress and all that and go and execute to that. But, and that allowed her to start a fat loss phase fairly quickly. It wasn't so and I say that because not everybody's ready. Not everybody's ready for fat loss on day one, right. And some people call it a cut, whatever you want to call it. So share the experience of navigating fat loss, right, the challenges and roadblocks because it's not easy. Let's be honest, it's not even fun. Always. Let's be honest. It's it's a it's an extreme in a way. It's a it's a deviation from the norm that we want to live every day. But you have to go through that process occasionally. So how was that for you?

Carol  22:59

Well, I mean, you're right, it's not easy. But also, it wasn't nearly as hard as I thought it was gonna be, I have to say, like, macro factor was the best because it just does everything for you. You just punch in the numbers, and it tells you what to do. And it's fabulous. So I just like I followed that to a tee. I'm really detail oriented. So I love tracking and like keeping up with everything, you know, I just I love that. So I basically I just did what microfactory told me to, and every week, it would cut my calories by a little bit more. But it wasn't by these huge amounts every week, you know, it was just like maybe 100 calories, some weeks, it was only 50 calories. And so gradually, I would just I would make the changes, I would sub in something for something else that you know, had less calories. And as I went along, and I learned a lot about which foods make me feel the best. With the least amount of calories. So that was pretty cool. Um, and I was like, I guess maybe I think it was week 14 of the fat loss phase, I think I was down to 1400 calories. And I didn't I never even had to go below that. Like I didn't have to I thought it was gonna go down to 1200 or something. A number to me, that sounded really unmanageable, but it was pretty, and I

Philip Pape  24:14

and you're fairly petite, let's just say I mean, we don't have to share all the details unless you want but you're fat. We just want people to understand you're fairly petite. So 1400 calories is is not bad, really deep into a fat loss phase.

Carol  24:25

Right, right. Yeah. I'm like five, three.

Philip Pape  24:29

Exactly. It's important to know that right? Yeah. So

Carol  24:31

like that was not that at all. And the other thing that I really, so I've always been someone who likes to eat mindfully because I have a history of some digestive illness. And so I really usually always try to eat mindfully when I eat for that reason, but this really like, dialed that in big time because like if you eat slower, then you're gonna get fuller, you know, and like it really taught me the importance of just like eating slow Totally, and it really helps you like savor every bite and really appreciate what you're eating. Because you know, that's all you're getting. So, so Yeah, honestly, I was really surprised at how once all the pieces came together, like working with you and using macro factor. And of course, the barbell training once all the pieces came together, I was really surprised that like how effortless it seemed, I mean, I really I, I really did not anticipate losing the weight that quickly. And that was pretty cool.

Philip Pape  25:30

Love it. Yeah. And I saw that progress. We can we can put it into numbers in a second. But you were surprised at how effortless it seemed? And just is there is there one thing that sticks out of out of all that that was the most important. So I know it's a lot of things. And sometimes people feel overwhelmed, like, oh, I have to track and I have to train I have to this and this and that. And ultimately you want to incorporate all those practices. But is there one or two things that were the most important out of those?

Carol  25:58

Um, so yeah, like, for sure tracking, but also just having the mindset that I was in this to be successful, like I like, in the past, anytime I'd ever tried like to lose weight on my own, I would always just, I never would succeed, like after a little while, you know, I just, I've never had any success. And I'd give up and just give up. And so this time, there was just this mindset change that was like, I am going to do this, I can do this. And I will do it. So I think that was really important to just keep in my head. And also, I mean, it's when, when you can see the progress, like, since I was lifting heavy, and you can see the progress from week to week, it's motivation to keep going.

Philip Pape  26:46

So many good things. Okay. All right. So the first thing is the mindset to be successful, but not doing it on your own. I think that's important, because I don't know about you I have I have all sorts of coaches, mentors, teachers in my life, whether I pay them or not, they're all over and I seek them out. Because the fastest way that humans usually grow is getting feedback, as you go through a process to see what your mistakes are and how you can improve. And so you knew, if we got on a call and like things, were just all out of whack? I'd let you know. And we would dial on it. Right? Yeah. And oftentimes, when that happens, especially for a client like you, again, who hasn't natural self discipline is you'll just then go ahead and make it happen so that you don't get called out to your coach. So there's all different styles, some people, it's more reactionary, right, they kind of, you know, make certain choices, and then have to get schooled a little bit, you know, in the coaching call, which is all good. Or you tend to have that in your brain like, Okay, now I'm gonna be talking to my coach, so I better get it all in gear. But then by doing that, you got results, and those results motivated you. Yeah, that's the awesome part of this, because that means we don't have to be working together for 10 years, you know, you're gonna be able to go on your own. And, and do it because you know, that the results are gonna happen, like you have certainty that a lot of people lack. So. So awesome. Yeah,

Carol  28:07

absolutely. And like, like any doubts that I ever had about that, like, I would just reach out to you, and you just reassure me and you tell me what to do. And I would do it. And it was just, it just worked like magic.

Philip Pape  28:19

Yeah, like magic. Love it. Yeah, no, it is like magic, I feel the same. Even Even when I go through the process myself and make choices. I'm like, wow, that actually works. It's biology. So it put it to put it in numbers for folks, I alluded to this in the intro, you lost 20 pounds from 140 to 120. Okay, so there's a way we're gonna just put it out there, including a massive 14% loss in body fat. And so I want the listener understand incredible numbers here. Because when we talk about gaining, maintaining and losing, generally people who have some training under their belt, they might be able to redo some MRI composition, at maintenance. Generally, they it's very hard to gain extra muscle in a in a diet, right, in a fat loss phase. I think I think this is my theory is that because you just started really pushing the weights properly, in January. And then shortly after, when your fat loss phase, you were still in that newbie gains phase? Sure, from a stimulus perspective, and then you were in a fat loss phase. So you, if we take your percentages, and we do the math, you lost 23 pounds of that 20 in fat, meaning you gain three pounds of muscle, because like it would be negative otherwise, right? Pretty cool. It's cool, right? So so just again, for the listeners, she lost 20 pounds on the scale, she actually gained three pounds of muscle and lost 23 pounds of fat so you got leaner upon leaner. Doing that that is pretty cool. It's like the Holy Grail of body composition. Right? And, and now of course Carol is going to potentially go into a building phase and might gain a tiny bit of fat in the process at some point. If she builds and then as she cut Once again, you know, she might not be able to necessarily gain this gain muscle, but she's already gained all this muscle to keep in the future. Hey, this is Philip. And I hope you're enjoying this episode of Wits & Weights. If you're looking to connect with like minded listeners on their health and fitness journeys, come join our free Facebook community. It's a supportive space where you can share your experiences, ask questions, and access free guides and weekly trainings. Just search for Wits & Weights on Facebook, or find the link in the show notes. Now back to the show. So did you get stronger while losing that fat? Like? It sounds like you gain mass. But did you also gain strong get stronger?

Carol  30:36

I did get stronger? Yes, I am. Yeah, I track all my weights and everything and how much I'm lifting. And I always do progressive overload. And yeah, like I could, I could still lift heavier, almost every week with my, with my lifts. So that was pretty cool. And you

Philip Pape  30:53

know what that tells me that tells me that besides your individual advantages you may have genetically, it tells me that you had enough recovery, that you were getting good sleep that you were probably also moving enough to keep your energy flux high so that you keep the calories high and thus the calories could fuel what felt to your body like less of a diet. Right? Absolutely. I think people need to understand that because more and more I want to talk about that these days is is the idea that even though you're dieting, what's important on the diet is the deficit. But you don't want to you don't have to be in that deficit at a ridiculously low number of calories. Right? You could be on it at a higher number if you do these other things and sleeps a big one. Like I think you were pretty good with sleep, right? Yes, sleep is huge. Yeah. It's big, because I've seen people literally jump by 200 calories on their expenditure when they start getting more sleep. Yeah, you know. And so now if you're on that's 1200 versus 1400 calories.

Carol  31:50

Right, exactly. Yeah. And I think the other thing that made a difference for me was just my daily walks like I walk every single day after school, I stopped by the Greenway, and I walk for like anywhere from 45 minutes to maybe an hour if I have time. And I think that really helped me as well.

Philip Pape  32:06

We were averaging 10 12,000 or even a little more. I'm

Carol  32:10

probably about 12,000 Some days, maybe 15. You know, but um, yeah, I mean, walking is so underrated. It's like the best therapy. It's great. It is

Philip Pape  32:21

you're right. It has so many benefits besides just the expenditure. Yeah, you can listen to podcasts, you can think, what do you like to do when you walk?

Carol  32:29

Well, I of course, I love listening to podcasts, for sure. But I also really just love finding clarity in my walk. Like if I'm if there's something you have kind of like struggling with emotionally, you're trying to figure out that just being in nature really helps bring clarity, and it also just is such a great de stressor, it helps me feel so much better.

Philip Pape  32:51

That is good. You're speaking to me, Carol. You know what I do? Sometimes I will start off listening to a podcast. And then my brain starts to get distracted with some other thought that's been niggling there and just waiting, right? And I'm like, okay, stop the podcast and start to explore this. And I will literally talk out loud. Personally, as I do this, I will talk out loud in the middle of note, you know, nobody can hear me to kind of process through the thoughts. And you're right. It's kind of your own therapy. Great, great. Yeah, you can't do as well, I don't want to claim you can't do that while running. You probably you can to an extent. But there is that extra distraction of like focusing on the running to, you know, Sure, absolutely. All right, so then we transitioned to the maintenance phase, right, using a recovery diet, which just to clarify for folks is, is when you come back up to your current maintenance. And you can do it right away, or you can take a few days, but it's the it's not reverse dieting, which is kind of the older idea of like, slowly coming up over like weeks and not ever quite getting into your maintenance. So and you mentioned you we use macro factor, which lets you know what your expenditure is. So when you started your diet, it might have been x and now it's x minus whatever. That's your current maintenance. It brings its own challenges going to maintenance, doesn't it? Right? Physiological, physiological. So how did you manage it? Like how did you deal with that? How did you sustain your success coming out of the diet, so that you didn't just like binge and go back to your old ways, you know, and then so that the listener understands how to manage that transition.

Carol  34:23

All right, sure. Well, something just like struck a chord in me I was just like, I've worked too hard to get this far. I'm so invested in it. Like I'm not going to go and just blow everything up after I've worked so hard. And also have to say this is something that I didn't expect, like when I when I went into maintenance from the fat loss phase, I was just gradually increasing my calories because it was like a huge jump for me to go from like 1400 I don't know was it 2200 I think it was such a huge job. I could not physically eat that much food I got so also fast, I guess, because maybe my stomach shrunk. I don't really know. But it just was not possible for me to eat that much food. So like, I would get so uncomfortably full and I just felt awful. And then I'd have a stomach ache. And I'd be like, okay, not do that again. So I would kind of slow with pumping up my calories. But again, I am, I think it was also it's like, wow, I get to eat more of this, and I get to eat more fat. And this is so exciting and so great. Like, who gets to do this? And I just really, like I said, I just didn't want to blow the progress I made. And honestly, I knew that if I over ate, I would feel awful physically. And I just did not. I didn't want that. So

Philip Pape  35:42

yeah, yeah, so the part about upping your calories was for the the psychological and the biofeedback aspects, which are exactly the reasons we would do it that way, right, as we talked about on our call. And, but but just just so people know, like reverse dieting normally is intended to avoid over gaining weight, right. And in your case, we're simply avoiding you feeling terrible. By jumping into it, which is the right way, the right reason to come up not instantly by like you said it was something like 800 calories, because you were in a fairly aggressive deficit, it was the appropriate deficit for you, but it was fairly aggressive. And then the second part you mentioned was this idea of now all of a sudden, it just seems like a buffet of calories available to you, even though this is what's required to maintain your weight. And actually, it's probably gonna go up from there. As you recover. I mean, what, what were you? Were you thinking that you would like, not be able to eat enough at some point?

Carol  36:44

I honestly was, there were some days like, I'd be like, I'd be looking at microfactory being like, how your calories do I need to get to this? And my husband's like, what are you doing? And I'm like, I'm trying to eat more, but I just don't. But also, I do want to say, there is this piece of it as but you know, especially with women on the scale, like, I will readily admit, I had this little, you know, fear of like seeing the scale weight go up. And I did not want to see that. You know, it's like, I don't want to see it go up. And so I think also there was just this like, mental piece mental roadblock to get over and be like, it's okay, if it gives up. It's really,

Philip Pape  37:24

yeah, yeah. Because we did talk about and that's being aware, right, and being understanding of what's going on with the body, right? Because when we look at, if you gain two pounds overnight, I say this all the time, like, it doesn't mean you gain two pounds of fat because you would have had or eat by 7000 calories. Well, you're not even eating to your maintenance yet. So logically, and I know the logical brain motional brain, they fight a lot. Logically, that's not possible. So what's left, while we know it's left fluid, glycogen, the carbs the food in your gut, the food, you know, being digested, maybe inflammation, because you're training harder. And that's not even to count, you know, your cycle if you're a woman and other things. Right. So we talked about that. And if you're listening, and you're coming out of a diet, and you go back to maintenance, and you're doing it the right way, you're probably going to gain what, two to four pounds, most people maybe guys a little bit more than that. Is that about what you saw? Yeah, you

Carol  38:23

know, it's really funny. Um, I actually like, sometimes my weight would shoot up by a couple pounds. But then the next day, it dropped a couple pounds. Like in fact, that just happened recently, like my weight shot up by two pounds. It was after I had horrible insomnia, and I was stressing about going back. And then the next day, it was back down to pounds. So I'm I'm really like, I guess overall, maybe I maybe I've gained a pound. I don't know.

Philip Pape  38:48

Yeah, exactly. And and, uh, your, uh, your weight that actually does make sense, right, like being 120 a pound. Whereas like, a 200 pound guy, it might be two or three. Yeah, and the point is, it's like it's insignificant, and it also has nothing to do with fat. It's just you regaining the fluid. And now you're sitting there, you're just sitting there with all this food. And that's your new maintenance. And that's the beautiful thing, because you have muscle mass that's giving you this muscle mass and movement. Yeah, attributing to that.

Carol  39:15

Exactly. And it's mind blowing, because if you'd have told me like that I would be eating this many calories a day and not gaining weight. I'd be like, kidding. Like, you know, significant weight. You're choking. That's not possible. And it's just crazy to actually be living it out. Like,

Philip Pape  39:30

yes, pretty well. We see it all the time. And everyone's different, you know, again, everyone responds at different levels. And everyone has a different, you know, like, Carol is doing everything right, I would say, you know, for the most part, like doing all the things, quote unquote, optimally as best you can. And some people will struggle with some more of these things, but always know that it's in your power, like the choice is there that you have these toggles and that you can make the change. So important message I mean, super inspiring. Have you mentioned also that strength training has influenced your mindset and increase your confidence? Like I want to touch on the mental resilience part? Because I think that's really important. And I think you said, quote, gain a mental edge with the hard things in life. Can you elaborate on that?

Carol  40:15

Yes, that is so true. So it just, it has definitely brought me a lot more confidence. I've, I've never really had a ton of confidence in myself, and, and just my profession, I think, has made some of those things a little more challenging for me. Um, and so lifting heavy and just like being able to lift heavy things and get strong, just really changed my mindset to you know, I can do this like this, I'm not going to limit myself anymore, I think. I think as women, a lot of times, we like put self limitations on ourselves. Like, we impose these limitations that we cannot do XYZ. Why, like, just because we've never done it, you know, that doesn't make any sense. You can do anything you set your mind to. So I think the fact that I could, like, you know, say, for example, hit a PR on my benchpress was like, Oh my gosh, I can do this. I can do anything like I am capable. I'm strong, not just physically, but mentally and emotionally. And I can do it.

Philip Pape  41:26

Yeah, I mean, you'd never hit, you never pushed anything like that, above you in your life. Right. And now you did. So you did something to make that change. Yeah. I want to sit with that a bit. Because it's, you know, it's a, it's a cliche, right to say like, well, you can do anything you put your mind to, I'm not building what you said, what I'm saying, you know, people use that as a cliche, right. But there's something about when you're effectively by yourself, this is a solo activity. If you think about even though we're in a community, and you have coaches, at the end of the day, when you press that bar, it's you and your muscle fibers in your mind. Right, right. And you're like, Well, this is this is pushing stuff around, and I can change my body by pushing stuff around. Right? And how does that how does that translate to other things? Like, is there something else you mentioned the confidence at work and others, there's something else you noticed you changing how you approach it?

Carol  42:23

I think like sharing my opinion, and speaking my mind about things in the past, I'd always be a little hesitant. I'm so I'm a peacemaker, and I really avoid conflict, you know, just by nature. And so inserting my opinion, there could be conflict. You know what I do with that, but so I was always I was always so hesitant to do that. But now, I'm like, Yeah, I'm gonna say what's on my mind.

Philip Pape  42:50

Love it. Yeah. Love it just just from that, you know, that's awesome. That's great. Okay, so I was, I don't know, I don't know why I have this question in my notes here. But one of the three pillars of self determination theory, which we talked about with Eric helms a while back. The others are autonomy and competence, but one of them is relatedness, which is being part of a community. Okay. Now, I know I wanted to talk about this. How has been part of a community since we just talked about how lifting is a solo activity, but at the same time, everything you're doing isn't part of a community? How has that influenced your journey? And how could listeners find their community?

Carol  43:28

Sure, absolutely. Well, being part of the Wits, & Weights community has been like, it's been so supportive. It's really helped me grow like with like minded individuals, and feel like I have something in common. There's accountability, like when you did that shape up for spring challenge, it was so much fun. I loved that. And so it just gives you the impetus to keep going, when you're maybe not really feeling motivated. And I think I mean, there's so many groups out there, and I, I just, you know, on social media, whatever, on Facebook, there are so many groups out there that are just waiting for you to join, and they're there to help you. And so I say, just reach out, especially the Wits &, Weights, community, it's great. It's great. And also, like, you've learned so much from other individuals in the group, it's fine. I mean, you know, Alan, for example, who's in our community, he has taught me so much about mindfulness. And I love that especially as an educator, and so it's just you never know what you're going to end up getting from the group.

Philip Pape  44:39

Yeah, that's a good that's a great point. Just the idea that there's fresh perspectives, knowledge, and there's some characters you know, there's some fun people, some jokesters they're serious folks. We've got some people that are like really serious lifters and, you know, they'll, they'll kind of like the positive but the tumors away It'll let you know what you're doing wrong, which is fine, because we're all there. And it's kind of a safe space to help each other, or. Yeah. I'm glad you mentioned that. Yeah,

Carol  45:09

yeah. And something else. That's really cool. It's like, you know, form checks. Like, if I wanted to video myself and post it, I know that everybody would give me advice about my form on a lift. And then of course, like, you know, the the once weekly things, or maybe I don't know if it's once a week, but you always do a live recording weekly. And it's always on a topic that's pretty helpful, you know, like nutrition or fitness or

Philip Pape  45:31

my for sure. Oh, yeah, we're to continue with this infomercial here, because I don't want to over promote the stuff. But what Carol is talking about is, you could ask a question, and I'll answer it live on Friday. And we're talking about not just a generic question that I would answer on the podcast. But actually, your situation, like if Carol came in and say, this is these are my lifts, these are my macros this is this this, and I'm struggling with this, what should I do? And I'll give you a specific answer. So definitely, I don't know how many groups do stuff like that, but we are there to help. Okay, so what about, you mentioned stress a little bit before and chronic stress? And how this process helps with that? How did that work?

Carol  46:15

Well, it was a great avenue for some stress relief, you know, like just pushing around a bunch of heavy weight. It's really great. I mean, there is like, it's very different from like, running, but there is an adrenaline rush to it. You know, like, it just feels great. And so when I work out stress that way, as opposed to like ruminating on something or worrying about it, or, you know, it just, it solves a lot of problems for me.

Philip Pape  46:45

Nice, nice. So just the act alone of the lifting. distresses you cool. It does,

Carol  46:50

yes. Yeah. Yeah. It takes your mind off whatever you've been stressing about, you know, because you're focused on your lift.

Philip Pape  46:58

Yeah. Would you say? How does it compare to like a high rep, more endurance style lifting session? Because both I think both release endorphins, right, but running and endurance, we'll release more of those in a moment, but they also kind of wipe you out. How do they compare? Just so people kind of get the differences? Um,

Carol  47:17

how do they compare? I think, honestly, I think with lifting heavy, it's for me, like I feel more accomplished, might, after a run, I'd be like, Oh, that was a great run, you know, it was a great run. But after lifting heavy, it's like, that felt amazing. Like, it's just, I don't know, for me, it's just a different level of accomplishment.

Philip Pape  47:37

I'm with you. I'm with you. When you said that you struck deep in the heart of me, because you're right. Like, it's not a lot of reps. It's not a lot of volume. You take all this all these rest periods. If anything, sometimes when you get started, you feel like you're not doing much. But but then when you do that one lift that's heavier than you did last time. You do it successfully, like, whoa, like, I just lifted more than ever lifted my life. I mean, you do it again. And again. And again, you're like, This is something right? Versus just okay, I ran again, for half an hour, maybe I ran a little faster, right. Anyway, I could get a little cynical about this stuff sometimes. And I think there is there is a mechanism of chronic stress reduction just from lifting anyway, but from the muscle mat, like you mentioned, the adrenals and the hormones, there's all of that wonderful stuff. So I'm sure there's that. Right. What would you say to all the women over 40 Or anyone of any age, but you know, we're sometimes focused on that demographic, who are wondering how to get started and get the results that you got or the results that they're looking for?

Carol  48:39

Sure, absolutely. First of all, keep it simple. You taught you that. Keep it simple. Do what you can with what you have. So like if you don't have access to a gym, or barbells, for example, start with dumbbells. That's great. It's a great first step. There's absolutely nothing wrong with that. Just start with something. You can even do your own bodyweight until you have dumbbells, for example, start doing something to get you on the path to success and it can little things you know, they add up over time. Like don't overdo it. Don't you know, Don't set yourself up for failure. Take rest days recover. Make sure that you know the importance of that and yeah, just start small go after it and you can do it.

Philip Pape  49:26

Love it. Do something Keep It Simple exam.

Carol  49:29

Also, I just want to say I know for me like it was kind of hard to figure out the structure to my fitness routine. Like I I'm a planner, I plan my training sessions out every single week, every Sunday afternoon I plan out what I'm doing for the week and initially when I got started with you I wasn't really sure like which program to do, what should I do and so you gave me some great options. And thinner leaner stronger is really awesome. And also right now I'm currently doing the program stone stronger that was put out by Katie and Heather off of stronger than your boyfriend? Yeah. And that one's great, too. And I mean, like, they're all good. And there's so many good ones out there. So find a program that you like and stick with it.

Philip Pape  50:10

Absolutely. And there's different ones for different people, even though I talked about a few that I think are highly effective, because for me, look, I'm lazy, like in the sense that I don't want to waste time, I want to get the results as fast as I can, you know, without burnout without all the other things. And so that's what I will recommend. But like you said, start with what you have. So I will definitely get people that say, but I just absolutely can't get access to a barbell no matter what, no gyms have it, I can't get it, I can't fit it in my house, this and that. It's okay. It's okay. Don't stress, like there'll be something. And I guarantee that once you get started with something that is way more effective than what you're doing now, even if it is not optimal. The results, like you mentioned before, are going to inspire you to get creative and figure out how to keep going. Right, right. So what about on the coaching side, so this is where again, I not everyone can afford a coach, of course, and there are a lot of people who are self starters and who are very self motivated, and they can read a book, and they can go and just do everything perfectly and have great discipline and willpower. The other 95% of people. Like you said, Maybe I've tried many things over the years, I'm in this camp as well tried many things over the years. And it wasn't till I started getting help from somebody that I started to make more progress. So if someone's on the fence about, about strength training in general, but hopefully we they're convinced of the value of that listening to the show, but on working with an online coach, for example, what's your advice for that person? Who's, you know, wondering about that?

Carol  51:45

Sure, yes, I would say just do it just like take the plunge and do it because I wish I had done it a long time ago, it would have saved me, you know, just some struggles that I had with previous attempts. Just do it because like for me, I have a tendency to overanalyze things. And if I'm out here floating on my own little island, I'll overthink everything to death. And then like spinning my wheels and not getting anywhere. But with you, I could just shoot your message, you know, and he would respond right away. And then I knew exactly what to do. So just do it. And you won't regret it.

Philip Pape  52:19

And it took you four months to get amazing results. Right? Yeah, I think of that in the scheme of your life, right years and decades of your life. And so anyone listening who's like, once you make the decision to do that, to accelerate the process, working with a coach or getting help, or whatever it is, whether it's in a group program, an individual coach, you know, something that your insurance pays for, I don't care. You know, think the results are going to come pretty quickly in relative terms.

Carol  52:49

Right? Yeah. It's an investment worth taking.

Philip Pape  52:53

Yeah. Because if I if I asked you who's listening six months ago, where did you say you'd be today? You probably said the same answer. You say today, not you, Carol, because you've gotten your results, right. But if someone if I say word, you know, what do you want to be in six months? Ask Did you ask yourself that question six months ago, and get the same answer in six months before they get the same, in which case, there's maybe time for a change. That's the way I look at my eight years spent in CrossFit not doing anything, that's what I like. Alright, so and then as far as working with a coach, how does someone make the most of that process so that they know that hey, from day one, they're actually getting what they need out of it?

Carol  53:35

I just to make the most out of it. Just you know, don't hesitate to reach out to your coach anytime, anytime, with anything. I mean, that I mean, coaches, especially you, you know, there's just a wealth of information. So it's like, take advantage of that, you know,

Philip Pape  53:50

yeah, I agree. I mean, I have clients who all they use me for is like an encyclopedia. And guess what, that that works for them because they couldn't have found that they couldn't have Googled or chat GBT that information and got exactly what they needed, you know, seconds. And I think that's important because I use all those tools as well. But I know that if I'm struggling as a business owner or as a, as a husband, or whatever, and I just need an answer. For me, that's gonna work. It's great to have a friend as a coach a community, even if it's, again, even if it's a free community, it doesn't have to be a coach, right? It could be in a community. Go ask, you know, Joe or Susan, right, like the question and they'll get an answer. Yeah, yeah. Surgery. So what has been the most surprising result of this entire process?

Carol  54:36

Um, the most surprising result? Um, well, you know, it was really surprising that everything happened so quickly. Like that definitely surprised me just with the weight, the fat loss. But I think just how stronger I've become and how I'm be able to lift heavy and that's that's really been surprising because ever since that first injury back with CrossFit, I just over and over and told myself, I can't lift heavy, I can't lift heavy, I can't lift heavy because XYZ happened, you know, and I mean, my legs still flares up every now and then but, but I had to jump that hurdle and just say I can do this. And so but I think that really has been the most surprising that yeah, I can I do, and I did it. And it's great.

Philip Pape  55:30

And how, what do you want to be doing when you're, say 90, in terms of strength? See now that now that you've transformed your identity in a way, think about it, like to the day you die? What do you want to be doing that? For, you know, that demonstrates your strength?

Carol  55:49

Yeah, well, I mean, I love to be lifting, I've never really lifting at 90 really love to be doing that just being active, you know, just staying active.

Philip Pape  56:01

That the wonderful thing is that you can, that's the thing that's out of this whole process, you can be that person and buck, the trend, Buck, the trend of the again, 90 95% of people we see walking around as they get old and frail illness sets in and disease and everything else. So in the short term, you've gotten the physique you wanted, but you've also gotten strength and health in the long term altogether, which is wonderful. Definitely. I'm inspired by you. So I know I am talking a lot not asking as many questions, Carol, but it's just wonderful to see this.

Carol  56:33

Thank you.

Philip Pape  56:34

So, you know, a question I'm going to ask next. It's the penultimate question of the interview. Okay, what question Did you wish I had asked, and what is your answer?

Carol  56:43

All right. So I've thought long and hard about this one. And like, one of the questions I get a lot from people, when I tell them about my routine, is how do you get up so early. And I do get up, I get up at 4am. Because I have to leave my house at 645 to get to work. And so I make my strength training a priority in my day. So I get up really early. But also, one thing that has made a difference for me is I read a book called the Miracle Morning by how Elrod you've probably heard of it. He's got a fabulous podcast. If you if you're not familiar with who he is, you should check him out. Because he has a really inspirational story. He was in a car accident, nearly died, was in a coma for like six days and made this transformational comeback. So he wrote The Miracle Morning, and he's got this acronym. I think it's savers. And it's like, so each morning, the goal is you set yourself up for success. By doing each of these little things as part of your daily routine. The S stands for silence. And so this is like meditation, that A is affirmations. So every day I write down a daily affirmation, you know, like I will, or I can or just something that is affirming, for me. The V is visualization. This is where you like, visualize yourself going throughout your day successfully. This is great when you're lifting heavy to visualize doing that. Yeah, the E is for exercise. Yeah, the E is for exercise. And of course, I do that in the morning. And then the R is for read. So he's a big, you know, like self help read a book about something you know, to help yourself grow. And then the S stands for scribe, which means right, so then write in a journal. So I read that book a couple of years ago, and it really just changed my whole morning routine. And also something else he points out is like, the night before, tell yourself that you're going to wake up ready for the day, like make that mindset change the night before. And like, even if you know that you're not going to be getting much sleep because you go into bed late, you know, tell yourself you're going to wake up and be ready. So it's really cool to like, be successful with all those things before you even leave the house. And it just sets up your day much differently than it otherwise would, at least for me. And so that would be my answer. If people ask me how I get up at 4am

Philip Pape  59:08

Ya know, love it, there's definitely there's like morning lifters and afternoon lifters, you know, and I read that book years ago too, and we all take something different from it, but you're you're right that like starting your day off on a good solid footing. Thinking Ahead, planning ahead sounds like you get your day ready ahead of time. And you're in control, right? You're just like in control of your outcome. And that's what this is all about. So definitely to all the 40 M lifters out there you know, take care of advice and still try to get to sleep you know at a decent time the day before because it will catch up to you.

Carol  59:41

Yeah go to bed at like eight so there's that yeah,

Philip Pape  59:45

I don't know if how lifts heavy weights so we got to get them you know, training but all the other stuff. So okay, where do you want listeners to learn about you and reach out to you?

Carol  59:54

Sure. Well, I am in the Wits & Weights community so folks are able to read reach out to me through there and I'll be happy to help you respond to any questions just support you. cheer you on in your journey.

Philip Pape  1:00:08

Yeah, so I'll include the link to that and then so folks can join and find Carol and if you can't find or just post or reach out to me and say where's Carol you know, so we can reach out to Purdue should be pretty obvious. Carol, this is fun. The time just flew by. I love everything about your story. It's just teaches us how resilient our our minds are and our spirits and how we can change at any age, no matter who we are, no matter where we're studying, no matter what we've done in the past. And just thank you so much for sharing your experience.

Carol  1:00:39

Oh, thank you. This was so much fun. It was an honor to be on your show.

Philip Pape  1:00:44

So much fun. Thanks, Carol.

Carol  1:00:45

Thank you.

Philip Pape  1:00:48

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

Ep 94: Mike Matthews on Energy Balance, Training Volume, and Priorities for Novice and Intermediate Lifters

In today’s episode, I have the utmost pleasure of talking to the one and only Mike Matthews, a legend in the fitness industry, a bestselling author, and a successful entrepreneur who has helped countless people transform their bodies and health with his no-nonsense, science-based advice. You’ll learn about his fitness philosophy and advice on topics from training for older lifters to nutrition and hormonal health, cardio, and more.

Mike is the founder and CEO of Legion, a coaching and supplement company, with the highest ethical standards. He is the author of several influential books, including Bigger Leaner Stronger, Thinner Leaner Stronger, and Muscle for Life.

Mike’s Muscle for Life Podcast, with 25M+ downloads, features health, fitness, and lifestyle tips from experts and celebrities. Mike has been training for 20 years and is passionate about helping people achieve their fitness goals.

I discovered Mike in 2020 through his book and podcast. Through him, I learned the science of fitness with online calculators, articles, and guest appearances,  so I’m grateful to have the chance to sit down with Mike and have this conversation.

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Click here to apply for coaching!
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Today you’ll learn all about:

[2:30] Mike's evolution as an authority in fitness
[10:08] On getting started with training and diet
[16:07] Factors and expectations in achieving optimal fitness
[20:33] Maintaining a calorie surplus for building  muscle and strength
[25:59] Energy availability, RED-S, hormone, and recovery
[35:22] Training volume and progressive overload for optimal muscle and strength gains
[40:42] Lifting program and equipment to start with and how to progress
[44:24] Sleep's role in muscle and strength gain
[48:56] Limiting the time spent on cardio for strength and recovery
[58:03] On pursuing his passion for fitness and writing
[1:06:36] Where to learn more about Mike
[1:09:32] Outro

Episode resources:

• Mike’s website: www.legionathletics.com

• Mike on X: @muscleforlife  and IG:  @muscleforlife

• The Know Your Bill of Rights Book 

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https://witsandweights.com/free-call


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Transcript

Mike Matthews  00:00

by normal, reasonable human standards, you absolutely can. You can be big. You can be lean if we if we define lean as athletic, you can look athletic, you can have a lot more muscle than the average person and be a lot stronger than the average person.

Philip Pape  00:16

Welcome to the Wits & Weights podcast. I'm your host Philip pape, and this twice a week podcast is dedicated to helping you achieve physical self mastery by getting stronger. Optimizing your nutrition and upgrading your body composition will uncover science backed strategies for movement, metabolism, muscle and mindset with a skeptical eye on the fitness industry, so you can look and feel your absolute best. Let's dive right in. Wits & Weights community Welcome to another episode of the Wits & Weights podcast. In today's episode, I have the utmost pleasure of talking to the one and only Mike Matthews, a legend in the fitness industry, a best selling author and a successful entrepreneur who has helped countless people transform their bodies and health. With his no nonsense science based advice. You'll learn about his fitness philosophy, his advice on topics from training for older lifters to nutrition and Hormonal Health, maybe cardio and some other topics we might get even get into podcasting, writing and his never ending journey for wisdom. Mike is the founder and CEO of Legion, a coaching and supplement company that also has very high ethical standards. He's of course the author of several wildly popular and influential books including bigger, leaner, stronger, thinner, leaner, stronger, and muscle for life, all of which I've either read followed or recommended to family, friends and clients. Mike also hosts the muscle for life podcast, one of my favorites in my feed, so make sure to subscribe if you don't already now has more than 25 million downloads, where he chats with experts and celebrities on all things health, fitness and lifestyle. Mike has been training for two decades has a passion for sharing his wisdom and experience with anyone who wants to achieve their fitness goals. I personally first learned about Mike back in 2020 when I first read bigger, leaner, stronger in my personal quest to learn everything I could about evidence based fitness, his podcast, online calculators, articles, and appearances on other shows were essential resources during my first successful transformation. So I'm grateful to have the chance to sit down with Mike and have this conversation. Mike, it is truly an honor to welcome you to the show.

Mike Matthews  02:18

That's quite an intro. Hopefully I can live up to the accolades.

Philip Pape  02:23

No doubt you will no doubt you will. And I kind of want to appear behind the curtain of who you are. Because you've got the eyes and ears of probably millions of people at this point, you know, as a successful fitness author, Coach business owner, did you always envision that you were going to help and influence so many people? And how is that awareness of that impact and mission evolved as you've personally grown?

Mike Matthews  02:46

So no, is the answer to the first question. This started for me. About 1011 years ago now, when I wrote and published the first edition have gone through several editions now bigger, leaner, stronger. And that was a nights and weekends thing. It actually was more driven by my interest in Amazon's KDP self publishing platform, than it was in becoming a fitness kind of niche micro celebrity as I joke with. That's, that's that's my, my assessment of myself. Yeah, I'm a niche micro celebrity at most, but no, so that when I when I wrote that book, it was the result of my own personal transformation. And then working with other people and seeing things that many people in the evidence based fitness community would just take for granted like energy balance, and macronutrient balance and progressive overload and some of the other basic principles of proper training. But as anybody who already knows those things knows and has experienced firsthand. They're transformative when you experience them for the first time when you when you first understand, for example, you've been trying to lose those 10 or 15 pounds for however long now and you've tried every diet and you go down, you go up, you go down, you go up, and you just can't quite get there and stay there. And then you learn about energy balance. You learn about macronutrients, you learn a bit about food quality and food choices and you put those things together into a simple meal plan. And you're skeptical you're like there's no way it can be this simple. I get to eat all these foods that I like I just have to watch my portions basically. And if I just do this consistently, I'll get shredded No way. And then you do it and you get shredded and you're like wow, okay, I guess I'll never have to worry about my weight ever again. And you can have a similar epiphany in your training as well. When I mean I remember again, this is this is these are the types of things that led to bigger leaner, stronger going from two hours in the gym five or six days per week. bodybuilder type workouts so a lot of reps a lot of different exercises a lot of maybe like fancy training techniques. And I did gain muscle and strength of course, but to go from set to do that for six or seven years and be completely stuck to then doing workouts that that were 45 to 60 minutes long, probably more than cut my my volume in half. And doing a lot fewer exercises and working more on making progress on those exercises rather than just a bunch of exercise variety. Again, I was skeptical that that is going to work better. I remember doing some of these 45 minute workouts and feeling almost like guilty like I'm leaving the gym now 45 minutes, I was just, I was just getting warmed up previously. And and though then to see it firsthand over the course of the next few years. To gain quite a bit of muscle, I would say to go from probably in my first seven years of weightlifting I'd gained, let's call it 25 pounds or so. Um, so I looked like I worked out but seven years for 25 pounds of muscle. That's not very good if we're just judging that objectively. So, and then over the course of the next several years gained probably another 20 Let's say over the next three to five years, I'd have to go back and look at my old logs. No, exactly. But that gives you an idea. And, and so that was kind of my own personal transformation. And then again, I was working with friends and family and almost being just like, I mean, it wasn't charging them money, but I was training people who wanted to come they would they saw what happened with me. And I would tell them, Well, why don't you come train with me for a month or two, I'll show you what I'm doing. teach you a bit about diet. And you can take it and do what you want with it basically. And then seeing repeatable results that led to bigger, leaner, stronger, publish that. And when I published that book in, I think it was 2012 January 2012. I, I felt there was like a 5050 chance that either sold zero copies, or not zero copies. That's it. That was my only expectation initially. Because because it was kind of a side hustle as the kids like to say. And I was experimenting, I had had done some other short book projects, I was experimenting with Amazon's Kindle platform. And it just occurred to me that that's something that it could be a good experiment. And it could help a lot of people and meet a real need. And so that's why I wrote it initially. And it was very much kind of a minimum viable product. In the beginning, I think it was 30 to 50,000 words. And I did try to make sure that there's enough meat there to satisfy the promise that I was making in the marketing. But I knew that it was a minimum viable product that if it did, well, I could refine it, I could make it better. But I didn't want to put an inordinate amount of time and effort into something to have it sell zero copies. And so by the end of the first year, it was selling probably a few 1000 copies a month, it was doing quite well. And I also launched it 99 cents to was just as an ebook. And like, I wasn't trying to make money with it. I was just curious if anybody would care. I put an email address right in the first edition saying, Hey, if you have any questions, any suggestions, you can reach out to me. So it starts to sell. And by the end of the year, again, it's selling 1000s of copies per month. And at that point I already was putting together what would later become the second edition as people were emailing me asking good questions. It's good point didn't think of that or, you know, that question tells me that I didn't explain this correctly. And, and so that probably at that at the end of that first year is when I saw that there was really an opportunity to pursue fitness education seriously, and maybe be able to make a living with that.

Philip Pape  09:16

Yeah, and that story is so relatable like what, what I've what I've seen from your content is how you took a lot it sounds like you took a lot of trial and error. And maybe the evidence based space wasn't what it is today. Plus there wasn't as it was not right. And even today, I would say there are very few voices who put it out. So clearly, at least in my opinion, guys like Andy Morgan and a few others that I follow. They're just very to the point very prescriptive, which I prefer and I know a lot of people do, let's get through the fluff. Let's just talk about what works. But the idea of like, you know, I did all the diets, people do all the diets and then they think macro tracking is just another diet but really it's a completely different philosophy and principle. The you know, I did CrossFit for eight years and then finally started lifting heavy like you said while the, if you're lazy, that's the way to go. Right? It's an efficient way to get results. So, yeah, and I know you sold like 20 copies of your book in your first month you talked about before. So it obviously quickly quickly took off. What are your words for folks who, who haven't quite started there, and I've got beginners who lift and I've advanced folks lifted this podcast, listen to podcasts, and maybe they're afraid to take action. Maybe they have just had so much misinformation. And I know you're a man of action. You're all about like determination and going out there and persevering. What are your words of wisdom for those folks right now? For the first part for people who are who are on the fence, people who aren't sure where to start? Where to start?

Mike Matthews  10:39

Well, the good news is, you can start probably, I think the best advice is start with something. Take the tiny habit approach to use a BJ Fogg concept he has a he has a book tiny habits, where you're starting with something that is very low friction, that that the idea of doing it doesn't feel like much of an ask, it doesn't feel like a burden. So for some people, for example, if someone's brand new to all this, they're very overweight, they would like to get into great shape, but they know it's a process. And currently, they're doing nothing that might be start with going for a walk every day. 30 minutes, go outside if you can get some sun, and do that every day. And when you're doing that consistently. If we want to add a little bit more to that, then can we go out and walk faster now? Can you kind of like speed walk now for 30 minutes? Okay, great. Now let's switch to dark. Let's switch over to the diet. So let's say this person is drinking a lot of soda drink several cans or more of soda per day. Can we cut back on that? Can we replace that sugar sweetened soda with diet soda, for example. Now if we want to say what would be the absolute best for health, maybe it would be no soda whatsoever. The research on artificial sweeteners and particularly how they can affect the microbiome is is an emerging field. It does appear though, to affect different people differently, it appears to clearly have negative effects in some people, and seems to be more neutral in other people. And scientists aren't quite sure yet why that is. There are probably genetic underpinnings that at some point in the future, we might be able to even do a test that will allow us to understand better what foods and chemicals are going to aggravate our microbiome and not but for now. I would say the best option is probably to stay away from artificial sweeteners. Generally, that doesn't mean to not have a soda here and there and not chew some gum here and there. But not to have five sodas per day or something like that, or worse in sports nutrition not to have like 10 servings of sucralose per day between protein powders and pre workout and post workout so forth. So with diet, can we start there? Can we can we cut down on the on the caloric beverages? Okay, can we increase protein a little bit? Can we just maybe add a serving of protein to the to the current meal plan? Once that's ingrained? Can we add a serving of vegetables? Can we maybe remove a serving of starchy carbs that just aren't necessary. And so by going, if I were to flip back to the exercise, we have our walks in every day, maybe we even want to turn it into a rock where we we now take a backpack and we put some heavy books or if you want to be fancy, you can get a rocking backpack with some metal plates. I have one ironically, and you walk around you add, I have mine. And that walk now is a bit more cardiovascularly demanding. And if the next thing I would say is can we start strength training, can we start just one workout a week, we do one full body strength turning training workout per week 45 to 60 minutes, if somebody is brand new to this, they can just do it at home with their body weight, maybe some bands if they want to pick up some bands, like in my book muscle for life, I have beginner programs for men and women that don't require you to go to the gym. You can you can do it all at home with your body and with dance. And so by approaching this incrementally what can occur is over the course of a year or so, this person has changed, made major changes to their lifestyle and to their health and their body composition. But it never felt that difficult because they approached it one small step at a time rather than trying to change everything wholesale, which is what many people try to do. And that does work for some people that might be a personality thing or or other circumstances that in their life that just make it easier for them to make huge changes to go from nothing to getting in the gym five days a week, and to go from your standard American diet to a very nutritious quote unquote, healthy diet and so forth. But many people, maybe just as many people who try that will not succeed with that approach. So, and that there's a spectrum there. And so many people find also naturally where they are on that spectrum, and how much change they can make, without having the wheels fall off.

Philip Pape  15:33

That's a good point. I mean, there's a there's definitely a spectrum. And some of us who've been through all of the change, like we have, over the years, have to put ourselves in the shoes of someone who hasn't taken that first step. And you mentioned different conditions, like potentially working with a coach, you can accelerate that process, or other, or if you're in a community, right, everybody's kind of pushing you. People get so concerned about optimal all the time I hear it all the time, how do I optimize this? And that? And then And then the question is, Okay, have you taken the first step? Right? Do you have the baseline? Do you have the foundation, whether it's protein strength, training, whatever? How would you rank the relative importance for someone who's gone past the initial stages, maybe they're a beginner lifter, and now they are trying to work toward quote, unquote, optimal? You've got your training, you've got protein intake, your energy balance, sleep, right, your sub count? How would you rank the relative importance? Or it's just are they all important? And you need to pick what works for you that you need to take next? Yeah, I mean, you could take

Mike Matthews  16:29

that kind of pillars, you could use the pillars analogy and saying that you need each of those things to keep the structure up. But I think we probably could rank these things. So this would be for somebody who's newbie gains are exhausted, right? Yes. So they're through their first year, maybe even through their second year, and now they've they've stagnated or they just don't want to stagnate, they've seen progress slow down markedly. And and people should know, that's normal. Your average guy, for example, if he's doing the most important things, mostly right, most of the time, he should be able to gain anywhere from probably 15 to maybe 2025 pounds of muscle in his first year of training for women, you could cut that in half fat loss could be could be much more but but for muscle building, that's that's usually how it works out. And in the second year, you can cut that in half, you can cut the male and the female female numbers in half. So that year to a good year to for a man is probably about 10 pounds of muscle gained a good year to for women, five, maybe eight pounds of muscle gained. And every subsequent year, those numbers have again and again and again. And that sounds almost too neat to be real. Like it sounds too mathematical and algorithmic. But there's there's a good amount of research now that shows that that is reliably true for a number of reasons. And so expectations are important. I would say we'll we'll get into ranking as are things but but it's very important to have the right expectations and to understand what isn't isn't possible, at least without PDS. If you want to stay natural, which I would, I would suggest. And and the reason I say that is, especially with social media, and I've heard from these people over the years, who now are intermediate or even advanced weight lifters who have actually done quite well, but they actually don't even realize it because they are not doing well compared to what they see on social media. The type of physiques they see on social media, the amount of you'll see people who, who have the trifecta of big, lean and strong write really big, really lean really strong

Philip Pape  18:43

uncannily cells doesn't,

Mike Matthews  18:45

that that requires drugs. If you're if you are natural, you get to pick like you get to be big and strong. Yes, you can. You can get big and strong naturally, but you're not going to be very lean. Or you can just be lean, and I guess you could say you can look big, even though your muscles have shrunk in size, but there's a visual illusion because now you're lean, you look small in clothes enclosed when you take your clothes off and you're shredded and you look actually pretty big. But but you can't have the trifecta. You can't be big, lean and strong by social media standards national I would say by normal reasonable human standards. You absolutely can you can be big, you can be lean if we if we define lean as athletic, you can look athletic, you can have a lot more muscle than the average person and be a lot stronger than the average person so

Philip Pape  19:44

I'll tell you this my when I look at my IG feed and look at everybody on the beach, they don't exactly look the same. Do they? Correct

Mike Matthews  19:50

Yeah, even the fittest the fittest guy at the beach, even though he would get zero likes zero likes on his right and And so So anyway, so expectations are important and understanding what is and isn't possible and what should and should not be happening depending on where you're at in your journey. Now, we let's talk about, which are the most important factors. And let's also, let's put it in the context of you are, you just were kind of a newbie and you went through that phase, and you did most of the things right and you gained a lot of strength, you gained a lot of muscle, you had a lot of fun with it. And things have slowed down now. So some of the more common mistakes, I'm just going to start with calories, paying attention to calories, I'm going to put that at the top because what I've seen is a lot of intermediate and advanced weight lifters don't understand how important it is to consistently maintain a calorie surplus to keep gaining appreciable amounts of muscle and strength. What came so easily previously does not any more in that for your first year or even two years, I mean, your first year, you probably don't really even have to, especially if you're just starting out with a normal physique, you don't have to pay that much attention to your calories, you don't even have to make sure you're in a caloric surplus because your body is going to be so responsive to the training. If you do. If you're if your training is relatively well designed, and you you are relatively consistent with it, you're going to do very well unless you just dramatically under eat and dramatically under eat protein. But so long as you're eating something around your maintenance calories, whether you know it or not, so long as you're eating something around, call it 0.8 grams of protein to one gram of protein per pound of body weight per day. Or if you're overweight, we could we could reframe that to one gram per centimeter of height per day. So long as you're kind of around there, you are going to do well. Now though, you're an intermediate or an or an advanced weightlifter, probably this is more of an issue with intermediates because you don't make it to the advanced phase without learning this. Now, now there is a there is a big big difference in your performance in the gym and your results between around maintenance calories, sometimes you're a little bit over sometimes you're a little bit under. Also, if if you are trying to stay lean, that means that you are going to be at least in a small calorie surplus more are sorry, deficit more than you're going to be in a surplus because that's really what it requires to stay lean. Like if you're doing and you just want to keep your abs, you have to err on the side of under eating more than overeating or you lose your apps, right. And, and so just that point alone can be enough to cause you to stagnate to hit a plateau. So you can be following a well designed training program. And you actually no matter what changes you make in the gym, no matter how much volume tried to add, no matter how you try to periodized your training, no matter how you try to play with rep ranges, etc, etc. If you're not consistently eating enough food, your progress can stall. And that's the rule. There are exceptions, there are people again, who are so genetically gifted for just building muscle and getting strong, that they can get a lot further than the average person without paying attention to calories. But for most people, that becomes a very important point. So I would start there and I can continue if you want

Philip Pape  23:38

to. It's good. I'm letting you talk. And to add to that, right. Even if you're not a hard gainer, I've seen it time and again, no matter who you are, if you're trying to be in that surplus, your your expenditure metabolomes just going to start to run out only say start to run away. But I've seen appreciable jumps in your metabolism metabolism over say a six month period of anywhere from four to six or 800 calories where you really have to stay on top of that are also Yeah, maintenance. Yep. Right. That's what you see as well. Oh, yeah.

Mike Matthews  24:04

I mean, you know, you're doing it right. When after the first month or two, certainly, three, you just feel like you're forced feeding yourself. And you're never hungry, and you're just sick of eating, and seatbelts are uncomfortable. And you're just you just you just now like, hoping that you can just slashed your calories in half. That's what you would like to do.

Philip Pape  24:36

Yeah, and even when you get back to maintenance and you're not at those extremes we all eat the grass is always greener, we're always imagining Hmm, now I think I really want to be dieting now. And now I want to be in a surplus again, it's always a next phase. All right, so another topic because now we're talking about intermediate lifters but also I want to touch on older lifters and my older I mean,

Mike Matthews  24:54

let me go over before we move on, let me just let me just quickly give people just if they're wondering What are the other kind of most important things? You had mentioned? A couple? I think I think it was a good question. So, so calories understanding the importance of calorie surplus, experiencing it firsthand. Again, when when I've heard it from particularly a lot of women over the years, when they lean bulk for the first time, they are amazed at how good it feels, particularly in the gym, to have those extra calories, it's very anabolic, like you're gonna have your best workouts as a natural weightlifter. When you're in a slight calorie surplus. And you've been doing that consistently for a few weeks, your sleep is probably going to improve, and you're just going to have a lot of energy, those workouts that you were doing, certainly in a deficit, even at maintenance, the workouts that were difficult can feel downright easy when you're when you're in a calorie surplus. And,

Philip Pape  25:50

and it's true, especially since much of that comes from carbs, which also are generally underfed.

Mike Matthews  25:55

Yep, it's even it's even there's there's the carbs, there's that aspect, but then there's just the energy availability, just having the extra energy makes a big difference, the body generally runs better, everything runs better, especially non essential processes run better, because if energy is is not as available, then the body has to play kind of triage in terms of where is it going to allot energy and which physiological processes is it going to run at full capacity in which ones are not going to run at full capacity. And unfortunately, the processes related to hypertrophy are not very high on the list of where the energy is going to go, before we get to muscle building. And so just that, that, that fact that that's one of the reasons why it's generally recommended for athletes to be athletic in terms of a physique, but not try to get in stay too lean. It does happen naturally, with certain athletes that burns. So many, like cyclists burn so many calories, it's impossible for them, especially in hard training periods, to not lose weight, and they want to stay light also for their sport. But in sport in many other sports, it's not recommended to try to get and stay too lean, because that requires not just a calorie deficit, but then staying there requires a lower caloric intake just generally than if they were 10 pounds heavier. They could eat. There's research on this, particularly as it relates to lean mass. And so if I remember correctly, if you're an athlete, ideally, you're probably you probably be in the range of 40 to 45 calories per kilogram of lean mass per day, I believe is the evidence based recommendation. And if you are, let's say mid to high 30s, that's probably okay, you probably would, would notice an improvement in your performance and your energy if you were to be a bit higher. But when you get to low 30s, High 20s, that is going to significantly impair performance. And so you have to do that sometimes, like if you're cutting or if you have an athlete who has to make weight or something, then they are going to have to restrict their calories. But generally speaking, when they want to perform and they want to be able to perform. They want to be closer to 40 to 45 calories per kilogram of lean mass per day. Yeah, so

Philip Pape  28:35

so it's just an ask us that's like 20 That's it. Okay. 18 calories per pound of lean mass. Got it? Yeah, yeah, exactly. Let's hit on that a little bit, because there's a couple of top cut topics related to energy availability, because I know reds comes to mind for me for you know, relative energy efficiency, but also, because we deal with a lot of older lifters, hormones and recovery. I've seen them significantly improved just from the extra energy, what do we what do we know about that for, especially for women, whether it's DHEA testosterone for men and women, and then recovery, you know, we often talk about the physical and biomechanical aspects of recovery, but I think energy does have a big part to play.

Mike Matthews  29:11

Absolutely. I mean, that's, that's, that's those those things are part of the equation right? Reds, where women will lose their periods because again, that's, that's where the body's in triage mode and it's not getting enough energy, and it's making sure that its vital processes are are continuing but then non vital processes are not getting the energy required to function properly and menstruation is one of those. And and if if an athlete develops reds then there are a number of other symptoms, you know, exhaustion, excessive soreness, the long term drops in performance and so forth. And it takes a lot to get there. You're not going to see that in an everyday gym goer, but you can see that in probably competitive athletes as opposed to maybe a weekend warrior, but somebody, somebody who's training every day, 567 days a week, and if he has games on top of that, and so forth, like somebody who's really, that's, that's mostly what they're doing is playing their sport. And so recovery with with energy availability, I mean, there are a number of different physiological processes that contribute to recovery, that, again, are are non vital. And so if energy is if it's not available enough, it's not that those processes are not going to occur, they are going to occur, but they're not going to occur. To the extent there's a quantitative and a qualitative aspect here, they're not going to occur to the extent that they would, if calories were higher if energy were more available. And so again, if anybody listening wants to experience it, just if you haven't linval, to do it, workout, assuming assuming you're in a, let's say, healthy body fat range, you have a healthy body composition, now, work out what would be approximately 10% more calories than you burn on average, and start eating that amount every day. And you'll you'll see firsthand within it probably take one to two weeks or so until you really start to notice it. But then you will really notice that you're going to feel more recovered, you'll probably you'll notice is less muscle soreness, you'll probably notice fewer aches and pains in your joints, you're going to notice better sleep, you're going to notice high higher energy levels, you're going to notice better moods, and those are all symptoms of recovering well. And you probably also will find that you can recover your performance faster. So if you train one muscle group fairly intensely, whereas previously, maybe it took you three, four or five days, to be able to repeat that performance, you might now be consistently seeing that recovery in two or three days, for example, or three or four days. And it's never five days anymore, which is also a reliable indicator of recovery in the context of strength training, in particular, less muscle soreness, more performance, if you if you did, you know, five sets five with whatever, and you came back three or four days later, and you're a little bit sore, but you did five sets of five with the same weight, or maybe with a little bit more weight, you were recovered. So again, it's it's it's an often overlooked thing, because it's so simple, it's just calories.

Philip Pape  32:44

It is and I think a lot of people are afraid of just gaining a bunch of weight. And sure because because you know the surplus you're in and you're tracking it that right there gives you that feedback of of where your intake is. And because your metabolism is so recovered and you have so much energy you do start to find that it actually gets harder to even eat what you need. And it's kind of a nice place to be right you're you're barely gaining, but you don't feel deprived.

Mike Matthews  33:08

Again, I haven't I haven't been booked in some time, at least not like, purposely, for you. I haven't done like a six month lean bulking a long time. But after three or four months, it was I would say it was just as difficult in a different way. But just as difficult as cutting, you know, for three or four months and hunger is higher. workouts are worse, and cravings are present and so forth. So that's after a few months of cutting, that's just usually how it is after a few months of lean bulking though against that point of having no desire to eat whatsoever. And I can liken it too. I remember a time many years ago when I had a flu, and I was pretty sick for I don't know two weeks or something. And for that first week, I had no appetite whatsoever, I just had to force myself to eat some protein at least to try to like mitigate muscle loss. And so that's kind of how it felt at least for me after three or four months of lean bulking. I was not enjoying any food, anything period like even the stuff I really liked pasta for example. So that was like my second dinner that I had to eat but even that I was just forcing myself to eat. I couldn't find anything that I actually liked to eat anymore. So

34:31

yeah. Hi, my name is Lisa and I'd like to Big shout out to my nutrition coach Philip Pape with his coaching I have lost 17 pounds he helped me identify the reason that I wanted to lose weight and it's very simple longevity. I want to be healthy, active and independent until the day I die. He introduced me to this wonderful at home macro factor I got that part of my nutrition figured out along with that is the movement part of nutrition. There's a plan to it and really helped me with that. The other thing he helped me with was knowing that Need to get a lot of steps in. So the more steps you have, the higher your expenditure is, and the easier it is to lose weight, when it's presented to you like he presents it, it makes even more sense. And the other thing that he had was a hunker guide. And that really helped me. So thank you below.

Philip Pape  35:16

Continuing down the hierarchy than what we talked about energy, so

Mike Matthews  35:19

the next to the next, so we've taken care of calories, I would say that the next thing that an intermediate weightlifter needs to look at is is their volume. In particular, now we can define volume in different ways. But let's let's use the definition of hard sets per major muscle group, we can look at it per week. And a hard set is a set taken close to muscular failure. And so not a warm up set, not a submaximal set where you do six reps with a weight that you could have done 10 reps with or 12 reps with now, these are six reps, and maybe you could have done seven or eight, you don't have to go up to failure. But you're pushing close. Those are hard sets. And the mistake that I see many beginner now intermediate weightlifters make is. So let's say they're doing about 10 Hard sets per major muscle group per week. And that works well. For most people for the first year, let's say anywhere between eight and 12, maybe even into the second year, if they're a high responder, there's a point though, where that amount of volume is not going to produce any more progress to speak of, and what I see many newly intermediate weight lifters or even long term intermediate weight lifters and they've just been spinning their wheels, what I see them do is they think that their programming needs to get more sophisticated. So now they need to be working in different rep ranges, that's the key actually. So they need to be doing sets of two's and sets of sixes and sets of 10s. Or they need to make some major changes to their exercises and start doing more exotic movements, or they need to start doing drop sets, or super sets, or giant sets or negatives or, or, or, and, and some of those things can produce results to a point. But it's, it's it's not going to consistently move the needle, they might be able to do some of that. And for certain reasons, they might be able to gain a bit more muscle and strength, but it's not going to be very efficient. So again, after let's say a year, of doing all that kind of stuff, if they've been consistent, they probably will have gained some muscle in that year. But whereas they maybe could have gained 567 pounds. Like that's what they could have gained if they would have known what to do. Instead, they gained too. And and so the the number one change that intermediate weight lifters have to make is just more volume, they have to just work harder, and I get why many people don't automatically go to that because that is the worst.

Philip Pape  38:05

It requires effort.

Mike Matthews  38:07

Yeah, that's, that's just bad news, really, unless you just love being in the gym. That's not what people want to hear. Right. So the bottom line, though, is, if 10 to 12 Hard sets per major muscle group per week, if that is going to work well for let's say up to two years. In most people, I think that's fair. Those people, if they want to keep progressing at the rate that they can be progressing at at least let's say most of most of what they can be gaining, it probably needs to go up to upwards of 15 parts sets per major muscle group per week. Now, a 10 per week may be able to go to 1213 and see consistent progress for another year. So if they're at 12 already, and they're kind of stuck, they might be they might have to go to 15. And then and then eventually, for advanced weight lifters, if they're staying natural, and they're trying to gain every ounce of muscle and strength genetically available to them, they probably are going to have to go as high as 20 Hard sets per week, maybe not for all major muscle groups, but for certain major muscle groups that are a bit more stubborn than others. So we all have high and low responding muscle groups, in our in our high responding muscle groups, maybe we never really need to go beyond 1314 15 Hard sets per week, so long as we have our programming set up correctly. And we have a good progression model built in and we can achieve progressive overload consistently blah, blah, blah. And that might get us to where we want to be with that muscle group. But then there will be muscle groups inevitably, that need more than that, that need 1518 20 Hard sets per week consistently to get bigger and stronger. And so that would be number two. Again thinking with the context because I've had many of these conversations with people over the years. And so I'm just thinking with what intermediate strength trainees often overlook?

Philip Pape  40:07

Yeah, no. And I'm glad you focus on volume instead of specific movements or specific types of programming, it really is highly variable depending on the volume. But yep, you mentioned, the amount of weight you gain or muscle you gain in that first year, it could be a lot smaller than you want. And it could happen by accident, right? I mean, there's so many programs, quote, unquote, work for a newbie, but aren't optimal. And then if you kind of get programmed to the idea that this mode of, of training works, now you try to step up the volume using that same training, that's gonna be less effective. Just taking a step back if we go from, because you mentioned muscle for life and bands. But then we also talked about, we haven't talked about the primary forms of lifting with barbells. Mainly, is there an intermediate, beginner range there with, for example, dumbbells that is effective for someone to start with, because I get this, especially from a lot of women, or a lot of people who don't have access to the barbells. Sometimes it's an excuse, but oftentimes, it's a real thing. Is there a trans transition type of programming they could use there?

Mike Matthews  41:09

Absolutely. That actually is the intermediate program in my book muscle for life, which is written specifically for people 40 Plus, who are who are new to all of this. But you you progress from bodyweight, and bands, to dumbbells. And if if you have access to it a trap bar for deadlifting, which is a great hip and back friendly alternative to the traditional deadlift, not that the traditional deadlift is detrimental to your hips and your back. But it's more stressful on your hips and back. And so I like to see particularly if people are a little bit older, and they're new to this, I like to see them with a trap bar first, and establish a good movement pattern, build some strength there before they progress to a barbell. And so as far as even, let's say, a home gym setup, well, if you have, you can even go with modular dumbbells, especially if you get a set that goes up to 80 or 85 pounds. And if you're a woman, you might not even need that, you might just set up to 5055 pounds. And if you want to add a trap bar, which you can get for probably anywhere from 150 to $300, you have everything you need to get well into your intermediate phase. And, you know, for many people actually, if you look at it just in terms of their goals, if you have somebody whose goal is just to get into really good shape, again, by objective standards, not the deranged Instagram standards, and stay that way. They don't need anything more than that, actually, if they just have the know how. And they have a good dumbbell setup, and they have a trap bar, maybe a pull up bar, maybe a dip bar, a couple other things that you can just have at home, that is enough to go from completely out of shape, into great shape. Strong, and you can stay like that for the rest of your life. Now, if you want to see how muscular and how strong you can get given your genetics, then yeah, we're gonna want to add a bit more equipment. For most people, it's easier to just go to a gym, even the space required not that you need a ton of space to have a home gym, a well equipped a well equipped home gym, but you need a bit of space, you need a bit of money. So you're gonna need to do that adding a barbell, you're gonna probably have to expand on your dumbbells. And there are a few machines that are worth considering, like a cable setup and a few other things that you can get at any decent gym, of course.

Philip Pape  43:52

Cool. So we talked energy, we talked volume, what's next movement?

Mike Matthews  43:55

Sleep? Um, so let's see. Movement, I would say no, that's probably I mean, it's good for health. And that's good for not sitting around too much. And it's good for getting outside. But if we're talking to just body comp and performance, you could just have an upright bike like this and just drone away for 30 minutes. But I do is I do it four days a week. And I guess you could call that movement. But if we're talking about continuing to improve strength and continuing to gain muscle, I would say sleep has probably I didn't just say there. It's a common issue with a lot of people, I guess these days with young, younger people and older people, and it certainly will get in the way particularly if you're not 25 anymore. If you're not just physiologically invincible, like we were at 25 then the penalties of not sleeping enough are much larger. And there are things going on that we don't see that are particularly related to muscle protein synthesis or the creation of new muscle protein. So when we don't sleep enough muscle protein synthesis levels in our body are generally lower. And that, of course, is bad that that's going to detract from muscle hypertrophy from from growing muscle. If we can't gain muscle, we are not going to be able to gain strength. After your first year or two, when you've gained a fair amount of muscle, you've gained a fair amount of strength, the most reliable way to get stronger is simply to gain muscle, there's really not much else you can do anymore, you're not going to improve the neurological function of your muscles and your nervous system better, you're not going to get appreciably better at the exercises, you're probably pretty good at them. Now, if you're going to get stronger, you have to gain muscle that has to be the focus. And so regularly, it's not just getting enough sleep, it's it's also the quality of the sleep. And also it's not just getting in bed and getting out of bed at certain times, you know, you'll ask some people, so how much do you sleep and they call Yes, seven or eight hours. And what you learn is, well, they're getting in bed, and they get out of bed after seven or eight hours, but the actual sleep is no more than six. Because when they get in bed, they're on their phone for a bit watching TV, or watching TV or or they just have trouble falling asleep. And then maybe they're waking up anywhere from one to three times in the middle of night. And either they have to pee or maybe they just wake up and they can fall back asleep. But but those wakings add up to another 30 minutes, let's say of sleep last. And so I probably would be remissed to to put sleep lower on the list. And we could reorder these things depending on who we are talking to and what we're going for. But I think it's appropriate to say with intermediate weightlifters, paying attention first and foremost to the calories, then to work out volume, then sleep probably is would be the third thing. And for for people who are skeptical if you're currently if you honestly assess your sleep, and it is, let's say more like six or seven hours of actual sleep, and maybe it's broken up, if you were to increase that by an hour or two consistently, it would have a similar I mean, everything in your life has just gotten better actually. And but but if we if we if we if we just stick with the gym, it's going to have a similar effect to going from a calorie deficit to a calorie surplus, your performance goes way up. Your your not only is your performance go up, but your perception of effort goes down too. So now you are lifting more weight, you are maybe even doing a bit more volume in your workouts now because you have the energy. But it it feels easier than your workouts did previously on less sleep. And so sleep is it's annoying because it I wish we just didn't have to sleep. I would do unconscionable things if I didn't have to sleep anymore.

Philip Pape  48:28

The Productivity be through the roof. Yeah, it's I think it's good for people to understand I understand that. Because I will hear stories about people plateauing. And they're like, I'm doing everything right, I'm training got my protein. Yeah, and I only get six hours of sleep well, there's a root cause often. And I know from personal experience, like,

Mike Matthews  48:47

let's just, let's, let's just fix that. Let's just stop talking about all the other things. And let's just start there.

Philip Pape  48:53

That becomes your number one. But real quick about cardio because you talk about it all the time. And I actually like your rule of thumb of limiting your kind of medium and intense cardio to half the time you lift. Did that come from some evidence at some point? Is it just a really good rule of thumb? Where does that come from?

Mike Matthews  49:11

Yeah, yeah, I would say I mean, I that's based on my understanding of the evidence a the research is particularly on what's called the interference effect. Because cardiovascular training produces a certain type of ad, a type of adaptation in the body strength training produces a very different adaptation in the body, and they are fundamentally at odds. And so that's why many people have traditionally said that cardio is going to kill your gains. You can't do cardio if you're trying to gain muscle. That's not true. That's that's just an exaggeration. But what is true is at a physiological level, they are at odds that's true. Now, fortunately, unless you're doing way too much cardio, cardio is not going to get in the way of gaining muscle and gaining strength and in some ways that actually can any Hansard, for example, one thing that you'll notice, if you currently do no cardio, and you start doing cardio and you build up your cardiovascular endurance, one thing that you're going to notice, if you pay attention is you're going to recover faster in between your sets in the gym. And if you're like me, I watched my little my little stopwatch on my phone. And so I'm resting three, three and a half minutes in between sets of bigger harder exercises, squats, deadlifts, overhead press, bench press, probably not not necessary. And on everything else, it's more like two, two and a half minutes. And I'm, I feel recovered in those time periods. But if I think back to I've been doing cardio consistently, for some time I cardio is not outstanding, I wouldn't consider myself an endurance athlete, but I do enough to have better than average cardio. But I think back in the past, though, when I wasn't doing cardio consistently, those time periods, which are evidence based rest periods, and I would say generally are good, just one size fits all recommendations. If I think back, my heart rate was a bit higher previously, I'd be I'd be resting for two, two and a half, maybe three minutes. Okay, I feel fine, I'm ready to do the next set. However, my heart rate is a bit more elevated, I'm breathing a bit heavier, and and now, my heart rate is lower. So my body cardiovascularly is recovering faster in between sets. And that can improve performance. In the in the same two to three, three and a half minutes, my body is recovering faster because of the cardio. And then and then there are a few other physiological mechanisms in play whereby improving cardio and doing cardio consistently can actually enhance muscle growth or some stuff related to blood flow. And so minimally, it's not going to hurt it. However, again, it can hurt it, if you just do too much cardio and buy too much. It really depends on the person. But I'd say probably anything over especially running research shows that running in particular is detrimental because of the impact and the amount of wear and tear it puts on your body. It's just running as it is much more difficult to recover from than, than a bike or than a rower, or than swimming or an elliptical if you get rid of that impact. And if you want to make it even harder, like high intensity sprinting is the highest is the hardest to recover from, right. But if you are running probably anything more than five hours per week, unless you are very conditioned, and you've been doing it for so long, that's nothing but the that's probably where you're starting to enter the realm of interference where there actually will be some amount of interference with your strength training, not only the the performance, like if you're running quite a bit, especially if you're doing 10 plus hours per week, no question, if you're doing 10 plus hours of running per week, it's going to be interfering with your strength training with your bill, your ability to gain muscle gain strength, you're going to notice in your performance, because you're you're just going to feel a bit beat up, probably always. But then But then the results are going to be impaired as well, you're going to gain less muscle from that training, because of the cardio, you're going to gain less strength because of the cardio. And and so then to take a very kind of safe, conservative position. That's why I took it back to Okay, let's let's limit our cardio to half of the amount of time that we're spending training our muscles. And that way, there's just no way that we're going to run into any issues with the with the interference effect. And if we wanted to stretch that, I would say we could stretch it to probably about the amount of time that you're training, that you're doing strength training. Unless you're doing let's say just one hour of strength training per week, but then I would I would recommend saving one hour of strength training, we're doing five hours of cardio per week. There could be reasons to do that. Maybe you just really enjoy it, that'd be a good reason. But if you're open to it, I would I would ask if we could do three hours of strength training and maybe two hours of cardio per week. So we have some some flexibility. And but I think that's just a good recommendation that allows people to get in enough cardio to benefit from it materially, so you're going to if you're just doing one to two hours of useless just moderate intensity kind of zone to cardio per week. That is great for improving your cardiovascular health, improving your overall health, your sense of well being. It's great for things related to longevity. So like, you know, I joke like, you lift weights to make your life better you do cardio to Make Your Life Longer. But there's, there's, there's truth, there's truth in that. And, and it's it's something that is approachable for many people. So they're in the gym, probably many people listening least many people who are in my orbit, they're lifting weights maybe three to five hours per week. And if they're being asked to figure out maybe adding one to two hours of cardio per week, and so those can be anywhere from 20 to 30 minute workouts that you do, and what type of cardio doesn't really matter, it can be things like I've mentioned, or it could just be playing sports, or you'd like to play pickleball cool, do that whatever, right? It's just, it should be something a bit more challenging than just walking, walking is great. But there there are significant benefits to also doing zone two, right. So like zone, zone one where we're walking is fine. But it's not very challenging, therefore, the adaptations are limited. Whereas when you increase that difficulty, you're now going to get bigger benefits from it. And finally, I would say if somebody does want to add some high intensity stuff, because they like it, or because it's relevant to like, if they really are trying to improve their, their cardiovascular endurance, then it does make sense to do some high intensity work as well. If we are also doing strength training, and our priority is to progress in our strength training, if everything else is kind of secondary to that, I would say, probably a good idea to limit your high intensity work to no more than an hour per week, because high intensity work is great for improving your endurance. And it can be great for burning a lot of calories in a shorter period of time. But it's also harder to recover from.

Philip Pape  56:59

Thanks, all great advice, because there's always confusion about that. And it's really about the dose, what your goal is, whether you're trying to improve your work capacity, and whether you enjoy it, and it's great. I want to respect your time. I know I you know, in my over ambition, I probably have 15 Other questions, I'd love to ask you that philosophy and others.

Mike Matthews  57:17

Practice I haven't been a guest on someone's podcast, and in months, well,

Philip Pape  57:22

you know, mine's gonna keep going on and on. So if you ever want to come back for part two, we can. But I do want to ask you a question. I ask all guests. And that is, is there anything you wish I had asked you? And what is your answer? And I know we kept it kind of to a constrained topic here. But yeah, would you answer that? Yeah.

Mike Matthews  57:40

It's funny, we only we only really touched on a couple of things. Maybe maybe, instead of that, you have one more question that you want to ask?

Philip Pape  57:52

Yeah, I mean, you're a very hungry guy, like I could tell you're always out for, you know, growing, improving and building your business. And people people respect and are drawn to that. So I mean, what else do you want to accomplish before you die?

Mike Matthews  58:06

That's interesting question. So so it kind of comes back actually, to what I said, originally, which was that my plan initially was to write this book, and put it out there and see how it does. And if it if it does, well follow it up with some more books. But originally, my plan was to, to write in different genres and write about things that are interesting to me. So I've done some of that I've written a book on the bill of rights that actually has has sold quite well under a pen name, just because it would be very random to publish that under my name. And then people are like, wait a minute, bigger, leaner, stronger, and the Know Your Bill of Rights book, is this a joke? And so from a marketing perspective, it makes more sense to keep all the fitness stuff under my name like, sir, you know, I'm the fitness guy. And then I, I didn't put much thought into the pen name is just to name two names in my family. Two people's names I picked Sean and Patrick. So Sean, Patrick, and, and and so I've written I've written books and a couple other genres as well. That was my original interest was writing. That's why I got into this. And I almost didn't pursue all of the fitness stuff because I didn't want to. I wasn't thrilled at the idea of becoming a niche fitness micro celebrity as I joke, right. I just I wasn't that that wasn't very appealing to me. And Part Part of that's just my personality. I'm not very concerned about getting approval from other people and getting admiration from people and prestige and status. I'm human. So those things have some appeal, and they always will, but they're not major factors in my Decision Making particularly important decisions, like what am I going to do with my life. And so, originally, I wanted to keep writing, I wanted to write fiction as well, I was very interested in that. And I wanted to use what I was learning about books and selling books to have a digital publishing company, publish my own stuff, publish other people's stuff. And then the fitness stuff started to do so well, that I decided to just go all in on that and pursue that opportunity, despite a part of me not wanting to, and I figured, okay, if I can stick to what I like about it, like if I can stick to writing, and researching, producing content, and doing it maybe also my way, so to speak, like if I go all the way back before the book, so I had my little personal transformation. I was, I was pretty lean, it was probably seven or 8%, body fat, had a good amount of muscle look pretty good. Working out with a with a friend. And he was joking with me. He was like, Mike, why don't you just take your shirt off on YouTube? And just like, sell shit, why don't you just start doing that. And that would have been back in 2012. Now everyone's doing that there weren't actually that many people on YouTube at that time, at least, that I can remember who were in good shape and and who also could maybe explain things and be educational. But that didn't appeal to me. I just didn't want to do that. But what did appeal to me was writing a book, which objectively, is not a great business decision going on YouTube would have been a smarter business decision. If we're talking about probabilities of turning into something that could mean something. But I decided to do what was more interesting to me, which was write a book, which turned out they did far better than I ever thought, good decision. Yeah, yeah. But but but you know, ironically, though, yes, you could say that. However, I think that you have to you have to judge decisions based on the information that you had at the time. It's wrong, I think, to look at it now with hindsight, and say, Oh, well, yeah. You know, I made a great decision there. Because even though there was a 1% chance that it would work out, it did. So

Philip Pape  1:02:22

that was the value was, yeah, no, that actually

Mike Matthews  1:02:25

was not great. However, however, I would say it was a good decision, in my case, because I wasn't thinking my goal was not to become a fitness celebrity, that was not my goal, to try to make as much money as I can as quickly as I can. That was not my goal. My goal was to do work that I was going to enjoy and do something that interested me that also could benefit other people. That was writing a book. So that's why I did it. And, and so now, fast forward 1011 years, and I've written a number of books and sold a lot of books and, and Legion has has come a long way and done far better than, than I anticipated in the beginning as well. And I'm still though interested in there's my, my interest in, in writing, that's still the work that I enjoy the most. And so, I actually I'm interested in seeing how I can make time to pursue some of these original interests, like writing fiction, for example. And in some of these other writing projects that I I just tabled, because I decided I was going to focus all of my energy, and all of my time on the fitness stuff. But I was going to come back to some of these other things in the future. So now I'm at that point where I want to come back to some of these other things without taking away from the fitness work.

Philip Pape  1:03:59

Yeah. And I get that in some of your other work. Like, I don't know, the the Little Black Book of workout motivation, you know, it's almost not a fitness book. Right. It's more about philosophy. Yeah, exactly. Because I don't have it. Yeah. And so I was able

Mike Matthews  1:04:11

to like scratch my own itch, but it's related to fitness. It's not totally random.

Philip Pape  1:04:18

But that is a good message about I mean, people say tritely, you know, follow your passion. But I mean, the intangible long term potential growth of an idea because you pick something you enjoyed that allowed you to adhere to it really is consistent with the fitness message of doing things you enjoy and and everything else we talked about. So I wouldn't discount that. I think if you saw an alternate history where he didn't do that, who knows if it wouldn't have been as successful.

Mike Matthews  1:04:43

The ironic alternate history would be the one where I let's say pursued fiction, right? So I've sold about 2 million 2 million fitness books maybe a little bit more something around that right. And and that's a lot of books have objectively but but it's there. There aren't many people in fitness who have sold that many books. Now, if you zoom out, and you look at, let's say, just general health, and diet, now there are many, many books, especially if you look over the decades that have sold millions of copies. And maybe not many self published, I've published one book traditionally muscle for life, the rest have been self published. And so that's kind of an interesting angle, maybe a bit unique. However, the majority the vast majority of money of, of economic activity with books is fiction. Just go look at right now go look at the top 100 books on Amazon, and probably at least 80 If not 90 of them, maybe even 95 are going to be fiction books. And so the ironic kind of alternate history of you the one where I wrote fiction, instead, and that achieved the same magnitude of success in fiction, which would be probably, literally 10 times the books sold like so, you know, sell 20 million 30 million books, fiction, and the majority of them being self published, where you're earning three to $5 per book, that would have been the ironic twist.

Philip Pape  1:06:22

I will say, I don't know how many people you would have impacted in terms of true like impact on their life and transformation. But that is one they were happy that you did. And I thank you for personally, I know many others do. So to wrap it up, where can listeners learn more about you. Um,

Mike Matthews  1:06:39

I guess Legion athletics.com has kind of that's that's the my online home, so to speak. So I'm still active on the blog, there have shit we have 1000s of articles. Now I have a couple of other people now who write with me as well under their names. And, and then I have my my podcast muscle for life, which is also there. And if people want to check out my books, they're in the store there. But they're also on Amazon anywhere online where you buy books, and I'm not very active on social media, because I just don't care to put the time into it. But I do exist. At most of Life Fitness on Instagram at most Flyff on Twitter, I'm actually more active on Twitter than, than Instagram or anything else. Because I like to use Twitter to test ideas to test even phrasings ways of expressing things. I actually have like a whole system I've put together that tracks engagement and so forth, that helps inform my fitness writing. So so I can because as a content creator, something I've always hated, is you put a bunch of time into a piece of content, you think it's great. And it's just just fizzles. It's just annoying. It's annoying. So So I'm thinking about Alright, how can I have that happen less often? And this is this is really just a marketing question. And and testing is, is a it's just a fundamental tool in marketing. And so I like to use Twitter, Twitter to tasks x. That's right now that's when it's is it going to move to x.com? Is that the Excel? Yeah. Interesting. So he's just deleting Twitter, a part of a part of me loves that actually, just because because of what Twitter was before. It's just going to die a complete death at which which I like actually. Anyway, so x x is is great is great for that. And that'd be a whole nother discussion, but I'm more active on Twitter at muscle for life than anywhere else.

Philip Pape  1:08:50

Alright, cool. So I'll definitely put all that stuff in the show notes. I can put your nom de plume Sean Patrick in there as well if you want.

Mike Matthews  1:08:58

Actually, I have have a second edition of that book coming. So my work on it is done. I have somebody working with me helping just gather up some footnotes and things and it's not a top priority for us but there's a fair chance that it'll be out later this year. The a new second edition that I think is a pretty significant improvement over the first even though the first I'd say is pretty good. I mean it's it's sold maybe 100,000 copies and gotten a lot of reviews and stuff so

Philip Pape  1:09:31

check it out. I've I've two girls that are very much into history. So check it out. Alright man, thank you so much for for doing this. You know you're incredible guy, ethical person, which I've always appreciated that and I think you're doing amazing things. So thanks for coming on the show.

Mike Matthews  1:09:46

Thank you. I appreciate that.

Philip Pape  1:09:49

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

Ep 93: Ditch Alcohol for a Physically and Mentally Healthier Life with Karolina Rzadkowolska

Today, we're talking about living an alcohol-free life with Karolina Rzadkowolska, an alcohol-free empowerment expert. We are unpacking the realities and myths around alcohol consumption, its impact on our physical and mental health, and whether it is actually serving you.

You will learn about effective strategies to change drinking habits, cope with social situations, and relieve stress without alcohol. Karolina will help us explore the concept of aligning our lifestyle choices with our personal goals and how giving up alcohol can lead to greater self-discovery and purpose.

Karolina helps intuitive women ditch alcohol and discover their greater purpose. She’s worked with thousands of clients through her programs to transform drinking habits and unlock health, happiness, and potential. She is the bestselling author of the book, Euphoric: Ditch Alcohol and Gain a Happier, More Confident You and her work has been featured in the Huffington Post, The Sunday Post, Popsugar, Real Simple, Elite Daily, and multiple TV shows. 

Karolina’s passionate about helping you discover what really makes you happy outside of a beverage and design a life you love.

__________

Click here to apply for coaching!
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Today you’ll learn all about:

[2:29] Karolina's journey to an alcohol-free, 'euphoric' life
[9:17] What opened up for Karolina when she became alcohol-free
[14:07] Debunking alcohol health myths and discussing its actual effects
[21:05] Misconceptions about alcohol as a stress reliever; alternative stress relief methods
[27:56] Allan is grateful to Philip for his refreshing approach to nutrition coaching and how it has impacted his fitness
[28:43] Tools and strategies for changing drinking habits
[31:07] Effects of alcohol on fitness goals, hormones, metabolism, gut health
[37:12] Aligning lifestyle choices with personal goals
[45:57] Managing social situations when not drinking
[48:44] Communicating decisions about alcohol to friends, family, or colleagues
[51:58] One question Karolina wished Philip had asked
[52:27] Where listeners can learn more about Karolina and her work
[53:09] Outro

Episode resources:

• Karolina's website: www.euphoricaf.com 

• Her book: Euphoric

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https://witsandweights.com/free-call


Learn about 1-on-1 coaching ⬇️
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Transcript

Karolina Rzadkowolska  00:00

Is this serving me in my life anymore? You know, maybe it did have a place and a time in my life and college or in my 20s or 30s. But is this really helping me today become the version of myself that I want to become? And there's no better way to discover that than just by experimenting with a break yourself.

Philip Pape  00:18

Welcome to the Wits & Weights podcast. I'm your host, Philip pape, and this twice a week podcast is dedicated to helping you achieve physical self mastery by getting stronger. Optimizing your nutrition and upgrading your body composition will uncover science backed strategies for movement, metabolism, muscle and mindset with a skeptical eye on the fitness industry so you can look and feel your absolute best. Let's dive right in. Wits & Weights community Welcome to another episode of the Wits & Weights Podcast. Today we're talking about living an alcohol free life with Karolina John Kowalska an alcohol free empowerment expert. We are unpacking the realities and the myths around alcohol consumption. Its impact on our physical and mental health and whether it's actually serving you, you'll learn about effective strategies for changing your drinking habits. Managing social dynamics when you're not drinking, and exploring alternatives to alcohol for stress relief. Karolina will help us explore the concept of aligning our lifestyle choices with our personal goals and how giving up alcohol can lead to greater self discovery and purpose. Karolina helps intuitive women ditch alcohol and discover their greatest purpose. She's worked with 1000s of clients through her programs to change their drinking habits and unleash a new level of health, happiness and potential to go after their biggest dreams. She's the best selling author of the book euphoric ditch alcohol and gain a happier more confident you. And her work has been featured in the Huffington Post the Sunday post Pop Sugar, real simple, Elite Daily and multiple TV shows. Karolina is passionate about helping you discover what really makes you happy outside of a beverage and design a life you love. She would love to hear from you at euphoric a f.com. There Lena, welcome to the show.

Karolina Rzadkowolska  02:03

Thank you for the warm welcome. I'm so excited to be here.

Philip Pape  02:07

Yeah, me as well. We were talking before we recorded that this is a kind of a unique topic for me and my audience. Because the only time we usually talk about alcohol is in the context of how many calories they have or like, make sure you track and watch what you drink and maybe alternatives and substitutions. Although we do talk about the mind altering effects that then can lead to other certain decision making. You know, I want to talk about your personal background in this because you wrote that you used to think of alcohol as a ticket to having fun feeling glamorous and a treat I deserved after a long hard day, which I think many people can relate to that statement. So what was the turning point for you when you realize alcohol is not serving you anymore?

Karolina Rzadkowolska  02:48

Absolutely. And I love to talk to health conscious people because it's oftentimes that one incongruency right, we can do everything healthy and an alcohol just gets this pass. And I you know, found myself there and to my mid 30s I had partied very hard when I was in college. So that's kind of where I picked it up. Right I picked up drinking as a habit. But you know does almost doesn't matter what you do or where you are every adult at some point, for the most part picks up drinking into their habits, whether it's at work or through college or high school or whatnot. Anyway, I was so overpowering, then over drinking then. But as I grew up, I got more into health and mindfulness. And so drinking became something I compartmentalize. So I would do all the healthy things all week I would you know, drink my green juices go to yoga classes eat adjustables try to read at night. But alcohol still played a very heavy role every weekend where basically I thought I was unwinding. I thought I was letting off some steam hanging out with friends socializing. Yeah, every single Monday morning, I woke up feeling like a shell of myself. I felt like I made progress during my healthy week and then took five steps backward every single weekend. I felt lower mentally, emotionally, I felt like this depression, I felt not very motivated to go after my goals. And I just thought that I had to get stricter and stricter with how much I was drinking. So I was on this constant quest to drink less. And I had a lot of lot of rules around that. And this cycle repeats itself for over seven to eight years of just living in this like constant I want to drink less. I want to be healthier, and yet somehow this thing keeps happening to me every weekend. I was tired of it. Honestly, my drinking wasn't what you would call traditionally problematic with a rock bottom story. I literally was drinking lessons I was in college, but it was still because I was so aligned with a healthy lifestyle. And as I got older one or two drinks would literally give me a hangover or a headache that next day it's like it didn't even matter how little I drank. I still felt worse for where the next day. And I think that's something that we don't often admit to ourselves like nobody actually wakes up the next day after drinking feeling like a million dollars. Right like alcohol has certain biological and toxic properties that our body has to detox and absorb and process through And it changes how we feel the next day. And I wasn't like I was feeling that, but I just didn't think any other people were I thought I was just someone who just couldn't figure out this alcohol thing in my life. And finally, I heard of dry January. And to me that was like this release and this permission that I finally gave myself to explore what a break from alcohol could do. Because this whole drinking less wasn't working, it was still giving me so much strain and stress, so much mental gymnastics, you know, like, what's the rule today? You know, how am I going to let myself down when I actually do break it nine times out of 10. But dry January was like this, okay, I can actually just get some space away from alcohol. And I never thought I could do that before. Because it always seemed like there was the social pressure to drink, you know? And it's like, well, what are you going to say to people, if you're not going to drink, you know, don't interact, admit that I have a problem, but start going to these meetings. And so I kept, like, putting it off putting it off thinking I wasn't allowed to really do it until I heard of dry January. And that was like the first time I could publicly just be like, Hey, I'm doing this and taking a break from alcohol. And it allowed me to fall in love with a completely new lifestyle. You know, every single morning, I woke up with so much more energy, so much deeper sleep, I mean, asleep got so much better was incredible. I also started waking up feeling so much more proud of myself so much more self love, where the decisions I made the day before were setting me up to succeed the next day. And not like I was five steps behind, right, I was waking up on the right side of the bed, instead of the wrong side of the bed, I started to cultivate new discoveries into what made me happy. And I noticed that my mood was actually really elevating just naturally, I was enjoying hiking more and just being with family and friends, like my mood was going up. And February comes along. And I don't yet believe that I'm allowed to remain a person who doesn't drink like I've just like, well, socially, people are going to expect it. So I drink a few times in February. And the contrast is so big, you know, wandering for drinks completely ruins my sleep. But what I really noticed is how much it ruins my mood. I literally have a drink or two. And then an hour later, my get frustrated, cranky, I'm picking fights with my husband. And that was like the wake up call I really needed because to me, I thought I was drinking to have fun. I thought I was drinking for the pleasurable quality, I thought I was doing it to elevate my mood. And when I saw so starkly that it was literally ruining my mood. And I was so much happier in January without it. That's when my mindset really shifted. So I committed to another break at that point, which actually turned into five plus years later that I'm here at today that I remain a non drinker. And everything in my life has snowballed and changed so much not only did my physical health change my emotional health, my spiritual health, but I also recognize why I was really drinking like the existential reason, I couldn't wait for the weekend, every week, my job couldn't go fast enough in order to get off and I couldn't wait to finally unwind with some alcohol. And I didn't realize how unfulfilled I was with my work week. And so instead of putting up with that, and using alcohol to numb that I literally changed everything, I decided to launch a business and to leave my day job and to do what I'm so passionate about. So I feel fulfillment every single day. And so instead of that immediate gratification, I was going for at the end of a workday or the end of the Friday or whatever I now feel that like long term fulfillment on a daily basis, which is what I'm so passionate about sharing people.

Philip Pape  08:20

I mean, you you've sold me just with your story. That's such, and you've answered all my questions already. But no, not really. I love so many of the parallels here. There's definitely parallels with other things that are people find triggering to them, whether it's food or something else that that kind of is tied into something else that we're covering up. And you mentioned, you didn't have to go through this rock bottom to get there unnecessarily. But I like that you did the experiment with the dry January that gave you the contrast. Because what sticks out to me is the the need for community here oftentimes, right, the relatedness to other people that there's such peer pressure, if you want to call it with with alcohol, whereas other things like foods, I don't know candy, for example, if you want to stop eating, can you know he's gonna get on you for that, right? But it's like, Oh, you don't drink? Why not? Right? Like, I bet you get that question a lot. So some things you said about compartmentalizing it. And I don't know if you use the word but I'm using the word rationalizing, right we do that lying to ourselves. Let's admit that. The interesting thing is, I know what you're saying as far as the symptoms, and I think everyone has different versions of those, right? Like, I know that if I had surgery recently, I couldn't drink for like two weeks. I occasion we'll have one drink a week, but just even not having had it at all. You could see the differences. Even though I'm dealing with all this other stuff. You could just sense this greater sense of clarity and other symptoms that mysteriously go away. Okay, so I want to focus on the positive first and then get into some of the other things you mentioned. Because by removing something that that's fine, you've now added in opportunities to your life, right? What opened up for you now that you became alcohol free?

Karolina Rzadkowolska  09:54

Yeah, so sure, great question. Um, you know, I was So living in such a place of mediocrity before, and all of that was just fine. Like, I was living a just fine life. I had my job. I had my marriage. I had my, you know, vacations twice, once a year for two weeks, right? And I really didn't believe that I was allowed to paint outside of those lines. And I think going alcohol free was like, first it was just the little things like, Okay, I'm not drinking this Friday. So what do I do on a Friday night, you know, like, I literally drink every weekend for a decade, like, you know, that was my source of fun. And so I had to kind of rediscover what pleasure and fun looked like in my life. So I started exploring new activities, I started going out and doing things I wouldn't normally do. I did paddleboard yoga, I went to writers workshops, I went to Zumba classes, just totally getting outside of my comfort zone. And I think that really brought me in touch with all the mental time and energy you also released from not drinking alcohol started really getting me in touch with my deeper creativity, my deeper intuition and my deeper passions. And when I really got so strongly motivated to recognize how incredibly life changing was to change my relationship with alcohol, I knew I wanted to share it with other people. And the past, though alcohol and just my past, limiting beliefs would have told me you're not an entrepreneur, you can never write a book. In fact, I had tried to write a book for over a decade, I used to write a lot when I was a kid and adolescent, I would write little poems, short stories, journal a lot. And as soon as I start drinking in college, my writing just completely dries up. But the desire to write doesn't go away. So I keep having these new year's resolutions every year. This is the year I'm going to write a book, right? I've always wanted to be an author. And I would write maybe the first week of January, and then it was completely like strapped to the side. And I never worked on it. Alcohol didn't give me the creativity or the discipline. In order to do that, it was so much easier to open a bottle of wine than write the next great American novel, right. And so I continued to choose what was easy and my comfort zone over and over and over instead of pushing myself. So just allowing myself to push myself outside of my comfort zone, find these new senses of creativity and passion, but also kind of change some of these limiting stories because I never thought I would be happy without alcohol. I kept telling myself a story. That's not like I needed it, like I was dependent on it in some kind of addictive or biochemical way. But that like I just it, it brings pleasure to my life. It's fun, I'm never gonna have fun without it. And that limiting story made me feel so stuck. And so I never thought I would be so happy without alcohol. But I was. And so I was like, Well wait a minute, maybe some of those other stories. I'm telling myself like, I couldn't be an entrepreneur or I couldn't quit my job, or I couldn't write a book or also be yes. So started expanding my sense of possibility so much. And I just got such a fire of confidence. Courage, like we just talked about, everyone really assumes you're going to drink and most people do drink. And so when you go alcohol free, you build your courage muscle like no other just the simple fact of saying no, thank you, or explaining it to people or whatever, like you're the odd one out in that moment. And that courage muscle that you're building, to align your life, to your values to what works for your well being and not just doing what you know, other people are doing to try to fit in or to please anyone else. It builds so much strength and courage within yourself. And so I think it's like this confluence of gifts that you get when you go alcohol free. Not only do you get that clarity, do you get that time and energy back, I got that confidence, that courage that also rediscovery of what my real passions were, instead of just outsourcing fun to a beverage. And I just got so excited to say like, why couldn't I go after my dream life. And my story is not an anomaly. Most of the clients I work with, and a lot of women I've heard from who've just read my book and stuff, they ditch alcohol, and it's like that fire within them is completely ignited to go after their deeper passions. I know people who've written books themselves, launch, businesses started nonprofits move somewhere beautiful, because they've always wanted to live there. It's just an incredible way of activating that deeper desire within what we want. Instead of settling for the status quo that we have.

Philip Pape  13:59

I love the vision and the dream you paint, which is where I wanted to go first because then we kind of reverse engineer back to it. And I'm gonna ask a little bit about science along the way, if it's something you want to get into, but you talked about the courage, muscle, unlocking the fire, having time, energy, clarity, all of these things, which is amazing. And I wonder if some people are listening thinking, Hmm, is that the thing that is that what at least one of the things in my life besides others, they may be aware of? That if I just stopped as an experiment to see what would happen, would all of a sudden unlock? Why do you think that is? So that's the big question is, I guess, physiologically or otherwise, because you said you weren't really addicted or it wasn't a dependence. Is that true? Really, or maybe you were a little bit?

Karolina Rzadkowolska  14:40

I will definitely argue for emotional dependence. And I will say that most people in my study also have that same emotional dependence. Right. And I think most of us are kind of brainwashed into having an alcohol regularly in our lives, you know, and usually it's a lot more than just the one drink a week like it is for you. Right? It's like a few drinks on Friday, Saturday, Sunday time. thing. So that emotional like I outsource so much alcohol, I also grew up really shy and I'm introverted. So to me alcohol was the secret to confidence and being able to socialize with people. So there's a lot of things I outsource to alcohol that emotional way. And that's what I love doing with my clients is that a lot of times it isn't this deep, like I'm talking addiction as in like, if you remove alcohol, the person is gonna get sick, right? You're gonna need to go to the hospital. What it's emotional, though, it's all these just mindset associations we've formed over time. And all of those can be broken. All of those can be reframed and rewired into something different. And when someone finally feels for example, competent on their own to socialize, and they don't need a drink, what a powerhouse they've just unlocked. You know what I mean? But going back to your question about the science, why do I think this is so one really big reason is literally what alcohol does to our neuro chemistry. And I didn't know any of this when I was drinking. So it's just was a huge mind, you know, mind blown kind of moment when I started learning more about it, but I could, once I knew about it, see it when I like reflected back on drinking. So first of all, Alcohol is a depressant, it will slow down our central nervous system, and really kind of slow down ourselves and our processing and stuff. And some people obviously enjoy that kind of numbing effect that happens when alcohol is in the way. But what happens that I didn't know is that our body is a miracle, right? We have these counteractive systems in our body. And so when this depressant is introduced, the body actually knows to release stimulants in response to it. And so the body releases cortisol, adrenaline and dine orphan dine orphan, something that is basically the opposite of endorphins, it makes us feel very low and depressed. In response to alcohol. Most of the time this is released about or maybe like, you'll feel it once the alcohol effect wears off. So it just depends on how much you drink. If you drink just one drink, you'll probably feel it like an hour later. If you drink all night, though, you might feel it in the morning, right? If you wake up at 4am. Like with a jolt, like how many people have had that kind of wake up call after drinking. It's literally like cortisol has just been totally released in your brain in your body. You might feel it the next day by just having anxiety or just being overly worried and just feeling just kind of behind on things as well. And these what's really interesting about these stress hormones is that while alcohol, the actual, you know, toxin of ethanol can be processed in our body quite fast or not quite fast, but depends on how old you are. Within a you know, a day or two new stress hormones can actually live in our body a lot longer. So when I was drinking every weekend, but like not drinking during the week, I actually was never experiencing my true mental state, I was always at the effect of those stress hormones like circulating my body for longer. So we have the heightened stress hormones when we're drinking but then also what alcohol does is lower a lot of our happiness neurotransmitters. So our GABA, serotonin and dopamine go down. In fact, because alcohol does this high spike of dopamine in the brain, our brain is like this is a natural, right. So over time, it actually actually retracts the receptors that catch dopamine. So people who drink regularly have lower levels of dopamine, serotonin and GABA in their brains. Again, this is just all the time, not just the second after drinking or anything like that. So you have the heightened stress hormones, the lowered happiness neurotransmitters. And to me what that looked like in my life was just apathy. Like on a general day of the week, I just felt apathetic, pretty bored, a little stress, like that was just my feeling right. And then on a Friday, I could get excited to have a drink to have that one little spike of dopamine I was so looking forward to when I ditched alcohol and allowed my neuro chemistry to rebalance, I noticed the stress hormones start to go down, those neurotransmitters start to go up and the littlest things start to make me feel so much more joy and happiness. They even have a word for it called the pink cloud. Now that intense search and the intensity of that might wane a little as you get used to it. But like the feelings I have just wellbeing and joy are so much heightened as a non drinker than as a drinker. So I think that's a huge component to it. When we look at the science, there's a lot more obviously, we know good sleep I know for anyone interested in health is so important. Just one glass of wine has been proven to reduce our REM sleep cycles from around the five to six tonight, we could get down to just one or two. I didn't know that either. Right. So here I am. I'm a pretty big sleep fanatic. I was always making sure to clock in those eight hours. I was getting the eight hours but my sleep was so fragmented, so poor the quality that it didn't understand how why I was so exhausted why I was always feeling so lethargic and stuff. And there's all these things that happen on a biological level. Like we could probably write a whole book just about that on alcohol of what it's doing. You know, it's it's a toxin, your body has to work overtime to process it's also slowing down your metabolism at that same time because it has to process alcohol first. So all the things we ate that day aren't getting processed because we have to probably can't store alcohol on the body like that. So there's so much going on, I think on a biological neurochemical level, even molecularly they've tied anxiety to an alcohol in our cells molecularly and it's so Interesting that we're learning more and more about this. And so it just starts to, you know, really get the questioning not to say that everyone's got to quit drinking, and it's this horrible thing. But it kind of allows us to have permission to not have to have the rock bottom or severe, severe problem to just be like, wait a minute, is this serving me and my life anymore? You know, maybe it did have a place and a time in my life and college or in my 20s or 30s. But is this really helping me today become the version of myself that I want to become? And there's no better way to discover that than just by experimenting with a break yourself?

Philip Pape  20:32

So much in there. That was just that was a way more comprehensive answer than I expected. And I love that because I immediately slipped my mind merely started going to the spiraling right everything we do spirals into other things in our life, both positively and negatively. And for those listening who care about body composition, health, emotional health, mental health, everything, just imagine, think of what Karolina talked about when you're messing with your, you know, cortisol, your adrenaline, when these hormonal effects lasts for days beyond the drinking, I mean, think about that, right? Most things are short term days beyond the drinking, it is true that alcohol gets processed first. So now you're blunting the benefits you're getting from all your protein that you're trying to consume for your you know, diet, and then the apathy and the poor sleep and we know that poor sleep causes a slower metabolism and causes greater hunger and that also leads to ill health effects. So at the end of the day, my question for for people listening, and this is for you, as well you get this a lot. Karolina is why what rationalizations remain? And how do we attack those because I hear a couple right? One is that there are so called benefits of alcohol, whether it's the resveratrol and red wine, you know, antioxidants, all this and I used to believe those as well. I used to have my red wine every day with dinner, and I was never a big drinker, like you would still, frequency wise it was enough. And now I understand that there are really no upsides at all. According to the evidence, there's really no upside to alcohol. And so that's one rationalization the other is stress relief, right? Like, I've had clients who were trying to eliminate calories or trying to clean things up. And it's like, well, I have to have the alcohol will really do you is it a non negotiable for and then they get rid of it? And all of a sudden, oh, my goodness, everything else got easier? I wonder why. So talk about all of those remaining rationalizations and how we can dispel those, and then we can move to like, Alright, what do we do now?

Karolina Rzadkowolska  22:18

Yeah, and there's that social element too, right? So there's that belief that we have to be drinkers. So you know, with the with the first one, the health benefits, you know, honestly, we were kind of duped. And it has a really similar history to like what happened with cigarettes. In the last like five to seven to even 10 years or so there's just been so many conclusive studies that show there is no health effect of alcohol, and any previous health effects that were tied were done by flawed studies. And so once you kind of weed those out and clean up that data, there's just there is only life loss, only degenerative diseases, only more risk for cancer and cardiovascular, you'd have to drink drink, I think 18 bottles of wine to get any of that reservatrol antioxidant effects that you want, right? And they actually can pinpoint it, there was a doctor back in 1991, who was the first person to say that alcohol is good for your heart. And that is literally you could look and go back and see that in 80s. More Americans drink soda with dinner than wine, which obviously soda isn't the best either. But you know, it's just so interesting to see, compared to this huge consumption level, that's changed in the last 30 years, because alcohol essentially became a health beverage, right. And so I think that is really, really just a good, not just a wake up call, but like, we can drink, we can have alcohol, you can have all the things in your life that might not be so good for you. But we need to know we need to be a form what that's doing to us. And so I think, to call alcohol health beverage for so long, and to say so many benefits, and this and this and this, that was wrong. And thank God, now we're getting the new information. And then people can choose what they want to from that, for example, Canada just lowered its drinking limits to literally zero or if you want to, you know, have a little risk, it's two drinks a week. I mean, think how different that is from you know, what we were saying seven or even 14 drinks a week, like that is a lot of alcohol in the system, especially for a woman Anything over that seven drinks is actually considered heavy, risky drinking. So obviously, we have those studies and that you know that that's a that's a learning curve, because for so long, we've been taught that it is good for us or so. So there's a lot of you can research, you know, for women, especially the breast cancer risk goes up by 15% by just drinking two drinks a week. And you know, for me that two drinks a week would have been nothing, right. So it's like, what's the point? And then you mentioned obviously, distressed response. So this is obviously a big one, you know, it actually becomes a habit where our brain literally gets the cue of, Okay, it's time to drink. And we understand that there's going to be this reward of that stress release, and you know, becomes a ritual in our lives. I actually think the ritual is beautiful in the sense that we work all day we're so productive. We're always on we're taking care of all the things we have so many responsibilities, and you get home and you pour a glass and you finally allow it all to melt away. And just to relax, I think that is actually beautiful. It's just the ethanol in that drink isn't really relaxing you like you think they once did that study. So we talked about the cortisol earlier, but they once did this study, where they put brain notes on people who just left work. And so everyone's a little stressed out, they're able to see their brainwaves. It's all a little wonky. And they go to a bar restaurant, and everybody orders a drink. And all of a sudden the brainwaves relax, they're nice and smooth. And the kicker here is, is that nobody actually received and drink the

Philip Pape  25:30

drug, they just ordered it got it. Right.

Karolina Rzadkowolska  25:33

Like, we can see the power of habit and the power of ritual on our brain to anticipate that relaxation. And honestly, one of the easiest ways to make a switch in order to still have the ritual without the negative side effects is mocktails, and alcohol free beverages. There's so many on the market these days, there's ones made, especially for people who are health conscious or athletic, like athletic brewing, for example, that literally have the same taste and or quality of an adult beverage, but don't have any of the ethanol or negative side effects. And I have to say that like most people find that that placebo effect like that works like a charm. And it also really helps in the social occasions, because you know, we do have this huge ritual around drinking, we come together at birthday parties at weddings at funerals, I mean, literally any Wednesday of the week, for game night, whatever it is, alcohol is going to be around. And it's like, you know, you mentioned earlier with someone care if you stop eating candy, you know, hopefully not. But for some reason, we're so fixated about what's in our cup, you know, and I think that like we can kind of start tearing that pressure down. And by having a more inclusive society where alcohol free drinks are to be more normalized. Okay, you have the beer in your cup, I have the alcohol free beer, who cares, right? We're all socializing. We're all bonding. And so I think that's also a really beautiful way not only to get that stress relief, there's so many other ways, obviously, you know, we can incorporate some more you in yoga, or some breath work or meditation, or my favorite is just taking a walk at sunset, because it doesn't matter what problems I have in my life. Like that all seems super petty when I'm watching the beautiful, like grandeur of the universe explode in front of me during a sunset. So there's obviously a lot of other structural release techniques. But we have to be willing to experiment, you know, we have to be willing to ask ourselves, What if alcohol actually isn't the best way to decompress my body? Because it's not doing that on a biological level whatsoever? What if I try these other things while I take a break and kind of learn and go from there, and then that social element to you know, I think we just the more people who are starting to not stand up and say alcohol is bad, but just to encourage a world where not everybody has to drink at every occasion where it's perfectly okay to choose the alcohol free option. We're starting to change that expectation too. And you know, it starts one person at a time it starts with a ripple effect. You know, like I had a friend group that would totally question why someone wasn't drinking a few years ago, no one would do that my friend group now everyone's kind of aware enough to say everyone can choose their own way.

27:57

Hi, this is Al and I just want to give a shout out to Philip Pape Wits & Weights for his nutritional coaching. His coaching is based upon science research, intellect and wisdom. His coaching is safe, supportive, connecting and it actually has helped reset my compass in terms of how I direct my health, the action steps I do and really really has helped me regain trust and belief in what my body can do and how my body can change.

Philip Pape  28:31

I tell you after this interview I am definitely going to be talking more about this on this platform and others because I do think it's really important as a health issue as well as a social issue and I know what you're talking about with rituals when I'm when I'm in a fat loss phase I cut out alcohol together anyway just because I don't want the wasted calories so to speak. And I will actually have a diet Root Beer sometimes in the evening as like my go to because it has that flavor and yeah it's soda but it's not it's fine because it's not alcohol and I get that it basically replaces it without any harm my wife's not much of a drinker so it's I kind of don't have that pressure when I when we go to like family dinners or whatnot. But I found that Guinness alcohol free Guinness is delicious right and like it used to be the old duels as the only option so we because what came to mind earlier for at least a lot of men and maybe I'm stereotyping is like the craft beer industry and the the distilleries and all that have become really sophisticated and cool now right you see it in the marketing it's a big piece of of the modern man he did all that kind of idea. So even for men and women mocktails and new drinks are a great option. What are what are your favorites for those like what is their present a particular recommendations you have when people do that when they go out to just a random restaurant with friends?

Karolina Rzadkowolska  29:44

Yeah, so someone's health conscious. You know, almost all of the alcohol free beers are like once you remove alcohol, this calorie counts go down so low they even have like 10 Calorie IPAs and zero calorie alcohol free beers as well. So it's just incredible. But for the beers like you know, I thought like growing is a great one groovy in Denver is a great one. What is it called BrewDog is a good one as well. And it's just really exciting. I think what happens is that there's so much in the space, like every month, a new drink company comes out. So to me, I used to I lived in San Diego for a long time, I was so wrapped up in that craft beer culture and the wine culture as well. And to me, like part of the fun is the discovery, the experimentation exploring different options. And I think there's more happening in the alcohol free space than in the alcohol space. So if like, you'd like to try new drinks and see what's new on the market and stuff, you're gonna have a lot of fun, and you're not going to run out of drinks to try in this new arena. Wild as I think is also really great. That is an alcohol free wine that doesn't add back sugar or any juice. So it's also super low calorie, and it's not overly sweet, which I love as well. So that's a really great option.

Philip Pape  30:49

If you said, Well, I know what you like that one.

Karolina Rzadkowolska  30:55

We also have, you know, just new drinks that aren't trying to be you know, an alcohol free substitute. But like these nootropics or adaptogen drinks, like you Forex for example. And I also say to like just go to your health food store, like there's literally hundreds and 1000s of drinks on the market that aren't, you know, that have some kind of more health quality that aren't alcohol. And that ritual really takes care of that like that.

Philip Pape  31:18

So you mentioned nootropics. So you mean there's like ashwagandha drinks you can buy and things like that? Oh, yeah, I'm not even aware of that. I shouldn't be as a nutrition person. But I just, it's just been kind of a, I think this is probably true for a lot of people correct me if I'm wrong, it's almost like a non existent space in your brain because you drink like you're not looking for the alcohol free stuff. So you don't realize this whole world out there. But I imagine it does take a lot of innovation to come up with something that's tolerable and tasty. At least that's the assumption right? In that space. Yeah, I

Karolina Rzadkowolska  31:47

mean, there's a lot of innovation happening. And a lot of like the beer they say is almost like on par to par, the wine industry is still working on, like really making it better. But it's really exciting to see everything that's coming out in the last few years or so and exploding. And I think really changing the younger generations perceptions as for alcohol as well, which is pretty amazing.

Philip Pape  32:07

Now, do you get we touched a little bit on the health effects? Do you get into some of the more details behind alcohol and its effect on fitness outcomes at all, like fat loss, muscle gain, athletic performance and things like that?

Karolina Rzadkowolska  32:19

Yeah, absolutely. So first of all, like I, I will just tell you my personal story, I was a ballerina growing up. So I always had a smaller frame and was athletic or so. And then I went to college, and I can I started you know, drinking a lot and eating things like pizza rolls. And I was wondering, by the time I was 21, why I like literally inflated, like, lots of lots of pounds. And so ever since that, that age 22 Or so I literally was on this quest to lose weight. And so literally the whole decade of my 20s I was spending, I would try all the diets, I would try cutting this out doing that, you know, and nothing really seemed to budge, or at least it was a lot of hard work if it did even a little. And so then I ditch alcohol and immediately lose like a few handfuls of pounds just effortlessly. I'm like what, like I was trying so hard to happen here. And that's what really caused me to look into it. So there's a lot of factors, obviously, we understand the calories, everyone understands that you're, you're drinking the calories. And I got that too. But here's some of those secret things that I didn't know about. So first of all, alcohol increases our appetite actually signals to the brain to numb that signal that tells us we're full. So you know when you're having a few drinks and you're munching on some pretzels are you craving that fast food, you know, it actually signals that you're to the brain you're not full keep eating and also increases your hunger levels because it depletes our nutrients. So I don't know about you, but I don't eat kale for the taste for me. It's because I'm trying to absorb those healthy nutrients. And alcohol actually blocks our absorption of almost every vitamin and most minerals too, meaning they're just getting flushed out of our body and not absorbed. That also makes us hungrier, right. So it does, its blocking that we just touched upon it earlier. But because our body can't store alcohol, it means it's one of the first macronutrients that has to be processed. So because your body's focused on processing alcohol, the fat, the protein, the carbs, they're getting saved for later, which could be in a muffin top right. And that's because it was like that, like typical habit. You know, this is what I was adding to my week of trying to be healthy. But this like Boulder, I was literally pushing up hill every week what was happening. Alcohol also really affects our aerobic fitness. So it increases our heart rate but without any related physical exertion. So it actually makes the heart have to work harder to pump the oxygen through the blood and increases heart rate blood pressure and the inflammation I believe does increase cholesterol, because when you remove alcohol studies have proven that cholesterol does go down. Mine went down by 50 points. So aerobic fitness

Philip Pape  34:47

was just a short the heart rate. Those are longer term. It's kind of a cumulative thing or will you see an immediate impact like the next day?

Karolina Rzadkowolska  34:56

You will definitely if you have like an aura ring or some kind of other tracker you'll definitely See your heart rate up immediately. And obviously to in the long term as well, it's just like it habitually raises in stuff. And so the aerobic fitness goes down, you're not able to do your best, you know, PRs or runs because your heart literally isn't as efficient into pumping that blood and having that lower resting heart rate. And then it also decreases our testosterone and increases our estrogen. So for any kind of muscle building, or muscle protein synthesis, it's depleting that testosterone that we need to gain that muscle. So those are just some of the things that I was like, Whoa, I had no idea all that was happening. No wonder it was an uphill battle to try to get fit when I was still drinking. And you know, the thing is, is like, we can just ask ourselves, you know, for someone who has more than one than they have two, or three or four, are they really that motivated to do all their health and fitness goals the next day, and if they are, are they almost doing it out of a punishment and a very negative energy, right, because I remember going to that hot yoga class to thinking I needed to sweat out those toxins and having just the worst headache and pain because I put myself through that. So it's just amazing to see both intuitively but also the science underneath it. Like it's so much easier to live a healthy lifestyle when alcohol is not in the picture. And I think just waking up every day in a better mood from both the neurochemical level, the sleep, being fantastic, all those things, it just sets us up to also then do the habits and the practices and the routines that instill a healthier lifestyle.

Philip Pape  36:23

I agree. And it's not like you need alcohol, see, I mean, you need food, you need food. And so it limits not limits you but you know, you have to choose from within that choice set. It's funny, MIT talk about how it makes you feel the morning, because if I drink during the week, and and by the way, I'm probably going to start just drinking less, if at all, based on talking to you. So this is fantastic. If I drink during the week, it's the day before my recovery day, right? So it doesn't interfere with my lifting. And I'll even advise clients to have to drink like to time it in that way. Which which logically means I know there's a negative effect. And we all know there's negative effects, you know, just intuitively, but it's it's great to hear it viscerally explain like that, that it affects appetite, hunger management, deplete your nutrients, you know, and then raises all these blood markers, because that is counterintuitive to what we're trying to do here. So, okay, then we talked about stress we talked about, you know why it's not truly a stress management tool. How about when you work with clients, when we work with primarily women right to change their relationship with alcohol helped them understand why it does or doesn't, why it doesn't serve their goals? What does that process look like?

Karolina Rzadkowolska  37:29

Absolutely. So, you know, first having that awareness that like that, that possibility, yeah. And I think that that's where I was living for a long time was that possibility that life would be better without alcohol, but like this, how do I ever make that a reality like everyone drinks, it's just part of the social fabric and all those kinds of things. So just imagining I mean, I remember imagining what it would be like to be a Buddhist monk. Why? Because like, this Buddhist monk wasn't drinking, he was spending time and contemplation and meditation, like he was just living these healthy rituals every day. And I fantasized about that because it was so far removed from my like, social life or just a normal Western social life. Because I didn't think I could live this healthy lifestyle and, you know, really have boundaries around drinking, unless I was like, you know, living this kind of fantasy. So if anyone ever yearns for that kind of healthier lifestyle, that's already kind of a clue that, you know, maybe that alcohol is playing into those negative side effects and just, you know, lowering your mood, and so forth. And the thing is, is that we have to recognize if you look at it from a really objective level, like imagine I'm an alien, I just come to this planet, I'm learning about our practices. I noticed that, okay, these teenagers, they're maybe 1718 21, whatever they're getting, like this rite of passage around alcohol, right? Like, they, these adolescents, they don't drink. But then as these teenagers come in, they drink and alcohol is positioned as this tool to be cooler and more rebellious and independent act like an adult. And then it's ingrained into the social fabric, every single event for the rest of their lives. Like what a sneaky marketing ploy on the alcohol industry. It's like this rite of passage, we get into it, and we have the habit for the rest of our lives. And so it's just kind of like, so fascinating to question that to question what is the role of the alcohol industry? What is the role, like, Who benefits when all these people on this planet are drinking? And what beliefs have I come to have in my life, whether I got them from my own experiences, whether I got them from TV, I mean, you can put on any TV show marketing to teenagers and they'll be so much alcohol and that show, whether I saw it on Sex in the City or in James Bond movies, what like the least have I absorbed the alcohol either gives me benefits, pleasure or comfort, or gives me some kind of status to right because there's that rule, I'm the fine wine connoisseur, I know my varietals, right, that's status. We're looking for an alcohol that has nothing to do with alcohol itself. So we get these beliefs that really we formed over time about what alcohol does for us and the positive and how I work with women is to help them change those beliefs. help them actually mine them and debunk them and discover that alcohol is not serving any of those things that you think it's doing. And let's find your own power to feel the feelings you want to feel. I always say it's not the drink someone wants, it's the feeling they believe a drink will give them. So how can we achieve that feeling without the drink and give the power back to the person. So for example, I mean, just make it super clear, because I know this is a little nebulous. i At first started drinking, because I thought it made me more confident, super introverted and shy, I was growing up, and then I start drinking alcohol and oh my god, it's this magical elixir. Now I'm an extrovert. Now I'm the life of the party. Now I can make friends so easily. And so in my mind, slowly, maybe not consciously, but subconsciously, I attained this belief that alcohol makes me more confident. And I believe that so strongly, like I don't like going to an event and without a drink, you know, I look for the first drink I can get, I continue to reinforce it that I need alcohol to be confident. The thing is, is that it's not making me more confident over time. It's actually deteriorating my confidence. So first of all, there's actually times I've embarrassed myself on alcohol, right. And there's just the little things like having wine stains on your teeth, or seeing something a little out of character are just waking up a shame the next day of drinking a little too much than you want it to. But there's also this other subconscious phenomenon of every single time I reach for a drink when I'm socializing. To be more confident. I'm telling my subconscious, Karolina, you're not interesting. Nobody wants to talk to you, I have nothing good to say, but here, have this drink, and you'll be so much better. And just telling myself that I'm not worthy as myself as I am. And so by the time I'm 31, I'm reevaluating the relationship I have with alcohol, my confidence is so low alcohol never was raising it over time, right? It was this little bandaid that just really didn't work. And I have to really kind of nixed this belief that alcohol makes me more confident it actually makes me insecure. It's lowered my self esteem over time, it's maybe not be able to trust myself completely. And so yes, do I have to work on confidence is this a new skill that I have to build in my alcohol free lifestyle? Sure, because I never practiced it before. A lot of people who drink regularly, literally haven't practiced socializing without alcohol, ever, unless it's like at work or something, you know, because it's just so instilled into us. So I learned to practice it, I learned to put myself out there, I gained the competence first to just get comfortable in my skin. And recognize I don't need a drink to be confident, that's something I can build within myself. So now, instead of telling my subconscious, I need something outside of me, in order to feel confident, I have now built that within myself and feel so much more strong and self love. Because of that. I've nixed that belief out of my subconscious. And now I believe something completely different. Alcohol was making me insecure, it's only myself that will make me feel more confident. Now we probably have like 20 to 30, big beliefs like that in our subconscious around alcohol. So each one of them needs that kind of a process to change the mindset. But here's what's brilliant about it is that once you completely change those beliefs and that mindset, the desire goes away. Because if you subconsciously don't believe there's any benefit, or comfort or pleasure, or whatever you were attaching to alcohol in the positive, this of the desire goes away. I mean, I used to smoke cigarettes in college, as a lot of people do. You couldn't pay me today smoke a cigarette, like That's gross, right. And that's almost a kind of feeling we can get to with alcohol. If we do this mindset process of it's not something you can't have or aren't allowed to have. It's something you don't want.

Philip Pape  43:28

Yeah, there's a lot there to that there's a lot of reframing going on, which I love. And one of the parent maybe a parallel to that is how, when someone starts to change up the way the for their goals, let's say it's more protein, and you know more vegetables, because they need the fiber and so on, they're not cutting things out. They're just adding things in, you know, to the positive. And all of a sudden, they realize their body feels great. And they realize it was because you know, once they start reintroducing these things that they've cut out inadvertently, that it starts to make them feel this way again, and they don't need them anymore. When he talks about the 20 big ideas or 20, big social constructs. Where does that come from? First of all, is this. Is this just your own list you've developed over time? Or is it based on some research or evidence? And then I'm assuming not everybody has issues with every all 20? Or do they? You know, is it usually a few that you want to prioritize or target?

Karolina Rzadkowolska  44:18

Absolutely super unique to people. And these are just like the most common ones I've heard. I've heard time and time and time and time again. So number one is like alcohol relaxes me, right? And not only do we because we think it happens through our personal experience, but we have advertisements and all this stuff telling us to pour a glass after you know worker so you know and then there's so many other ones like normal adults must drink or I would be a problem. If I didn't drink like I would be labeled with a problem. All the way to alcohol makes vacations more fun or alcohol makes Friday nights more exciting. You know, there's just so many different ones, but they're oftentimes related to how alcohol either brings us down in the sense of like decompression relaxation. Alcohol brings us up, it excites me, it makes things more fun, nice something to look forward to, or something to do with the social element, which either could be, you know, everyone else is doing it, or it makes me more confident or eases my social nerves or something like that. So there's, there's lots of different variety of them. But usually those are the three kind of schools of where they come from, you know, in some beliefs also come like really deeply, deeply negative beliefs we have about ourselves as well. And we're using alcohol to numb those and not have to work through and process them. But in that moment, we also do think that alcohol helps us solve our pain. So even that is another belief. Alcohol helps me solve pain, right? So a lot of these things can be super subconscious, we wouldn't actually verbally say a lot of these things. So I just like to ask people, why do you like to drink? And from there, we can oftentimes kind of distill out what those beliefs are.

Philip Pape  45:51

Yeah, so and then as far as the social situations, you talked about alternatives, but what what's the general advice for people listening, who just maybe tonight they're thinking of going out? And drinking is going to be there? Like, what what? What are the steps that they should go through mentally, potentially, to start changing their behavior in the way that would serve them better? Yeah,

Karolina Rzadkowolska  46:10

absolutely. So anyone who's already embarking on a healthy lifestyle, like you're choosing to do things differently than maybe the general populace, because you value your health so much. And I'm guessing it makes you feel very proud, I'm guessing you're proud of your workouts, you're proud of your eating habits, you're proud of the steps you're taking to live your life aligned with your health. And if we can see not drinking in the same light, that it's not something that we're doing that makes us the odd one out or the weirdo, we're actually the one who is aligning their life to their health and values. There's a study that came out that showed that over 52% of Americans actually wished that they drank less or not at all. And so we all have that desire or not, at least a lot of us do. And yet it's not getting acted upon. So when you go out and are the only one not drinking with your friends, or family or whoever, you have to know that secretly, at least half of the people there wish that they were doing what you were doing, you know, it's kind of like imagine if you were to go out with a friend and they ordered a fast food meal and you got the healthy salad. The person who got the fast food meal is a little like, oh, I probably should have done that, you know, I'm a little jealous or a little, you know, whatever about them. So like, you can actually go from being what's called the odd one out into the leader, you know, into the role model into the Inspire. And there's so many incredible role models out there who don't drink that you would never even question about him. For example, Tony Robbins doesn't drink. No one's gonna go around to Tony Robbins asking him why he's not drinking, or come on. Just join us, buddy. Like he would laugh that off so fast. And you can find examples of that of just these movers and shakers and people who really align their life, not only to their values, but also to their goals and dreams, where it's just like, why would we? Why is there room or time for alcohol, it makes absolutely no sense. And then you can use that same pride that you use to achieve your other goals or you know, healthy living standards. And kind of you don't have to proclaim it like a preacher with a pulpit or something. But you just kind of live with that energy. So instead of being kind of embarrassed or intimidated by this idea that you're not drinking out with public, you're like wearing it with pride, you know, and that curiosity. And you never know that ripple effect you could create in your social circles, because trust me, you're not the only one questioning it.

Philip Pape  48:22

You speak so much to me, and probably a lot of the listeners I love I love the idea of pride and excitement and owning it out there. Because the courage to be an outlier. It's something that concept we talk about a lot to the point where you realize that being an outlier in society, in almost anything probably means you're doing something right. Because that way, and that secretly, many people want to be in the same shoes. So we talk about support systems for health, right when people try to sabotage your goals, and oftentimes it's out of insecurity because they really want to be like you Why aren't you staying with the tribe staying with the crowd? So when when when it does come time to do this? What about the closest people to you, right, your friends, family, who are still drinking? And you just you have to have some conversation potentially? Or is it more of a matter of like you said, walking around with chest high pride, just making the decision, and not really having to explain yourself so much as just saying, like, here's the choice I'm making. What are your thoughts around the verbal verbalizing that

Karolina Rzadkowolska  49:19

well, obviously it depends on what you know, unique personal relationship you have with each person, but something so easy to say is I'm taking a break and I feel amazing. Who's gonna argue with that? Oh, here have a drink and start feeling shitty again. Great. It's like we don't have to make it this huge permanent thing at first and because we didn't we mean we might not know where it's gonna go. Right. You know, it's kind of hard to determine. You know, sometimes it's scary to say something more like Final like, Oh, I'm not drinking anymore. I quit because you don't know where it's going to turn out either. So explaining that you're taking a break and you're feeling amazing or you're taking a break to improve your health. I mean, those are all the truth and all very inspiring. And it can can also come have like, you know, take the pressure off other people, as you're getting into it, though, you know, like, I lead with the benefits. So for example, my closest relationship was with my husband. And we definitely shared drinking together, it was kind of our pastime, it was date night, it was what we did on the weekends, you know, and so to just one day be like, I'm never drinking again, would have probably been a little like, okay, so instead, obviously, I took a break, and I started sharing breadcrumbs with them, I was like, you know, what, oh, my gosh, I slept so well, without drinking the night before. Or oh, my God, I'm feeling so much happier. Or, like, I feel so much more motivated to go hiking with you. And maybe even showing him more love and more quality time. So that when it came down to like, whether or not I was gonna go back to alcohol, purity, totally got it. You know, he already saw how much better this was for me, and how much positive you know, examples I was sharing with him about how much better I feel. And ultimately, he wanted me to be happy, right. And in those places, where the person maybe is, like you said, a little bit more insecure, or just not reacting as positively. You know, first of all, we hold that mirror up to the other person. So it might be that there are a little insecure about their own drinking habits. But it also could be deeper, it could be like they might be they're scared that they're going to lose you, especially if that was such a like time, like a past time together. And for that, especially for like romantic relationships, I think it's really important to still devote the quality time and the bonding together, just find new ways of doing it. So for example, instead of date night at the brewery, my husband and I signed up for a half marathon and did Friday night runs together, like what a cool way to bond and elevate our relationship to the next level and it didn't like tear us apart are so much closer.

Philip Pape  51:39

So great. So great. I love it. And honestly, your advice can apply to anything that you are, you know, making a choice to improve your health with I imagine, you know, I'm I'm in strength training, and I feel amazing, you know, I'm taking a break, and I feel amazing. So I love that. And then alternative activities and alternative drinks and all these things are definitely the way to go. So to respect your time is there. I do like to ask this of all guests, is there any question you wish I'd asked? And what is your answer?

Karolina Rzadkowolska  52:05

Oh, sure. Well, if this was a lot for anyone and you want to like kind of process it and you know, mull it over and get some really good guidance, do check out my book euphoric, a euphoric ditch alcohol, again, a happier, more confident you because basically, almost everything we talked about is in that book, and you'll get a lot of tips and guidance and a weekly plan to even follow to take a break from alcohol. So just be sure to check that

Philip Pape  52:27

out. Check the book out, and I was gonna my final question is gonna be where can listeners learn more about you? Do you want them to go to the book or somewhere else?

Karolina Rzadkowolska  52:34

Yeah, so you can go to euphoric af.com. And that's my main website. We have our programs, we run group programs, we also have retreats around the world, which is really fun. And I also certify new alcohol free women who are passionate about sharing this with other people and helping other people change their lives. So if anyone's looking for a career change, or just something to motivate them to help other people too, that's an incredible option. And then you can find my book at you know, euphoric and Amazon or euphoric book.com And then I'm also pretty active on Instagram. So if you want to shoot me a question or you know, share anything with me, please feel free to and that you've worked on it. Yes.

Philip Pape  53:09

And great content on there for those watching or listening. Definitely put those links in the show notes and check them out. This was really enlightening super vibe I love when I have guests on where I personally learned a lot because I know the listeners gonna learn a lot and take action from this and improve their lives for the better. So Karolina, thank you so much for coming on the show.

Karolina Rzadkowolska  53:26

Thank you. It's such a pleasure.

Philip Pape  53:30

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