The Hidden Brain in Your Gut Might Be Controlling Your Cravings with Dr. William Ferro | Ep 205

Are you struggling to lose weight despite trying every diet? Could your gut be secretly driving your cravings, mood, and performance? Are you ready to unlock the power of your "second brain"?

Philip (@witsandweights) dives into the fascinating gut-brain connection with Dr. William Ferro, founder and CEO of Betr Health. They explore how your gut—the "second brain"—might be the secret to transforming your health, conquering cravings, and achieving your fitness goals. Dr. Ferro shares practical strategies to reset your gut, reduce inflammation, and take control of your food choices through personalized nutrition. He also highlights why it's not your fault if you're struggling with weight loss and how understanding your body's unique needs can make all the difference.

Join Philip and Dr. Ferro for an in-depth discussion that could change your perspective on your diet, health, and fitness journey.

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Today, you’ll learn all about:

1:30 The role of the gut microbiome in genetic expression
4:18 The enteric nervous system and its significance
6:32 The bidirectional relationship between the gut and brain
9:27 How gut health impacts metabolism and performance
15:31 Personalized nutrition and elimination diets
28:04 Dr. Ferro’s approach to reducing inflammation
30:44 The benefits of fermented foods and fiber for gut health
36:20 Sugar and artificial sweeteners in your diet
40:24 Gut health and autoimmune conditions
42:35 The role of strength training in gut health and overall fitness
44:47 How pets can positively (or negatively) affect your gut
47:06 The question Dr. Ferro wanted Philip to ask him
49:50 Where to find Dr. Ferro
50:28 Outro

Episode resources:

• Dr. Ferro's website: betrhealth.com

• Quacks and Hypochondriacs Podcast

Related episode:

• The Dark Side of GLP-1 Weight Loss Drugs (Ozempic, Mounjaro, Zepbound) with Amy Wilson| Ep 183

Episode summary:

Dr. William Ferro, the founder and CEO of Better Health, takes us on an enlightening journey into the profound connection between gut health and overall well-being. This episode delves into the science behind the gut-brain axis and offers actionable tips to help listeners harness the power of a healthy gut for improved mental and physical wellness.

Dr. Ferro begins by discussing the concept of the gut-brain connection, often referred to as the gut-brain axis. This bi-directional communication system between the gut and the brain plays a crucial role in regulating various bodily functions, including mood, food choices, and physical performance. The gut, often dubbed the "second brain," is home to a vast microbiome that influences gene expression and overall health. Dr. Ferro emphasizes that the gut's dynamic nature allows it to adapt quickly to positive changes, making it a powerful tool for improving well-being.

One of the key topics covered in this episode is the role of an elimination diet in achieving health success. Dr. Ferro explains how a well-curated elimination and reintroduction protocol can help reduce gut inflammation and identify food sensitivities. This approach involves temporarily removing certain foods from the diet and then gradually reintroducing them to observe their impact on the body. By doing so, individuals can pinpoint specific foods that may be causing inflammation or other adverse reactions. Dr. Ferro highlights the importance of having a coach to guide individuals through this process, as well as the benefits of using advanced technology for dietary tracking and compliance.

The episode also explores the principles of a gut-reset diet designed for sustainability and family inclusion. Dr. Ferro discusses why eliminating specific foods like pork, turkey, tuna, salmon, broccoli, and cauliflower can lead to better initial results by reducing variables that might impede progress. He emphasizes the importance of using high-quality ingredients, avoiding iodized salt, and cooking with broth instead of oils. Hydration is another critical aspect of this approach, as increased intracellular water contributes to weight loss and metabolic health. Dr. Ferro provides real-world examples to illustrate how sticking to a curated food list, even for a short period, can yield significant improvements in energy levels and weight loss.

In addition to dietary changes, the episode delves into the impact of lifestyle factors on gut health. Dr. Ferro discusses the importance of whole foods, adequate calorie intake, and the pitfalls of inadequate sleep, insufficient water intake, and lack of dietary diversity. He highlights the role of intracellular water as a key indicator of improved metabolism and the importance of removing external interferences, such as certain skincare products, to optimize bodily functions. A heartfelt testimonial from Nancy underscores the positive impact of Dr. Ferro's guidance on her daughter's nutrition and body image.

The discussion also touches on the historical wisdom of Hippocrates and the practical advice of health pioneer Jack LaLanne. Dr. Ferro shares promising research on fecal transplants for conditions like anxiety and autism, emphasizing the critical role of diet in maintaining a healthy gut microbiome. He advocates for the benefits of natural probiotics found in fermented foods and the importance of dietary fiber. Dr. Ferro argues that the body's innate ability to heal should be supported by wholesome, natural foods rather than supplements. Real-life examples illustrate how simple dietary changes can lead to dramatic health improvements, from better digestion to enhanced skin and hair quality.

Another significant topic covered in the episode is the impact of gut health on mental well-being. Dr. Ferro explains how gut health influences the production of serotonin, a neurotransmitter that plays a crucial role in regulating mood and anxiety. He emphasizes that restoring gut health can significantly enhance the effectiveness of emotional and mental therapies. This holistic approach to wellness underscores the interconnectedness of gut health, inflammation, and overall well-being.

The episode also explores the specific challenges faced by women with PCOS and other autoimmune issues. Dr. Ferro discusses how reducing systemic inflammation and insulin resistance can lead to improved fertility and pain management. He highlights the benefits of strength training for both muscle and bone health, especially as we age, and emphasizes the importance of professional guidance in fitness routines. Additionally, the conversation touches on the positive impact pets can have on gut health and stress relief through the release of endorphins.

To provide listeners with practical takeaways, Dr. Ferro offers actionable tips for optimizing gut health. He recommends incorporating fermented and fibrous foods into the diet, using elimination diets to identify personal trigger foods, and choosing natural sweeteners like honey over artificial options. He also emphasizes the importance of balancing intuitive eating with precise tracking for body composition goals and being mindful of how cravings can signal nutritional deficiencies.

Dr. Ferro concludes the episode by highlighting the benefits of an elimination diet as a way to reset and improve overall health. He encourages listeners to explore the resources available at Better Health, including personalized coaching and advanced tracking technology. Dr. Ferro's holistic approach to wellness, grounded in the principles of gut health and informed lifestyle changes, offers a comprehensive roadmap to achieving optimal health.

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Transcript

Philip Pape: 0:01

you've tried every diet out there, maybe track your macros, you still feel powerless against those irresistible food cravings. What if I told you that the key to conquering these cravings isn't more willpower, but understanding a hidden brain in your gut? Today we're diving into the fascinating world of the gut brain connection. My guest will share how this second brain in your gut could be secretly controlling your food choices and what you can do about it. From the impact of gut bacteria on your cravings to your mood and even physical performance. We're going to geek out today on a new way to think about your body. Get ready to discover the power of your gut-brain axis and how it could transform the way you look at your health.

Philip Pape: 0:42

Welcome to Wits and Weights, the podcast that blends evidence and engineering to help you build smart, efficient systems to achieve your dream physique. I'm your host, philip Pape, and today I invited on Dr William Farrow, founder and CEO of Better Health, a leading health and wellness company focused on gut health and personalized nutrition. He's also the host of the Quacks and Hypochondriacs podcast. Dr Farrow has observed firsthand the limitations of conventional healthcare and has since championed a holistic approach to well-being, putting gut health at the center of his methodology. Today we're discussing the surprising links between your gut and other aspects of your health, why personalized nutrition is so powerful and how understanding your unique gut-brain connection might be the missing piece to your health and fitness.

Philip Pape: 1:43

Dr Ferro, welcome to the show.

Philip Pape: 1:48

Thanks for having me. I'm really excited to be here. Appreciate the offer. So, doc, what is this second hidden brain in our gut that we've heard about, and what kind of superpower does it have?

Dr. William Ferro: 1:54

yeah. So we spend, you know, most of our time studying the 10 trillion human cells of the body. Give or take a few trillion. We focus on the dna, the human, and yet there's 300 trillion natural bacteria some people call it the microbiome that are living on your skin, living into your cheeks.

Dr. William Ferro: 2:12

I call it cheek-to-cheek nutrition because a lot of people think that the digestive system, your stomach, is an internal organ. It's actually an external organ. Its whole job is to only let good things in and keep bad things out. And that gut microbiome, that bacteria, is something that over the last 20 years people kind of scoffed at like could that really be a thing? And that's just because we didn't have the scientific instruments to look at it very well. So it has exploded onto the scene and now study after study is just showing that everything from 99% of your genetic expression so for those of you who think that I'm doomed with my genes, I have bad genes, I'll never lose weight 99% of how those genes are expressed have to do with your gut, and that's just one specific area of how it keeps you healthy.

Philip Pape: 2:56

So a couple of interesting things you mentioned. There is how it's on the inside but it's still on the outside, kind of this barrier, this tube, if you will cheek to cheek, and with tons and tons and tons of bacteria, the genetic expression part of it. How much control do we have over that? Because I think of genetics but I also think of epigenetics and what percentage of the impact genetics has versus the things that we do. What are your thoughts on that?

Dr. William Ferro: 3:20

Yeah. So epigenetics is the right term here, and the studies are showing, you know, put a percentage on it 90%, 99%, whatever you want to say. A good percentage has to do. The expression of those genes being turned off or acting a certain way has to do with how healthy your gut is, which makes sense, because how healthy your gut is also makes how healthy your diversity of the food that you're eating. It also is how healthy your external environment is. How much exposure do you have to chemicals and pollution in the body? So it's more important about the world and the environment you're living in.

Dr. William Ferro: 3:56

This shouldn't be called Ayurvedic medicine, excuse me. Ayurveda. The practice is about how you're reacting to your environment or your environment's acting upon you, and that's the same thing. When it comes to genetic expression, epigenetics is way more powerful and you have so much control over it and it's not a journey. I think people think well, how am I going to do this? Within minutes and seconds of feeding your body and nourishing your body, you're already changing that expression and that's how fast your body works to try to get back to homeostasis.

Philip Pape: 4:25

Yeah, and that's a good way to put it right. The body is always adapting to the stimulus you give it, and it can be very quick. We see that in strength training. You know people who haven't trained for years and then all of a sudden they start training and within a week they're just much stronger and feeling differently, and it's amazing. Before we get into more of that, I am curious when it comes to talking about the gut as a brain. It's kind of the connection I wanted to explore here. There's a term called the enteric nervous system right, a bunch of nerve cells in there. I actually am not too familiar with this concept and I'm not sure the listener is, so can you explain that for us?

Dr. William Ferro: 4:58

Yeah, so full disclosure. I'm a gut health enthusiast more than biological expert. I just have watched it work wonders within my own practice. So maybe I'll give you a little background. I'll go into that.

Dr. William Ferro: 5:10

I was a chiropractor. I had 30 chiropractic offices and gyms. I was watching people struggle. We added in physical therapy, massage, medical doctors, we had every modality known to man working inside these clinics, inside these big gyms, including personal trainers. And then I was young in my world thinking I can out-science the body. So I started doing breath tests, saliva tests, poop tests, you name it. And as I thought I was getting closer to the truth, it just took me further away until I started realizing we keep blaming the plant and not looking at the soil, and that's what got me down the road of digestive health. So I know just enough to be dangerous, but I do things like.

Dr. William Ferro: 5:49

One of our medical doctors is from Duke University. You know Paul Wishmeyer. You'll hear him on our podcast. He knows every study that has ever transpired. He can trace every molecule in the body down to the enteric nervous system. So what I will just say is that the gut brain, or the cheek-to-cheek nutrition I'm talking about every step of the way, relies on good gut bacteria and that's where the gut bacteria is actually creating a lot of these neurotransmitters which you just mentioned, a lot of the hormones within our body, and they're communicating back and forth. We think that your brain is just controlling your body, but actually they're starting to realize that more of it's coming from the gut. Now there's a direct line connection from the vagus nerve, so there is a nerve connection, but if you really looked at it pound for pound, there's more neurologic activity actually coming from the gut brain, from the rest of the body, than the other way around. So that's why they're calling it the second brain and some people are saying it might even be the first brain.

Philip Pape: 6:47

Yeah, that's really fascinating. So it's bidirectional. Not only is it bidirectional, you're saying, maybe this second brain is more predominant in our outcomes. So maybe we could break down what does that mean for how our gut health then influences? We know it influences digestion, but our mood right, Our cognitive function, the things that we normally associate with our brain, even our performance and things like that how does that work?

Dr. William Ferro: 7:13

Well, I think it does go this way up, because your brain can't eat an apple, right? Sure, even if I didn't think about it, if someone forced me to eat an apple, I'm going to get the benefit of that apple. And so this is what's so important to me. Number one if you're listening, it's not your fault. If you take nothing away from this podcast, it is not your fault. I just watched another Instagram post yesterday of some beefy character telling people you just got to work out, you loser, you're a piece of crap, you're lazy, you're unmotivated and I'm like, okay, great.

Dr. William Ferro: 7:47

So here's a baby being born in the last 20 years, exposed to over 256 chemicals before it takes its first breath. 200 are cancer causing. Then it comes out, most likely C-section, because C-sections have risen. It doesn't get past the mom's good bacteria. So one of the best gifts your mom's ever going to give you is that first culture of bacteria to propagate this ecosystem, this soil, this cheek-to-cheek nutrition. So a lot of people are devoid of that.

Dr. William Ferro: 8:14

And then what do we do? We give antibiotics immediately. So we do everything we can to kill off that microbiome. The studies show one round of antibiotics can throw up your gut for up to a year dysbiosis, and so this already you start, not at the starting line behind. Then you get into the world of okay, well, the drinking water. Now, if you can Google this, is the rainwater safe for human consumption. Nope, there's forever chemicals, and not just in cities. Every part of the planet you find forever chemicals PFAS you can look that up. I always love when I hear things like they're still not sure if it can negatively affect the body. I can tell you clearly any chemical that is man-made, don't eat it. So that's that.

Dr. William Ferro: 8:57

Then you look at the pharmaceuticals in our drinking water. You look at the microplastics in our bloodstream, the rates of infertility and inflammation. That is what is causing this disruption of the brain-gut connection and I think, to start the podcast, that's what's going to make you feel like you're running an internal marathon. That's what's going to get your adrenal glands fired up. That's what's going to get your body craving sodium, potassium and sugar, because it's constantly in fight or flight or freeze mode and your body is actually doing, is acting healthy to an unhealthy situation and is exactly doing what it's designed to do.

Dr. William Ferro: 9:27

So stop thinking your metabolism has left you for a younger man or a younger woman. Stop blaming yourself that. It takes willpower. And I understand that you're full of doubt because every commercial tells you you should be doubtful, that you should look outside for your health. But that's just not the case. If you start with this gut, the gut takes over and puts you on autopilot. And so me sitting here and thinking well, if you get the gut it's supposed to be, I'm going to lose weight effortlessly and easy. No way, that's how you were designed right.

Philip Pape: 9:56

Yeah, no, I love it. So first of all, about those beefy 20 something fitfluencers on Instagram, you know, this is why I try not to get too beefy. People think it's easy, right? You mentioned a few things there, not least of which is from birth. You're exposed to things and there's choices your mother did or didn't make, and we're not judging any of that. We're just saying you don't control that. It happened and it's in your life. I've even heard whether you have pets, whether you eat food from the ground versus from the store, all of those things throughout your life and that your metabolism is very sensitive to things. I know that for sure. It's funny.

Philip Pape: 10:30

I'm going through shoulder rehab. I had rotator cuff surgery last year and it was getting very inflamed recently and my metabolism was dropping. I had a little cortisone shot after getting an MRI. My weight dropped like three pounds in a few days and everything just started to change in my metabolism. Right, I mean, it's just so sensitive to little things and I like how you're starting with one thing. You're starting with the gut and we're going to talk today about what can people do about it, because I know what people are thinking right now. You mentioned chemicals and pharmaceuticals Are you going to give us the whole? You got to do these 20 crazy things and avoid EM radiation and do cold plunges and red light therapy. Okay, so that's what I want people to know is probably a simple approach here and I want to start getting into that. Do we want to jump right into that or there's a more context first?

Dr. William Ferro: 11:21

Do a little bit, but my goal here is to first make you independently healthy and then, if you can get independently healthy, then you can do all that fun stuff and spend all the you can biohack the rest of your life, but right now we can do such small steps to maximize your health. I'm going to tell you the exact thing I take everybody through. There's no secret. You don't have to go through a labyrinth for me to tell you exactly what I discovered. So this is what I've discovered and now I've had I started with. You know probably 50, 60,000 patients of failure, so I know what failure looks like. And now I have probably 150 to 250,000 people after I learned and I feel bad for those people because I didn't keep their names and numbers. I wish I could call them from my old clinic, but now I know what success looks like. So here's what success looks like when you work with us, get you on the phone with a coach and we say all right, we believe that the gut is important and we know from science that the gut, lining the enteric system you talked about, can replenish itself. Give or take two weeks. I know that it actually starts to heal right away, but completely repair or whatnot for most people to about two weeks, and then I know three weeks in my experience is if I can reduce inflammation and things that are causing inflammation in your body for three weeks, that gives your body enough time to repair completely to the point where all the allergens are out of your body, triggers are down, and then I can bring back in food one by one so you can figure out what food works best for you.

Dr. William Ferro: 12:46

So I'm not a genius. It's an elimination reintroduction protocol, right, it's a gold standard. It's always been there. The difference is is I've had the opportunity to watch 50, 60,000 people fail and quarter of a million people succeed, and so I manipulated my what I call level one food list to be the list that I'm like. I can't tell you why I don't have broccoli or cauliflower or salmon on my list, like scientifically, you know, because if you read the plant paradox, you read a carnivore study. Someone's going to prove me wrong and switch studies in 10 seconds, flat, right, great. If that works for you, awesome. I'm just telling you that I've made people take pictures of their food for the last decade every single day sleep, mood, bowel movements, stress levels, activity levels.

Dr. William Ferro: 13:30

I've watched all this and I'm telling you that if you just stick to the food list that I give you and follow the protocol which some of it's counterintuitive you will see success. So this is what I do. I tell you all right, get you on the phone with the coach. Coach will say all right, do you cook or not cook? First question if you cook, great, we have some really easy recipes.

Dr. William Ferro: 13:47

If you don't cook, I have a nationwide meal delivery service. Because of some of the health plans that we're covered by, we only get paid for performance. So I didn't want to be in the food business and I'm not really. But it's actually cheaper than cooking yourself because I have people on Medicaid Medicare coming to us. They can't afford half the time to go buy all this stuff or they live alone, so it doesn't make sense sometimes to cook. So we have that. So basically, we have all the resources you need to be successful. But the coach's job is to say hey, let's just pick an upcoming Monday where you can just start to follow the protocol for three days. Three days of no alcohol, no artificial sweeteners.

Dr. William Ferro: 14:19

Oftentimes we send you a scale Now. Weight loss to us is just a byproduct, but it's an indicator of fluid retention inflammatory retention that, if you look at a daily basis, can give you a lot of insight. So we send them the scale. There's no app to download. All of our technology is built through text message. Now Even our AI 24-7 is built to that. It's really awesome because you can just take a picture of your dinner and it can take all the ingredients and pull all the ingredients down and then ask you hey, is this all the ingredients? 10 years ago this wasn't possible. It was awful technology. Now it actually amazes me how good it is. They can take a Chipotle bowl and tell you everything that's in it.

Philip Pape: 14:53

Hold on. Is that a part of your backend technology? Yeah absolutely, that's cool.

Dr. William Ferro: 14:57

Okay, I had an app and our app stinks Long story. But what I learned from it is I started with an online portal over a decade ago that morphed into text messaging and then text messaging with pictures, but we couldn't scale it because there was no backend back then. Now I created a backend so my coaches can see that text message and the AI can jump in between. But the great thing is is that I tell someone no alcohol, no artificial sweeteners, beef, chicken, steak, lobster, shrimp. You can be vegan, vegetarian, you could like Mexican cuisine, Indian cuisine, I don't care what.

Dr. William Ferro: 15:28

We have tons of recipes for you and the food delivery if you need it. And make sure this weekend you get prepped. You know the prep is everything right being prepared. So we just focus on that prep. We make them take pictures of their grocery cart, we make pictures of their food prep and then we say, great, you're ready to go. If you don't do that, you didn't fail. We just postpone you to next week. And if you don't do that, we postpone you. There is no such thing as failure. It's just being not prepared and we're not going to let you start unprepared.

Philip Pape: 15:55

No, I was going to say. It's like when a client says, well, I did bad or I did good, it's like, no, you just you missed your target or you hit your target right. It's data, let's move on, yeah.

Dr. William Ferro: 16:02

Agreed, and I mean you'll catch me eating a slice of pizza on a Friday night with my family, Like this isn't about, you know, being the restriction yeah, no way. But during the level one, I try to get people to stick to it as closely as possible, but I don't have to put a hammer on them because, say, look, here's the food rotisserie, chicken, mason jar, salad, simple things that you can make and your family can eat it. So here's the difference If you go on a keto and I'm not knocking any of these things, but anytime you go on something that your kids can't do, your family can't do, it's not going to be sustainable. And now you have the food prep for you and the other bozos running around your house, like my boys. So instead, because I'm using rice and burgers and chicken and they can eat along with me and they understand that, hey, this guy's not eating for calorie counting. So I never have people count calories and not weighing it. I'm just asking them to stick to this food.

Dr. William Ferro: 16:51

If you can get the highest quality meat, great. If you can get organic, phenomenal. You can't. But more importantly, I just don't want iodized salt in it. I want, you know, celtic or sea salt. I don't want you to saute in oil, olive oil, I want you to use it for flavor, cook in broth, so we give you some ways to cook. And then, if you just get up in the morning and weigh in, if you take pictures of your lunch and dinner, you have your fruit. In between we have apples, strawberries, blueberries, oranges and grapefruit. That's the kind of where we start. And then again, no pork, no tuna, no salmon and no turkey. Those are the only things we avoid. And then certain vegetables like broccoli and cauliflower, which always boggles everybody's mind Like oh, is that because it's a cruciferous vegetable? I have no idea.

Philip Pape: 17:35

Gwaetrogens. Wait before you continue. What's with this big and growing no list? I'm curious. You said alcohol and artificial sweeteners. There's also iodized salt. You mentioned certain actual what most people think of as like tasty lean foods, like pork. What's with that? What's the principle behind that?

Dr. William Ferro: 17:51

Yeah. So it's just my observation that when I'm trying to reset the gut, the people that were having pork products didn't get as great results. People with turkey products didn't get to get results, and so I just try to eliminate the variables. The faster I can get you to see results, the better it is. Now, remember that's only a short period of time, it's only a couple of weeks, and then when you bring it back in, it may be fine, or it could be the difference. So you could buy chicken at Publix and you can buy chicken at Lowe's and the person could literally have a different response. So I am just trying to reduce as many of the variables.

Dr. William Ferro: 18:25

To start, turkey right, sliced turkey versus actually someone made a turkey Bacon. I'm in North Carolina. This is like the bacon capital of the world. I can tell you that there's certain places. If you get the bacon from, it's going to react differently than the bacon gets somewhere else, which makes sense because of how they process it, what they put into it. So that's why it's just about eliminating the variables. And salmon holy crap, what did they do to salmon?

Philip Pape: 18:48

Even wild-caught salmon.

Dr. William Ferro: 18:50

No, so they didn't get sockeye.

Philip Pape: 18:56

Okay, yeah, no, I just I wanted to interject because I've definitely seen lots of different elimination diets. Some are very generalized. It's like cut out dairy, cut out gluten, cut out a couple other things. Do you have major groups or is it actually this very specific, curated list?

Dr. William Ferro: 19:08

It's a curated list. We do cut out gluten for the first little bit. We have dairy sparingly, because if you're a vegan or vegetarian it can be tough to get the proteins. Certain beans I cut out initially, but if you're vegan or vegetarian so we adapt it. And again, it's not steadfast rules. It's like all right, at least stick to this for three days.

Dr. William Ferro: 19:27

But here's what happens in three days you lose weight. Your energy goes up, even if you haven't lost weight for 30 years. You lose weight. You're like what the heck? And then, of course, you're like well, doc, that's just water weight. I don't care what weight it is, it shouldn't be there, right, whether it's fat or water. And I can prove to most people that it's fat. And the way I know that is when I was doing this in the clinics. I was doing bioimpedance testing before and after, because I was nervous. I was like people are losing weight, so dang fast on this, they're probably losing lean muscle tissue. So I started doing bioimpedance testing and then I realized, oh, actually it was fat that they were losing and I was increasing their intracellular water by like 60%, which is the big thing. Right, if you get water into your cell, that's where your metabolism is at its highest, you can stave off cancer. So I didn't put people on this just blindly.

Philip Pape: 20:12

So let's stop there again. Cause that weight loss people listen to show they know there's energy balance, but there's also the metabolic side of it and, like you said, water weight fluctuations. Do you know for sure that calorie equated? We see this and therefore it's due to like an increase in metabolism due to more water in your cells or something like that. Is it that well known?

Dr. William Ferro: 20:32

What I can say is that they're drinking on average depending on the person. We have people in their 70s or 80s doing this protocol, so I'm not going to make them drink 90 ounces of water, but generally people are drinking between 40 and 70 ounces of water, which, if you weighed out, is two to five pounds. Okay, so if I get you on the scale and the scale is going down by a pound each day half a pound depending on your size right, this is all relative, the net weight. Is it really water weight? Because you drank two to three, five pounds of water plus you're down, drank two to three, five pounds of water. Push it down.

Dr. William Ferro: 21:03

I just tell people that inflammation is leaving the body. Your body is getting in a state of ease. You're sleeping better. This is the number one way to lose weight. Right, it's to sleep better. As soon as I improve your sleep, your body's just converting more fat to energy while you're sleeping. So there's all of these factors combined versus just one or the other, and when most our average person, by the time 30 days up, they're down five and a half to seven percent of their body weight. To me that's just a high five.

Dr. William Ferro: 21:25

But what they learned was what healthy foods were causing an increase in retention of fluid, and I don't care if that fluid's fat deposit or water. They just learned how their body reacts. And once they learn that, the whole goal is just to get into a state of ease, which is the opposite of dis-ease. And when you're in a state of ease, your body functions the way it was supposed to do, which is go to sleep at night, get into a resting state, convert fat to energy. Let your brain let go of the day before that's the other thing Do the healing. And how does fat really leave the body Through respiration? But what does every one of these listeners think? They need to be in a treadmill, incline at a 45, in the target heart zone, getting their ass kicked. In my experience, exercise is counterproductive to fat loss initially.

Dr. William Ferro: 22:13

So like we work with a gym chain it's EOS Fitness. It's 100 gyms plus. They sign up 50,000 new members a month. All of their personal training clients get to do our program. That's 5,000 people a month.

Dr. William Ferro: 22:24

Imagine me explaining initially to a personal trainer hey, I don't want you to really work them out real hard in the first couple weeks. It took me since 2011 to work with gyms because I kept getting shunned everywhere. Finally they said, okay, well, what clearly we're doing, which is knee buckling workouts, flipping tires in parking lot, a cross fix and herding no offense to cross fix, I call it cross fix. Anyway, all that inflammation. Do they have a sprained ankle? Yeah, would you run around the gym in a sprained ankle? No, well, they have a sprained digestive system because they live in this environment like we all do, and if you don't focus on that first, you're just going to be spinning your wheels, you're just going to get frustrated. Yeah, you can fool the body into weight loss, no matter what you do. You can pick any fad or fake out you want, but it always comes back because you never actually healed the gut, you never got the inflammation out of the body and once you do that, it becomes the most sustainable thing that you could ever accomplish.

Philip Pape: 23:16

There's a lot of good stuff here. So have these groups or your clients gone through studies where you know, with randomized studies comparing the two groups and also any higher level of tracking with calories, macros and things like that, and their expenditure correlated with this? And the reason I ask is it's multivariate, right? If you're going to make this big change in your diet, of course you're changing a lot of variables all at once. One variable you're probably changing is your calories are probably going to drop just because you're eating more whole foods. Potentially, right. That's why I asked are the calories equated? But probably, naturally, you're going to do that.

Dr. William Ferro: 23:50

I missed your question because I'm always yapping yes, so you're right. So what ends up happening is right. You're eating these healthy foods, and I consider them the highest octane foods. Your body gets what it needs out of these high octane foods and whatever it needs outside of that, it gets while it's sleeping from your reserves. So, without a doubt, your calories are going to drop, but most of the time when someone does a program, they have such dieting mentality that we're literally screaming at them, like we just saw. That's why I make you take a picture too. I'm like you're not eating enough at them, like we just saw. That's why I make you take a picture too. I'm like you're not eating enough.

Dr. William Ferro: 24:23

By and large most of the weight loss stalls we ever see. Here's the number one culprits behind the weight loss stalls. Number one not enough sleep hands down sleep. Number two not enough water, because now you're eating all this fibrous food and it needs extra water because the fiber is soaking it up, so you actually need to drink more water. When you're putting in that fibrous food and then just not eating enough, not rotating your proteins, you keep eating chicken all the time. You're not diversing the bacteria. You don't have enough digestive enzymes. I just take everybody through this algorithm and then I teach them to ask themselves these questions Right now. It's cool that AI is doing it it's actually analyzing all this stuff but before that I would just teach the clients, because those are the culprits. People will say well, do you think it's going to work for me? I know your body works, ma'am. You built a baby in nine months without Googling it. You think this should be physical?

Philip Pape: 25:13

It's like the principles are all the same. Your individual response will differ, but you're taking them through the process of discovering that for themselves, hence the re-edition of certain things and tracking all the data, which I love. And the reason I keep kind of harping on the one little piece in my mind of your metabolism and your expenditure is I'm a big fan of energy flux, like eating more to move more, not restricting, not cutting, and even during fat loss, I want people eating as much as possible and still losing the weight they want to lose, which, like you said, sleep is huge, like five 700 calories a day of overconsumption when you don't get enough sleep, let alone the belly fat storage and the different body composition you know, nutrient partitioning and all that. I'd be very curious to see how much people's expenditure, metabolism has increased just in and of itself from this kind of approach anyway.

Dr. William Ferro: 26:03

Yeah, I could equate to the fact that I know their metabolisms have increased or improved from the intracellular water. That's hands down. When I used to do that biometric, that was the thing that got me. It wasn't so much that I saw better body fat, it was the fact that you were increasing intracellular water, and that is huge. Right. You want the water in the cell get that tenacity so it can do what it needs to do.

Dr. William Ferro: 26:25

But the people that come to us I think from a study perspective we are a CDC-approved diabetes, fully recognized diabetes, which means we had to submit data. But all they were really looking for is how fast we can get somebody to 5% weight loss and how sustainable it was. And compared to our peers, not even close. Because people are so stuck in that paradigm of move more, eat less. All you got to do, it's so simple, like everyone else, and I'm just saying just get out of the body's way and remove interference.

Dr. William Ferro: 26:51

You realize that when I do the call we have 400 people on our Zoom call each week. I'll say, okay, does anyone have a lotion right next to them? And they'll say, yeah, I said, pick it up. What's the first ingredient? It's either aqua or water. Why is that? Well, because it can sell you a bunch of water, basically, and a bunch of chemicals and call it something cool. I said do you think that water actually moisturizes your skin? No, if we absorbed water in our skin as soon as we came out of the shower, we would be a hundred pounds.

Dr. William Ferro: 27:18

Like a sponge, yep we would be a hundred pounds Like a sponge. Yep, yeah, it's not that case. They just do it to sell you. And if it's water in it in a bottle, what else do they put in to keep it from having bacteria and antibacteria? So you're literally killing off all the skin bacteria, which is a huge part of your ecosystem. Does that really cause an issue? Take it away. Watch what happens. Take that stuff away. All these little minor things you can do to get maximal improvement.

Nancy: 27:42

Take that stuff away, All these little minor things you can do to get maximal improvement. Hi, my name is Nancy. I'd love to give a massive thank you to Philip of Wits and Weights for his work with my 16-year-old daughter. When my 16-year-old came to me, you know she wanted some support with her nutrition. She wasn't happy with her body image and the trend that her weight was going. We were very concerned about what kind of help we could get for her, and all of those concerns were completely allayed by work with Philip. You know he was so respectful of any of our concerns. He adapted any of his programs to really fit working with a teen rather than the busy professionals that he normally works with. His coaching style really resonated with her and we're just literally so grateful that he has taught her so many of the skills and life habits that we hope now she'll take through her entire life so huge. Thank you, Philip.

Philip Pape: 28:33

You were talking about the elimination diet at first, getting in tune with your body. You mentioned things like stress. You mentioned inflammation. I don't know if you mentioned immunity gut immunity yet either, but maybe let's start from there the stress and the inflammation because that can get really fuzzy in the way influencers talk about this stuff. It's out to lunch speaking of quacks. Educate us.

Dr. William Ferro: 28:56

So the studies are out there, anxiety-related. So they're doing fecal transplants. Now, right, so you can take fecal transplants. They just launched a new study for autism where they showed promise in doing fecal transplants. So fecal transplant is taking the poop from somebody healthy and implant it to somebody who's unhealthy. They have studies on mice. You know overweight mice, skinny mice. They changed the fecal matter and the obese mice get skinny and skinny.

Dr. William Ferro: 29:20

So to me there's volumes of information to say, yeah, this gut health is real. What really gets me the most, though, is the father of modern medicine already told us this 2,500 years ago and said look well to the gut for the root of all disease. That's Hippocrates. He also said let food be thy medicine. So I just take those two as my standard, and the only other person that I watched and learned from.

Dr. William Ferro: 29:43

I got to see Jack LaLanne speak at one of the health and fitness trade shows, and I forget. Just like I told people, don't forget, it's not your fault. He said to me if man made it, don't eat it. And that's the simple principles behind it. Now, does that mean go run out and buy a probiotic? Does that mean that you have to go get your gut and your breath test to make no, no, no, no, no, no. Your body knows what to do. The best pharmacist or chemist is already here. You just have to get out of its way.

Dr. William Ferro: 30:11

And you're talking to a guy that I have supplements, I have probiotics and enzymes. The only reason why I did it is for it's like insurance. I want you to having kefir, I want you having kefir, I want you having sauerkraut, I want you to have real fermented foods that actually can help you repopulate the gut. But if you don't also eat the fiber, so when you eat apple and you're eating fibrous foods like salads, and even the proteins, it goes to your large intestines. Your body can't break it down, so it ferments. Well, that's a good thing, because that's what the bacteria live off of. So if you take, you know, some probiotic or the new fancy ones they have and say this is the greatest thing, it's like oh, did you eat an apple today? Because if you didn't, no prebiotic. Oh well, that's okay. I took this other powder, prebiotic fiber. I'm not in those things, I'm just saying it's sitting on your counter already, the prebiotic fiber. An orange, Just go grab that. It's going to have much more bioavailability than anything in a bottle.

Philip Pape: 31:03

Let's address that, because I totally agree and I think people overcomplicate this stuff and they try to fix everything with a pill and just eat more fiber, eat more types of fiber, diversity of fiber, and it tastes great and it fills you up and it's not very many calories. It's like everything win, win, win. I have a sweet tooth. All right, try some grapes or whatever. I know one question people talk about is if you've gone your whole life let's say 40, 50 years very bland diet, you have all these things against you in early childhood potentially. And is it possible that your gut bacteria is so wiped out and depleted that there's just not much there to feed? How do we restore that?

Dr. William Ferro: 31:40

So the refluorization happens, as I said, within seconds. The second you go to the store and go get kefir that has no blueberries in it strawberries right, a real good kefir, and so you can even make yourself home and you can have it infinitely for the rest of your life. Then you have an apple. That second, your ecosystem is already starting to get better, and then you just add on that. So it's very simple. It's step by step, minute by minute, day by day. Every cell, tissue and organ in the body is constantly replenishing themselves. So you'll see, on our website, when we talk about dramatic transformations and guaranteed jaw-dropping transformation, my jaw-dropping transformation isn't just that you have a good before and after picture. It's the fact that when I started, your refrigerator looked like a carnival and when I'm done, it looks like a farmer's market. And you mentioned something about cravings. What ends up happening is, as you just go step by step, day by day, your brain and gut start communicating it and they start craving good stuff. If you go through all my video testimony, people say I can't believe I'm eating more apples. I probably ate more apples in the last 21 days than I ate in the last 20 years, or I ate more and be like I don't know if I could do that, just give it three days, see the results, see how it goes. And then on the fourth day you're gonna say, all right, this is working. And then, day seven, 10, people say why does your skin look so good? Why is your hair so strong? The most intense thing that I've seen two intense things. Number one, by the elimination.

Dr. William Ferro: 33:09

There was a woman named Julie Hughes. She was working out at Eos Fitness. She had a personal trainer working out with them three times a week for a year, loved the trainer, loved the strength, loved the you know it was part of her lifestyle Didn't lose more than a pound. So what do we do when that happens? We don't blame the trainer, we don't blame the doctors, we blame the client. Oh, you must be out eating Chick-fil-A and all this other stuff when you leave there, which, of course, if you beat her up enough and her inflammation's high, she's going to crave Chick-fil-A after that workout. Not her fault. So, anyway, she does all this, but she stayed true to her diet, right, and if you looked at it, it was turkey, it was lean proteins, it was all the things that you could get on any magazine she was doing right. The trainer says, hey, go check the doctor. The doctor checks thyroid, checks the liver. You know thousands and thousands of dollars to check this woman out.

Dr. William Ferro: 33:52

She has outrageous anxiety and almost to the point of depression. And guess what happens? She starts getting gaslit into thinking there is something wrong with her, just like every person who's struggling with their weight. Everyone's struggling with oh you know what? It's just me, I have no willpower whatever. She goes on the program reluctantly. The trainer's like just try it Three days in. She's like okay, this is working. Four days in within 60 days she lost like 37 pounds. Great, high five. Whatever.

Dr. William Ferro: 34:18

I brought her in to talk to all the trainers at the gym. I flew out there and she said that wasn't it for me. The fact that I backed off on my exercise reset my internal system was what really started to get the weight off. But then my anxiety went away and I just could sleep and I had energy in the afternoon and those were the real non-scale victories that were great and I said okay, well, lastly, tell everybody here what you uncovered from your trigger foods right, the foods that actually weren't working well for her Quinoa, greek yogurt and raspberries. Every one of your listeners right now is probably like, yeah, I have Greek yogurt and I'm not saying it's bad, but it wasn't working for her. So unless humans as buff as you are on anyone go through an elimination like I, think you talk about this.

Dr. William Ferro: 35:03

It's about experimenting with yourself. Unless you go through this experiment, you'll probably never know. You'll probably be cycling through it. You'll probably fall for every bottle pill and fat out there because you're desperate, and then you'll be preyed on by guess what? The pharmaceutical industry. Who's going to say we got this GLP-1. We got this, and I'm not mad at you.

Dr. William Ferro: 35:25

People say, well, that's because people want a quick fix. Dude, we all want a quick fix. If my car breaks, I don't want the mechanic to take a month, I want to fix things to do. So you go get this GLP-1, which is basically the same chemical that's already made in the digestive system, the epithelial cells, and the one they made in the pharmaceutical lab is only 80% like that GLP-1. Or just let your body do it. And what we found? Our studies show that someone doing this protocol will lose double the weight in half the time and obviously at a fraction of the $1,000 a month that these stupid drugs are costing, and I guess stupid is not a great word. I understand why you're doing it, but if you're doing it you can come off of it. Help, of course, but getting you to think that outside in is the way to get your health. No, it's all inside out.

Philip Pape: 36:12

Yeah, I'm fully with you and we did an episode recently about all those drugs too, kind of the dark side of them and who may benefit or not. But yeah, I hear what you're saying there. So a few things. You mentioned First that fermented foods, fibrous foods, can help. I think the term you used was reflora-ize your gut Is that what you're saying? Like the flora of your gut. I think it is a big misunderstanding that you have to take probiotics to do that. So that's a good takeaway.

Philip Pape: 36:36

The second is the fact that this elimination diet if you've never done this before and honestly you're getting me to want to do one again Do it the way that you suggest, because I want to try that out Could be a game changer for the rest of your life, because now you know what your trigger foods are and they're not necessarily what everyone else's trigger foods are and you can't tell what they are until you do that right, until you get rid of them for a bit. Skin hair, you said looking better. All that, okay. Going back to the foods, what are the things you mentioned before? You said alcohol. That makes sense. Sugar there's a lot of debate about sugar and artificial sweeteners. What are your thoughts in general, and let's separate maybe the types of sugar so people don't lump fruit in there necessarily. What are your thoughts on those?

Dr. William Ferro: 37:15

So as soon as we say the word artificial, jack the Lane man made it, don't eat it. So it's like one of the hardest things, I think, for most people. Well, what about my coffee creamer and all this other stuff? And I said, look, put cream in it, put honey in it, put a natural form of sugar. If you need it, do it. If you can avoid it, great, you're going to get enough of those great sugars from the fruit that you're eating. So again, start with three good days, see how it goes. I think, as long as it's a natural sweetener, wives, don't listen to anything you say. I got too many stories about that, her coming home saying I think I should start doing something for my gut health. I saw something on Dr Phil. This was a long time ago. Not Dr Phil, dr Oz, and I'm like you know, this is what I do for a living.

Philip Pape: 37:56

Oh geez, Don't try to coach your wife. That's not going to work.

Dr. William Ferro: 37:59

Rule number one she was drinking those Zevias or the xylitol thing, and I'm like I know this is going to be the next worst thing out there. Just have it natural. If God made it, put it on this planet and it's not highly processed, that's your best bet. And my honey is a good way to go, if you can get a nice organic honey and put it in there and sweeten some things and what you'll see is that your gut bacteria, as it floralizes or refloralizes it, will crave just the right amount of everything. So I think you talked about like macros and micros before.

Dr. William Ferro: 38:27

Unless you're training, training, right, so I would come to you and say all right, listen, I got their baseline. This person's ready to start doing next level stuff. Yes, you got to do macros, you're training them, you're putting them through more strenuous stuff, so that's what you have to do. But for the regular Joe, your body's going to know what macros and micros to give. You crave it, just like when you get dehydrated. Someone can do a test and whatever tastes funny to you is what you're missing from a mineral standpoint.

Philip Pape: 38:53

Yeah, and I understand. So there's always a debate between intuitive eating and tracking, and my position is you can have both work together. It depends on what your goal is. If your goal is to change your body composition or your weight very deliberately in a certain period of time, the more precise you can do that, the better the outcome. And if you combine it with what you said eating the right foods for you, developing intuition, listening to your body while you do that you can kind of get the best of both, in my opinion.

Dr. William Ferro: 39:18

It starts with tracking, it gets back to intuition, totally agree.

Philip Pape: 39:27

Yeah, and you can always throw tracking back in or it depends on what you're tracking. And all that Cravings yeah, I think that's really important as well, because I think we make excuses for ourselves when it comes to emotional eating Again a big hot topic out there but oftentimes you're trying to solve the trauma from your childhood to fix emotional eating, and I don't think it has to be that way Most of the time, like you said, it could be cravings, it could be emotional hunger, that once you find things that work for you, that work well for you, you can kind of satisfy what the craving was satisfying right With something that works with you.

Dr. William Ferro: 39:54

For sure. So there is a chicken and egg scenario there. So in my opinion, if you do not first start with restoring the gut-brain connection, it's very difficult to have therapy emotional, mental therapy to actually work. So a good example would be go to a 22-year-old these days and say hey, how many of your friends are anxious and depressed? They'd say who is it?

Dr. William Ferro: 40:16

Well, 90% of your happy hormone, or one of your happy hormones, serotonin, is made in the gut, and so we've been giving kids SSRI uptake inhibitors forever, not doing anything. The same way that when someone has acid reflux, we tamper down, we give an anti-acid. Acid reflux is your body saying I'm not breaking this food down properly, I'm trying to produce more acid to get the job done and you're bringing it down. You're not doing anything. So when it comes to this gaslighting of someone who has anxiety, depression, like well, I want to first just focus on your digestive health, get the soil right, and then, when you start to unpack those traumas, you're ready for it. And then, when you start to do those things that can bring to the, your body can absorb it much stronger, just like it can absorb nutrients much better if your digestive system's working.

Philip Pape: 41:09

So it all comes back to the gut, love it. So then, another question for health with a lot of folks today is autoimmune conditions, everything from Hashimoto's for the thyroid to rheumatoid arthritis. Right, just how much of that is tied into the gut, do we think?

Dr. William Ferro: 41:21

So I'll just say this If you go on a website of any autoimmune and say what is the etiology of Crohn? No one knows right, there's no known etiology for all these conditions. They're just we observe a certain thing that's going on with the human for three or more months and call it a chronic condition. And then we have markers. Right, there's some markers.

Philip Pape: 41:41

Antibodies and stuff. Yeah, antibodies.

Dr. William Ferro: 41:43

Markers. In my experience, things like PCOS women who all of a sudden realize they have PCOS. They can't lose weight, they have very tough times with fertility, fertility rates or infertility rates are going up. Some of the best. We have Carolina Conceptions here locally. They've been sending members to us forever and this was by accident. My neighbor was like hey, I did your program. Did you know? I was having trouble conceiving and getting pregnant and I actually was able to get pregnant naturally, after trying IVF and all this other stuff.

Dr. William Ferro: 42:11

Anytime you bring inflammation down the body, you reduce insulin resistance. Of course you can reverse type 2 diabetes, but all of this plays into a woman's hormones, the autoimmune issues, most of the time. So what got me frustrated as a chiro is we're doing all this work on somebody and their pain was getting better for a short period of time. Why is that was? Were we bad? Did we not know the right motions? Were they not? Was the member not doing the right? No, they have systemic inflammation. Inflammation is the root of all pain and so you don't get rid of that. You're going to be chasing pain all your whole life. So 100% is a correlation there. And of course, go just go back to Hippocrates, look well to the gut for the root of all disease. And if you're going to talk autoimmune, which is just seems to be getting higher and higher each year, glycophosphate Roundup Ready. You know 50 years. It's 50 year anniversary of Roundup glycophosphate in our agriculture and it's got into everything.

Philip Pape: 43:04

Everything, yeah, everything, yeah. I eat a lot of oatmeal and I get organic. For that reason, for the oatmeal, I know.

Philip Pape: 43:11

Okay, yeah, man, I have a million other things I could get to here, so I'm trying to keep the list narrow for the interest of time. But you mentioned exercise and I totally get and again I talk about this as well like too much cardio, too much movement. Your body sometimes has a response, a negative response, to that because you're overstressing it, especially when you're not in a relaxed state to begin with. But what about strength training? Like, where does that fit in? Is there any tie-in that you look into related to lifting weights, especially heavy weights, and the gut health?

Dr. William Ferro: 43:41

Yeah. So that's why my relationships with people like you and with the gyms is that I'm really good at this 30 day. Let me just help you reset your lifestyle. Let me reset your movement. What will happen is, as your energy comes up, some weird thing is going to happen. There was a time that we used to drag you from the gym. Now we're going to have to drag you out. And now you're going to say, oh, now I know what it's like to be like a gym rat, because you always thought that gym rats had some type of mental superiority over everybody else. Their system was working properly. So as you start to add those foods that give you that more energy I think you talked about it more fuel to do more things, then you start craving it.

Dr. William Ferro: 44:20

So, if you come in, strength training is one of the strength and flexibility, right. So you're either training for strength for today, but also at my age I'm about to turn 50. I'm turning 75 right now. So strength training, without a doubt. You know people, when they work out, right, you put weight. You're like, yeah, I'm building muscle, but you're also building bone, right. So that is for strength wise, especially for females and put weight. You're like, yeah, I'm building muscle, but you're also building bone, right? So that is for strength-wise, especially for females and males alike. You really want to do a strength training and do it the right way with a professional. If it's in your budget, get a professional. Everybody in the world who has a coach on anything does better. When it comes to fitness, it is the most important thing. What they can accomplish in a 15-minute session. You'd be walking around the gym for 45 minutes doing this every set 100% man, 100%.

Philip Pape: 45:10

Yeah, you're going to learn what it would have taken you three years of trial and error in one session. Very important, okay. So those listening yet another reason to do what Dr Farrow is saying to get this reset so that you can have a better aligned nutrition. Gives you fuel, gives you energy, and then you want to go into the gym and now you have another craving and that is lifting weights and being active. So we love to have that. And then it's not willpower, it's not like an excuse, a punishment, a thing you have to do, it's a thing you really want to do and can't stop doing, which is fun. What about pets? So we have two dogs, we have hamsters, chickens I've heard a lot of good things about pets and gut health.

Dr. William Ferro: 45:46

Yeah, so they are bringing something to your environment, right, soil, probably from the outside, which is probably the best. You're petting them against some soil. So I think that I'm not an expert on this, but I've thought about that too. My pup is sitting over there. I think the endorphin release you get from petting a pet is probably the one that's going to calm the gut down the most, and so, without a doubt, I think it's a positive. Now, it also could be negative.

Dr. William Ferro: 46:11

So I had people go through the protocol and they're following it. When I go through these 10 triage things that I've learned, like sleep, water, all the things I mentioned, rotating proteins, not eating enough Then I go all right, we exhausted that list. Why is this person on a stall? They have bowel movements, everything's going. What's the stall? What's the plateau? Well, I just moved into a new apartment. Ah, what did they have? Is it carpet? Yeah, are you allergic to anything? I'm allergic to cats. Well, they probably had a cat, you know. So, when it comes to certain people, it could actually be a health detractor and could cause inflammation and couldn't make it difficult for them to see results in their health, because it's just another environmental factor that's causing issues.

Philip Pape: 46:56

Yeah, fair enough. I used to be allergic to cats and then we got cats and the allergy went away and it all worked out, but I definitely know what that's like.

Dr. William Ferro: 47:03

Points too. So like there's some people that start my protocol and say I can't have dairy, like don't even try it, and I say, okay, well, let's just go through 21 days and let's just bring it back in. But let's bring a high quality dairy in and see what happens. They go. Oh my God, my body's fine. Same thing with gluten. We have people that think that they're sensitive to gluten, but when they get rid of it for a little bit and they bring it back in, they bring a high quality one, one that's not got garbage in it, maybe fresh baked or start with sourdough type things they go. Oh, wow, I can now enjoy this finally.

Philip Pape: 47:33

Yeah, it's so true, and I suspect that even one of the things we track with digestion is, even in the moment, the things you're eating. If you could eat mindfully. I suspect there's a lot of awareness of how things make you feel. That gets amplified through this process, because now it's like you totally got rid of it and now you're boom, adding it in. You can detect that easily, yeah, okay. So I'd like to ask this of all guests, doc, and that is is there a question you wish I had asked, and what is your answer?

Dr. William Ferro: 48:04

That's a great question about a question you wish I had asked, and what is your answer? That's a great question about a question. This is what I'd like to leave with, because I wanted to give them practical stuff. I hate to like be the well. Only if you sign up with us, then you can. If you go to better healthcom, b-e-t-r healthcom you can go and find under our blogs I think it is it's the very first blog always is it's pinned and basically it's like the whole protocol is laid out what to eat, how to eat. You can get it for free. You can go download it all for free.

Dr. William Ferro: 48:31

The only thing I'm offering is part of the community, a coach, like I mentioned, to give that guidance, planning and, of course, accountability. Man, it's always just helpful to have that accountability. And then, of course, the technology, the AI stuff. It's phenomenal for tracking, but you can absolutely do this yourself and you could literally start right now. You could go on there and just start following those things and I bet you you'll feel different very quickly.

Dr. William Ferro: 48:54

The only thing I ask you to do if you're going to do it is if you get prepared. Let's say you're so gung ho, you go to the 24 hour grocery. Get all stuff, weigh yourself first thing in the morning, no clothes on. Now don't do that in your kitchen or in the front room just yet. Do it in the bathroom, weigh yourself and then, literally for yourself, take pictures of everything you eat off of that list. Track your sleep, track your bowel movements, check all those data elements and do it for three days and you will see such quick success that you will be amplified. Say all right, I think I can follow us.

Dr. William Ferro: 49:26

It's a simple procedure, it's not rocket science, and we've been helping people reverse type 2 diabetes. We're covered by, you know, not only a direct consumer where people can pay out of pocket. We're covered by Blue Shield of California, florida Blue. I work that hard by getting them to do pay for performance. But some of the craziest things I've seen. We had a woman, 72 years old. She was on metformin, she was on Wegovy. She came off of all that and she loved it. She was down I don't know 30 pounds, whatever the poundage was, all these other great non-skill victories and she said, doc, I'm starting to get headaches and my vision's blurry, oh man. So I went through all my resources, couldn't figure it out. She went to three primary care. Finally, she goes to the eye doctor. Eye doctor says your prescriptions changed, oh. And I said okay, that makes sense.

Dr. William Ferro: 50:13

She said no, it got better oh interesting and then when you start googling blood sugar and insulin and I, you know, you know, your you start to see that how you eat can affect your vision within days and it seems like such a miracle. But it's like then we step back, like oh duh, like yeah, of course, right From every cell in your body will start to get better instantly. As soon as you start focusing on nourishing the gut. You are instantly better.

Philip Pape: 50:43

It makes total sense. Well, thank you for that. That's super powerful for folks to go to betterhealthcom and get that article, and it ties in with a lot of what we talk about here, and a lot of people are already going to be weighing themselves and tracking. So this little extra step of the elimination diet to kind of reset yourself could be super helpful. I'm going to go find that myself and shamelessly borrow from that as well for my clients and send them your way too if they need it, and the medical tie-in and insurance is all really, really great. So I think you already answered my next question, which is where can listeners find you? I think you want them to go to betterhealthcom, right?

Dr. William Ferro: 51:14

Absolutely.

Philip Pape: 51:15

Okay, is there anyone else on social that they can reach out, or is that the best place?

Dr. William Ferro: 51:18

That's the best place. I know we have Instagram and stuff, but that's not my, not your bag. However, I'm going to put you on the spot here, so are you now going to become a guest on my podcast?

Philip Pape: 51:28

Let's do it All right. Yeah, all right. Of course we're going to do it. Yeah, cool, absolutely.

Dr. William Ferro: 51:35

I don't know what we're going to talk about, but it'll be fun.

Philip Pape: 51:38

It's going to be all fitness. We follow the Quacks and Hypochondriacs podcast and you'll get that episode as well.

Dr. William Ferro: 51:45

All right, Doc, thanks so much for coming on. It was a pleasure, my pleasure, it's fun talking to you.

Eat More To Lose Weight? (The Iron Triangle of Fat Loss) | Ep 204

Just eat more food and you'll lose the weight!

This advice has been floating around the fitness industry for years and it still persists. Today, we are going to use an engineering concept called the Iron Triangle to show why this idea doesn't hold up.

What looks like "eating more" might actually be your first step toward effective fat loss, but not for the reasons you might expect.

To learn more about losing fat sustainably, join my FREE mailing list at https://witsandweights.com/email

Main Takeaways:

• The Fat Loss Iron Triangle (Energy, Sustainability, Speed) reveals why "eat more to lose weight" advice often fails. You can't optimize all three factors at once.

• Accurate calorie tracking is crucial. Many who think they're undereating are actually consuming more than they realize, leading to stalled progress.

• Sustainable fat loss requires finding your personal balance within the Iron Triangle, prioritizing consistent, moderate progress over extreme measures.

Episode Mentioned:

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

Episode summary:

We take a deep dive into the persistent myth that eating more can lead to weight loss. This notion has permeated the fitness industry, creating confusion and frustration for many. Through a comprehensive examination of energy balance, metabolism, and the engineering principle of the iron triangle, this episode aims to set the record straight.

The episode begins by addressing the widespread belief that increasing calorie intake can somehow accelerate weight loss. Philip Pape uses the iron triangle concept—comprising cost, quality, and schedule—to illustrate the fallacies in this idea. Just as in project management, where optimizing one aspect often compromises another, the same applies to fat loss. The iron triangle's principles are applied to managing energy intake (cost), sustainability (quality), and rate of fat loss (schedule).

Heather's journey is a poignant example of how misguided coaching can exacerbate confusion. Misunderstandings about energy balance and metabolism often lead people to believe they are eating too little, when in fact, they are not accurately tracking their calorie intake. Heather's story underscores the importance of precise calorie tracking and how a perceived increase in food intake often results from more balanced eating habits rather than simply eating more.

The episode then delves into the complexities of energy balance, emphasizing that a calorie deficit is essential for fat loss. The notion that eating more will boost metabolism and lead to fat loss is debunked by highlighting the importance of accurate calorie tracking. When individuals begin to track their calories meticulously, they often discover they are consuming more than they realized. This newfound awareness allows for better dietary adjustments, which can seem like an increase in food intake but is actually a move towards a balanced diet.

The iron triangle's relevance to fat loss is further explored by breaking down its three components. Energy, or calorie intake and expenditure, is the foundation of fat loss. A calorie deficit is necessary, but it must be balanced with sustainability and rate of loss. Sustainability refers to how well one can adhere to a fat loss plan over time. An overly aggressive calorie deficit might lead to faster results but is often unsustainable due to increased hunger and lower energy levels.

Rate of loss is the third component, where a moderate, sustainable rate of loss is emphasized. Rapid weight loss can lead to muscle loss and other negative health impacts, making it crucial to find a balanced approach. The episode advocates for a moderate calorie deficit that allows for muscle preservation and overall well-being.

Consistency and realistic goal-setting are highlighted as the secrets to long-term success. The importance of setting achievable goals and maintaining consistent efforts cannot be overstated. Listeners are encouraged to focus on sustainable practices rather than quick fixes, which often lead to frustration and setbacks.

The episode also tackles the psychological aspects of weight loss. The belief that eating more will lead to weight loss often stems from misunderstandings about calorie tracking. When people start tracking their calories accurately, they become more aware of their actual intake, leading to better dietary habits. This newfound awareness can make it seem like they are eating more, but in reality, they are simply eating the right amount for fat loss.

Philip Pape's engineering background adds a unique perspective to the discussion. By applying the iron triangle principle to fat loss, he provides a structured framework that helps listeners understand the trade-offs involved in any weight loss strategy. This approach encourages a more analytical and evidence-based mindset, moving away from oversimplified and misleading advice.

In summary, this episode of Wits and Weights offers a comprehensive guide to debunking the 'Eat More, Lose Weight' myth. By examining the concepts of energy balance, metabolism, and the iron triangle, listeners gain valuable insights into effective fat loss strategies. Heather's story serves as a cautionary tale about the dangers of misguided coaching and the importance of accurate calorie tracking. The episode underscores the necessity of a sustainable, moderate calorie deficit to preserve muscle mass and overall well-being. Consistency and realistic goal-setting are emphasized as the keys to long-term success.

For anyone struggling with conflicting weight loss advice, this episode provides clarity and actionable steps to achieve fat loss goals effectively. By focusing on the right balance of energy intake, sustainability, and rate of loss, listeners can navigate their weight loss journey with confidence and achieve lasting results.

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Transcript

Philip Pape: 0:03

Just eat more food and you'll lose the weight.

Philip Pape: 0:06

Have you ever heard that advice? All you got to do is eat more calories and the weight's just going to start flying off. This advice has been floating around the fitness industry for years and it still persists. Today, we are going to use an engineering concept called the iron triangle to show why this idea doesn't hold up. This claim doesn't hold up. We'll explore how misunderstandings whether it's energy balance or other elements behind the scenes are leading to people continuing to make this claim. You'll learn why.

Philip Pape: 0:35

What looks like eating more might actually be your first step toward effective fat loss, but not for the reasons you might expect. Welcome to Wits and Weights, the podcast that blends evidence and engineering to help you build smart, efficient systems to achieve your dream physique. I'm your host, philip Pape, and today we're breaking down the eat more to lose weight idea or, shall I say, myth using a principle again straight from engineering the iron triangle, also called the project management triangle or the cost quality schedule triangle. This notion that eating more will boost your metabolism, will speed up fat loss, has become very popular, and it often comes from a misunderstanding, namely of how many calories we are actually eating and actually burning. Just this week, I talked to somebody in one of the communities I'm in who didn't realize that your metabolism adapts and changes, and that's just one of the misunderstandings going on. Today we'll uncover how people who think they're eating too little often find out they're eating more than they thought once they start tracking accurately. And that's the discovery that can make it seem like you are eating more to lose weight, when really you're just finally eating the right amount for fat loss. I do want to give a quick shout out to listener Heather M, because Heather sent me a message about struggling with this advice that inspired today's episode, and her experience shows the confusion that many people face with calorie tracking and weight loss plateaus. Let's break down this myth using our engineering lens and uncover the truth about calories, metabolism and effective fat loss in the context of the eat more to lose weight advice.

Philip Pape: 2:31

Now, this advice usually pops up when someone has been dieting for a while and then they hit a plateau, they stop losing weight, and then they hear this idea hey, you're probably just not eating enough, you need to eat more. If you eat more, you'll boost your metabolism and you'll start losing fat again. And it sounds very appealing, right, and it sounds like one of those. Ooh, I didn't realize that that must be it, especially when people put the label science-based or evidence-based and yes, I use those labels as well, but it's often used as a bait and switch to get you into their coaching program to say, look, all you've got to do is eat more food. Doesn't that sound great? But this is an oversimplified approach. And then it makes you more frustrated and confused when it doesn't work, or doesn't work like you expect, or you get blamed by your coach for not hitting the exact number. And then, oh, you didn't hit your exact. You know 1953 calories that I told you to hit. You're over by five or 10 and that's why it's not working. And specifically, I'm talking about a real person here who wrote in again Heather. She was told to eat 2000 calories a day and when she went over by even five or 10, she was criticized for overeating, right. And this is ridiculous. Like I can't imagine coaching somebody and being that much of an a-hole about it and blaming the client in that way. And this, this is ridiculous. Like I can't imagine coaching somebody and being um, that much of an a-hole about it and blaming the client in that way and obviously the guy had no idea what he was talking about. And that's why I have a podcast, um, to kind of dispel these things, because this kind of advice is nonsense and it doesn't work and it's not going to be consistent and it causes so much confusion. And so here's what we're going to do today I'm going to introduce something called the iron triangle and then we're going to apply it to this concept In engineering, in engineering project management specifically, the iron triangle represents the balance between three factors that effectively compete with each other cost, quality and schedule.

Philip Pape: 4:23

And the principle states that you cannot optimize all three simultaneously. If you improve one, it often means compromising on another. And so let's apply this concept to fat loss and its overall energy and calorie situation. First, we have cost. What is cost in our case? In our case, cost is energy your calories consumed, right, what you eat, your calorie intake and your calories burned or expenditure. So it's just the balance of energy that is your cost. Okay, the cost generally thinking in fat loss, your cost is the deficit that you're in to be able to get that fat loss.

Philip Pape: 4:59

The second leg of the triangle is quality. In our case, that quality is sustainability. It's how well you can adhere to the plan long-term, how high quality the plan is so that you could actually adhere to it and get it done. And then the third leg is schedule, or time, and in our case that is our rate of loss, how quick we're going to go and lose the fat. Right, and just as in engineering, we can't optimize all three.

Philip Pape: 5:23

So think about engineering. If you want to go faster, if you want to create the product faster, it's going to cost more. It's going to cost more in terms of people and overtime in getting suppliers to send you parts faster. So you're going to have to compromise by costing more. Or if you want to go faster, you might have to lower the quality, you might have to reduce some of the requirements and not get as many bells and whistles in your product or software. So, similarly, we can't optimize our energy balance and our sustainability and our rate of loss. In other words, we can't eat 5,000 calories and lose fat or we can't go at a super fast rate of loss, like lose three pounds a week and maintain a decent amount of energy right, we'd have to be in an extreme deficit to do that, right, or we'd have to compromise, sustainability and quality, because it's so hard to do it. So it's the same idea. And let's just break each of these down so you can see what this has to do with the eating more to lose weight.

Philip Pape: 6:27

Let's start with energy, energy, calorie, energy balance right, this is your cost. Okay, this is the foundation of fat loss. It's the foundation of changing your body mass, right, from a nutrition perspective. We're not even going to talk about strength training or specific macros. We're just talking about changing body mass. Your body needs a certain amount of energy to function and especially to function optimally. Right, that's where the compromise comes in. Like, we know we need a calorie deficit to lose weight, but if the calorie deficit's too high, we're going to start influencing negatively our hormones, we're going to lose energy, we're going to crash and burn, we're going to have cravings, we're not going to be able to adhere. Our sustainability is going to go down, right. So the size of your calorie deficit directly impacts the other two factors your sustainability and your rate of loss. Right Now let's talk about eating more.

Philip Pape: 7:17

A slight increase in calories can sometimes help in terms of your energy, your metabolism, your hormones right. But if you'd simply do so without regard for energy balance, it's not going to lead to fat loss, unless you're in a deficit. You're not going to lose fat period period. You still have to be in a calorie deficit, all right, so let's set that aside for now. That's the first leg in the iron triangle.

Philip Pape: 7:42

The second leg is our quality leg, sustainability, and this refers to how well you can adhere to your fat loss plan, both short-term and long-term. Right Meaning by long-term, I mean if it's going to take many weeks, we want to stick to it. But even in the short term, we don't want it to totally rip us apart within a week or two and then we give up. A more aggressive deficit might lead to faster results, but it could be harder to sustain due to increased hunger, lower energy, the impact to your social life and how neurotic and obsessive you have to be about all the tracking and effectively saying no to things. Right, we don't want to be in that state. This is where many people stumble. When they're told to eat more, they might again feel better temporarily because they have more energy, maybe they're no longer in a low energy state. But then, if it puts them out of a deficit, if it puts them up to their maintenance calories or higher, it's not going to give them the fat loss. It's not going to be sustainable for fat loss either. Interesting, right, it goes both ways. That's the second leg.

Philip Pape: 8:44

The third leg is your time, your schedule, which, in our case, is how fast we lose weight or lose fat. This is how quickly we go, our rate of loss. And, yes, a larger deficit will lead to faster fat loss, but it might compromise sustainability, right, because it's just too fast, you don't get to eat very much, you become hangry and miserable and it could potentially lead to muscle loss, which is even more dangerous. When we talk about fat loss, we don't want to lose muscle. If we go too fast, we're going to lose muscle. So when we go back to, should you eat more to lose weight?

Philip Pape: 9:17

It often ignores all of these factors, right, but it essentially promises a violation of the iron triangle. It promises quick results without a cost, right, and the sustainability kind of falls in between, because of course, eating more is gonna be more sustainable, but it's not gonna give you fat loss. So we have to balance all of these, that we consider the rate of loss along with the other two factors. So how do we do that right. So if we're violating the iron triangle with this nonsense claim that you can eat more and lose weight, how do we apply the iron triangle to make it effective? All right Again, let's start with energy, with cost. Instead of eating more, why don't we focus on eating the right amount, which means we have to actually create a deficit that aligns with our goals? And the only way to do that is to track and measure. And so here's where I'm going to talk about.

Philip Pape: 10:12

The biggest, I'll say, cause of people giving this advice is that you are typically okay. Let's put it this way. Let's say you do eat more and you start to lose weight. Is it because you ate more? No, it's because you think you're eating more. Why do you think you're eating more? Because you probably weren't tracking your calories accurately in the past. Now you are, and now that you know what you are eating, you probably start to tighten up what you eat in response to trying to hit certain targets, and you feel better and you have more protein, right. And now you set the deficit that you actually want and it seems like you're eating more than you were before, but you're actually eating the accurate amount because of your tracking. And another reason for this is usually, when you are not tracking, you're binging on the weekends, right, and you're starving yourselves during the week. When you start tracking, you start to balance that out and it seems like every day you're actually eating a little more because on most days you probably are, and on it seems like every day you're actually eating a little more because on most days you probably are, and on the weekends you're eating a lot less than you were, and the net effect for the average for the week is a deficit. Okay, a lot of this is mental. So, as far as energy goes, you have to know what your maintenance calories are and what your deficit needs to be.

Philip Pape: 11:26

Go listen to my recent episode called your First Cut Lose 10 to 30 pounds of fat, something like that, your first cut. And I talk about these principles. All right, the second part of the triangle we can apply is the sustainability or the quality piece. This is where we choose a deficit that you can maintain consistently over time. It may be a slower rate of loss than you quote unquote want, right, but it will lead to you sticking with it and getting the result. I think I posted a threads post recently. It said something like.

Philip Pape: 11:56

Unsuccessful people will say I need to lose 20 pounds in eight weeks. A successful person will say how fast can I go where it's sustainable and I can do it? And then, how long will it take me to lose 20 pounds? Right, there's a difference between the two. The third leg of the triangle, then, is the rate of loss, the time right, understanding that faster isn't always better. Effectively, what I just said a moderate, sustainable rate of loss, like half a percent of your body weight a week. That is what leads to you getting the outcome and sticking with it.

Philip Pape: 12:29

And now you've got the triangle nicely balanced between energy, sustainability and time, and you could actually get there, rather than this weird, nebulous, uncertain state you were in before, where you're like I don't really know what I'm eating. I feel hungry sometimes, not others. I'm probably binging on the weekends, but I'm not sure how much alcohol I had at the Mexican restaurant. This fit pro, 22 year old, on Instagram, says I just need to eat more to lose weight. And lo and behold, I start eating more and I lose weight. Well, not really Right, or you probably don't, actually, because you weren't accurately tracking before, and now you are All right. So the problem isn't that you're eating too little, it's you're not accurately tracking what you're eating, right?

Philip Pape: 13:15

I've had clients come to me convinced they're eating 1200 calories a day and not losing weight. Right, I'm just. I've cut my calories so low I'm down to 1100. I'm still not losing weight. One of the first questions I ask is are you tracking? And usually the answer is, well, no. But and right there I know what the problem is. And so when we implement precise tracking, we discover they're consuming much more on average per day. Right. On average, it might be 1100 calories Monday through Friday, and then 2000 calories on Saturday and Sunday. Right, and so sometimes it's you know, hundreds of calories more than what they thought, hundreds of calories more than what they thought.

Philip Pape: 13:51

And that is why the eat more advice is so, so dangerous and so misleading. Because if you're already eating more than you realize, if you just indiscriminately add more calories, it's going to move you further from your goal, you're going to start drifting up in weight. And now you're going to say what the F? You know what is going on. That's nonsense, and it is, and if you can understand this and understand the iron triangle, that there is a, there's a balance between cost, quality and schedule or, in our, our cases I'm sorry, in our case energy balance, sustainability and rate of loss. Ah then, instead of blindly following advice to eat more, you find the right balance of those three things for your specific situation. So let me just recap Eat more to lose weight is an oversimplification and usually completely false. The iron triangle energy, sustainability, rate of loss helps us understand the trade-offs involved in any weight loss strategy. Success comes from balancing these three, not from just increasing calories. And then tying this all together is accurate tracking and measuring, which is crucial to understand your true energy balance so that you can make informed decisions.

Philip Pape: 15:07

All right, if today's episode resonated with you, if you found it interesting, if you're like, oh, I never thought of it that way before. The iron triangle, that's pretty cool, or ah, now I understand why eating more to lose weight isn't what I thought it was, or why it may or may not work, depending on your situation. I want you to just share this episode with a friend who's been struggling with the conflicting advice out there. We are skeptics of the industry here. I want more people to be I'll call it enlightened, but really just to be inquisitive and curious, asking these questions and getting answers that apply to them, that have the nuance and context necessary to make them work in practice. So share it with a friend.

Philip Pape: 15:47

If you want to take that next step and really, really support me, please give me a five-star rating and review. In Apple and Spotify, we don't get enough of those. Very few people actually take the time to do that. I understand there's friction involved, but it really doesn't take long. Just go right now in your podcast app as you're listening to me right this moment scroll down to where it says write a review. Click that button and give it five stars and type a little blurb just what's on your mind. Hey, I love how this show XYZ done send. I would really appreciate it. Until next time, keep using your wits lifting those weights and remember that in fat loss, as in engineering, it's all about finding the right balance. This is Philip Pape, and you've been listening to Wits and Weights. I'll talk to you next time.

Why Women Get Bigger, Leaner, and Sexier But Not "Bulky" From Lifting Heavy Weights | Ep 203

Is the fear of getting bulky holding you back from lifting heavy weights? Are you confused by all the mixed messages about how strength training affects a woman’s body? Do you wonder if strength training will give you that lean, toned look or make you bulk up?

Today, Philip (@witsandweights) shatters the myths and uncovers the truth about how lifting really impacts your physique. Whether you’re aiming for a lean, toned look or worried about bulking up, he sets the record straight and empowers you to lift with confidence.

Philip breaks down the science of how lifting weights impacts women’s bodies. He explains how muscle growth, when combined with proper nutrition, actually contributes to a leaner, more defined look. Philip also addresses the role of cardio in your training regimen and offers tips for balancing it with strength training to optimize your results.

If you're ready to transform your physique and boost your confidence, this is a must-listen!

📩 To learn how to balance cardio and lifting, a weird little trick to burn more calories from cardio, and a sample weekly training plan to combine lifting and cardio for maximum results and recovery, join my FREE email list and ask for my “Cardio for Lifters” guide: https://witsandweights.com/email

Today, you’ll learn all about:

2:41 Listener question about lifting and body composition
5:10 Muscle growth and body changes
8:10 Eating for muscle gain without adding excessive fat
11:38 Peri or post menopause and RED-S
13:57 How to efficiently incorporate cardio into your routine
20:36 Muscle as a fat-loss accelerator

Related episodes:

• My Stair-Step Fat Loss Process to Get Lean and Ripped

• How to Get More Fitness Results for Less Effort (The Pareto Rule)

• Energy, Workout Nutrition, and Performance-Based Strength for Women Over 40

Episode summary:

Are you hesitant to lift weights because you're worried about getting bulky? It's time to debunk this pervasive myth and unlock the incredible benefits of strength training for women. In this episode, Philip Pape dives deep into the science behind muscle growth, the role of testosterone, and why women can confidently embrace resistance training without the fear of excessive muscle mass.

Understanding the impact of strength training on women's bodies is crucial. Contrary to popular belief, lifting heavy weights won't turn you into a bodybuilder overnight. Women simply don't have the testosterone levels necessary to build massive muscles without extreme effort and often pharmaceutical assistance. Instead, strength training helps women achieve a toned, strong physique that is both aesthetically pleasing and functionally powerful.

One of the key points Philip emphasizes is the importance of progressive overload and a slight calorie surplus in supporting muscle growth. By gradually increasing the weight you lift and ensuring you're consuming enough calories to fuel your workouts, you can build lean muscle without gaining unwanted fat. This approach not only enhances your physical appearance but also boosts your metabolic rate, making it easier to maintain a healthy body composition in the long run.

Nutrition plays a vital role in the muscle-building process. Philip discusses the significance of consuming adequate protein and balancing your macronutrients to support muscle growth while maintaining a calorie deficit for fat loss. He also addresses common concerns about eating enough to support muscle growth without gaining excessive fat, emphasizing that a slight calorie surplus, when done correctly, can lead to lean muscle gain with minimal fat accumulation.

In addition to strength training, the episode explores effective fat loss strategies. Philip highlights the importance of a moderate calorie deficit, proper nutrient timing, and sustainable practices to preserve muscle and energy levels while losing fat. He warns against the pitfalls of extreme dieting methods, which can lead to muscle loss and decreased energy levels, and instead advocates for a balanced approach that includes alternating between calorie deficits and maintenance phases.

Cardio is another crucial component of a well-rounded fitness regimen. However, it's essential to balance cardio and strength training to achieve optimal results. Philip suggests incorporating efficient conditioning methods like supersets and circuit training into your strength workouts to maximize calorie burn and improve cardiovascular health without feeling overwhelmed. He also emphasizes that cardio should complement, not compete with, your strength training efforts.

Throughout the episode, Philip addresses real-world questions and concerns from listeners, such as Valerie F., who shares her struggles with conflicting advice on diet and exercise. By providing practical solutions and evidence-based insights, Philip aims to empower women to embrace strength training with confidence and clarity.

To further support your fitness journey, Philip offers a free "Cardio for a Lifter's Guide," which provides valuable tips on effectively combining cardio and strength training. This guide is designed to help you maximize your fitness potential and achieve your goals without sacrificing your progress or well-being.

In summary, this episode of Wits and Weights is a must-listen for any woman looking to transform her body through smart strength training. By debunking the myth that lifting weights makes women bulky and providing actionable strategies for muscle growth, fat loss, and overall fitness, Philip Pape empowers listeners to unlock their full potential and embrace the benefits of resistance training. Tune in now and take the first step towards a stronger, leaner, and more confident you!

📲 Send me a text message!

🎓 Join Wits & Weights Physique University

👩‍💻 Book a FREE 15-Minute Rapid Nutrition Assessment

👥 Join our Facebook community for live Q&As & support

✉️ Join the FREE email list with insider strategies and bonus content!

📱 Try MacroFactor for free with code WITSANDWEIGHTS. The only food logging app that adjusts to your metabolism!

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Transcript

Philip Pape: 0:01

Imagine wanting to transform your body through strength training, through lifting heavy weights, only to hear conflicting advice at every turn, like lifting makes you bulky or no, it actually makes you smaller. Meanwhile, you're left wondering will I get the lean, toned look I want, or am I doomed to look like a bodybuilder, assuming that's a bad thing? But in today's episode we're cutting through the noise. We're exposing the truth about how lifting weights really affects a woman's body. You'll discover why the fear of getting bulky is misplaced and how heavy resistance training can actually help you achieve that coveted lean, sexy physique, even if there is an aspect of getting bigger but not bulky. Whether you're a lifting novice you're just getting started or you are an advanced, intermediate to advanced trainee, this episode will reshape your understanding of the physical, how muscle metabolism and the female form all come together, and then you can embrace the iron with confidence and with purpose. Welcome to Wits and Weights, the show that blends evidence and engineering to help you build smart, efficient systems to achieve your dream physique. I'm your host, philip Pape, and today we're tackling a very hot topic that comes up all the time. It's caused more confusion than almost any other how lifting weights truly impacts a woman's body? Now, yes, I am a man, but I've worked with many women and I get asked this question all the time, particularly when I go on podcasts that are geared toward women audiences, and I think it's really important, because we received yet another question from a listener about this, who I'm going to give a shout out to in just a bit, but before we dive in, I do have something special that I think is going to help you out, because part of the discussion today is around cardio and how cardio interacts with lifting weights, and so I created this guide for private clients called Cardio for Lifters, and I'm giving it to you for free as a podcast listener. In this guide, you'll discover how to effectively combine cardio and strength training a weird trick to burn more calories through cardio, not what you think, not just doing more cardio and a sample weekly training plan that balances the two for maximum results and recovery. So if you want the free copy of this Cardio for Lifters guide, join my email list, go to witsandweightscom, slash email or click the link in the show notes. Again, that's witsandweightscom slash email or click the link in the show notes, and then, when you're on the list, just send me an email and say hey, can I have the Cardio for Lifters guide and I will send it right over. This is not publicly available, it's only for listeners. So you get the inside secret link here if you reach out and I will send it over to you.

Philip Pape: 2:46

All right, so let's get into today's topic, which was inspired by a listener, valerie F. She is a longtime listener Actually, I don't know how long she's been listening, but she's definitely been active in our community and reaching out, which I absolutely love hearing from listeners and she inspired this episode. Valerie, like many of you listening, many of you women listening has been barred with the conflicting information about lifting weights, strength training, body composition, health, all the things, not to mention diets and cardio and all of that, and she wrote the following quote that I think encompasses the confusion out there on this topic. She said quote basically, I need to focus on strength training and eating in a deficit, while also eating enough protein to lose fat, but also do a lot of intense cardio to keep my heart healthy and eat lots of fiber and vegetables and protein, but still be in a deficit, but also not be in an energy depleted state, because that's bad, but don't worry, because my muscles will get tighter but also bigger when I weight train. End quote. And again, I think I love that part of the quote. She actually gave me a pretty detailed email of like this expert says this. This expert says this you have one person saying that cardio won't make you bulky, but you have, like Steph Gaudreau, who was on the show, saying, well, it actually does make you bigger and we should embrace that, but like what does it all mean and what does it look like? Like what do you do Right?

Philip Pape: 4:08

So let's start by tackling the big myth that usually gets asked is does it make you bulky? That lifting weights makes women bulky, and this is a very outdated idea, but it still persists. And here's the truth Women lack the testosterone levels necessary to build massive muscles anyway without extreme effort and often some pharmaceutical assistance. Right, women start during puberty with I'm not going to call it a disadvantage, it's just factually less muscle. And yet women can build the same percentage of muscle throughout their life, but they can't. And yet women can build the same percentage of muscle throughout their life, but they can't.

Philip Pape: 4:49

I mean, the joke is I can't even get big and I try. I lift weights a lot and I've made a lot of strides from my 30s to 40s when I did this right and I'm a guy with decent testosterone levels yes, I've had it checked and even I can't get big. So to even get afraid of being bulky from that context it is kind of ridiculous. And I don't mean that as an insult, I just, if you step back and think about it, you realize, oh yeah, actually that's kind of insane. But let's really get into it here. What actually happens when women lift heavy weights? What happens? They get stronger right. Their muscles then do grow Absolutely, but this growth is nothing like what you see in a professional bodybuilder or even somebody who's fairly quote unquote large and bulky like what you wouldn't normally see in a woman. Instead, it creates that coveted toned look.

Philip Pape: 5:35

Just look at the Olympics. I know the Olympics just happened as I recorded this, not sure. When you're listening to the episode. You look at the Olympics, you look at female athletes and you see this wide spectrum and those athletes who have a strength or muscle kind of focus, the types of sports that require being fitter from the body composition perspective. What do you see? You see strong, healthy, sometimes bigger, but not bigger in a negative way athletes. They're powerful and capable, right. I mean. I think it's beautiful, it's sexy, it's all those things. If we're going to go there, right, and that's just a combination of they built muscle and they lost fat. And we're talking about athletes and let's be honest, if you're listening to this, most of you are probably not going to get to that elite athlete status. Potentially, some of you might be, but even if you're just general population wanting to get a better physique, you don't have to worry about it. So there's another twist on this right and I've even used this terminology before.

Philip Pape: 6:32

You might've heard that lifting then it makes you physically smaller because muscles get tighter right, muscles denser than fat, so it actually is going to make you smaller. That's kind of a misunderstanding and a misinterpretation of how the whole thing works. You know, muscles are obviously muscles themselves aren't changing. They're not getting tighter. You're actually building more muscle and so your cross-sectional area of your muscles become bigger because you have this dense tissue and you have more of it right, and they get more defined as they grow and then you lose fat and so you are going to probably have your shirt size go up, right, and they get more defined as they grow and then you lose fat and so you are going to probably have your shirt size go up right, your arm size go up, but your waist comes down. So, like, the proportions change a bit, but in a good way. Like, muscular arms are beautiful arms, like men and women. If you look at them, it's usually not a problem, even when women have muscly arms. And, yes, muscle takes up less space than fat for the same weight. So as you build muscle and lose fat, you might find that your weight on the scale doesn't change much if you're doing a body recomp and kind of staying the same weight, but your body composition improves dramatically and so your shape is changing and you are going to probably need clothes, not because you're getting huge or bulky, but because your shape is changing in all the right ways. You might need pants that allow for a bigger booty, for example right or shoulders or arms, but like in a good way, not because you're bulky, because you're actually filling them out and you're not just like skinny fat.

Philip Pape: 8:02

I hope none of this is triggering for any of you, because I am talking a lot about physical appearance here, but that is where the question comes from, doesn't it? Let's address another concern the fear of eating too much when trying to build muscle. So that's part of the bulking fear of like actually getting fat. Okay, and it is true again that to build muscle you need to eat enough to support that growth. You can generally build muscle either in a surplus or sometimes at maintenance. If you're a newer lifter, right, it's very rare that you're going to build much muscle in a deficit, although it can happen, but it's just going to be slower and that's not really the priority. When you're in a deficit, it's more to lose fat.

Philip Pape: 8:41

Now, when you are at maintenance or even in a slight surplus, it doesn't mean you're going to automatically gain a certain amount of fat, but you probably, the bigger that surplus is, are going to gain some of that as fat. When you do it correctly, when you do it precisely, a slight calorie surplus. So for numbers sake, I would say gaining around 0.2% to 0.3% of your body weight a week. And again, if you want to be conservative and be on the lower end, that's fine. 0.2% of your body weight a week, it's not that much. If you do the math right. It's at most a couple pounds a month for, like, an average size female.

Philip Pape: 9:18

That, combined with training properly right Progressive overload, progressing over time in the gym, going to the gym three or four days a week that is going to lead to plenty of lean muscle gain with minimal fat accumulation. And by minimal I mean maybe a third to a half of that is fat. And you're like, oh so if I gain 10 pounds, up to five of that is fat. I don't think that's the way you should reframe it. I think you should frame it as so if I gain 10 pounds, a full five of that is muscle. Holy crap, that's five pounds of muscle that I never had. And then I can easily drop whatever fat I gained in a cut, you know, in a fat loss phase. Wow, five pounds of muscle is massive when most women are walking around losing muscle year after year at the age of 30, eventually leading to sarcopenia and also osteopenia, weakness, frailty and ultimately death, and I hate to paint a negative picture. We all die someday, of course, but the chances are much higher when you don't have the muscle. So that's the health argument for muscle.

Philip Pape: 10:18

Hey, this is Philip and I hope you're enjoying this episode of Wits and Weights. I started Wits and Weights to help ambitious individuals in their 30s, 40s and beyond who want to build muscle, lose fat and finally look like they lived. I've noticed that when people transform their physique, they not only look and feel better, but they also experience incredible changes in their health, confidence and overall quality of life. If you're listening to this podcast, I assume you want the same thing to build your ultimate physique and unlock your full potential, whether you're just starting out or looking to take your progress to the next level. That's why I created Wits and Weights Physique University, a semi-private group coaching experience designed to help you achieve your best physique ever. With a personalized, done-for you nutrition plan, custom designed courses, new workout programs each month, live coaching calls and a supportive community, you'll have access to everything you need to succeed. If you're ready to shatter your plateaus and transform your body and life, head over to witsandweightscom slash physique or click the link in the show notes to enroll today. Again, that's witsandweightscom slash physique. I can't wait to Now.

Philip Pape: 11:30

For those of you in peri or postmenopause, you might have heard warnings about limiting calories in a deficit or a severe deficit causing something called REDS relative energy deficiency in sport. In fact, steph Godreau, when she was on the podcast, we talked quite a bit about that I may have talked with I'm not sure I talked with anyone else around about it, but it's a valid concern, for sure it exists. But for most of you listening, you're not going to be in that level of a calorie deficit and doing it for so long like an elite athlete or bodybuilder to have to worry about that right. If, of course, you're crash dieting and if you're dieting for a long, long time and you're doing it super aggressively, which is not the way we do it here, yes, you are at risk for that right and amenorrhea and all those things.

Philip Pape: 12:33

But for most of you it doesn't mean you can't be in a calorie deficit, right? The key is doing it at the proper rate of loss, a moderate deficit, with the proper nutrient timing for you, right, the proper meal timing for you. Or you're not doing all this crazy fasting, cutting carbs just to cut carbs, like all that stuff. Just have a balanced diet, go at a moderate rate of loss that's not so fast that you lose muscle or lose too much energy, that lets you get in the gym and you're not trying to hit a number on the scale. You're not trying to hit a target. You're trying to do something sustainable that slowly releases fat and helps you do it successfully, which most people can't do. Most people aren't doing that right.

Philip Pape: 13:07

So short, controlled periods of a calorie deficit interspersed with maintenance phases, right. Or, even better yet, some building phases, can help you lose fat while preserving muscle, preserving hormonal health, and you won't be anywhere near that REDS, that low energy availability state. So if you hear all these fitfluencers and 22-year-old nutrition coaches saying like you need to eat more to lose weight, need to fix your metabolism, you're probably just under eating. I mean, there's a tiny bit of truth to the under eating part in some cases, but it's not magic, it's just a function of calories. That's all it is. We just need to identify okay, how much are you under eating? By what's your current maintenance? Do we need to be in maintenance for a while and clean things up and do things right and then get back into a deficit? It's those kinds of things. Let's be reasonable, let's not be a fear monger about this.

Philip Pape: 13:58

Okay, so I've talked about quite a few things related to physique with energy, to deficits, to health. I want to talk about another health aspect here, related to cardio. Valerie's email mentioned cardio and I was like, hmm, should I do another topic, a separate topic about this, but I think I want to cover this all in one kind of spot. For women Again, you're worried about getting bulky, which means you're probably in many cases over-correcting by trying to stay thin and lean quote unquote, I have quotes up here by doing lots of cardio, by doing Pilates, by doing forms of movement you think are associated with lean muscles in some way, and it's a total myth. It really is. The only way you're going to get that lean toned look is to add muscle, to add muscle, and then you cut off a little bit of fat if needed. Okay.

Philip Pape: 14:51

But let's talk about cardio where it fits in here. Because, yeah, if you listen to experts, there's all sorts of recommendations. Some experts recommend the government health standards, which is something like 150 minutes of vigorous cardio per week, which honestly isn't a bad kind of average number for a lot of people to shoot for. That's two and a half hours a week and if you're lifting, say, three or four days a week for at least an hour, that two and a half hours of cardio equates to about half the time that you lift, which is the recommendation I usually get. It's not out of the ordinary, it's not super high, it's not super low, it's kind of in the ballpark.

Philip Pape: 15:34

Now, cardiovascular exercise in general is important, okay, but it doesn't have to be separate from your training, meaning like you don't have to do special medium and high intensity cardio sessions. Your strength training alone, plus walking, for many women, for many people, is plenty, is actually enough. And if you want to incorporate some medium and high intensity cardio because you enjoy it and you want that little extra calorie burn and that little bit of extra heart health to go with it, I'm all for that. In fact, I do like a little bit of concurrent training in there. Once you get past that initial phase of like, hey, I'm just learning to get my protein, I'm just learning to lift weights.

Philip Pape: 16:11

Once you get past that initial phase and things are kind of dialed in, then I would say, okay, now where do we fit in a couple sessions throughout the week, either on your off days from lifting or like many hours after your lifting sessions, and make sure that they're maybe not on leg day but they're on your upper body day, like little tweaks like that. And I did mention the cardio for lifters guide early on. Again, I actually explained those in there I explained the types of cardio, how to incorporate it with your lifting, how to balance it, and then a little trick that I like to use to get a little bit more calorie burn from your cardio. Okay, just join my email list, whitsandweightscom slash email, and send me an email that you want the cardio guide and I will send it to you. All right, but if you are like juggling a family, your work, your training, meal planning and the idea of fitting in separate hours of cardio sessions on top of strength training can seem overwhelming, if not impossible. Right, and this is where the efficiency comes in. I'm all for efficiency here. You can incorporate some conditioning into your strength training.

Philip Pape: 17:16

So, women, ladies, if you do like those bootcamp classes, if you like the Pilates, if you like you know spin, whatever, I'm not against having, like supersets, a little bit of circuit training work, a little bit of just kind of what you would see in CrossFit, like box jumps or stuff like that kind of thrown in, but they're second priority to the lifting or they're incorporated as part of the lifting. So, for example, you might do, you know, your normal heavy squats, then you might do some leg presses, but then you're going to go ahead and do some calf raises and leg curls and you're going to superset them, and because you're supersetting them and taking very little rest, your heart rate's going up right into zone two, maybe zone three. Right there you're spending a good minutes 10 minutes in a medium, if not high intensity cardio state while lifting weights. Boom, you just got two for one. You can get plenty of cardiovascular benefits just from lifting weights, without having to double your gym time or do things that you don't enjoy doing. Okay, so the goal here isn't to do everything at maximum intensity all the time. Right, we've talked about 80-20 in the past. Go look up my episode called the Pareto Principle is in the title where you just have to do enough to get the minimum effective dose, and then that is the maximum use of your time, where you can make progress without burning out, and then you can decide if you want to do more than that. Can make progress without burning out, and then you can decide if you want to do more than that. And this might mean this probably does mean focusing primarily on strength training, because now you know you're not going to get bulky, but that is the way to get the lean you know bigger in a good way, lean and sexy physique. That you're going for Strategic cardio compliments right. Doesn't compete with your lifting, and that's the approach I would take when it comes to cardio. You don't have to be doing a bunch of treadmill work, a bunch of stair climbing work, right. Just walk, lift and then incorporate cardio where it makes sense and make sure you enjoy it.

Philip Pape: 19:16

I think there's one more thing that I kind of forgot to mention earlier about the calorie deficit for fat loss, because I was thinking of cardio and how many of you use cardio to try to increase your calories and help with fat loss, and that is not what cardio is for. Cardio is for heart health, and that's pretty much it. It burns a little bit more calories, but you don't want to overdo it, and so when we moderate the cardio and we focus on lifting and then use diet as the dial right, periodizing your diet, having proper fat loss phases, cycling your calories as needed, this can allow you to get the result efficiently in a fairly short period of time. So let's say, 10 pounds over 12 or 16 weeks, and then you get back to maintenance for a while and then you build a bunch of muscle and then you do another fat loss phase. I've talked about this in the past with my stair-step fat loss approach. Approaches like that that I do with clients all the time.

Philip Pape: 20:13

Right, we roll up the sleeves and we say what's the most creative way to structure your diet? Your lifting, your cardio, so it's fun, so it's sustainable, so you can go out and have fun on the weekends and you don't really feel like you're dieting like you used to. And then what do you get for it? You get a physique that you you know, your dream physique, your ideal physique that you're going for here Not bulky, not bulky, but lean, toned, sexy. All of those things let's talk about.

Philip Pape: 20:39

This is the last thing I'm going to talk about here, a concept that gets overlooked in all of this the very act of building muscle can make fat loss easier. It makes fat loss easier in the long run. Muscle tissue is the most metabolically active tissue. That means it burns more calories at rest than fat does. Fat does have some burning, but not nearly as much as muscle, and so by focusing on building muscle through heavy lifting, you are upgrading your body's engine, your metabolic engine. You're making it more efficient to burning calories. And here's the thing that people miss. You can carry more scale weight so you can be bigger but leaner. And because you're bigger, you're burning even more calories and you get to eat more food. Who doesn't want that? So this is why focusing on strength training rather than cutting calories endless cardio, high rep, high cardio type workouts can often be the game changer for women looking to transform their bodies, and why you should not be afraid one iota about lifting weights One iota. You are improving everything about your life, your health, your function, your capability, your metabolism. There is zero, absolutely zero downside to building muscle, one of the most powerful things you can do for your body.

Philip Pape: 21:59

So, as we wrap up, I want to recap some key points here. Number one lifting weights will not make women bulky. It will not make you bulky, that's it. It'll make you leaner, stronger and, yes, sexier. Maybe that last one's a subjective thing, but I'm a guy, so I can say that. Number two muscle growth and fat loss work together to create the toned look. You've got to spend some time building muscle, but then occasionally you focus on fat loss. Number three balancing that nutrition with your training is key here. Right, but it doesn't have to be complicated. In fact, it should work with you and your lifestyle preferences. Number four cardio is important, but it can be efficiently incorporated and prioritized below your strength training. And then number five building muscle is the best thing you could do. It is a powerful strategy for long-term fat loss, for metabolic health, for everything.

Philip Pape: 22:50

So I hope the message was clear. The goal isn't to conform here to some idea of a perfect body, right, but it is to dispel the myth that women are going to get bulky and instead, when you lift weights, when you focus on muscle, you will become the strongest, healthiest version of yourself. As long as you're fueling it properly, you progress and you track the right things right. You do the right things. You do what we talk about on this podcast. You reach out for help when needed, because that's sometimes the best way to accelerate your results, and you watch as you transform and it won't take that long. But you're going to transform not only physically, but with your confidence and your capability and your ability to show up for yourself and for others. All right If you enjoyed today's episode, if you want to learn more about really everything, but specifically what I mentioned today, if you want to balance cardio and training, because that's sometimes where the big question mark is.

Philip Pape: 23:48

Don't forget to grab your free copy of my Cardio for a Lifter's Guide. Go to witsowheightscom, slash email or click the link in the show notes to join my email list. Then, when you're on there, reply and say hey, philip, I would love the Cardio for a Lifter's Guide. By the way, what else do you have? And I to send you all my free stuff? Until next time, keep using your wits lifting those weights, and remember your body is capable of amazing things when you give it the right muscle building stimulus. This is Philip Pape, and you've been listening to the Wits and Weights Podcast. Talk to you next time.

Hollywood-Level Fitness for Everyday Fat Loss with Celebrity Trainer Obi Obadike | Ep 202

Have you ever wondered how celebrities achieve jaw-dropping physical transformations for blockbuster roles? What if you could unlock their secrets and apply them to your own fitness journey? 

Imagine sculpting the body of your dreams with practical, totally doable strategies.

In today's episode, Philip (@witsandweights) chats with Obi Obadike, the powerhouse trainer behind A-listers like Steve Harvey and Morris Chestnut. He is a fitness industry icon, TV host, and best-selling author. He is one of the most influential fitness experts, and he's been featured on major talk shows like The Today Show.  

Obi shares his approach to rapid yet sustainable fat loss, emphasizing balanced nutrition and personalized training plans. He discusses the importance of health screenings, the impact of genetics, and practical methods everyday people can use to achieve their fitness goals. 

Whether you're aiming for quick, dramatic results or sustainable, long-term health, this episode is for you. 

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

Today, you’ll learn all about:

1:40 Creating training plans under tight deadlines
2:52 The trade-offs of rapid transformations
5:12 Real-life celebrity transformations
8:29 Monitoring body composition
12:01 Maintaining muscle mass during fat loss
14:38 Sustainable fat loss for everyday people
17:52 Balanced nutrition and macronutrient ratios
20:12 The perfect diet for an individual
24:02 Importance of recovery and listening to your body
31:00 The role of sleep and recovery in fitness
32:17 Lifting heavy and its impact on joints
38:23 Maintaining long-term fitness results
41:40 The impact of genetics on maintenance
45:24 How to find Obi
46:30 Outro

Episode resources:

• Obi's websites: obiobadike.com and ethicalinc.com

• Instagram: @obiobadike/

• Facebook: @obi.obadike

• Twitter: @obi_obadike

Episode summary:

Have you ever watched a blockbuster movie and wondered how actors achieve their jaw-dropping physiques in such a short amount of time? In the latest episode of our podcast, we sat down with fitness expert Obi Obedike to uncover the grueling regimens that stars like Morris Chestnut endure for their roles. But more importantly, Obi offers a balanced, sustainable approach for everyday people who want to get fit without the extremes.

Obi begins by sharing the behind-the-scenes of Hollywood transformations, emphasizing that the rapid fitness changes we see on screen are often achieved through intense, unsustainable methods. These extreme regimens involve rigorous two-a-day cardio sessions, heavy weightlifting, and severely restricted diets. While these tactics can yield impressive short-term results, they are not practical for long-term health. Obi stresses the importance of setting realistic goals and timelines to ensure sustainable success, noting that the pressure to look a certain way often leads to unhealthy practices.

One of the key takeaways from this episode is Obi’s focus on balanced macronutrient ratios. Many people fall into the trap of extreme diets, such as cutting carbs to keto levels, which can leave them feeling drained and defeated. Obi explains that a well-rounded diet, rich in proteins, complex carbs, and healthy fats, is essential for maintaining energy levels and overall well-being. He debunks the myth that specific macronutrient manipulation is the key to weight loss, highlighting that a caloric deficit is what truly matters. This balanced approach not only helps in losing body fat but also ensures that individuals can sustain their diet in the long run.

Obi also delves into the importance of tailored advice for different age groups. As we age, our bodies require different nutritional and exercise needs. He emphasizes that maintaining lean muscle mass becomes crucial, which can be achieved through adequate protein intake and resistance training. The discussion extends to the significance of rest and recovery, particularly for older individuals. Overtraining can lead to injuries and hinder progress, making it vital to listen to one’s body and allow ample recovery time.

Another critical aspect covered in this episode is the psychological and physical benefits of taking breaks from intense workouts. Obi advocates for at least two rest days per week to enhance both mental and physical well-being. He points out that recovery is as important as the workouts themselves, as it allows the muscles to rebuild and strengthen. This holistic approach to fitness underscores the necessity of balancing workout intensity with adequate rest to prevent overtraining and ensure long-term health.

The episode also touches on the challenges of maintaining fitness gains in the long run. Obi reveals that understanding your body’s set point and regularly monitoring body composition are crucial for sustaining your desired physique. He discusses the role of genetics in determining body composition, noting that individual predispositions can make maintaining lower body fat percentages easier for some and more challenging for others. Having realistic expectations based on your genetic makeup is key to long-term success.

Overall, this episode with Obi Obedike is a treasure trove of practical knowledge and motivational insights. Whether you are aiming for rapid but controlled results or seeking sustainable long-term health, Obi’s expert advice can transform your approach to fitness and wellness. Tune in to learn how to achieve balanced health without the extremes and create a fitness plan that is both effective and maintainable. Don’t miss out on this invaluable episode that could change the way you view your fitness journey.

📲 Send me a text message!

🎓 Join Wits & Weights Physique University

👩‍💻 Book a FREE 15-Minute Rapid Nutrition Assessment

👥 Join our Facebook community for live Q&As & support

✉️ Join the FREE email list with insider strategies and bonus content!

📱 Try MacroFactor for free with code WITSANDWEIGHTS. The only food logging app that adjusts to your metabolism!

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Transcript

Philip Pape  00:01

If you're like most of us, you've probably wondered how celebrities achieve those incredible physical transformations for a movie or TV show. You see them looking fit or sometimes totally ripped, like Chris Hemsworth prepping his Thor for the next Marvel movie, and think, what is their secret? But it's not just for the stars. In today's episode, we are chatting with one of the fittest people on the planet and the trainer behind the scenes to big celebrities like Steve Harvey and Morris Chestnut, you are going to learn practical, totally doable strategies that can help anyone celebrity or not achieve the body of their dreams, whether you're aiming for quick but controlled results or sustainable long term health, this episode will tell you exactly what it takes to get there. Welcome to wits and weights, the show that helps you engineer your best physique for maximum results with minimum wasted effort. I'm your host, Philip, and today I invited on Obi obedike, a fitness industry icon, a telly award winning TV host and a best selling author. He's written over 100 articles for top fitness magazines and websites, and his book, The cut, co authored with actor Morris Chestnut, has helped countless people transform their bodies and their lives. Obi has been featured on major national talk shows like The Today Show, and his expertise has earned him recognition as one of the most influential fitness experts today, you'll learn about OBS approach to achieving rapid and sustainable fat loss, the strategies he uses with both celebrities and everyday clients, and how you can apply these methods to your own fitness journey, plus stick around to find out, is there a perfect diet for you? Obi, welcome to the show, my man. Hey, Philip,

Obi Obadike  01:38

thank you so much for having me on the show. I really appreciate it.

Philip Pape  01:41

So, man, I just want to jump right in and have you imagine that moment when a celebrity client, right, who's desperate to make a change, and they have this very tight deadline before a major film or TV shoot, they walk into your gym and they look in the eye and they say, this role could change my life, but I'm nowhere ready for it, right? How do you create a training and nutrition plan under such pressure and know without a doubt that it will succeed?

Obi Obadike  02:05

Yeah, you know, that's a good question. You know, I think with unfortunately, you know, sometimes when you have to get somebody, a celebrity, ready for a big project, most of the time, they never really give you enough time. And now and you feel the extra stress and anxiety, especially if they say, Hey, we need to look like this and like, you know, eight weeks or nine weeks, you're like, that's not enough time, you know? So I've never, ever felt that I've been given enough time to help somebody get ready for a big project. And so what happens is that you feel the extra stress, you feel the extra anxiety, and they always end up having to over train, you know, over training the client, because you're, you know, doing so much, you know, yeah,

Philip Pape  02:52

that's a good point, right? Because if you have a deadline, we always talk about when you're setting up your fat loss phase, for example, you know, don't necessarily have a date in mind, and try to go aggressively toward a date, come up with a reasonable approach that'll get you there, and then get the results that come but some people have a wedding, they have a photo shoot, your clients have a date that they're going after. And it sounds like it leads to some level of trade off or extreme that maybe is not, quote, unquote healthy in the short term, but it gets you to the result. I mean, would you agree with that? And if so, you know, the everyday person listening, we're going to get into like, the pros and cons of that. But what are your thoughts on that approach for the everyday person?

Obi Obadike  03:27

Yeah, you know, for the everyday person, I'm not an advocate of doing anything extreme, so it's really contradictory to my beliefs. When I'm trying to transform someone, when I have an everyday, average person that wants to get in shape, wants to lose weight. It's very important for me to get as much information from them as possible. I call it a health Screening Questionnaire. Get their height, their weight, their fitness goals, their dietary preferences, foods they like to eat, foods they don't like to eat, past or present, injuries, medical concerns I need to be aware of. So I want to get all of that detailed information from them, which allows me to create a tailored program for them, and then I really try to give it an honest time frame on how long it would take for them to lose the weight. Because a lot of times when you have to help someone get in shape within a shorter amount of time, the program is extreme, particularly if the time frame is limited. And so when you have an extreme program, exercise or diet. Typically, people can't maintain that, because the extremity is just too much, particularly when you're having someone work twice a day, or somebody that has to is on some, you know, extremely low caloric diet. So those type of training and diet program is too much. So again, I'm not an advocate of that, and the everyday, average person is really what to be honest with you, I enjoy training working with because I don't feel the stress and anxiety to have to get someone to look a certain way within such an extreme short amount of time. Yeah.

Philip Pape  05:00

Yeah, I feel you on that. And love the fact that you gather all that information, right? Because me, I get questions all the time, What is your answer for x? And it's like, it depends answer my questions first, because I need to understand you as an individual, and I want the listener to understand that, you know, when you see somebody up on a screen or whatever, it's like a bodybuilding competition. You know, there's a above and beyond. It's almost like a performance related goal that at all costs in some cases, right? So you mentioned, you know, two a days and very low calories and things like that. So maybe tell us about a specific like transformation you went through with a celebrity, so we can understand what some of those trade offs are, and then we can kind of pivot into Sure, the everyday client. Yeah. Well, when I,

Obi Obadike  05:41

when I got Morris Chestnut in shape for the best man holiday, this might have been about 11 years ago. I was given a time frame of, like, literally, like, I think, like 1011, weeks, if I'm not mistaken, and people don't believe this, but he came to me overweight, so he had to really drop about 30 to 33 pounds to get in shape for the movie. So, because we were so limited in time frame, I had to do two a day workouts with him. Where we were, you know, he was doing two a day cardio days, and then he was obviously lifting weights in the morning time. And then I probably had him starting off at his daily calories was probably I had he was 220 I got him down to 187 and I think the daily calories that I had him at the start was maybe about 1900 and then every couple of weeks we would drop it down to 100 and I think he probably at the lowest might have been at 1600 calories, because I was really trying to strip all that body fat from his body, and I wanted to make sure he was in an extreme deficit. And so that is not how I would never have anyone do two a day workouts, you know, that's like, like, if you're training for the Olympics or something, you know, but when you're limited in the amount of the limited time frame, that's, unfortunately, you have to do that. So he was on a low caloric diet, and then he was over training, you know, he was burning a lot of calories daily. I think we might have been doing this about like, five days a week. So they had given me, like, you know, four months or five months. Then the program might have been like, you know, maybe four days a week. And then would be, you know, four days a week of weights and four days a week of cardio. And maybe the daily calories would have been slightly higher, and it wouldn't be so low. Whereas, if someone where I've had other clients, where maybe some guy came to me and he weighed 240 pounds, and he wanted to lose 30 or 40 pounds out on average, start them off at maybe 20, 102,000 calories, maybe drop them down to 18, 1700 have him working out four to five days a week. Probably cardi wouldn't be more than maybe 3040, minutes at a time. So it'd really be a slow, incremental process, the whole one to two pounds per week, you know, Healthy Weight Loss type of thing, as opposed to someone that has to get in shape for a big movie. And he's got a limited amount of time frame, and he's dropping like, you know, four pounds or five pounds a week, which is not really healthy. It's doubled what is suggested by the CDC and what is really suggested by a lot of health and wellness professionals, which is that one to two pounds per week, yeah,

Philip Pape  08:16

for sure. You know, sometimes we talk in percentages to, like, 1% a week, above which you might lose muscle mass. And we're hearing a lot of, you know, the rapid muscle loss with like the ozempic and those kinds of drugs and everything as well, because of the rapid weight loss. So what you're saying is, you know, if you got 10 weeks, three or four or five pounds a week, you're talking 1500 2000 calorie deficit, ish, something like that, which you're kind of making the calories not drop as low as they could drop by adding some cardio and movement on top of that. How do you monitor in that situation the body composition to get where you want? Because I imagine, for someone going into a role like that, it could literally just be get as shredded as possible, regardless of muscle loss, and that's the trade off. Or it could be, no we need to maintain some of that because of their starting composition. Yeah,

Obi Obadike  09:02

I'd had Morris weigh himself every week when I was working with him, and then I would have him we would do like body fat composition test, maybe once every three weeks, once every month, you know. And the weight loss, obviously, as we as we know, first two weeks of any weight loss program, more than half of it is always going to be water loss anyway, not body fat loss and body fat. I always, I'm not really an advocate of checking body fat every week. It takes a while to really see the incremental drop. So I always like to do, if I'm going to do a body composition test, a body fat test, and check the body fat. I think once a month is enough time to see the incremental drop. So that's kind of what we were doing. And so what was fascinating, and then I also actually had him lift heavy weights because he was and that I increased his protein because he was in an extreme deficit. Wasn't getting as many calories. What was going to help with, with trying to minimize the muscle loss, was the increase in his protein intake and then lifting heavier, because we don't want him looking stringy. You know what I mean? We don't want to want him looking flat. He's supposed to be a professional football player in the movie, and he had the reason why it was so important to get him to single digit body fat was that so funny. He's got all these he's got a huge female following, you know, that wants to see that, that shirtless scene, that little V around the you know, that was the money shot. You know what? I mean, it's so funny. You train your butt off intensely for eight, 910, 1112, weeks for one shirtless scene, you know, in a movie which is so funny, you know, but that was it. So what was really cool about it was that, at the time, think he was like 43 or 44 at the time, so that was the best shape he'd ever been in his entire life. And so because at, you know, before social media exploded, it was all about fitness magazines. You know, if you were a fitness professional and you weren't in a magazine, before social media exploded, you didn't exist. So at that time, magazines were still relevant. And so I had those relationships with all the fitness magazines. So I was able to get him on a fitness magazine cover at the time that the movie came out, to capture this new, transformed physique. So that was really, really cool that I was able to use my relationships. And surprisingly, even though he's been on magazine covers, he had never really been on a fitness magazine cover, believe it or not. So that was kind of really cool to be able to capture this, you know, transform physique. And so when he was promoting the movie, they were showing that magazine cover, you know, it was really, really cool. So, yeah,

Philip Pape  11:49

yeah, no. I mean, you make some good points there, right? Like, some of this is a snapshot in time, right? When people are scrolling through Instagram and seeing all these great looking physiques, it's like, that's a snapshot, right? That's the that's probably at their best, at their leanest. I've heard you mention, you know, even just to have six pack revealed, you've got to be sub, like 14% body fat, or in that range,

Obi Obadike  12:08

if you're a guy, yeah, he was probably at the time, you know, just going off of my head. Don't quote me on it, but he was 220 he might have been probably in the, you know, body fat was probably in the 20s, you know, maybe 23 24% there. You know, he wasn't, he gets it. He was in the, definitely in the worst shape. So we took him down from that 20s, down to probably about, maybe it was probably at 8% seven to 8% something around there was,

Philip Pape  12:38

he already a lifter before then, like he had, he already built some muscle. Yeah,

Obi Obadike  12:41

he he was a fitness guy. He definitely wasn't like someone that was like, he definitely worked out. How do I put this? I wouldn't say like super, super fitness guy, but definitely was fitness minded, you know, more like, he liked doing athletic things, playing basketball, you know, as opposed to someone who was in the gym lifting weights every day. So he was definitely a physically active person. And for the most part, most movies that he'd ever been in where he did take his shirt off, it was never a problem. But I think at this time, you know, he's in his 40s at the time, and he was in New York, where it was really, really cold prior to the him the movie getting green lit, and he kind of was just staying in his apartment. Wasn't working out for months, and, you know, had no desire and motivation. And then all of a sudden he gets a call that this movie's got green lit. And the director's like, hey, we need you to look like this. And he's like, Oh snap, okay, I'm nowhere near that right now. How much time we got, you know? And so that's when he contacted me, and that started the working relationship and friendship as well. Too.

Philip Pape  13:44

Cool, man. Yeah, it's funny. I mean, a lot of people can relate to just that time in their life. They're kind of letting things go for whatever reason, and now they need the kick in the butt to get back to it. What better way than a big role?

Obi Obadike  13:55

Yeah, it happens with everyone. Happens with everyone. You know. We're all human beings, you know, and sometimes, whether it's stress, whether it's grief, whether it's depression, you know, so many different variables that can affect your motivation to want to exercise or do anything. You know, we all go through that, but some people are able to really always use exercise as a form of as an outlet, you know, as therapeutic. So, yeah,

Philip Pape  14:26

yeah. All right, now, so talking about the everyday person, I do want to quickly segue to, like, your rapid fat loss or rapid weight loss for that population where it's sustainable and safe, and that's I kind of want the listener to understand that, because, yes, there's the reasonable, longer term approach that we probably should be taking, but then there's okay. Maybe I have been lifting. Maybe my nutrition is dialed in. I know how to hit the protein that OB is asking me to hit. Is there, you know, is there some sort of protocol or approach that you would take with a client like, Sure, well, I

Obi Obadike  14:57

really believe in balance. I'm really. Of an imbalance. So I'm not a believer in extreme macronutrients, where your carbs are extremely low. Or I really believe a great starting template, macronutrient ratio wise is 4040, 20, which is 40% protein, 40% carbs, 20% fats. And then start to make your maneuvers from that starting point. So I feel like if you eat in a balanced way, I feel like you're gonna optimize your energy levels when you're trying to drop body fat and trying to drop weight, I feel like I don't feel like the processes should be where you're lowering your macro nutrient ratio because you believe you're going to drop more body fat, like, let's just say, for example, you're dropping your carbs down to 5% carbs. You know, maybe a Keto aspect. Not everyone can do that. You know, now your energy levels are so low and the process is very difficult for you, because you're probably enough affecting your mental ability to stay alert, you don't have the energy levels to be able to function, especially if you work a job that requires you to work long hours and stuff like that. So, you know, all the research shows that, yes, if you're on a low carb diet, will you drop body fat? Will you drop weight? Yeah, you drop weight the first you know week or two weeks, but it's water because of the glycogen once you drop your carbohydrate levels and stuff like that. But all the research has shown that you're not going to drop any more body fat if you're at carbs. Are five to 10% of your diets coming from carbs, as opposed to your carbs being higher. You drop body fat because you're in a deficit. Okay, you know. So when you know, I always say that when you the whole 30 diet, the keto diet, the Mediterranean diet, all of these different diets, why are people losing weight? What's so unique? What's so different, if they're losing weight because they're in a deficit, full stop, that's it. So once you understand how it works, then you're like, Okay, well, then I don't need to go that razor low on my carbs or my fats, or I could still have it where I'm getting enough, where I feel like my energy levels are optimal, and I can still work out with high energy. I could still play with my kids, be with my spouse. I could still work long hours, and my energy levels are going to be optimal because my macronutrients are balanced. So that's my approach in being able to get the optimal result. I don't believe that we have to go really razor on the macro nuture ratios and deplete you to get you to the goal. And you're absolutely miserable every week. I don't think it should be an unpleasant experience, you know. And then also, you have to also look at it from a long term perspective, you know, like, Okay, you're getting the person to that final goal, right, and, you know, but you're trying to create a program that they can continue after they stop working with you. So, okay, I got you to the goal in a miserable way, in a way that every week you have no energy whatsoever. And now this person wants to maintain this body, he's like, Oh, my God, I have to stay at this level. I have to stay at this, you know, 30 grams of carbs per day. I don't know if I could do that. I got there. Love my body, but that was tough. That was miserable. You see what I'm saying?

Philip Pape  18:30

Oh, I see what you're saying. Man, we are 100% aligned. I'm glad you're on the show telling people carbs are important and balance is important, because you're totally right. Man, the most hate I got on a podcast episode was called, more carbs, more muscle. And it's like the Keto and the low carb zealots come out like, you know, again, we talked before we even started recording, like people eat cherry picking science or trying to, you know, the thing that they're trying to sell saying that this is optimal, just because they're trying to make money off of it. And, like you said, recovery, energy, balance, sustainability, all of the boxes are checked when you're just in a reasonably balanced diet, most people the protein's too low or the carbs are too low. And this

Obi Obadike  19:05

is my thing. As long as you understand what you're doing if you're on a keto diet and it's helping you lose body fat and weight, God bless you. And if you're okay with that, that's cool. But what I'm trying to say, and what you're trying to say, is that, hey, this is what you're not losing body fat because you're on a Keto you're losing it because you're in a deficit. The science and the data shows that your macronutrient when someone is dropping body fat, it's not because of the Mac the the macronutrient ratio being dropped, or it has everything to do with your macronutrient ratio. It's because you're in a deficit. It has nothing to do with, you know, dropping your a certain nutrient level down to a minimal level, and that's why you're dropping body fat, and that's the science says that. So I think it's just understanding what you're doing, and then you could make the decision on which path works for you. And that's. What I believe in is just providing the information and, you know, pick a program what works for you. But I'm going to be honest and say, Hey, this may not be sustainable for you, you know, and then you have to make that decision, what you want to do.

Philip Pape  20:12

Yes, that's a good segue into the question like, What is the perfect diet? Because you've already alluded to the fact that these named diets are not necessarily the way to go, that it's got to work for you. It's got to be customized. You know, what are those big factors besides macro balance, which is super important, and it can shift right? It can shift somebody might do better on higher protein or lower carbs or whatever. What are kind of the boxes you would check for the perfect diet for an individual?

Obi Obadike  20:36

Well, I think the perfect diet is, as I was saying, it's the perfect diet is a diet that's balanced, that you're getting your proteins, your carbs, your healthy fats, complex carbs, your fruits and vegetables with every meal, your protein with every meal. You know your complex carbs with every meal. So I believe in the whole fruit rainbow effect, where you make sure you have your greens and your fruits and your vegetables with every single meal. You have your protein with each meal, especially if you're an advocate of wanting to maintain your lean muscle mass as you as you know, as you get older, every decade after the age of 30, you can drop anywhere from two to 4% of lean muscle mass. The only way to combat that, that muscle mass decline is lifestyle change. So protein, as you know, and resistance training, they work hand in hand, so making sure your protein is you're consuming that with every meal. I do believe in at least a gram of protein per pound, having your complex carbs and your breakfast, you know, lunch and your dinner, having your fruits and vegetables with each meal. So I just really believe in the balance approach. Obviously, if you're an athlete, and your activity level requires an extreme amount of physical activity level, and your carbohydrate intake is going to be probably double or triple the average person, because you're feeding off of that fuel to be able to sustain the activity level. So a lot of times your you know, your macro neutral ratio is really depending, is physical activity dependent. So this is not when I'm saying balanced in your ratio. I'm talking about the everyday, average person walking on the street. I'm not talking about a professional athlete. That's a completely different ball game, you know, in terms of what your ratio is, because if you're talking about an athlete, that carbohydrates gonna go really, really, really high, you know,

Philip Pape  22:26

yeah, man, it's funny. I had a guy in the show. You'd love him. His name is Ben Lewis. Went through a massive transformation, you know, 280 he, like, lost 100 pounds. He got 60 miles a week of running. He qualified for the Boston Marathon. But he also lifts three days a week and has retained his muscle. It's amazing, but like, 4700 calories, you know what I mean. So a lot of that is going to be carbs. Wow.

Obi Obadike  22:48

Exactly. How many miles a week does he run? 6060, miles? Oh, my God, jeez, I wonder. How old is he? He's 55 I'd love to know how his joints are, man, how his knees in his hips? No, that's

Philip Pape  23:02

what I'm saying. I think you'd love him. We can touch base later. I'll because his episode is out before this one. Yeah, okay, so I mean, everything you're saying is, I'm sure the listener is like, okay, cool. I got it like the gram per pound of protein and having balance and having fiber and complex carbs and all that. What about the 8020 approach? A lot of us talk about, where, from a sustainability perspective, you got to have some indulgences in there? Yeah, sure. I'm

Obi Obadike  23:24

a big advocate of that. For sure, 8020 and sometimes, some people need to 7030 like me sometimes. So I feel like, if you can, we all need it from a psychological perspective as well too, to ask someone to eat a certain way so strict seven days a week, I just don't think that's realistic. So you can still accomplish your goals with the 8020 rule, 9010 rule, and even push it to 7030 if you're exercising enough physical activity level that would give you that extra buffer to bring you from 8020 to 7030 so I am a huge advocate of that. I think that, as they say, indulging within moderation. And there's a word that people don't use in fitness called extreme moderation. And so moderation in how you eat and how you exercise, a lot of people don't understand when you exercise. There's a two it's a two prong effect. The first prong is you're working out and you're tearing down your muscle, so that's important, right? And then you're resting and recovering. And while you're recovering, it's rebuilding, so the rest is just as important as you're tearing it down. And people don't understand anything. It's tear, tear, tear. When is it recovering? When is it rebuilding after you've torn it down. It's a two step process. You know, I know people that have over trained, over train, over train, over train, like I'm always sore, I'm always sore, and I'm not improving my strengths. And they take a couple weeks off from the gym, and all of a sudden their strength levels jumped up. You know what I mean? Their lips are up well over training. Body, as in, you're not giving your body enough time to recover. Took me years to figure that out. When you're young, you think you can you're supposed to live in the gym seven days a week. And you get older, you realize, man, no, the rest is just as important as is working out.

Philip Pape  25:16

Yeah, I'm with you. Man, that like stimulus to fatigue and that fatigue builds up, and the older we are. I hear you. I didn't really get into this properly until my late 30s, so it started to affect me, you know, not being as young of a guy anymore, and most of the people we talked to on the show in their 40s and 50s. So that's actually a good transition to you know, how important is that recovery and how much more important does it get as we age? You mentioned joints, right with the runner I was talking about joint health, connective tissue, all that like, what are the specific challenges individuals in that age group should really be thinking about, how do they recover and prioritize that?

Obi Obadike  25:50

Sure. Well, I think that when you're talking about someone in their, you know, 40s, and they're in their 50s and stuff like that, I feel like the older you get, the more your rest and recovery is important your body. The thing when you get older is that the difference between someone who's in their 40s or their 50s or older than that, between someone who's younger is the recovery aspect, where you don't recover as fast. That's the problem when you get older. It's not the fact that you can't lift as heavy as you did when you were younger, but the recovery aspect is the issue when you get older. That's why, when you see an older athlete, the reason why they may not have the best performance is back to back performance, and they have back to back games the recovery. They don't recover as fast as someone who's younger. So you have to understand, as the older you get, you have to give yourself maybe even more recovery time. You know the idea of you working out seven days a week, or was, I've never been an advocate of that, but six days a week, you know, you'll probably find out you'll be able to have better performances in the gym, or even better body composition maintenance if you're training less, as opposed to more, particularly if your whole if your objective is Just to maintain your shape. You don't have any like you're not a marathon runner, or you're not competing in something or whatever. Maybe you just want to just stay in shape for your age, you know, and maintain your muscle mass. You don't have to be in there six days a week.

27:15

Hi, my name is Alan, and I just want to give a shout out to Philippa of wits and weights for being a huge part of the foundation for my continued health and well being. Philip exemplifies a nutrition coach who demonstrates how much he cares. Philip works tirelessly and with dedication to provide coaching support and major content for us to use. He creates a practical approach from research, and Philip empowers all of us to use food as quality for our health. He is skilled in how to assess and direct nutrition. Philip creates a community full of wisdom, support and camaraderie. In summary, Philip papers the real deal. He knows how to assess and direct nutrition, and it continues to steer me in the right direction. Thank you, Phillip,

Philip Pape  28:07

so what are your thoughts then on, because you mentioned the frequency, and I have a lot of discussions with this, about this, with trainers and lifters. What if a three day a week program that has a certain amount of volume got split into six days, the same amount of total volume. In other words, you're spreading out the fatigue. Can that? Have you seen that actually be a beneficial input, you know, change for recovery, you know, I'm saying so this is more days, but the same amount of volume just spread over six days instead of three. Okay,

Obi Obadike  28:35

yeah, no. I mean, I don't have an issue with that whatsoever, you know, because if you're spreading it out over six days, right? But the every day is probably a lower workout output. It's really not, maybe it's 30 minutes a day or whatever. It's not that much, you know. So you're not, you're not taxing the body at the highest level every day. So your body is given enough time to recover, because you're not taxing it to the point where you might need a day or two days to recover. So I don't have an issue with that whatsoever. I feel like when everybody's different, I feel like the mental, psychological approach of like just being able to have a couple of days from going to the gym and exercise. Sometimes it's really good just to have that psychological break, as opposed to, you know, I know people that just love the gym and they can't stay away from it, but sometimes just having that mental, psychological break from being in the gym, you know, at least two days, or, you know, at least two days. I think can actually help you. I know, for me personally, I used to train like this back in the day, six days a week, and you know, but I feel like me. Personally, I feel like I enjoy it more when I'm away from the gym at least a couple days a week, and then when I go back in there, I enjoy it even more. Uh, you know, as opposed to being in there six days a week, there's not only the physical approach to the physical recovery aspect, there's also also the psychological aspect as well too. I think at times, yeah,

Philip Pape  30:14

I asked because, I mean, personally, I've experimented with both, and we talk about it on the show too. Because, like you said, the archetype of the person who always has to go to the gym every day. Do we scratch that itch by going to the gym every day? Or do we actually assess that maybe we're doing too much by going to the gym every day and using those off days? And also, I found one benefit of it is I'm a morning gym goer. Those extra recovery days just means I can get that extra hour of sleep. I mean, that can be huge, you know, for people just to sleep, you know? Yeah. And

Obi Obadike  30:40

the thing about it is just, the most important thing is just to listen to your body. You know, because the human body is amazing, it'll tell you when you've done too much. It'll tell you when you need a break, if you're so sore. And I think it's so important to listen to it, and a lot of people don't, you know, so when you're able to listen to your body, it'll tell you, yeah, I probably made me to take a day off today. You know, I'm tired.

Philip Pape  31:00

I know, man, yeah, recovering sleep are not sexy topics. You know, as much as we hammer home how important they are, you know what? I mean, people always want to talk about the on switch rather than the off switch. Yeah,

Obi Obadike  31:11

I personally think if people can incorporate recovery and sleep and really incorporate that as part of fitness, okay, it's like, okay, exercise is part of fitness, but no one ever really talks about sleep and recovery is part of fitness. It is. It's really connected. If you truly want to optimize your goals, optimize your gains, it is part of that. And please stop watching some of these. You know, juiced uprooted bodybuilders tell you, you got to be in there seven days a week, you know, three hours a day. Well, they're taking drugs, man, you know, yeah, of course. You know, if I'm taking all that stuff, I probably could work out like that too.

Philip Pape  31:52

I didn't know if you were going to get into the PDS too, because I know people have questions about that, but, uh, it's funny you ask. You say that, because I know if somebody asks, Hey, I missed some reps. You know what's going on? Should I lower the weight? One of the first questions I asked is, did you get enough sleep? Like, did you get enough rest? Are you taking long enough rest period? It's like, the absence of the stuff is usually supporting the stuff, and so, right? You gotta it's part of your fitness. Yeah, it's good one. What about lifting heavy? Because you mentioned lifting heavy, and that's kind of a I use that term all the time, and people are like, What do you mean for older folks especially? I mean, I am a big advocate of lifting heavy No matter your age. I don't care if you're 90, like, I think it's great. It's great for your skeletal muscular system. But what do we mean by that? And how does that come into play with connective tissue and joints and things like that,

Obi Obadike  32:36

right? Well, I think as you all you get when you get older, I feel like, if you're lifting really heavy, I feel like, over time, it's not really good for your joints, especially when you're in your 50s. I still think you can push the muscle without going super heavy, like a power lifter. I'm not really an advocate of doing a set less than 10 reps, you know? I just don't really see the value of that, unless you're trying to be a power lifter. And the older you get, once you start lifting really heavy, you can fill in your joints. You're going to fill in your knees, you're going to fill in your elbows, you're going to fill in your hips. So I know that there's a high end of lifting heavy being strong, but you know, if your goal is to maintain muscle or even build it. Whether it's building or maintaining it, the muscle doesn't know that you're lifting 150 pounds. All it knows is the tension you've applied to it. It doesn't say, wait a minute, I'm lifting 120 pounds now. Now it's time for me to build. Now it's time for me to grow. All it knows is the tension. So when you understand how the muscle adapts to the stress that you put on it, then you realize you don't have to lift heavy to maintain the muscle or even build it, because most of it is really associated with the calories that you're in taking. But then the stress you put to the muscle, you can still stress the muscle without going heavy and go higher, repetitions go slower. So once you understand that, then I think it makes sense, okay, what's the better approach to longevity? You know, to protecting my joints and not having issues where I'm always in pain, my joints are always in pain, you know, because I'm lifting so heavy, we all eventually have to make those adjustments as we get older. I had to, I'm 48 I had to make those adjustments. I'm not going out there squatting four or five or whatever anymore. Back in the day, I who am I competing against? And then also, I don't want to have a knee replacement, I don't want to have joint issues and stuff like that. So I had to make those adjustments, you know. So, yeah,

Philip Pape  34:42

yeah. And my thoughts on this have been nuanced and evolving over the years as well. It's kind of still mixed, right? Because I have a lot of friends and people listen to the show that are power lifters, or they are in their 50s and 60s, and get into lifting, and they, you know, they do the fives, right? They do the triples, they do the doubles. And it can. Managed, right? It's one of those things of like, you got to be really on top of everything. But even so, you do hear about tendonitis, and you hear about joint issues and people pulling stuff and whatnot, because if you're just out of the wrong position, you know, in the wrong position on a very heavy load, something can happen. So it's kind of a nuanced thing. But yeah, I hear you.

Obi Obadike  35:18

I think as long as you're aware of the risk involved in it. That's the most important thing. I would never tell someone what not to do, but just understand, if you're lifting, really having your power lifting, let's say you're in your 40s and your 50s, you're not going to be doing that in your 70s. You're not going to be like, like your body will tell you to make the adjustment. You know, your body's gonna say, my elbow is killing me, my knees are killing me. I can't lift you know, I've seen it. You have to have seen a power lifter in their 70s or even their 60s, you know? And if they have like, God bless them. And if they are power lifters, they just started as a senior citizen, they weren't doing it for like, 3030, years or 40 years. It's true.

Philip Pape  36:01

There is that if you start late, you get that advantage.

Obi Obadike  36:04

I want to make the adjustment earlier and just understand, like, I don't want to be in pain, man, as I get older, you know what I mean? And I want to enjoy my life and and, yeah, it's good. We all want to push ourselves in the gym, and I do it. But there's a number that I don't go higher than anymore. You know, I don't like, even when I do flat dumbbell chest press back in the day, I'd go up to 120s or I don't go more than 100 anymore. Man, that's that's the max. It's 100 for me. It's just trying to maintain the muscle. And that's where I'm at. If you've been lifting for more than 10 years consistently, you're considered an experienced fitness enthusiast, and so once you've been lifting for more than 10 years consistently, the theory is that you've hit your genetic potential. You can't improve anymore. You're not going to get any more muscle. So when you know that, you're like, okay, even if I increase and go heavier and heavier heavier, I can't improve anymore. You know, like we're all going to we're all dealing with the gravity aspect as we get older, it's inevitable. Like I say, Father Time is undefeated. What are we doing? We're just slowing it down. We are slowing the decline down. That's what we're doing. Okay? We're just, we're trying to freeze that mofo without the fillers and the Botox. Excuse me. No,

Philip Pape  37:19

I hear that look. I mean, I know a lot of lifters that go after the PRS, but then there comes a time when they have to switch it up, switch off the mode, go into some more bodybuilding and some higher up stuff, and they might occasionally dip back into chasing the PRs. And maybe there's a weight that's an extreme, like anything. It's like bodybuilding. It's like, you know, Morris going through his transformation. It's like the short term extreme at some cost of your health short term. But it's like, we're humans. We want to do that, just

Obi Obadike  37:45

like someone in their 40s or 50s still playing rugby. You know when you're when you're in your 20s, and you know when you're young. You know young kid you play tackle football in the rain with no pads. You didn't care, you know if you got injured. And then when you get old, you're like, Oh man, I want to get injured, kidding me, you know, you just start making calculated decisions. I don't want to go crazy like that anymore. You know, I got nothing to prove, you know, but, uh, you know, like anyone that could do that, and, and, and they're able to stay healthy, God bless them. You know, I'm not hate, you know, like, wow, I'd be probably a fan. I can't believe he's able to lift like that at that age. Wow.

Philip Pape  38:24

Yeah, no, awesome. So I guess the last piece here, because you've alluded to it a few times, is maintenance of, you know, maintaining long term results. And I can think of a few different scenarios, not just longevity as we age, maintaining muscle, but like, for example, if you lean out right and you're really dialed in, and you want to just, yeah, we want to have a good physique. And maybe you're in your 30s or 40s, you're not like up there in your 70s. Yet. How do we maintain those results long term? Does it start with, like you said, having that balanced ingrained in the whole process, or is there some trade off that has to be made once you say, get to a certain leanness that you know, if you just had a little bit extra weight, it wouldn't be nearly as difficult to maintain that long term. Do you know what I'm saying? Yeah,

Obi Obadike  39:03

you know, I feel like you have to figure out what your set point is, and everyone will know exactly what you're doing regular body composition test. There's a thing called the in body scan that I use with that I've used with clients and stuff like that. And you do the body composition test, and they'll tell you exactly how many calories that you need to consume to maintain your body weight, okay? And once you get an idea of that, then you'll know exactly, okay, this is the amount of calories that I can consume to maintain my body weight, and this is how I should probably spread out my calories, you know? So I think it's important to find out exactly you know how many calories is needed to be able to maintain your body weight. And you'll get that in a body composition exam, you know. And I do the in body scan, which I like. And I think that once you you know that, then the amount of calories you're consuming. And to maintain your body weight. And then that, to me, is probably more crucial than anything in terms of your body composition, and that obviously making sure that you know you're training enough consistently to be able to support the calories that you're consuming. So I think the amount of calories you're consuming that is needed to maintain your body weight is probably really important to be able to maintain your body composition. You know what I mean? So let's just say, for example, you know, you do a body composition, and it's saying that, hey, you know, if you consume 2200 calories a day, that's able to maintain your body composition presently, right now, which is what you're happy with right then, you know? Okay, well, this is what I need. And I maybe I spread out my calories in a 4040, 20 way, or maybe a 4030 you know, figure out what that macro split is. So I feel like the calories that you're consuming needed to maintain your body weight is probably critical to maintaining your composition over a long term period of time, and then making sure that the exercise activity is also mirroring that as well.

Philip Pape  41:10

Yeah, I like that. You brought it to just the simple, practical energy balance answer of like, to maintain you got to be a maintenance calories like, there's no sense or buts about it, because we get a lot of people expressing fear, for example, after a fat loss phase of I'm going to regain all the weight, or what have you. And assuming they've already been tracking, and they kind of know their calories down to that point to have gotten there with that control, you know, I like to say, like, just continue to track and continue to be aware, and the awareness is going to prevent you from just randomly over consuming What about the mental side of it? Let's say a guy has gotten down to, like, 10 to 12% right, which is pretty lean. It's not like, you know, the movie star lean, but it's also not like a lifestyle, kind of where you start to lose your six pack. Okay, so 10 to 12% is that sustainable for a long period, or is it really highly variable based on, you know, the individual, their genetics and things like that.

Obi Obadike  42:02

Well, you know what? It depends, depends on your genetics. We don't talk about genetics, you know. So for example, for me, right? I'm a natural ectomorph. I'm a naturally thin person, right? You know me maintaining a body fat of like eight or 7% or six to 767, to 8% is easy for me. That's maintenance for me, right? But that's my genetics, you know? And I have to be honest, I have the genetics right that helps me to maintain those low body fat levels where someone else that may not have the genetics, that may not be a mesomorph or whatever, or someone that can maintain a high amount of muscle or state and have low body fat levels may not be able to do that like they're coming down to 10 to 12% but they're having the diet they're bought off. They haven't eat perfectly. And then if they eat in a normal way, without being in and they were extreme to get the 10 to 12, and then when they eat normally, that 10 to 12 goes up to maybe their set point. Their set point may be probably about 1516, 17% so why is that set point higher than mine? It's genetics. It sucks, man, this whole genetic lottery thing, it sucks because some people are just gifted, and they don't have to work, they don't have to probably eat like somebody else to maintain their set point. And that genetics is really going to dictate to how extreme you have to be to maintain a certain level of body fat, body composition that might be unreasonable for someone else, but reasonable for another person. That genetic lottery thing, it's a real thing.

Philip Pape  43:50

Yeah, no, I agree. And it's like we have to acknowledge that and not let it defeat us. Have realistic expectations, right? Have realistic expectations. As far as Yeah, my set point is probably 14% or which is much higher than yours. And you know, I was never in shape my whole life until I got older. So that could be part of it, too. You know, genetics, epigenetics, from when you're young. It

Obi Obadike  44:09

definitely could be. Because I think once you get to a point where you get comfortable training and eating a certain way, just your body starts to it, becomes used to it. But if you're someone who started late in the game. You know, it does take time for your body to get used to it. For me personally, I don't really eat. I eat when I'm hungry. I don't have I don't write down my calories, you know, and I don't even, surprisingly, I don't eat that much. I'm not really a big breakfast eater. I kind of more in the morning time. I do more of an intermittent fasting thing, and then I my biggest meals are lunch and dinner and then snacks in between. But that works for me, people that have been around me. So this guy doesn't eat that much. How he's able to maintain that type of muscle? You know, it's interesting. You know,

Philip Pape  44:52

it's very interesting. And I think if you do have a tendency to be on the heavier side, or it's harder to get down to the body fat, maybe. That's a good clue to, like, focus on building muscle, you know, instead. And just kind of because it does offset it a bit, I will say, from personal experience, like you see your abs at a higher scale weight when you have more muscle, like, that's just the fact of it. You still have to get lean, though, right? So it's kind of a blend, all right, man. So this has been a cool conversation. I do like to ask this question, of all guests, Ovi and that is, is there anything you wish I had asked today that I didn't and what is your answer? No,

Obi Obadike  45:24

no, no. Look, I anytime I get opportunity to talk about health and fitness and diet and nutrition, it's always a blessing, and I hope that anybody listening was able to take some nuggets and apply it to their everyday life. So I appreciate the opportunity. And I just wanted to say, hey, I have a supplement company called ethical inc.com and if anyone's interested in uh, purchasing any uh, weight loss supplements, like an appetite suppressant or a probiotic for gut health or even a multivitamin, go to ethical inc.com and if anyone's looking to want to get in better shape online, you know, I work with everyday people and celebrities, you can go to Obi obadiah.com and that's it. And I'm on social media, and for anyone's looking to I'm always posting articles and free health and wellness articles, you know, every other day to try to motivate and help people for free. So yeah, I appreciate the opportunity. Thank you so much. What's

Philip Pape  46:15

the best social platform for you?

Obi Obadike  46:16

Instagram, I would say. But I'm on Instagram and Facebook. I'm on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter. I'm active daily. So, yeah,

Philip Pape  46:23

got it? Got it? Yep, super responsive. All right. So ethical link.com, obediki.com, and Instagram, Facebook, Twitter handles. We'll throw those in the show notes. Thanks again, man, it's been a pleasure. A lot of great knowledge in here. I'm sure people will learn you know at least a few things that are gonna level up their game. So thanks so much, man, Philip,

Obi Obadike  46:39

thanks a lot for having me on and much success to you and keep doing what you're doing. My brother.

Philip Pape  46:43

Thank you, sir. You.

The Paris 2024 Olympics Strategy for More Muscle and Less Fat (Optimization Theory) | Ep 201

How do Olympic athletes achieve peak performance while optimizing their body composition? The 2024 Paris Olympics are in the final stretch this week, so we're celebrating with this special themed episode!

Olympic athletes (and most athletes) strategically cycle their nutrition to achieve the targeted goal at the targeted time.

We're applying this concept to YOUR goals (on YOUR schedule), using the engineering principle of Optimization Theory. You'll learn how to use nutritional periodization to build more muscle, lose fat, prevent plateaus, and make your diet more effective and sustainable—and then optimize it for your unique circumstances.

If you're tired of yo-yo dieting or struggling to improve your body composition, this episode will show you how to engineer your nutrition like an Olympian preparing for Paris 2024.

To learn more about optimizing your body composition using this approach, join my FREE mailing list at https://witsandweights.com/email

Main takeaways:

• Nutritional periodization, inspired by Olympic athletes, can be adapted for everyday body composition goals.

• The cycle includes Building, Maintenance, Leaning Out, and Recovery phases, each with specific nutritional focuses.

• Optimization Theory allows for continuous fine-tuning based on individual responses and data.

• This approach not only leads to physical changes but can transform your relationship with food and your body.

Episodes mentioned:

• My 3 New Dieting Methods for Smarter, Easier Fat Loss in 2024 | Ep 186

• My Stair-Step Fat Loss Process to Get Lean and Ripped | Ep 191

Episode summary:

We dive deep into the principles that Olympic athletes use to achieve peak performance and optimal body composition. By aligning nutrition with your body's natural rhythms and incorporating periods of progress, maintenance, and recovery, you can avoid the pitfalls of yo-yo dieting and inconsistent energy levels. This blog post will explore the key topics discussed in the episode, providing you with actionable insights to transform your body and achieve your fitness goals sustainably.

Nutritional periodization is a strategy used by elite athletes that involves cycling through different phases of nutrition to optimize performance and body composition. The four distinct phases are building, performance, leaning out, and recovery. Each phase plays a crucial role in muscle gain and fat loss, making the journey toward your fitness goals more effective and sustainable.

The building phase focuses on muscle growth. During this phase, you create a slight calorie surplus and increase carbohydrate intake to fuel your workouts and support muscle development. It's important to consume enough protein to aid in muscle repair and growth. This phase might come with some weight gain, but it's essential for building a strong foundation.

Next is the performance phase, where you maintain the gains achieved during the building phase. Here, you shift to maintenance calories, ensuring you have enough energy to sustain your performance levels. This phase helps you hold onto the muscle and strength gains while preventing unnecessary fat accumulation.

The leaning out phase involves a controlled calorie deficit to improve your strength-to-weight ratio or reveal muscle definition. During this phase, protein intake might increase to preserve muscle mass while reducing overall calorie intake. This phase is particularly beneficial for athletes who need to make weight classes or individuals aiming to achieve a leaner physique.

Finally, the recovery phase brings you back to maintenance calories, giving your body a break from dieting. This phase is crucial for mental and physical recovery, preventing burnout, and preparing you for the next cycle of nutritional periodization. It's a time to focus on sustaining your habits and enjoying the benefits of your hard work.

Optimization theory, an engineering principle, plays a significant role in nutritional periodization. By maximizing or minimizing a function, you can find the best solution for your fitness goals. This approach involves continuously gathering data and making small, calculated adjustments based on your individual response. Tracking metrics such as scale weight, circumference measurements, lifting progression, and biofeedback like hunger, recovery, energy, digestion, sleep, and stress levels are essential for fine-tuning your nutrition plan.

One of the most transformative aspects of nutritional periodization is its impact on your relationship with food and your body. Instead of perpetual dieting or avoiding structure, you adopt a strategic and purposeful approach to nutrition. This method not only leads to physical changes but also fosters a healthier mindset toward food and body composition.

For example, one of our clients, Sarah, experienced a profound transformation through nutritional periodization. After years of yo-yo dieting, she learned to map out her nutrition over six to twelve months, aligning it with her goals. By starting with a maintenance phase, she relieved the pressure of constant dieting and developed sustainable habits. During the leaning out phase, she achieved significant fat loss without crash dieting. The recovery phase allowed her to maintain her results and enjoy a balanced approach to nutrition.

Nutritional periodization offers a structured approach that can be tailored to anyone's body composition goals, not just elite athletes. It provides a clear roadmap, enabling you to progress efficiently and sustainably. Whether you're aiming to build muscle, lose fat, or improve overall performance, this strategy helps you achieve your goals without constant struggle.

To further support your fitness journey, we invite you to join our email list at witsandweights.com/email. By signing up, you'll receive exclusive content, practical tips, and direct access to our community. This is an opportunity to gain valuable insights and support as you work toward your fitness goals. Remember, achieving your dream physique requires a strategic and personalized approach, just like the athletes preparing for the Paris 2024 Olympics.

In summary, nutritional periodization is a powerful principle that aligns your nutrition with your body's natural rhythms. By cycling through the phases of building, performance, leaning out, and recovery, you can achieve sustainable muscle gain and fat loss. Optimization theory helps you make small, calculated adjustments based on your individual response, ensuring efficient progress. This strategy not only transforms your physical appearance but also improves your relationship with food and your body. Embrace nutritional periodization, and start your journey toward peak performance and sustainable fitness today.

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Transcript

Philip Pape: 0:01

What we're talking about today is how these Olympic athletes strategically cycle their nutrition to achieve peak performance, but also optimize their body composition, as some sports call for that. And if you're listening to this and you have a goal of leaning out, of building muscle, losing fat, we are going to talk about using the engineering principle of optimization theory to do that to build more muscle, lose fat, prevent plateaus, make your diet more effective and sustainable. So if you're tired of the yo-yo dieting, if you're not sure what to do with your diet, if you're struggling to improve your body composition, this episode will show you how to engineer your nutrition like an Olympian. Welcome to Wits and Weights, the podcast that blends evidence and engineering to help you build smart, efficient systems to achieve your dream physique. I'm your host, philip P, and I want you to think about this. You've been dieting on and off for months, maybe for years, and sometimes you make progress, sometimes you don't. Your energy fluctuates, your workouts feel inconsistent, you're not quite sure if you're building muscle or kind of spinning your wheels and going up and down Sound familiar. Well, what if I told you that there is a way to structure your nutrition that allows for both muscle gain and fat loss without feeling like you're constantly fighting this uphill battle and not really making progress. And this is a method that aligns with your body's natural rhythms, perhaps even with your schedule, with periods of progress, with periods of progress, with periods of maintenance, with periods of recovery. Whatever life throws at you, you can handle it, and that's what we're exploring in today's episode, which is all about optimization theory. We're going to break down how you can apply the nutritional strategies of Olympic athletes to your own body composition goals, even if you never plan to compete or step on a platform or go to the Olympics, like most of us won't.

Philip Pape: 2:09

Before we dive in, if you're enjoying the show, if you want more content on building muscle and losing fat efficiently, if you want content on periodization, sign up for my email list. The link is in the show notes or you can just go to witsandweightscom slash email and you will get all sorts of unique angles, interesting strategies, helpful content. Some of it's psychology, some of it's training, some of it is nutrition, special promotions, challenges all that fun stuff that you would only get on the email list. Again, click the link in my show notes or go to witsandweightscom slash email. So when most people think about dieting, they often fall into one of two camps the chronic calorie cutter, who's always restricting you know who you are. Or the eat whatever whenever crowd or eat in moderation. Or, you know, cut carbs or whatever, who avoids any form of structure other than some general blueprint or diet. Here's the thing neither of these approaches is optimal. I think you know that they're not optimal if you want to achieve and maintain your best physique and not even optimal. They're not even effective, they're not even sustainable, and that's the use of optimal that I'm using today.

Philip Pape: 3:13

But that is where a concept called nutritional periodization comes in, and it's a strategy used by athletes in general. That's where we get the concept from, but it can be definitely applied to you. It's not just for elite competitors. We can adapt it to body composition for anyone, and in fact, it's exactly the approach that I take with my clients, whether it is in Physique University or one-on-one clients. That is what we do. So I want to talk about optimization theory and you'll see how this all comes together, about optimization theory and you'll see how this all comes together In engineering. This is a principle that is about maximizing or minimizing a function to find the best solution. In our case, we are using nutritional periodization to maximize fat loss and muscle retention, or to gain muscle and minimize fat gain, right, all while minimizing the negative impacts of our dieting, because we want it to be at least sustainable, if not enjoyable, depending on what process we're in.

Philip Pape: 4:15

So if we think about the Olympics and we think about athletes and how they do this, right, they do periodize their training. That is not what we're talking about today. I wanna talk about how they periodize their nutrition. That is not what we're talking about today. I want to talk about how they periodize their nutrition, and they tend to have four different phases or seasons. And so the one phase is the building phase, and this is where you are focusing on building muscle. You're in a slight surplus, you have higher carbs and you're either building strength or muscle. You're working on that skill and you're not selling yourself short in the energy department. You're giving yourself all that you need and, yes, it might come with a trade-off of you're going to gain some weight, kind of like the off season. Okay, that's one phase.

Philip Pape: 4:58

Then we have the performance phase. This is where you shift to potentially maintenance calories. Right, you've gotten the skill development, you've gotten the strength, you've gotten the muscle and now you're going to balance things out and fuel your performance and hold on to those gains from the building phase. Then you might have a leaning out phase, especially for sports where they need an improved strength to weight ratio. Right, think of endurance athletes, where you need to lean out and get a little bit lighter. There's a lot of examples of this. Not all sports apply right. In some sports, bigger, bigger, bigger is better, and I'm not really talking about those. So the lean out phase this is where we now introduce a gradual calorie deficit. Maybe the protein comes up a little bit, you reveal some of the muscle you've built, or you lighten out just to reduce scale weight, maybe for a weight class or some other performance metric. But again, if you just care about how you look or your physique or aesthetics, this is also simply where you're going to reveal that muscle.

Philip Pape: 5:51

And then, finally, we have the recovery phase, which is where we get back to maintenance calories. We come out of the dieting phase and then we focus back on getting to the routine we were in before before we get back to the next cycle of building. Now, through all of these cycles, the principles are roughly the same, but there are changes. There are differences. It cannot be helped. The calories change, the hunger signals change, the goal is different, even though the principles are roughly the same.

Philip Pape: 6:21

And again you might be thinking look, I'm not an athlete, do I need to do all this? Do I need to do cuts and bulks and all this stuff? And the beauty of this approach is it doesn't have to be extreme, it doesn't have to be even that difficult. It could be very gradual and you can spend as long as you want in any of these phases. You could even skip some phases in certain cases. And it really comes down to how quickly not quickly as in quick fix, but how much you're willing to go in one direction or another and really step on the gas pedal to, overall, improve your body composition a little more efficiently than someone else who might be okay coasting for a while, right?

Philip Pape: 6:56

So for the average person, what does this look like? All right, in the building phase, you might have a very slight surplus, something like this a quarter percent of your body weight a week, right, and that's where you would have plenty of protein. You would still have good quality food. You might have to have extra food, though, to get the calories in. You're gonna have more carbs and you're gonna be training really hard and really building your growth, your muscle, without excessive fat gain. And for some of you, building phase can be very lean, but I typically recommend around that sweet spot of 0.2 to 0.3% body weight a week.

Philip Pape: 7:31

The performance phase, that's the next one. That's where you get out of the building muscle and you come back to more of a maintenance phase where you stay there for a while. You sustain your habits, you sustain your body composition. Maybe you're a little bit heavier and you're ready for a cut, but you've come out of that building phase and this may be as short as zero days for some people who just want to go straight into a cut, or it may be hey, I'm going to hang out here for a while and take advantage of my larger body mass for my numbers and everything else.

Philip Pape: 7:58

Then we get to the leaning out phase and most people listen to my podcast. They're coming here. They're like how do I lose fat? Or most people sign up as a client. You know how do I lose fat? Not everyone. Some people want to go straight into the building phase, but leaning out is where we apply that moderate calorie deficit. You know, moderate for you, which could be aggressive for someone else, but for you it might be moderate to aggressive, depending on your calories, depending on your metabolism.

Philip Pape: 8:21

And we do it strategically and we do it for a defined period. And by strategically I mean there's many ways to do it. We could do it as a straight line, like every day you're eating these calories, or we can alter it, we can cycle it, we can even cycle the dieting phase with breaks and these are topics I've talked about extensively on some of my recent episodes, such as my stair-step fat loss process or my three new dieting methods. Go check those out. And then we have recovery. We always have to have recovery out of a dieting phase, right, not a reverse diet, not a reverse diet. We recover straight to our maintenance calories and we give our bodies and minds a final break from that deficit. And we've revealed our muscle and now we are ready to walk around and just maintain those results for as long as we want, until you get the bug for the next building phase, which many of us do. So that is what we mean by periodization, and this allows us to optimize our nutrition for our goals at different times, just like Olympians do, just like athletes do, but tailored to your everyday life and body composition goals.

Philip Pape: 9:22

Now, I mentioned optimization theory before and I really want to tie it to that and show you where it comes into play, because throughout this process, we're constantly gathering data and making adjustments. Without that, you cannot do this, you simply can't. It is going to be so much more frustrating. You're not going to know what's going on, there's going to be much more uncertainty and it's going to take a lot longer. My clients want to be efficient, they want to get it done, they want to know what's happening, they want to have confidence and they want to be able to fire me and do it on their own. And so this curiosity of hey, what's going on with my body? What's going on with my? Well, we're going to talk about the metrics. We track, but what's going on, so that I can make those adjustments and rapidly prototype my body along the way and go from start to finish as efficiently as possible, rather than blindly following some fixed plan.

Philip Pape: 10:14

We're optimizing it based on our individual response, and that means tracking not just your scale weight which you should and daily would be ideal but also your circumference measurements your lifts, your lifting, progression, progress photos and, most importantly, honestly is how you feel, your biofeedback, your hunger, your recovery, are you recovering well from workouts, are you sore? Your energy, your digestion, your sleep, your stress. All of this is valuable data and then, like an engineer fine-tuning a system, we make small adjustments, just small adjustments. Right? Maybe you need a few more carbs in the building phase to fuel your workouts. Maybe you can handle a slightly larger deficit in the leaning out phase without losing muscle. And the key here is we are not making drastic changes. We're making small, calculated adjustments to optimize our results. And that's exactly what Olympic athletes and their nutritionists do, and they pay them a lot of money, or somebody pays them a lot of money and you can do this on your own. You can do this with a little bit of support. You can get a little extra support by reaching out to me and we can talk about that. But they're constantly fine tuning, based on their performance and based on their body composition data, to get where they need to be. And the real power of this just to give you a little bit of a surprise here at the end is nutritional periodization. While it does give you the physical changes. It profoundly transforms your relationship with food and your relationship with your body.

Philip Pape: 11:43

All right, so one of my clients I'm going to call her Sarah. She came to me after years of yo-yo dieting very common, right, you've been dieting for years and she was either always on a diet and she tried all the fad diets, including keto, which is probably the most popular one today, other than, say, carnivore. Uh, I think she did weight watchers in the past as well. She was either on or she was, you know, off the wagon, off the track, right, there's no in between. And even if there's an in between, it's like no man's land uncertainty.

Philip Pape: 12:13

And we started with the maintenance phase, at the recovery phase, as the lead up to the leaning out phase. And we talked about periodization and how, hey, we're going to map out the next six to 12 months and I mean literally map it out Like I will take a whiteboard, we'll draw a quick, quick and dirty little graph for the next 12 months and we'll scratch out what it looks like to periodize your nutrition over time. And it completely changed her perspective and I see this all the time. It's this aha moment of oh wow, like I can actually do this and I know with certainty that I'm going to go from here to there and here there maybe. Maybe as simple as I'm going to lean out with 15 pounds of fat loss right During the building phase.

Philip Pape: 12:53

Uh, you then, once you've leaned out, what's cool about that is, once you've leaned out, now you're confident you can do it. We can go the other direction and you're confident you can do that without gaining too much weight, just gaining the right amount of weight and doing it on purpose, to build muscle. And then you learn to eat, not for emotion or because you can't help yourself, but you eat for performance, you eat for recovery, you care about nutrient density and whole foods because they fuel you and they feel good, not because they're quote unquote healthy. When you're in a maintenance phase, you practice sustaining the new habits, and Sarah did exactly that right. She now knew what to do. She didn't have the pressure of being on a diet, but it wasn't like going back quote unquote back to whatever you were eating before. It's still eating the same way. It's just scaling things a little bit.

Philip Pape: 13:38

And when she was in a fat loss phase, she learned that she could lose fat without crash dieting. And that's the key it's controlled, it's controlled and then you don't do it forever. You give your body a break with the recovery. And this is so typical of pretty much everybody I work with. And in her case, by the end of that fat loss phase it was about 16 weeks she had lost something like 18 pounds. I was looking at her data. She lost about 18 pounds of fat, lost several inches on her waist. She actually gained some muscle because there was a net improvement in her body composition while she was losing fat, so she had some recomp. She actually built some muscle and lost some fat, so she didn't even have to lose that much weight on the scale. The most important thing is she now had this sustainable, fun, enjoyable approach to nutrition that she can maintain long term. She knew how to handle vacations. She knew how to handle vacations. She knew how to handle going out. She knew how to handle being in the summer versus being in the winter, versus the holidays versus the spring.

Philip Pape: 14:34

And that's the power of nutritional periodization, right, it's not just about the physical, it's the approach that keeps you progressing year after year and you enjoy the process All right. So, as we wrap up, let me just recap all of this. Number one nutritional periodization is a powerful principle that we can live by, that is used by athletes and we can adapt it for our own body composition goals. Number two it involves cycling through different phases building, maintenance, leaning out, recovery each with its own focus, each with its own goal. Number three by applying optimization theory, we can continually fine tune our approach in those phases, based on our individual response and data. It's not fixed. And number four this strategy not only leads to physical changes, but can also transform your relationship with food and your body.

Philip Pape: 15:30

Achieving and maintaining your ideal body composition, your dream physique, whatever you want to call it, isn't about perpetual dieting. It isn't about avoiding structure. It's not about intuitive eating. It's not just quote, unquote, listening to your body. It's strategic planning. It's purposeful nutrition with intent and ongoing optimization based on your feedback. That's it. That's really what it is when you put it all together, it's clarity and confidence.

Philip Pape: 15:55

All right, again, if you want to learn more about optimizing your body composition using this approach and many of the other things that we'd use, just join my free email list. That's all you got to do Join the list, you'll get the information and then, of course, if you ever want to reach out. You can reply and say hey, philip, what's up, I have a question and I'll answer it. That's it, simple. Go to witsandweightscom, slash email or click the link in my show notes. You'll get exclusive content that I don't share anywhere else tips on how to apply principles like these, journey, and you have a direct line of connection to me and our community. Until next time, keep using your wits, lifting those weights, and remember, in nutrition, as in the Paris 2024 Olympics, it's all about strategic periodization and optimizing. For you, this is Philip Pape. You've been listening to Wits and Weights and I'll talk to you next time.

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

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

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

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

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

Today, you’ll learn all about:

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

Episode resources:

• Reach out to Philip on IG @witsandweights

• Bonus: Share a screenshot of this episode on your story and tag Philip so he can re-share it!

Episode summary:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Transcript

Philip Pape  00:01

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

Philip Pape  01:21

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

Philip Pape  17:08

Hey, this is Philip and I hope you're enjoying this episode of Whitson weights. I started with some weights to help ambitious individuals in their 30s 40s and beyond, who want to build muscle lose fat and finally look like they lift. I've noticed that when people transform their physique, they not only look and feel better, but they also experienced incredible changes in their health, confidence and overall quality of life. If you're listening to this podcast, I assume you want the same thing to build your ultimate physique and unlock your full potential. Whether you're just starting out or looking to take your progress to the next level. That's why I created wits and weights physique University, a semi private group coaching experience designed to help you achieve your best physique ever, with a personalized done for you nutrition plan, custom designed courses, new workout programs each month, live coaching calls and a supportive community, you'll have access to everything you need to succeed. If you're ready to shatter your plateaus and transform your body and life, head over to Whitson weights.com/physique or click the link in the show notes to enroll today. Again, that's Whitson weights.com/physique. I can't wait to welcome you to the community and help you become the strongest cleanest and healthiest version of yourself. Now back to the show.

Philip Pape  18:29

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

Philip Pape  33:54

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Today, you’ll learn all about:

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

Episode resources:

• Join the Facebook group and ask Jazz about his powerlifting!

Episode summary:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

📲 Send me a text message!

🎓 Join Wits & Weights Physique University

👩‍💻 Book a FREE 15-Minute Rapid Nutrition Assessment

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Transcript

Philip Pape  00:00

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

Philip Pape  01:11

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

Jazz Young  02:03

hey, what's going on?

Philip Pape  02:06

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

Jazz Young  02:18

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

Philip Pape  02:21

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

Jazz Young  02:52

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

Philip Pape  03:25

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

Jazz Young  03:38

could see that for eight weeks out.

Philip Pape  03:41

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

Jazz Young  03:44

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

Philip Pape  04:11

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

Jazz Young  04:36

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

Philip Pape  04:51

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

Jazz Young  05:21

Okay, yes.

Philip Pape  05:22

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

Jazz Young  05:31

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

Philip Pape  05:50

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

Jazz Young  06:44

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

Philip Pape  07:22

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

Jazz Young  07:50

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

Philip Pape  07:56

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

Jazz Young  08:35

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

Philip Pape  09:18

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

Jazz Young  09:27

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

Carol  09:51

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

Philip Pape  10:32

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

Jazz Young  10:50

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

Philip Pape  11:07

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

Jazz Young  11:31

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

Philip Pape  11:46

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

Jazz Young  11:51

it's my go to No. That's

Philip Pape  11:54

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

Jazz Young  12:03

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

Philip Pape  12:33

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

Jazz Young  12:52

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

Philip Pape  13:05

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

Jazz Young  13:10

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

Philip Pape  13:17

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

Jazz Young  13:25

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

Philip Pape  13:29

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

Jazz Young  13:44

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

Philip Pape  13:48

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

Jazz Young  13:59

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

Philip Pape  14:20

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

Jazz Young  14:24

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

Philip Pape  14:31

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

Jazz Young  15:35

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

Philip Pape  15:43

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

Jazz Young  15:46

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

Philip Pape  15:59

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

Jazz Young  16:07

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

Philip Pape  16:17

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

Jazz Young  17:00

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

Philip Pape  17:17

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

Jazz Young  17:22

I think like 3500 rocky could

Philip Pape  17:26

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

Jazz Young  17:40

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

Philip Pape  17:44

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

Jazz Young  18:33

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

Philip Pape  18:45

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

Jazz Young  19:55

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

Philip Pape  20:03

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

Jazz Young  20:18

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

Philip Pape  20:41

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

Jazz Young  20:48

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

Philip Pape  20:51

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

Jazz Young  21:00

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

Philip Pape  21:16

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

Jazz Young  21:24

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

Philip Pape  21:31

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

Jazz Young  21:36

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

Philip Pape  21:49

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

Jazz Young  22:01

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

Philip Pape  22:04

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

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

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

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

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

We'll break down:

• Why your tendons behave like materials in engineering

• The four stages of fatigue failure and how they apply to your training

• Practical strategies to prevent overloading and allow for proper recovery

• How to monitor for early signs of tendon fatigue before it's too late

• The mindset shift from "pushing through pain" to "designing for longevity"

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

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

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

Episode summary:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Transcript

Philip Pape: 0:01

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

Philip Pape: 1:00

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

Philip Pape: 2:07

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

Philip Pape: 3:01

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

Philip Pape: 3:47

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

Philip Pape: 4:08

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

Philip Pape: 5:14

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

Philip Pape: 5:46

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

Philip Pape: 6:55

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

Philip Pape: 7:48

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

Philip Pape: 8:52

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

Philip Pape: 9:29

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

Philip Pape: 10:30

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

Philip Pape: 11:30

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

Philip Pape: 12:09

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

Philip Pape: 12:44

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

Philip Pape: 13:29

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

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

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

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

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

Today, you’ll learn all about:

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

Episode resources:

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

• Related episodes: 

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

  • My Stair-Step Fat Loss Process to Get Lean and Ripped

  • My 3 New Dieting Methods for Smarter, Easier Fat Loss in 2024

  • Why Macros Might Be All You Need to Streamline Your Nutrition

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

Episode summary:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Transcript

Philip Pape  00:01

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

Philip Pape  00:42

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

Philip Pape  00:50

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

Philip Pape  12:40

Hey, this is Philip and I hope you're enjoying this episode of Whitson weights. I started with some weights to help ambitious individuals in their 30s 40s and beyond, who want to build muscle lose fat and finally look like they lift. I've noticed that when people transform their physique, they not only look and feel better, but they also experienced incredible changes in their health, confidence and overall quality of life. If you're listening to this podcast, I assume you want the same thing to build your ultimate physique and unlock your full potential. Whether you're just starting out or looking to take your progress to the next level. That's why I created wit's end weights physique University, a semi private group coaching experience designed to help you achieve your best physique ever, with a personalized done for you nutrition plan, custom designed courses, new workout programs each month, live coaching calls and a supportive community, you'll have access to everything you need to succeed. If you're ready to shatter your plateaus and transform your body and life, head over to Whitson weights.com/physique or click the link in the show notes to enroll today. Again, that's Whitson weights.com/physique. I can't wait to welcome you to the community and help you become the strongest cleanest and healthiest version of yourself. Now back to the show.

Philip Pape  14:00

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

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

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

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

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

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

Today, you’ll learn all about:

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

Episode resources:

• Dr. Jud’s Website: drjud.com

Episode summary:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Transcript

Philip Pape  00:01

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

Philip Pape  01:09

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

Dr. Judson Brewer  02:03

Thanks for having me. So, Judd,

Philip Pape  02:05

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

Dr. Judson Brewer  02:44

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

Philip Pape  04:09

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

Dr. Judson Brewer  04:44

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

Philip Pape  07:42

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

Dr. Judson Brewer  08:41

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

Philip Pape  12:28

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

Dr. Judson Brewer  13:31

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

Philip Pape  14:08

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

Dr. Judson Brewer  14:14

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

Philip Pape  16:29

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

Dr. Judson Brewer  16:37

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

Philip Pape  17:59

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

Dr. Judson Brewer  18:41

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

Philip Pape  19:22

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

Dr. Judson Brewer  19:49

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

Philip Pape  21:26

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

Dr. Judson Brewer  21:51

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

Philip Pape  23:20

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

Dr. Judson Brewer  23:25

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

Philip Pape  24:21

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

Dr. Judson Brewer  24:39

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

Philip Pape  25:04

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

Dr. Judson Brewer  25:09

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

Philip Pape  25:24

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

Dr. Judson Brewer  25:51

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

Philip Pape  26:17

You told a really neat story,

Dr. Judson Brewer  26:19

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

29:21

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

Dr. Judson Brewer  30:36

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

Philip Pape  33:04

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

Dr. Judson Brewer  34:33

the oil and the amount of salt. Yeah,

Philip Pape  34:36

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

Dr. Judson Brewer  35:11

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

Philip Pape  39:32

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

Dr. Judson Brewer  39:45

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

Philip Pape  42:20

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

Dr. Judson Brewer  43:15

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

Philip Pape  44:09

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

Dr. Judson Brewer  44:49

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

Philip Pape  46:27

It's framing right?

Dr. Judson Brewer  46:28

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

Philip Pape  48:17

Exactly. Fine. Model. And then

Dr. Judson Brewer  48:20

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

Philip Pape  48:27

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

Dr. Judson Brewer  48:55

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

Philip Pape  50:17

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

Dr. Judson Brewer  50:19

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

Philip Pape  50:24

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

Dr. Judson Brewer  50:26

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

Philip Pape  50:40

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

Dr. Judson Brewer  51:13

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

Philip Pape  53:04

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

Dr. Judson Brewer  53:08

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

Philip Pape  54:21

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

Dr. Judson Brewer  54:54

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

Philip Pape  56:21

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

Dr. Judson Brewer  56:45

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

Philip Pape  58:46

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

Dr. Judson Brewer  59:00

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

Philip Pape  59:24

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Episode summary:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Transcript

Philip Pape: 0:00

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

Philip Pape: 1:00

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

Philip Pape: 2:43

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

Philip Pape: 3:17

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

Philip Pape: 4:48

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

Philip Pape: 6:05

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

Philip Pape: 7:03

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

Philip Pape: 7:34

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

Philip Pape: 8:03

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

Philip Pape: 8:59

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

Philip Pape: 10:03

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

Philip Pape: 11:16

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

Philip Pape: 12:12

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

Philip Pape: 12:51

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

Philip Pape: 13:29

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

Philip Pape: 14:11

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

Philip Pape: 14:32

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

Philip Pape: 15:04

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

Philip Pape: 16:26

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

Philip Pape: 16:57

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

Philip Pape: 17:24

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Today, you’ll learn all about:

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

Episode resources:

• Try MacroFactor free with code WITSANDWEIGHTS – Apple/iPhone or Google/Android

• Related episodes: 

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

  • How to Get More Fitness Results for Less Effort (The Pareto Rule) | Ep 189

Episode summary:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Transcript

Philip Pape  00:01

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

Philip Pape  01:05

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

Philip Pape  10:00

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

Philip Pape  19:57

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Today, you’ll learn all about:

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

Episode resources:

• Get your free meal prep guide (scroll to bottom) at transformwithphoenix.com.

• Podcast: Macros, Mindset, and Muscles

Episode summary:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

📲 Send me a text message!

🎓 Join Wits & Weights Physique University

👩‍💻 Book a FREE 15-Minute Rapid Nutrition Assessment

👥 Join our Facebook community for live Q&As & support

✉️ Join the FREE email list with insider strategies and bonus content!

📱 Try MacroFactor for free with code WITSANDWEIGHTS. The only food logging app that adjusts to your metabolism!

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Transcript

Brittany Gatewood  00:01

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

James Gatewood  00:27

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

Philip Pape  00:45

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

Brittany Gatewood  02:27

Thanks for having us. Glad to be here.

Philip Pape  02:29

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

Brittany Gatewood  03:02

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

James Gatewood  03:47

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

Philip Pape  04:23

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

Brittany Gatewood  05:25

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

Philip Pape  06:32

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

James Gatewood  06:47

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

Philip Pape  06:55

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

Brittany Gatewood  08:00

Yeah, so you want to talk about

James Gatewood  08:03

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

Brittany Gatewood  08:06

like the the main

James Gatewood  08:08

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

Philip Pape  08:40

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

James Gatewood  08:45

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

Brittany Gatewood  09:40

power that store fat for famine. Yeah, like

James Gatewood  09:44

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

Brittany Gatewood  09:51

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

Philip Pape  10:34

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

James Gatewood  10:56

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

Philip Pape  11:23

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

Brittany Gatewood  12:03

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

Philip Pape  13:01

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

Brittany Gatewood  13:04

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

James Gatewood  13:13

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

Philip Pape  13:46

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

Brittany Gatewood  13:52

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

Philip Pape  14:17

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

Brittany Gatewood  15:32

it depends on the person. Me 1100 Easy,

Philip Pape  15:37

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

Brittany Gatewood  15:40

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

James Gatewood  15:48

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

Philip Pape  16:21

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

James Gatewood  16:29

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

Philip Pape  17:03

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

Brittany Gatewood  17:46

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

Philip Pape  18:45

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

Brittany Gatewood  19:06

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

Philip Pape  19:09

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

Brittany Gatewood  19:21

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

Philip Pape  20:25

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

Brittany Gatewood  20:47

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

Philip Pape  21:07

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

James Gatewood  21:41

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

Brittany Gatewood  22:59

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

James Gatewood  23:04

Yes, he does the cooking.

Philip Pape  23:05

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

James Gatewood  23:29

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

Philip Pape  24:06

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

James Gatewood  24:23

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

Philip Pape  25:12

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

Brittany Gatewood  25:36

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

James Gatewood  26:16

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

Brittany Gatewood  26:47

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

Philip Pape  27:37

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

Brittany Gatewood  28:18

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

Philip Pape  29:06

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

Brittany Gatewood  29:22

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

30:03

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

Philip Pape  30:47

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

Brittany Gatewood  31:08

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

James Gatewood  32:32

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

Brittany Gatewood  34:04

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

James Gatewood  34:09

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

Philip Pape  34:29

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

Brittany Gatewood  34:45

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

James Gatewood  35:16

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

Philip Pape  36:13

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

Brittany Gatewood  36:53

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

James Gatewood  38:38

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

Philip Pape  40:01

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

Brittany Gatewood  41:26

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

Philip Pape  42:06

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

Brittany Gatewood  42:10

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

Philip Pape  42:33

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

Brittany Gatewood  42:54

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

Philip Pape  43:43

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

Brittany Gatewood  44:16

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

Philip Pape  45:24

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

Brittany Gatewood  45:54

Okay, a cos, like in terms of the

Philip Pape  45:58

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

Brittany Gatewood  46:01

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

James Gatewood  46:40

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

Philip Pape  48:00

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

Brittany Gatewood  48:03

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

Philip Pape  48:15

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

James Gatewood  48:39

Oh, gosh, I don't know.

Brittany Gatewood  48:42

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

Philip Pape  48:53

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

Brittany Gatewood  49:11

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

Philip Pape  49:36

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Episode summary:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Transcript

Philip Pape 

00:00

I'm going to go out on a limb here and say you're probably doing more than you need to do to get the results that you want in many cases. It's surprising, I know, because in some cases maybe you're not training, maybe you're not getting enough steps, maybe you're not getting enough sleep, and we talk about those a lot. But today we're going to focus on where you might be out of balance you might be doing too much in some areas for the results that you're getting and a way that we can rebalance that using a powerful principle from engineering, so that you can know where you're overdoing it and where you might need to step it up a little bit. And we're going to deep dive into how you can apply that to your fitness journey to work smarter, more efficiently and break through any of the frustrations or plateaus you've been experiencing because you're not sure how to fit it all in. Welcome to Wits and Weights, the show that blends evidence and engineering to help you build smart, efficient systems to achieve your dream physique. I'm your host, philip Pape, and today we're kicking off our new Wednesday episodes, where we apply principles from engineering to health and fitness, something that I don't think you're gonna find out there very often at all. We talk about evidence-based fitness and science quite a bit. We also talk about applying psychology to health and fitness, but there's not really anybody taking the principles from one of the most important fields on the planet engineering, which I have a very long, rigorous background in and applying that to fitness. And so you're going to get a new angle on Wednesdays going forward and there will only be three episodes a week now, three higher quality episodes that I'm spending more time making sure to get you what you want and need to really take your results to the next level, rather than just quickly pumping out a bunch of episodes and overwhelming you. And we're going to touch on that principle today of how less is more and how you can apply a principle to your overall fitness and nutrition strategy and make it a little bit more efficient and less time consuming. That's what we're going to talk about today, and it's a principle called the Pareto principle. It's the 80-20 principle, but you might've heard 80-20 used in different contexts like 80% whole foods. That's not what we're talking about. I'm going to explain in a little bit and, of course, before we dive in, as always, if you enjoy these concepts, if you enjoy the show if you want more content on building muscle, losing fat, improving your health and physique, especially from a different angle, right where we're more intelligent about it. We want to take advantage of the limited time that we have so that we can really enjoy life to the fullest. I want you to hit the follow button right now to help more people find the show, but also help you never miss another episode. So let's get into it.

02:49

Today. This, again, is going to be a little bit less scripted on Wednesdays. Our Monday episodes will be the more traditional deep dives. For example, next Monday's episode will be on my stair step fat loss approach, what it is, how it compares to the traditional approach and how you can apply it to potentially make a fat loss phase much easier. And then on Wednesdays, like today, today's, the very first one you are going to hear me take something from engineering and apply it to fitness and nutrition. And then Fridays are our guest episodes, and sometimes we'll mix it up a little bit, but that's the general idea.

03:25

So here's the common issue that I want to address today that we all experience. We always fall into the trap of thinking that more is better, right? More sets, more exercises, more supplements, even more protein, whatever it is that more, more, more. And at some point we hit diminishing returns with some of those things. Right, we only have so much time in the day, we only have so many resources, we only have so much money, we only have so much mental energy and there's only so much of that energy you can put into any one thing, and I'm guilty of this. But there are certain things I like more than others, so I will spend more time on them, even if it doesn't produce much for the effort. Right, and as an engineer by background, I see this as a classic case of inefficient resource allocation. Right, in engineering, we're always looking for ways to optimize systems to get the most output for the least input, and if you can apply that principle to your life, it's going to make things a whole lot less stressful and a lot easier. And I'm going to break it down and make it simple. Even though I'm talking about engineering, I am not expecting you to, you know, deal with jargon or lingo or any of that stuff, but I do like to take frameworks that have already been rigorously built and tested over decades in an industry where people have to design products that keep people safe, like airplanes and cars, for example, and they've figured out ways to optimize resources. And we could do that with our bodies. Our bodies are these beautiful machines that can be very efficient, and our time is very limited. So when we combine the two, we can get something very powerful.

05:08

Okay, this is where the Pareto principle or the 80-20 rule comes in handy. And the Pareto principle suggests that roughly 80% of the effect, the output, the result, comes from 20% of the causes or the effort, right? So in fitness terms, 80% of your results can come from 20% of your efforts. Now, this is just a rough guide, right? We don't have to actually be precise with the numbers, but the idea is this Think about this If you don't go to the gym at all, okay, what is your result?

05:45

Nothing, right, and sometimes worse than nothing. Like, you lose muscle mass and you get, you know, weaker with time. But if you went into the gym, even one day a week, you're going to move that needle up significantly from nothing to a meaningful something. Right Now, it may not be enough of a something to really push the growth like you want it, and that's where there's this threshold, where we say look, if you can get to the gym two days a week, you're probably going to start to grow your strength and muscle and be able to keep adding weight to the bar or reps every time you go to the gym. Right, and some people argue you could do it once a week if you train to the gym. Right, and some people argue you could do it once a week if you train super, super, super hard that one day. But there's some practical considerations here, like going one day a week. It's hard to be consistent. It may not be as enjoyable just doing it one day a week. How do you make it a routine, things like that? But besides that, I would say three days a week is where we see roughly 20% of your effort now is going to the gym and you're getting 80% of the results.

06:52

Right, and let's put that into hard, practical numbers. If you go to the gym three days a week and you do three or four exercises of, say, three sets, you're probably doing about 10 sets per muscle group per week, probably around seven to 10. And we've got to talk now about optimal versus good enough. When we talk about optimal in the industry, we talk about maximum output For you, the maximum output in terms of your muscle growth and your strength would be getting as much as 20 hard sets per muscle group per week. You'd have to be in the gym probably five or six days a week for 90 minutes. Do you want to do that? Can you do that? Does that make sense in your life? That's what I'm talking about. However, if you have as little as five hard sets a week and you go in three days for maybe 45 minutes, maybe not even that long, the research shows us that you can get significant hypertrophy, significant muscle growth doing that.

07:52

And so, when you think of the whole spectrum, when we think about resource allocation, if you're going to the gym five days a week and you're able to cut two of those days out and your results drop only by like 5%. You know they've gone from, say, 85 to 80%, but now you've saved two out of five days of your week. That's 40% of your week in the gym. Imagine now what you can do with that freed up time. You can get an extra hour, hours of sleep, right. You can get some other productivity, some things done for work. You can spend some time with your family. You could just relax right and recover, go for a walk, and the reason this is on my mind right now is the exact thing I told you about this podcast. We are switching from five episodes a week down to three, so very much like you can go from five days a week in the gym down to three days a week in the gym. My supposition, my assumption, my prediction, is that I'll be able to bring you more quality content in fewer days per week. You will be able to consume that content without feeling like you're falling behind or having to skip or delete episodes, and you will then get more out of it and your life will be changed for the better because of me going from five down to three.

09:06

I've had countless clients who were in a similar situation. They were doing too much, they loved to go to the gym and so they would work out almost every day. Maybe it was six days, maybe it was seven days. Now, it wasn't always strength training, sometimes it was a group class or a Peloton spinning, maybe they played tennis. And when we stepped it back and said, okay, let's first prioritize what's important and then identify the amount of effort you actually need to put in that minimum amount of effort to get all the results you really need and then save the rest for other stuff. So we're kind of applying two principles. Today we're applying the Pareto rule to 80, 20, where 20% of your effort gets 80% of the results. But we're also coupling that with the law of diminishing returns, like when you do more than that 20%, now you're only eking out a little bit more percentage. Right, they go hand in hand. So if you put in 25 or 30% of the effort now, you might get 90% of the results. Now you put in 40, 50, 60% of the effort, now you get 95%. And then you'd have to put in, you know, 100% of the effort to get the 100%. That's what we mean.

10:09

Same thing goes for cardio. We shouldn't be doing cardio to burn calories. We should be doing cardio for cardiovascular health, for our overall longevity, biomarkers, things like that. And for most people there's a certain minimum that's gonna get them a huge step change from not healthy at all, very sedentary, sitting around all day, high mortality rate, high disease rate, up to you're just fine. And that is not five hours a week of cardio, that might be an hour or two right Now. If you look at some of the recommendations, you might hear things like 120 or 150 minutes a week of cardio. That might be an hour or two right Now. If you look at some of the recommendations, you might hear things like 120 or 150 minutes a week, which again is only two, two and a half hours. And, frankly, if you're lifting heavy two or three days a week, there's a lot of that quote unquote cardio built into that. If you're walking a lot, you're also getting cardio.

10:56

So you see, where I'm going is we're trying to balance all these things or, more accurately, integrate them into your life, and you can't go all out on everything. You can go all out all out on perhaps one thing If you are super passionate about it, like we talked to Ben Lewis on the podcast and he gets in 60 miles of running a week, plus he lifts weights, but he is super passionate about endurance training and competition and he loves it, just like I'm super passionate about nutrition science. But I don't expect all of you listening to this podcast to just be spending hours and hours and hours learning about it. Hopefully you just have to listen to a few podcasts, including this one, and I'm hoping that it's number one on your Spotify playlist or that you gave it a five-star review on Apple, but either way, you might be just doing too much and need to scale it down. So, whether that's cardio or training or exercise variety or your meal planning strategy, are you overdoing it somewhere? And I'm going to tell you how to apply this principle to your life so that it's not just theory. All right, so how do we apply the 20% of your effort to get 80% of the result and not going past that and getting diminishing returns and just wasting time?

12:09

I suggest you make a list. Get out a piece of paper or do this in your, you know, like a Google doc or whatever. Make a list of the five things that are most important to you for your health and fitness. Really, the sky's the limit, but I'm going to give you some ideas, all right, that are probably going to be on the list Strength training, tracking your nutrition or your macros. Right, eating enough protein could be its own category. Eating enough fiber, getting enough steps you know enough walking in, getting enough sleep or high quality sleep, or both managing your stress you can definitely.

12:47

There may be other specific things on the list for you. For you, it might be emotional eating. Specifically, Write down five things that are the most important for you right now. And then I want you to, next to that, write down how much effort you're putting into it every week. Imagine that zero is zero and a hundred percent is. You're obsessed about it, you can't stop thinking about it, it's all you put, it's all you spend time on, right, most of you are not going to be at. You might be at zero, I don't know, but you're probably not going to be at a hundred percent. But you might be at, let's say, 50% or 75%. If, let's say, you strength train five days a week or you go to the gym six days a week, I would put that at like 75% effort right, it's most of the week. And then look at the one that has the highest number and circle it. That is the thing where you could potentially reduce the amount that you're doing down to the 20% mark, still get amazing results. And now you've freed up that resource, which is probably time for something else. So again, it's very simple.

13:53

Let's recap. Number one identify the areas that are important to you. Number two identify the area where you're doing too much. And then, number three reallocate the time and energy from that to another area. Right, the goal is not to do more of everything, it's to do the right amount of the things that matter most. And if you could rebalance your efforts, because we talk about balance, but balance doesn't mean doing everything all out in equal parts. It means integrating it into your life in a natural way that's enjoyable. They still get you the result. So if you can rebalance your effort, based on the 80-20 rule, the Pareto principle, you don't just change how you approach this, you're actually changing your mindset to allow yourself the freedom and the time to do other things and still get the result All right.

14:38

So I said it would be a little bit unscripted and it was. If you enjoyed the episode, let me know if you didn't or think I can improve Again. This is the first one. I'm going to continue improving on these. You know this is. This is step one. This is like when you go to the gym the very first time and you try a squat you've never done it before time. And you try a squat you've never done it before. You're clumsy, you're imbalanced all over the place. That's like this episode for me.

14:59

Granted, I have some other foundations, having done, you know, 300 episodes at this point, but I want these to be very helpful going forward If you want help engineering your strategy using this principle. I've got something new going on, so I used to do these 30 minute calls. I'm now doing something that's shorter and more fast paced and it's a 15 minute rapid nutrition assessment. It's not a sales call. I've said this before. I'm not going to sell you anything, trust me. I'm not going to mention my coaching at all.

15:27

What I like to do is meet people and help you identify where you might be overdoing it and how to rebalance your efforts. We're going to come away with the one thing that's really holding you back that you can change and a quick three-step action plan to get you results quickly. That's really all it is. So to book your free 15-minute rapid nutrition assessment, click the link in the show notes or go to witsandweightscom and click free call at the top. Actually, there's a link now at the top of the website, on the top right, a big button that says uh, rapid nutrition assessment. So again, click the link in the show notes or go to my website, witsandweightscom, click the big button at the top right and we'll have that discussion. We can say hello, we can meet and come up with that quick action plan for you. Until next time, keep using your wits, keep lifting those weights and remember, in fitness as in engineering, it's not about doing more, it's about doing right. I'll talk to you next time here on the Wits and Weights podcast.

My Stair-Step Fat Loss Process to Get Lean and Ripped | Ep 191

Are you tired of endless yo-yo dieting or struggling to get through a fat-loss phase? What if there was a smarter way to get lean that works with your body and not against it?

In today’s episode, Philip (@witsandweights) shares his personal stair-step fat loss process, designed to help you achieve your goals while dealing with life’s challenges, like recovering from an injury or sluggish metabolism. This approach not only supports better recovery and flexibility but also makes the fat loss journey more enjoyable. Philip breaks down the science and psychology behind it, explaining how it helps maintain metabolism and sustain long-term results without constant dieting struggles. He emphasizes that true transformation comes from thoughtful, well-engineered approaches that consider your body’s needs and limitations. By embracing this stair-step method, you can build lasting habits, improve your relationship with food, and achieve sustainable fat loss while living your life to the fullest.

Get ready to rethink your approach to fat loss and discover a sustainable path to your dream physique, one step at a time.

Today, you’ll learn all about:

2:28 Five-star reviews from listeners of the show
4:46 Personal story and surgery recovery
10:44 Detailed explanation of the stair-step method
16:26 Sustainability and flexibility of the method
19:22 Implementing the stair-step method
24:28 Benefits and psychological impact of maintenance phases
27:39 Building better habits for lasting transformation
29:20 Outro

Episode resources:

• Book your free call with Philip so he can create your personal fat loss roadmap

• Related episode: My 3 New Dieting Methods for Smarter, Easier Fat Loss | Ep 186

Episode summary:

Are you tired of battling stubborn pounds and the endless cycle of yo-yo dieting? Our latest podcast episode uncovers a smarter, more sustainable fat loss method that aligns with your body's natural rhythms. In this episode, we delve into the innovative stair-step fat loss process, which combines alternating fat loss and maintenance phases to ensure lasting results without sacrificing energy or enjoyment.

The episode kicks off with an introduction to the stair-step fat loss process, a method designed to work with your body instead of against it. Traditional fat loss approaches often lead to metabolic slowdown, energy depletion, and frustration. By contrast, the stair-step method allows for flexibility and better recovery, helping you achieve your fat loss goals while maintaining a high quality of life. The host shares his personal journey, including the challenges of recovering from shoulder surgery, and explains how this method can help you overcome similar obstacles.

One of the key topics discussed is the importance of incorporating maintenance phases into your diet plan. These phases allow your metabolism to fully recover, providing a refreshing reset before returning to dieting. This approach not only enhances metabolic health but also supports psychological well-being by accommodating social events, holidays, and busy periods without derailing progress. The flexibility of this method ensures that you can maintain lean mass while adapting to a leaner physique.

Patience and long-term planning are emphasized as crucial components of sustainable fat loss. Our culture of instant gratification often leads to quick-fix solutions that don't yield lasting results. The stair-step method promotes a balanced approach by alternating between fat loss and maintenance phases over an extended period, such as a year. This prevents metabolic slowdown and avoids the pitfalls of yo-yo dieting. By assessing your current situation, planning a reasonable rate of fat loss, and implementing high-protein diets, strength training, and flexible eating habits, you can achieve your goals in a healthy, sustainable way.

The podcast also provides a step-by-step guide to implementing the stair-step fat loss process. The host describes the problem with traditional fat loss approaches and outlines the benefits of the stair-step method. By taking long periods of maintenance with short periods of dieting, you can enjoy the best of both worlds: sustained fat loss and metabolic recovery. This approach is likened to climbing a staircase with landings, where each step represents progress along your fat loss journey.

During maintenance phases, you can focus on building habits, mindset, and lifestyle changes that support long-term success. Maintenance is not just a holding pattern; it's an opportunity to refine your approach, address any challenges, and prepare for the next fat loss phase. This cyclical process ensures that you remain mentally and physically fresh, ready to tackle each phase with renewed energy and determination.

Incorporating high-protein diets, strength training, and flexible eating habits are essential elements of this method. High-protein diets help maintain muscle mass, support recovery, and keep you full and satisfied. Strength training builds lean muscle, which boosts metabolism and enhances fat loss. Flexible eating habits allow you to enjoy a variety of foods while staying on track with your goals.

The episode also touches on the psychological benefits of the stair-step method. By avoiding the stress and rigidity of continuous dieting, you can enjoy a more relaxed and enjoyable fat loss journey. This approach helps you develop a healthier relationship with food and exercise, making it easier to stick with your plan in the long run.

In conclusion, the stair-step fat loss process offers a sustainable, flexible, and effective approach to achieving your fat loss goals. By incorporating maintenance phases, focusing on high-protein diets and strength training, and embracing patience and long-term planning, you can achieve lasting results without sacrificing your quality of life. Tune in to the episode for practical advice and actionable steps to transform your fat loss strategy and achieve your best body with flexibility and patience.

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Transcript

Philip Pape  00:01

Are you tired of either not being able to get through an entire fat loss phase? Or even worse yo yo dieting back and forth with little to show for it. What if I told you there's a smarter way to get lean one that works with your body and not against it. Today I'm pulling back the curtain on my personal stair step fat loss process that I'm going through right now the exact method I'm using to lose fat and get lean, while continuing to deal with life, such as recovery from my shoulder surgery last year. And this approach might just make you rethink your approach to fat loss so that it can finally work for you. Whether you're dealing with an injury, a sluggish metabolism that doesn't want to respond, or you just want a more sustainable path to your dream physique. This episode is the kick in the pants you need to think and act differently. To shake things up. Get ready to climb your way to a leaner healthier you one step at a time.

Philip Pape  01:01

Welcome to wit's end weights, the podcast that blends evidence and engineering to help you build smart, efficient systems to achieve your dream physique. I'm your host, Philip Pape. Picture this, you've been dieting hard for weeks. Sometimes you make progress. Sometimes things don't seem to budge the scale weight, the trendweight just plateaus, or your metabolism is dropping faster than you'd like. So the calories keep dropping to keep pace. Your energy's in the gutter. Your Workouts feel like a slog. Perhaps you're not always in the best mood. Maybe the cravings are kicking in the hungers ramping up. Sound familiar? Well, what if I told you there's a way to lose fat without feeling like you're constantly fighting an uphill battle, a method that allows for more flexibility, better recovery. And, dare I say it as always when it comes to fat loss, actual enjoyment and even personal growth during your fat loss journey. That's exactly what we're exploring in today's episode, my stair step fat loss process to get lean and ripped. Now before we dive in, if you're enjoying the show, if you want more content from deep inside my quirky brain on doing things a bit differently, to unlock smarter, more efficient fat loss and building muscle hit that follow button right now, that helps more people find the show. It helps with the almighty algorithm. But it also more importantly ensures that you never miss an episode. So please hit the Follow button. And I just wanted to share a couple of quick reviews we got recently from people that do the same thing who love to listen and follow the show, such as Camille in New Hampshire who wrote quote, Phillips podcast is full of solid practical advice for navigating fitness and nutrition. Yes, it's backed by science, but he doesn't drag us through the weeds. He provides just enough detail along with how to apply it to our real messy, busy lives. It also helps that he's very relatable and a nice guy. Thank you, Camille, that is what we're going for here. Or D h s b Yes, you 991 wrote, quote, Philip knows what he's talking about. And that's so refreshing in this industry. It's hard to get easy access to strong information, who I like that adjective strong about nutrition and health. But his podcast is super accessible and does the job. And I shared those two quotes just to highlight the fact that this really is about accessibility. It is backed by science. But we don't want we don't want to get so in the weeds that we kind of get lost, right. And that's what we're going for. And I want to thank you for those who submitted those and many other recent five star reviews that help others find the show. And if you're listening you already follow you want to take that next step and help us reach more listeners, please take five minutes and write a five star rating and review on Apple podcasts or Spotify. This helps us build trust and awareness in the show. And you're doing your part to help change even more lives. So I'm grateful if you've already done that. And if you haven't, go ahead and submit a five star review on Apple right now. I won't have my feelings hurt if you pause the show because after all, I've already recorded it. Okay, let's get into today's topic about my stairstep fat loss process. Now I want to build help you build some of our mental muscle today with this topic, right? And by mental muscle. I mean, let's continuously stretch the bounds of how we think about dieting, fat loss, nutrition, all of this not just what the evidence says. But our unique approach. So today we're covering three things. First, the problem with traditional fat loss approaches, and why I personally had to find a new way over the last year or so, really over the last six to nine months. Number two, the stair step method, what am I talking about and why does it work? And number three, a step by step guide dad joke guide to implement this process yourself. Alright, so let's kick things off with my background. My story, as some of you know, I had shoulder surgery about almost exactly 12 months ago as I recorded this episode. And I actually just recently had another MRI And we're gonna see what it shows. If it's clean, I just need to keep rehabbing. There's a retailer or something like that it could explain some of the challenges I've had lately, but we'll see. Now, if you've ever had surgery, major surgery, especially rotator cuff surgery, it's tough to recover. And my biggest advice always when having surgery is before you even have the surgery to get as strong as you can. Even if you have to work around some pain and injury, and not exacerbate whatever it is that leads to the surgery, being strong is going to make recovery easier. And it is really true. I've gone through now three surgeries, I had a back surgery, an appendectomy that was more of an emergency thing. And then this shoulder surgery. And when you're as passionate about training about fitness as I am, it can throw you for a loop, it can discourage you, right? My usual routines were just off the table, like I wanted to do a certain thing, but I couldn't. And that was just reality I had to accept. And my activity level over the last, you know, 12 months or so was lower than it had been in the past. For whatever reason, not whatever reason, it was a choice. But also because my training couldn't be as hard. So my overall calories burned, my expenditure wasn't as high as I had been in the past. And so my metabolism took a little vacation along the way, versus previous phases, previous building phases, cutting phases. And suddenly, my tried and true approach that I had done like six times like clockwork, was not as effective as it could have been. And if I were to rewind back, let me just set some context here. I had gone through a building phase for about nine months, up until early 2024. And then I decided to do an aggressive fat loss phase. And for me, aggressive is the full on 1% of my body weight a week, you know, I start from metabolism of around 3000 calories, so I'm able to die it on like 2200, or maybe 2000 calories, it gets some decent fat loss. But it wasn't quite working this time this this sustained, aggressive calorie deficit, my body wasn't having it because of the shoulder. And so my energy levels would tank, my ability to train effectively, especially when it involves pressing movements. benchpress overhead press, lateral raises, really anything involving the shoulder was just harder and harder, especially when I cut calories. Okay. And so caught between two goals here, one, treat my shoulder with the love that it needs to recover. And two, I wanted some fat loss because I kind of reached that peak of my bulk. And I wanted to go the other way. And I wanted to do it in time for summer. But that wasn't gonna happen. And that's the reality I had to accept. So I reassessed right, I said, Okay, what do I tell my clients here, usually, when I work with my clients, we personalize fat loss in a number of different ways. Sometimes we shift calories around, we do various nonlinear approaches, like I talked about on a recent episode, right? Sometimes we take diet breaks, we incorporate refeeds, we go into more or less aggressive rate, all that fun stuff. Whatever you do, whatever we end up doing, it's something that has to respect your body in your mind, current state, and work within your limitations and your recovery process. If that is part of the equation. This is why I always suggest if you're recovering from an injury or rewrite after surgery or something like that, do not die, it do not be in a deficit. Now in my case, I had recovered I had I had gone nine months post surgery, things were getting better, better, better. I had gained a bunch of weight on purpose to build muscle. And I wanted to cut, but it wasn't going to work for me because my shoulder didn't like the fact that I didn't have as many calories coming in. And my metabolism wasn't as high as it needed to be, which necessitated even lower calories to continue to rain a lot. So I'm like scratching my head thinking what do I do here? Do I take diet breaks? And then, you know, keep going aggressively and take diet breaks? Yes and no. Right? So instead what, what I did is I said what if I take long periods of maintenance was short periods of dieting and make the short periods of dieting, moderate, right. So it's kind of like the inverse of diet breaks. With diet breaks, we tend to diet for like two or three months maybe and then you maybe take, you know, a few weeks off for a month at most. And then you keep dieting This is usually for people who have a lot of weight to lose. Or sometimes on a shorter schedule, you'll go for weeks, and then you'll take one week, then four weeks one week. But let's imagine it's the other way around. Imagine you're climbing a staircase. And each step represents progress along your fat loss phase, okay? And instead of continuing to go up those stairs, which get harder and harder as you climb, and you're running out of breath, and every step is the same amount of progress, but it feels like harder and harder and more effort, right? We have a landing, right? Imagine going upstairs in an apartment building. You go up like half a floor, there's a landing, you turn around you go up the other half and now you're at the next floor. So imagine you have a staircase with landings, and the landings can be pretty long. All right. I don't know if this is a perfect analogy, but this is where I'm going with this, those are your maintenance phases, and they are diet breaks. But what we're talking about here is intentionally having a fat loss phase, I would rather be fairly aggressive. You do it less aggressively, and you punctuated with very long diet breaks. So let's break it down. Number one, you take a small step, right? This is your day to day deficit, maybe it's a half a percent of your body weight per week. And you plan that out for, let's say, six weeks, okay, I'm not going to calculate all the numbers, that doesn't really matter. The point is, it's moderate. It's not too aggressive, because again, you're dealing with something like, like I am, or your metabolisms kind of sluggish, or some other reason where you just can't go on super aggressive calories, okay. And you know, who you are out there. I have clients, I have people in physique University who, you know, coming in, they have a much lower metabolism, we want to get that up over time, we want to tune their metabolism, so to speak, but it's not there yet. So they can't just cut massively. So we set that up. And then we decide where our landings are, our landings are our maintenance phases, our diet breaks, right. But rather than one or two week long diet breaks, these can even be longer than the fat loss phases, right. So if you want to think of it as stairs, you can think of it as stairs with landings, you could also think of it as like, you know, each step, the horizontal part is your maintenance phase. And then the vertical part is when you go back to fat loss, whatever, I don't care, maybe this wasn't the best analogy to use. But I think you get what I mean. All right. So every time you get to maintenance, all you do is you stop dieting, give it at least four if not six weeks, every time and then rinse and repeat. That's really all you do. Right? And you're like, Well, that sounds great in theory, but why would you do it that way? Isn't it gonna take a long time? Why does it work, I'm gonna give you some reasons to consider as to why this specific approach might be best for you versus the linear approach. Okay, the first thing is always, always always, we talk about sustainability. Well, I've really enjoyed doing it this way. At first, I was frustrated because I thought, Oh, I'm not going to lose fat as quickly. But then I went into my app, I use macro factor, of course. And instead of setting a weight loss goal of, say, 20, or 30 pounds, I might set it for five or 10. And just a nice little chunk. That's my goal. And I don't know how long it's going to take me to get there, I'm going to set a reasonable rate of loss half a percent a week, let's say, maybe even gentler for you. Okay, and then I'm gonna go for about six to eight weeks, and then I'm going to stop for about six to eight weeks is really all I'm doing. And then I'm gonna go to six, eight weeks, and I'm gonna stop for six to eight weeks. So it's actually sustainable, because you want to find it have these very long stretches, where you're not worried about food, you're not obsessing over food, you're not dieting, you're fully recovered, you're sleeping nicely, you get all the energy in the gym, and you can really make a lot of progress. It's almost like mini building phases. And then mini mini cuts, but they're gentle cuts. Okay. So the sustainability aspect is really cool, because it's almost like living in a maintenance phase over a long term. And you just happen to also drop some fat along the way. It's kind of how it feels like, like, I'm never in a dieting phase for too long, or I start to get that tired of it. And when I'm ready to get back to it after my maintenance phase, I'm like, Okay, I'm ready to go, like I'm recovered and I'm mentally fresh. It's pretty cool. Actually. The second thing is it is going to be a little bit gentler on your metabolism in terms of you, obviously your metabolism is going to adapt when you go into a diet, it's going to start dropping. But because you're spending these long periods of maintenance, you should fully recover. And then when you get back to dieting, it's like it's like you've completely refreshed back to the beginning again. Again, you can never change metabolic adaptation. And the net result is the same when you add it all together cumulatively, but from a psychological perspective and living life and enjoying a higher metabolism. It's awesome.

Philip Pape  14:02

Hey, this is Philip and I hope you're enjoying this episode of Whitson weights. I started with some weights to help ambitious individuals in their 30s 40s and beyond, who want to build muscle, lose fat and finally look like they lived. I noticed that when people transform their physique, they not only look and feel better, but they also experienced incredible changes in their health, confidence and overall quality of life. If you're listening to this podcast, I assume you want the same thing to build your ultimate physique and unlock your full potential whether you're just starting out or looking to take your progress to the next level. That's why I created wit's end weights physique University, a semi private group coaching experience designed to help you achieve your best physique ever. With a personalized done for you nutrition plan, custom designed courses, new workout programs each month, live coaching calls and a supportive community. You'll have access to everything you need to succeed if You're ready to shatter your plateaus and transform your body and life, head over to Whitson weights.com/physique. Or click the link in the show notes to enroll today. Again, that's Whitson weights.com/physique. I can't wait to welcome you to the community and help you become the strongest, leanest and healthiest version of yourself. Now back to the show.

Philip Pape  15:22

Third, it's as flexible as all get out, right. I mean, we talked about the nonlinear approach, in the last episode, how life happens. And you can adjust your days or your weeks around, you know, your holidays, and your travel and your social events, your weekends, going out all that. But what if you just have, you know, if you have six weeks of dieting, and then six weeks of maintenance, while you're doing the dieting, you can kind of occasionally have these social events, and it's no big deal, you know, it might slow you down a bit, but then you know, you're gonna have this long phase where you're not even dying in at all. So gives you huge stretches, that can kind of work with your busy periods at work, you know, the vacations, a period of recovery, like for me, those periods, those landings on the staircase, are where I would go all out on recovery, whatever that was, whether that's, you know, modifying my training, getting more sleep, just the fact that I'm eating more food, whatever, it's recovering, I really focus on that. And it's a lot harder to quote unquote, fall off the wagon, right or get off track when you have that kind of flexibility. And the last thing here, which we kind of touched on in different from different angles, but I'm gonna mention explicitly is better long term results, in terms of both, you're probably going to maintain your lean mass pretty easily, because I've had clients who go aggressively and maintain their lean mass, as long as they have the protein and the strength training, right. But because you're just dieting moderately, and then you're not dieting for like, 5050, it's gonna be I'm not gonna say impossible to lose lean mass, but you really shouldn't, if you're doing things even just reasonably correctly, okay, so gives you that tolerance as well. And then the cool thing is, as you're going along, you get to adapt to your slightly leaner version of yourself, each time you hit that landing, each time you get to maintenance, you're now learning to maintain it every time. And so by the time you get to the last one, it's like you've done this before, no big deal, like I know how to maintain my results, right. And the cool thing is, it lets you experiment with those maintenance phases along the way, what it's like to come out of a fat loss phase and in the maintenance, and not regaining all the weight. If anything, your pressure is toward the losing fat side. So even though you're at maintenance, you don't even have that much time to gain weight. Let's just put it that way. Unless you're massively over consuming, which is not what we're going to do. We're going to know what our expenditure is, right? We're going to know what our maintenance calories are. That's what we're going to eat. When we get back to maintenance. It's gonna be a bunch more carbs, which we all love. And then when we get back into fat loss, we'll know how to maintain our results by the time we're done. All right. And now I know what some of you are thinking, Philip, this sounds so slow, isn't going to take forever to see results. And I recently posted a funny video on Instagram, go check out go follow me on Instagram, if you don't already, because I'm gonna put more reels like this tongue in cheek sarcastic. And I said, like, here are my three favorite fat burning supplements. And one of those is patience, right? All three of them were not actual supplements. But one of them was patience. And I see this theme come up over and over and over again. We live in a world of instant gratification. And almost always when someone says I'm stuck, I'm having trouble. It's like, did you give the thing long enough? Not really, right? I'm impatient. I had a guy reach out to me, he wanted some help with his programming. And I said, Look, there's a million ways I can rewrite your program, I could give you a template like, it doesn't seem like the program is your issue. It's you're not sticking with the program for longer than like two weeks. All right. So of course, the programs are going to work because you're not actually running it. I mean, how many times have you lost weight quickly, only to gain it back? That is like the typical story here, right. And that's often a sign of, you know, a lack of patience, not just that it's many other things. It's the approach and everything else. So the stair step method might be exactly what you need to actually get results and have them stick, especially because I just mentioned, you're going to spend these nice long periods of maintenance. So I hope I was clear enough on describing how this works. I mean, it's very simple. But there are some critical reasons to think about implementing this for yourself. So if you want to do that, now I'm just going to share how to do that right. Step one is to assess your current situation and be brutally honest about where you're at right now. This is really about expectations about the realities of life, about how stressed you are with a family work and financial obligations, your current weight, your current body fat, you know, any factors that can affect you along the way your injuries, your recovery processes, all of So your starting point, and if any of the things I've said today resonate with you, it could be, hey, my metabolism is just not that high at the moment, I want to get it there. I do want to build muscle. But I'm in a period now where I need to get some fat loss for whatever reason that is for you. Okay, and I'm happy to have a chat with you, you know, you can book a free 15 minute rapid nutrition assessment, and I will quickly help you figure out like, what is a realistic expectation? And maybe what direction should you be going. But let's say you said, Look, I want to lose fat, my metabolism is not that high, I can't go that deeply on the calories. And so when you tell me, you know, you need to cut for 12 or 16 weeks, and I'm doing it at a reasonable rate. And I'm really not going to lose that much. That sounds kind of discouraging, maybe I'd like the idea of thinking a little bit longer term for like a year. And having small, reasonable fat loss phases with these maintenance phases in between for a year. Knowing that that way, I'm not going to push my metabolism down even further, right, to a point where I feel like, I have to yo yo constantly out of it, that can be a perfect context where this would be appropriate. Alright, so that's number one, assess your situation, your context, number two, plan, the rate of loss, so that you can do that during the fat loss phases over a long period. So you're going to do, let's say, one year, and let's say do them in six week chunks, 52 weeks in a year. So what does that come out to? Oh, man, so, so bad at this, I'm good at math, but doing it on the fly, that's like eight cycles or whatever, that's like eight cycles for the year, meaning you would be in fat loss, maintenance, fat loss minutes, on off on off for, and I'm not saying that yo, yo, daddy, right? Sounds like it for eight cycles over an entire year. And you can line up the maintenance phases with the times of year when you think you're gonna eat more. But you know, you're dieting for a whole year, you're not bulking at all during that year, right. And again, this has to be appropriate for you. But at the end of the year, you're going to get the result. And you're going to have done it in a nice experimental sort of personal growth type of way, which is kind of interesting. And you can remember that you heard the idea here on Whitson weights, and you can tell your friends about it. All right. So that's it, you're gonna plan is the appropriate deficit, okay? To make it reasonable. So that might be a half a percent a week, it might be as low as, say, point 3% A week for you, it might be a little more aggressive. If your metabolism is isn't that low, it might be point seven, five, chances are, it's not going to be super aggressive, or else you would just go all out with like a normal fat loss phase. And then the next step, of course, is to implement it, and implementing fat loss as a whole separate podcast episode. And I promised I wouldn't be getting into the weeds of the how to, because I don't want this to be overwhelming. I've got other episodes that you can check in the back catalogue about how to do fat loss. One of them is classic, I think it's episode 40. Everything you need to know about fat loss. And I believe in that episode, I break down the phases and the various behaviors you want to put in place. Right? The big one of the big rocks, the big rocks is high protein strength training, and eating in a flexible way that keeps you full and satisfied. Like those are the big rocks, right? There's a lot of little rocks, getting enough sleep stress management, you know how you train all of that, that I'm not going to cover today. But you're going to implement it. And here's the thing, whatever you do during fat loss, you'll probably just continue doing that and maintenance. And that is another benefit of this approach. In that you're not thinking of fat loss as this totally separate thing, I want you to think of fat loss and maintenance is really the same thing, just with slightly different calories. That's it. And if you've never thought of it that way before, this could be the perfect way to give that a shot, right. And so you've got your fat loss phase setup, you're doing all those things. And then after about six weeks, you're like, Alright, I'm gonna crank that sucker back up to maintenance. And if you're using an app like macro factor, you can either have short weight loss cycles, and then when you hit the number, you go to maintenance, or you're gonna have the broader cycle, like a six month or 12 month, you know, I'm gonna lose 30 pounds or whatever. And then simply slow down the rate of loss when you get to maintenance to almost zero. And then really, just make sure you're fully eating at your maintenance and helping your metabolism recover. And enjoy it, like enjoy it. I'm in one of those maintenance phases. Right now. I've been here for maybe two weeks. And it only took like, four days for me to start getting super satisfied and not have any hunger because you know, I'm like, hum feeding back up. I'm feet. I'm not going to delete a sucker. I'm just going to throw those carbs up. I'm going to feed up I'm going to actually overshoot a slight bit because I know I'm not going to gain a whole bunch of weight. I also know the first week I'm gonna have a bump and stay away from water. That's all it is. Then it's gonna level out. All that happened as expected. And now I'm just kind of sitting pretty for a few weeks I can already feel how I'm really recovered, my weights are going up in the gym even faster. You know, it's like being in a bulk in relative terms to the fat loss phase, which is cool. And so in another, I don't know, three weeks, I don't want to rush it, I want to give patients to the maintenance phase, I want to really sit through it, right and do what I'm suggesting here. I'm going to be totally fresh recovered, ready to go mentally, physically, metabolically for the next fat loss phase, and then I know I'm gonna get through it, and it's gonna feel just fine. It's a pretty sweet place to be. And I've never done it before quite like this, which is why I wanted to make a whole episode about it. Alright. So yeah, I think you know, the other things we always talk about, like assessing, adjusting, you know, making sure you track your biofeedback and your, you know, you follow the calories to the metabolism, though, all those things are still apply the same thing. But the key difference here is these long, moderate fat loss phases punctuated by long maintenance phases, and all the unique benefits that come from it. Alright, here's something that might surprise you, as we close out this episode. Because if you haven't figured it out, the real magic of this method is not the fat loss phases. It is in those maintenance periods, right? Most people think of maintenance is just kind of a holding pattern, like treading water or just, you know, hoping to hold on to your results. But maintenance is the place where you can build the habit, you can build the mindset, you can build the lifestyle, that's the place where you've kind of take a break, you take the stressor off your body from the fat loss, and you just work on the skills. And you say, Foom, I just finished a fat loss phase and I learned something about myself, I learned that I get super hungry through PA or I learned that sleep is a little bit harder to come by or I learn whatever, you know that I respond to this much volume better than this much volume in my training. Well guess what? Now that you you're not in fat loss for a while, why don't you slowly do the one step at a time changes that resolve those issues and those roadblocks, where the friction is low. And then when you get to the next fat loss phase, guess what, now you've got another testbed, another experimental lab to try those things out in and get more feedback, it's pretty cool. It's actually a kind of a rapid personal growth experiment that you're gonna go through. The irony being that it takes longer to lose fat. But at the end of the day, the benefits far outweigh just the fact that you've pushed the scale that you're not just losing fat, you've actually becoming the kind of person who knows how to stay lean naturally. And that's why the stair step method is so powerful, I think it's not just about changing your body. It's about changing all the things that give you joy, changes your relationship with food, it changes your relationship with your body, it changes the whole concept of dieting. And this approach truly embodies that idea of working smarter, of working more efficiently of making steady progress and being sustainable living your life. Adapting to challenges, knowing that injury, busy schedule, whatever comes your way you can handle it, no problem with total clarity. That's what a habit is. Actually, that's what a strong solid habit is. It's something that you do even when the stressors are at their highest, you do it anyway. And my dear listener, that is actually the key right there to lasting transformation. So the next time you're tempted by the quick fix diet, or you're feeling discouraged by slow progress. Remember, this

Philip Pape  28:42

lasting change comes from thoughtful, well engineered approaches, it is always always about the long game, the long game is the fastest path to success, believe it or not, the long game is actually the fastest game. And you're using your wits as much as you thought I was gonna say your weights, but your muscles, which we use weights to get so tempting. And that's how we build better bodies, but also become more informed we become more capable. We find sustainable, enjoyable ways to reach our goals, maintain them for life, and hopefully inspire everyone around you to do the same or ask you Hey, what did you do to get to look like that? Awesome. So if today's episode resonated with you, and you are ready to take your fat loss journey to the next level, I want you to reach out, reach out and book a free 15 minute rapid nutrition assessment, something I just started doing. Again, I used to do these 30 Minute Calls. And now I have these very fast paced calls, where all we do is we talk about what's going on, what's the number one thing holding you back, I'm going to help you identify that. And I'm going to give you three actions that you can take right now to start getting results like simple actions you can take literally that week. And yeah, maybe we decide a stair step approach or something that could make sense for you. But there's obviously a lot of paths we could possibly take. That's what we mean by personalization so, to book your free rapid nutrition assessment, click the link in the show notes, or go to Whitson weights.com and click the giant button at the top. Again, go to Whitson weights.com. Click the button at the top of the rapid fitness, what is it called? Rapid nutrition assessment or click the link in the show notes. And we'll have a 15 minute chat. It is not a sales call whatsoever. It's me trying to meet and learn about as many people as I can and help you out on your fitness journey. Sometimes the difference between spinning your wheels and making progress is just having the right approach and having support and so I want to connect with you and make sure you are on the right path for you. Alright, until next time, keep using your wits. Keep lifting some weights and remember, in the stair step method every landing is a victory. I'll talk to you next time here on the wits end weights podcast.

Surprising Advice Women Over 50 NEED for Strength, Health, & Longevity with Pam Sherman | Ep 190

Are you a woman over 50 looking to hit your fitness goals, get strong, and have fun along the way? Have you ever wondered how you can integrate fitness into your busy life without feeling overwhelmed?

In this episode, Philip (@witsandweights) welcomes Pam Sherman, a fitness expert with 27 years of experience. Pam is passionate about women’s health and wellness, and today, she shares her insights on setting specific goals and the undeniable benefits of strength training. She also discusses practical strategies to fit fitness into a busy lifestyle for long-term success and the importance of building a supportive community. Plus, she shares an incredible story of how she recovered from a severe car accident and how it made her realize the importance of strength training.

Pam’s journey in the fitness world started with running with her dad and discovering the joy of movement. Her philosophy, “Your health is your greatest wealth,” has guided her mission to empower women to prioritize their well-being. Pam emphasizes that it’s never too late to start, and with the right mindset and approach, you can build a healthier, stronger you.

Join Philip and Pam as they explore how you can achieve your long-term fitness goals and feel confident in your body, regardless of age.

Today, you’ll learn all about:

2:01 Underrated advice for women over 50
3:56 Overcoming a serious car accident
8:17 Integrating fitness into a busy lifestyle and handling physical limitations
11:22 Why you should prioritize your health
15:25 Importance of having a specific goal
21:40 Benefits of strength training for longevity
25:21 Strategies for achieving fitness goals
28:44 Focusing on feelings vs. appearance
31:51 Overcoming obstacles to fitness
37:49 Role of community in fitness goals
40:09 Men coaching women, women coaching men
41:58 The question Pam wished Philip had asked
44:09 Where to find Pam
44:47 Outro

Episode resources:

• Pam's Instagram: pam_sherman1

• TikTok: @pam_sherman1 

• YouTube Channel: Pam Sherman

Episode summary:

Strength training is not just for the young or for those aiming to bulk up. It holds significant transformative power, especially for women over 50. Fitness expert Pam Sherman shares her invaluable insights on the myriad benefits of strength training for this demographic. With nearly three decades of experience, Pam delves into how women can transform their lives through fitness, building not only physical strength but also confidence and resilience.

Imagine a life where you feel empowered, strong, and confident, regardless of age. Strength training can provide these benefits and more. Pam Sherman emphasizes that getting stronger does not equate to getting bulky. In fact, it results in a tighter, more confident physique. The misconception that lifting weights leads to a bulky appearance is widespread, yet unfounded. Pam explains that building muscle is essential for overall health and longevity, particularly for women over 50. It's about setting specific fitness goals and integrating exercise into your daily routine.

One of the most compelling stories Pam shares is her personal experience of being struck by a car during a run. This harrowing event underscored the importance of physical strength in her recovery. Her commitment to strength training not only aided her recovery but prevented more severe injuries. This narrative serves as a powerful reminder of the broader implications of strength training in maintaining resilience and preventing frailty as women age. Basic movement patterns, such as practicing getting up from the ground, are essential skills that can dramatically impact overall health and resilience.

Daily movement and practical advice for maximizing health are also crucial points discussed in the podcast. Pam advocates for making small, manageable changes, like incorporating 10-minute workouts or exercise "appetizers" throughout the day. These small steps can significantly impact overall health. Overcoming physical limitations, such as bad knees or back pain, by finding alternative exercises that still challenge the muscles without causing harm, is essential. Regular exercise can alleviate anxiety and depression, playing a critical role in both long-term well-being and short-term mental health.

Pam also highlights the importance of setting fitness goals that go beyond the number on the scale. Shifting perspectives from weight-focused goals to strength and physical accomplishments can be incredibly empowering. Achieving milestones like doing a pull-up or a full-body push-up and celebrating these wins can enhance overall well-being and motivate continuous progress. The psychological benefits of focusing on wins, adopting an optimistic outlook, and setting short-term, measurable goals, like protein intake and hydration, are immense.

The importance of strength training for long-term health and longevity cannot be overstated. Starting with simple body weight exercises, such as pushups and squats, can progressively build strength and protect against age-related issues like bone fragility. Strength training improves body composition, increases confidence, and leads to a leaner and tighter physique. However, maintaining progress requires dietary discipline and consistency, especially as one ages.

Celebrating daily wins, tracking health progress, and reframing negative thoughts are essential strategies for long-term success. Practical journaling tips include tracking workouts, sleep, and meal reactions, starting and ending the day with gratitude. Breaking unhealthy habits, like sugar addiction, and adopting a proactive mindset are crucial. Self-discipline and planning are necessary to achieve personal well-being.

Community support and engagement in fitness can also enhance the journey. The loneliness of working out alone can be mitigated by participating in group classes or finding a workout buddy. However, it's important to ensure that group classes provide sufficient strength training. Mixing group classes with home strength training can be a balanced approach. Pam emphasizes that the best exercise is one you love, but it's essential to prioritize strength training for long-term health and vitality.

This episode is an inspiring and empowering conversation about fitness, food, and taking action. Pam and Philip discuss the importance of not just feeling motivated but also translating that motivation into tangible steps towards achieving goals. They cover a wide range of topics designed to empower women to take control of their health and wellness journeys. The dialogue is filled with practical advice and personal insights, aiming to encourage listeners to implement the discussed strategies into their daily lives. It's a fun and engaging discussion that emphasizes the significance of action in achieving lasting change.

Strength training offers transformative benefits for women over 50, impacting physical strength, confidence, and overall health. By setting specific fitness goals, integrating daily movement, and celebrating daily wins, women can embark on a journey towards a healthier, more vibrant life. Pam Sherman's insights serve as a powerful reminder that it's never too late to start prioritizing fitness and investing in one's long-term well-being.

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Transcript

Pam Sherman  00:00

for body composition ladies you do not get bigger you actually get tighter you get smaller which is counterintuitive to what every woman thinks. You look better in your clothes you look better in a bathing suit, you have body confidence, you feel competent, because you can pick up a 50 pound bag of kitty litter, I don't know whatever pick it up. You can go to Home Depot and pick up a big bag of mulch like enhances your everyday life in so many different ways.

Philip Pape  00:30

Which in which community Welcome to another episode of the woods and weights Podcast. Today I'm excited to welcome Pam Sherman, a fitness expert with 27 years of experience as a group, exercise instructor and personal trainer, a passionate advocate for women's health and wellness. And I invited Pam on the show to share her insights on hitting goals getting strong achieving longevity, all while making fitness fine. If you're a woman over 50, we're going to dive into the importance of having specific goals. The benefits of strength training, we cannot emphasize that enough and how women can integrate fitness into their busy lives. So this is practical use so you don't feel overwhelmed. We're also gonna explore things like the role of community and social connections and other aspects of achieving your long term fitness goals because this is a long term journey for life. Pam's journey in the fitness world began at a young age running with her dad and discovering the joy of movement, her philosophy that quote your health is your greatest wealth as guided her mission to empower women to prioritize their well being Pam's dedication to teaching women that it's not selfish to take care of themselves, has transformed many lives helping them achieve better health and confidence. Pam, thank you so much for coming on the show.

Pam Sherman  01:40

Thank you. I have been excited ever since you said yes, I like we can just talk I'm so excited.

Philip Pape  01:45

I'm so excited to because we are totally aligned here and the listener whether whether it's men or women, but women especially who are, you know, still have a lot of questions. And there's a lot of misconceptions in the industry about getting strong building muscle. Am I going to get bulky? Like, is this something I really need to do as I get old? I guess I'm going to ask you an interesting question related to all that. What is the most common but underrated or not talked enough about piece of advice that you find yourself giving women over 50 Today, that

Pam Sherman  02:13

getting strong now is going to affect you when you're 7080 and 90. And that myth Phillip about getting bulky. I've seen exactly zero women and 27 years get bulky from lifting, but that will not die. Because as a woman think I'm like put down the big weights up a heavier weight. But women do not think about when you're elderly and you fall and you break a bone. That's because your muscles are not protecting your bones and building strength. Now, it's going to affect you later on. And I don't know how people don't think like, I want to feel great when I'm 80 I always want to be you know, taking vacations and be viable. If you don't do that your life is gonna suck. So

Philip Pape  02:46

I wonder how how do we get people to live in the future like that? Because part of the challenge and I know that you know it is living in the moment and thinking that that's decades away, even when you are 60. It's still like, Well, 80 is still 20 years away. How do we deal with that?

Pam Sherman  02:58

Well, I have to think most of us have a retirement account for money. So exercise now is your retirement account for later on. It's not selfish. It's not anything bad for you. It's nothing but good. So it's putting dollars in your fitness piggy bank for later on your health piggy bank for later on. Building that now is huge, and it's never too late to start. I'm lucky I started when I was very young. But I had two big brothers. So we were always an active family. Lucky, lucky lucky. If you're lucky. I'm 57 you can still start at 5060 There's been studies that just came out, you can build muscle 90s, which is incredible.

Philip Pape  03:32

Yeah, no, it is incredible. And you mentioned, you mentioned story to me actually, before we started recording, actually, I would love you to share it because I've had a couple of surgeries over the past few years. And I realized that having strength train for the years leading up to it made recovery from surgery so much easier. And really when you fall or you get, you know, you get into an injury or accident. It just seems like you're hardier and more robust and that would have a lot of positive consequences down the road. Would you mind sharing your story? You told me about the car accident? Yes,

Pam Sherman  03:59

yes, I'd be happy to do so I've been a runner. I really do more strength training. Now. I have a little appetizer of running before now. But in the past I used to be a big runner. And it was I'm a morning exerciser. I'm high energy in the morning. That's me. But this was a day in December when my husband I went out to finish our Christmas shopping, went to the movies had lunch got home about three o'clock but I live in California. It's beautiful in December. And I remember going out for back at the time and easy seven mile run that would destroy me right now. But at the time it was easy. And I was two miles from home check my watch. I was a 15 pace feeling great. When all of a sudden a car looked left only and sped out of the parking lot and I couldn't stop I put my hand out and I screened when I screamed I face planted into the windshield. I left the tooth in the windshield which your brain goes night night. It's all good. And I woke up rolling on the road. And I first you know crawled back to safety but I was on the ambulance and I'm like rolling my wrist. I'm rolling my ankles and I'd like of course I had it I lost five eat that day, and had to get one more taken out. But I didn't break any bones. And later on after I got a I spent one night in the hospital. That's it. I thought women my whole life had been wanting to be skinny. I need to help them chase strong because my strong muscles I had been strength training for two and a half years, protected my body when I needed the most. And yes, there was certain amount of luck involved. My mouth took most of the trauma. But still, I was really thrown from the car into the second lane of traffic. My Garmin was smashed, so I imagine I would have broke my wrist. But my Garmin, you know, protected my wrist. But nonetheless, I only had mouth trauma, which is incredible.

Philip Pape  05:38

Yeah, so other than a couple little pieces of armor, the rest of your armor was your musculoskeletal system. Exactly.

Pam Sherman  05:44

And I went to my, I got discharged from the hospital the next day because I had a small brain bleed and healed up the next day. And I had stitches in my lip, which I said, okay, they gave me discharged, like, get your stitches taken out. And I'm like, That's it. I just ate a windshield. That's all you're just like, and I did have some CT scans every six months for copiers and make sure my brain was okay. And I went into my sports physio guy, and he worked on me every few weeks to make sure my spine was okay. But I feel great. And I know it's because my dedication to myself on my health that really made a huge difference when I really needed it the most.

Philip Pape  06:19

Yeah, and it makes a lot of sense when you hear stories of older women, I mean men and women, but women seem to be more prone to it because of the added muscle loss and the slightly less dense bone structure and Nn. Right, just, you know, biological disadvantage versus men just from a young age unless you do something about it. And we hear about frailty and falls and all that we focus so much on metabolic disease and like heart disease, but I know falling is one of the biggest if not the biggest risk factor after certain age. Isn't that true? It is. And it's funny

Pam Sherman  06:51

because I'm on tick tock, that's

Philip Pape  06:53

the only one I'm not. I'm on too many. So one of

Pam Sherman  06:57

my videos went like crazy, like 300,000, which was a lot for me, and it was me getting up off the ground. Okay, that's it, and showing various ways to do it. And the the amount of comments that people said, you know, I have a bad back, I have bad knees. I this like, my belly is in the way. I have a friend who's a firefighter, which I said in this video, he has 60% of his calls are for people that fall at home. Yeah, there you go. Oh, my gosh, I highly encourage people to practice getting up. In fact, I have an 85 year old client. Every time we're together, I haven't get down on his hands and knees and get up just with his bodyweight because it's that important. Yeah,

Philip Pape  07:30

I mean, that's we talked about movement patterns, squatting, pushing, pulling, picking up, that's the same, getting up off the ground is a great one, shift start just get ups if you want to do it loaded. But when these people commented on the tick tock video and are saying this stuff, were they using it as excuses, or were they kind of seeking help, like, Okay, well, I have a bad back. You know, what do I do? Excuses,

Pam Sherman  07:48

yeah, knee replacement. My neighbor has the replacement. She's 73 I'm gonna do one with her and post that on top of that, because it's just, I feel like our society is getting sicker and sicker and sicker. And they're not. They're using it as an excuse. The only thing as you know, we can control our whole life as our health. That's it.

Philip Pape  08:05

Yeah. If you just simply flip it around instead of being excused, it is the reason you should be doing the thing. That's It's the reason and then the next excuses like, well, I can't do this or that, well, there's a million ways to do to get healthier. Well, why don't you just address that real quickly when somebody is open to it? But has because you're a trainer, right? I'm sure you deal with the population a lot where they have pre existing conditions, mobility issues, you know, former surgeries, injuries, whatever. What's your approach there?

Pam Sherman  08:33

So when I first started teaching classes, it was a 1997. Everything was an hour. So I think many people in their head think that have to work out for an hour. So you absolutely don't. Let's start with 10 minutes. In fact, I have a 10 minute playlist on my YouTube channel just for that reason, because I've heard so many women over the years saying I don't have time, you have 10 minutes. I don't care how early go to work and get up 10 minutes earlier. How about taking I call it an exercise appetizer, every time you go into kitchen, if you're from home, bust out 10 to 15, kitchen counter push ups. Start there. Every time you have a break, go out for a five minute walk. I am a huge proponent of adding things to your day adding more protein, adding more vegetables, adding more walking, adding some push ups, push ups yet start in the kitchen. And guess what the chairs are perfect place to squat. You could ask 10 squats, they're starting small like that, taking baby steps, then you can progress but on an off time. Baloney. Yeah, we all make time for the things that we want to do. Yeah,

Philip Pape  09:24

that makes sense. So you brought it to time, which you know, is the one resource we can't add. And we just have to find time. But like you said, if you did an audit of just anybody listening, just do an audit of your week and come back and tell us that you don't have eight hours a week where you could literally go to the gym and not do something unproductive. And we're not even asking anywhere close to that right? We're asking for just 10 minutes a day. Well, what about just to re ask the previous question a different way What about you know, somebody who's willing to do the work, but they have limitations? You know, physical? Let's say they do have the bad knee or the bad back. I know what how I would approach it. But I'm curious how you would I have

Pam Sherman  10:01

a friend who's very tall and has bad knees and like you can do a wall squat. That's the safest squat free to do get those you know your body in a perfect chair position. Hold that you get to strengthen your muscles around your knees to protect your knees. Exactly. People, they'd say, I'm like, what really is your limitation? Guess what a wall squat hurts, your quads are shaky. That's okay. Muscular discomfort is okay to have,

Philip Pape  10:23

not to the point of pain, but to the point of where you're going to stimulate it to grow. Yeah. And that's a good way to put it. It's like, what is your limit before that pain threshold that you can apply? That still challenges the muscles that's going to strengthen it next time you come back, progressive overload gets you closer and closer to that position, I do tell the story about my own mom over the last year only. She had, you know, really painful knees and it was getting worse and worse, where she almost couldn't get off the couch. And we just started squatting. And like lo and behold, within days, the pain started to go down. So anybody listening, like just you got to do it, you got to try it out. Right? You got to try it out. You mentioned so we talked about health being for the long term, our greatest deposit into our, you know, life's bank account. What about in the short term? And where I'm going with that is? You know, I will often say that, like, I think physical health comes before everything else. It's like the oxygen mask on the plane. You know, you can talk about the importance of relationships, spirituality, like all the really deep, important purposeful things in our life. And yet it can't exist unless you exist. So in the short term, What's your philosophy for prioritizing things when it comes to health? You know, knowing that there's all these other things going on, you

Pam Sherman  11:31

have to prioritize your health number one, and I have said the oxygen mask many, many, many to women, especially because you're taking care of everybody else in your life. But you will do a better job if you take care of yourself first. And we'll go back to the time thing, it does not take three hours a day to take excellent care of yourself. But can we talk about the effects of physical exercise on your mental health? It is ginormous. Yes, anxiety, depression can be lifted, not lifted, but can be lessened with regular physical exercise, there is so many benefits to getting out getting a good sweat, lifting weights and whatever floats your boat and strength training, of course, and strength training, it's going to be so important for you for the rest of your life. I mean, when I was younger, I ran miles and miles and miles and miles and miles because I was in a very dysfunctional household. That was my saving grace, my brothers turned to alcohol, I turned it running. It saved my life. So exercise for me and for many of people I know has really been a game changer for who they are today. Yeah,

Philip Pape  12:26

that aligns with something we've talked about before on the show. I think Darlene Marshall first mentioned it from positive psychology called Upward spiraling where when you do start to do one thing it leads to another leads to another. And if mental health, we see a clear dichotomy with mental health, like generally poor mental health is associated with a much higher body weight and poor health condition, period. Like we definitely see that even though there are other variables for mental health. And of course, there's like, things like schizophrenia, whatever, we're not talking about disease like that, you know, very, very important thing there. So the tangent to this is women who feel guilty about taking the time for themselves. I know that's a theme that you'd like to hit on, even though they know it's important. But and then they say but you know, I've got these things for my kids. I've got to take care of this. I've got maybe to have a career, whatever. How do you address that? I

Pam Sherman  13:15

was just talking with a client who has food littles and they play soccer like so you walk during the warmup, right? And during halftime because you don't have to sit and talk to the mom, she's like, I've never thought about that. You can grab moments at all your kids sports events, when they're most of the parents are sitting you can be moving if it's by a playground. You can use the bench for push ups for squats, you are the freak but that's okay. Because you're making yourself feel better. You can look for pockets in your week to make movement happen. When you make an excuse, that's just gonna lead to a lot of other bad decisions when you know as well as I do when you make that one good decision. You're going to eat better that day. You're gonna drink more water, you might go out for an extra walk. One great decision in your health leads to the next and it doesn't have to be for a lot but when Mike I mean, my husband would divide and conquer if two kids playing soccer, there was always an hour warm up like I'm gonna walk. I can talk to the moms during the game. I don't need to sit for an hour before an hour till halftime and halftime. It's a lot of sitting let's move instead of sit.

Philip Pape  14:14

Yeah, no, I have experienced that too as a dad like with my girls just had their ballet recital last week and it was a lot of just being there sitting and I was with my wife so we were chatting and we're not walking around and that has its own value. And I work out so I'm not worried about myself too much. But let's come up with a hashtag grab moments because I love that you said that you can grab moments in your week hashtag rainbow I was gonna say about that. Oh, yeah, like it same thing with steps for example. Some people you know, they say I work from home. And I'll say Well Do you ever Are you ever on a zoom call on your phone or like you checking social just pace like that when you pace while you're doing that you're gonna rack up to three 4000 stuffs.

Pam Sherman  14:51

And if you have a phone call another zoom. You can be out walking. Yeah.

Philip Pape  14:54

And that to have your signal is good enough. Yes. Yeah, my

Pam Sherman  14:57

husband he said his team gets a little butthurt when They are on a team's call. He's like, but sometimes I want to walk, then they don't need to see me. They see me all the time. Yeah, as long as you're engaged. Yeah, as long as you're engaged, and luckily, we are in California, it's really hot now, but for the most part, you can get out on those calls and what pacing? I mean, yeah, you don't have to sit and plus your hips get tight, your back hurts, like your body wants to move and be upright, that's for sure. And

Philip Pape  15:19

it's all aligned with your health and your mental health and, and and everything your metabolic rate the list goes on. So what are the things you'd want to talk about to Pam was this idea of having a goal to work toward, and I know you're gonna give it a little bit more nuanced treatment, because we sometimes throw that out as lip service, like, we got to have a goal. And we set up micro goals, and we do tiny habits. But I want to hear where you're going with this in terms of helping us modify our behaviors, and focusing on what's really important, rather than kind of the short term things we chase that aren't as important.

Pam Sherman  15:47

Well, for my whole life, my whole career, women chase the number on the scale. And I want to tell them, like, can we set up like, can we have a protein goal? Can we have a water goal? Can we have a like an exercise goal, and I was told this about myself is an ICU, the video in 1991 to Terminator two came out, when Linda Hilton did a pull up. Women weren't strong back in those days, we did cardio, cardio, cardio, cardio, and I was watching me be like, Wait, we can do that. So for 20 years, I want to do a put on all the vision boards. I never worked on it. Until I put a pull up bar in my backyard. Why didn't I pay somebody to do it, and I am gonna do a pull up. I worked for six months to get to one. It felt amazing. So getting past the scale. What about doing a full body pushup, most women cannot do a full body pushup. But when you start on your knees, and you start working, and you keep working, you will get to a full body pushup. What about a 50 pound weighted squat? Like these things, there are so empowering when you work on physical goals. And plus a scale user just pisses people off? Can we not be pissed off? Can we be excited about what we're doing in the every day instead of being pissed. And for my clients, I'm like, You need to get at least 25 grams of protein, every time you eat in there, like what you're gonna stay full, you're going to be satisfied, you're actually looking for sugar afterwards, like, even those goals. When you meet them, you're like, I did a good job today, let's be proud of our work. Instead of like, that scale, like come on, you know, I want you to celebrate what you can do, instead of being the day being determined by what that number is on the scale.

Philip Pape  17:24

For sure. It's a huge one. And, you know, I was I was listening to another podcast where they talked about measuring body composition, and how one of the problems with the scale in our society is it's an easy number to get. And it also is a very, I don't wanna say accurate in the ways that people think it's accurate, but it's like, it's a real reflection of whatever your mass is that gravity is pulling you through the earth with, right like it's an it's a real number. It's not like a body fat number on a scale, which you can't believe because it's affected by all these other things. And so it's very, it's kind of like simple, easy, readily available. And I think there's an aspect to that psychologically, where we grasp onto it, in addition to all the female specific, you know, and societal and cultural things as well. And so what you're saying is, look, you can replace that with other easily measurable short term, process oriented goals, that daily, hourly, you can like win, win, win, win win, you know, having enough protein, having water, I do love the training and exercise stuff, like definitely a lot of women I've worked with the push up the pull up going for that and just trying to scale into it and getting that first full body. And for guy, it's like trying to do with one arm, which is really, really hard. And an X pound squat or whatever. It's really awesome. And, yeah, I love the passion, you have Pam, because we do need to get excited about it. And when we're when we see a number on the scale, go up a pound, and get discouraged. And that makes our whole day. That's a problem.

Pam Sherman  18:49

It is a problem. And you know, as well as I deal with that women especially are so hard on themselves. In fact, almost every client over the years, the first thing they want to tell me is what they hate, like Mina Mina are only talking about wins. You beat yourself up too much. Let's

Philip Pape  19:04

talk about the things you did great this week. And there's been times when I've gotten injured and out of shape. And all the things I still remember 2014 is to having to do push ups on my knees because I was out of shape. And my dad had decided all things. When I got to that first hole by one, that's great. And so I want to empower women to go like you can work towards something. And when you get there, it's going to feel amazing. And I want you to be so proud of your work. Yeah. 100% focusing on just the winds is right up my alley. Because I'm an Uber optimistic person. Yeah, you too, right. And while it may make some people like throw up in their mouth when you constantly talk about positivity to them, the evidence is pretty settled that having this optimism lens or optimism bias on the net on the whole is going to make your life just so much better. Because you're going to have bad things happen. Everybody's going to have bad things happen. And you're also going to be disappointed when you go for stretch goals and that's okay too. But if you're always looking ahead toward, you know, the hopefulness of it, and pursuing those wins, right in a positive way, you're gonna get way more of them than someone who's not that someone who's, who's the ER. And

Pam Sherman  20:11

when they say like, I can't, I'm like, what can you do? Let's think about all the things you can't do, let's list them off, because you can't that's very small part of your whole day, like, oh, when you put it that way, I am crazy optimistic for people. And I'm sure it does annoy some people. But that's just that's the way I am. And

Philip Pape  20:28

the at the end of the day, we say that I say that joke around it. And yet I know that if someone I know people like to be around that I see how supportive it is in a community setting where you do that as long as it's productive, right? Like, you're helping people reframe something not in a delusional way. But just saying, let's change the perspective or the angle we look at it from, because it's not going to help us to do otherwise. But it will help us if we have an action we can take going forward knowing that it can go in this positive direction.

20:56

Hi, my name is Lisa. And I'd like to give big shout out to my nutrition coach Phil update 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 you 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. But let's

Philip Pape  21:39

let's talk specifically about strength training that because that kind of stands above most other pillars here. When we talk about longevity, and like you said not getting killed by a car, maybe surviving the car accident, you know, we can't always control what happens to us. But how does that contribute to the long term health and longevity? Specific? Like, can you convince me we have to be strength training? Like is that your position?

Pam Sherman  22:03

We have to be strength training? How many times are you in the grocery store where you see a person over like this person, a grocery cart, and you think if they fall, they're breaking a bone. And I think after I did that video, they went crazy on Tiktok, I looked it up and it said if you're over the age of 70, there's a like a 70% chance of dying within six months of a fall. And that's because they don't have any muscles or protect their bones. So we're talking about what we do now, for sure is affecting us later on. And again, Phillip, we're not talking about hours in the gym. But starting, if you are doing nothing now, starting with bodyweight exercises, great. Yes, you will progress eventually, because you need to add to the load eventually. But starting now is going to protect you later on. And I know, I have seen like my father in law died of obesity, my dad died of Alzheimer's, we're all going to die. But if we can be as strong as we can for as long as we can, that quality of those later years is really going to be high for me.

Philip Pape  23:00

I agree. So when you talk about these little snacks, what do you call them fitness? And I don't know what term you use. But I want to be clear to people, is it if somebody is completely sedentary? What's the route to go from there to resistance training? Because one of the messages I see in the listicles and I don't know if I already put out the short episode about this where I said don't move, like just move is not enough. It's like, oh, all you have to do is move and then you'll be healthy. And then end of article, you know, and I'm like, Ah, like, I don't think that's enough. It's fine. Yeah, it's a tiny step better than not moving. But it's far cry from where we need to be like What are your thoughts on that?

Pam Sherman  23:33

I think you need to start with every time you go in the kitchen, do 10 Push ups and 10 squats. There you go. Once that's easy, we'll get to 15 once that's 11 to 20 once you can get do that five times a day, it's time to join the gym.

Philip Pape  23:47

Cool progression and right off the bat you're loading yourself against gravity with something. I love that okay, what are some benefits of strength training that you've heard about or you're aware of that are maybe overlooked or not widely discussed? Because I know we could just list Okay, bone density and this and that. Like what do you think

Pam Sherman  24:05

body composition ladies you do not get bigger you actually get tighter you get smaller which is counterintuitive to what every woman thinks you look better in your clothes you look better in a bathing suit, you have body confidence you feel confident because you can pick up a 50 pound bag of kitty litter I don't know whatever you pick it up you can go to Home Depot and pick up a big bag of mulch like enhances your everyday life in so many different ways.

Philip Pape  24:29

I like to you get smaller because we do talk about skinniness and using a detrimental sort of way right like I just want to be skinny. Yeah and you're saying that you know obviously you're going to build strength and muscle and that's going to make you leaner tighter more toned, you know muscles denser than fat and therefore you're going to look smaller but in a healthy way.

Pam Sherman  24:50

In a healthier way. It's not It's funny my personal progression over the years I used to be have ginormous leg when I was big time runner, a mile legs are smaller, but they're more muscular now, because I do more strength training. My clothing size went out a couple sizes when I only strike train. My body weight isn't a whole lot different, but my body's tighter from strength training. And so for all the ones who think I'm gonna get big, bulky, I'm like, No, you're actually going to tighten up, you're going to get that toned look that the women are always looking for?

Philip Pape  25:21

For sure. For sure. Now Now what about the the overachievers out there. And my clients, you know who you are the overachievers who go through a successful period, let's say a year to have solid strength training, you know, they're feeding themselves, they're fueling themselves. And we should probably talk a little bit about the food side of it, too, because we're not always dieting, right. fueling yourself, they build some muscle, they lose some fat, but they're still not quite where they want to be. So like you said, they meet, they have some definition, maybe their upper body is a little more defined. Maybe they have bigger hips and thighs, like fat, you know, storage there, because that's how their body is shaped. And that's the last place to go. But everything else is now kind of trimmed down a bit. And now they still notice the thighs like, how do you approach that as a woman to another woman?

Pam Sherman  26:02

It's time to go into a diet phase. And, you know, how are you? How are your weekends. That's the big thing is, and I know for years I struggle with this is like, I hope I have a good weekend. You actually cannot eat like I know you don't say it's where we're like an idiot on the weekends and expect to continue to see gains on the scale or, you know, mostly on the scale. So you really do have to tighten up what you eat. And as you get older, it definitely is not as easy as when you're in your 30s or 40s. So you just gotta tighten things up.

Philip Pape  26:32

Yeah, no, no, no, tighten. Sometimes I say eat like a child. But yeah, same thing, right? Be like an angel. I know what you're gonna say. So okay, all right. Yeah, I know, we mainly wanted to talk about, like, having the goals and having that drive you but I think it is important. Some of the body image issues definitely come up with all of this. You want to say something?

Pam Sherman  26:52

No, it's just, in my experience, women lose it last where they want to lose it the most. Yes. So if they have hips, that's going to be the last to go if that's what they want to go use a start up here as your head and traveled down. So it is not a fair process. It's not an easy process. But it can happen. Definitely with dedication to your nutrition, like spot on most days of the week, like, six, six and a half days a week. Yeah,

Philip Pape  27:18

I'm challenging on this question only because some people find it easier than others let's men and women find you know, they some have a higher metabolic rate than others. Some have been building muscle longer than others. And some just store fat and in the worst places for them, right like this mentally, if somebody has been dieting, and they have lost some fat, and they've, you know, they lean out a bit, but they have more to go. How do they get driven from a goal perspective, or, you know, psychological perspective, to continue knowing that it could take another two or three years to get the physique they're going for? Time

Pam Sherman  27:51

is gonna pass anyway? Yeah. How do you want to feel in five years? That's it. Your health is a marathon, it's never 100 meter dash. And you have to have the long range vision of Well, first of all, you're talking about how to fill in your ad. But your goal sometimes it is like an inchworm to get to where you want to be. But it's gonna get to what are we in? It's gonna get to 2030 Anyway, do you want to feel amazing by then or 2027? Three years is not a long time and the whole scheme of your whole life, so it's okay for it to happen little by little. It's unfortunate in our society today, Instagram, Tik Tok, everything's fast. Your health is the only thing that will never get you fast results.

Philip Pape  28:31

Yeah, not to mention on social media, the results are completely skewed and what you actually see, so it's given us unrealistic expectations, even above and beyond that, time is gonna pass anyway. So that's a great point. Then you mentioned how you feel, why is it important now to focus on how you feel, because you mentioned some objective measures, like the protein and the steps and whatnot. Let's talk about how you feel, rather than just your physical appearance as another way to drive you day to day rather than thinking, you know, three or four years and being impatient about that. But can

Pam Sherman  29:04

we talk about when the last time you like had the flu or were injured and you just felt like absolute garbage? Every day that you wake up and you feel great, that's a win, that's something to celebrate, because I know we all know people that are very sick, or that past, who would give anything to be back here today, when you wake up and you have a good day and you feel great, no aches and pains, you get a great workout. That is a celebration that is a huge win and your journal, and everybody should be keeping a journal of their wins. Because we all have the things that we don't like in our heads when we ought to kick back to the curb and celebrate the good. You wake up, you feel great, good night's sleep, you're going to crush that workout isn't going to be a great day.

Philip Pape  29:38

So you mentioned looking back on something where you didn't feel great, and then kind of comparing how you feel during that scenario. Now after doing something, what should people maybe be tracking or journaling in the here and now if they're listening to this, they're like, Okay, how do I do that? What are three or four things maybe I should be really paying attention to and then what do I tie them to? To get that cause and effect of what I'm doing,

Pam Sherman  30:01

I think it would be great to journal your workouts and what weight you're using. So you know, oh, a month ago, I was doing 10 Less pounds on whatever that I'm doing. Now that's something to celebrate. It's good to journal your sleep. If you don't wear a tracker, I love my little Rank Tracker, because sleep, especially for women in the 50s is so so important. track how you feel after your meals, right? Something is gonna sit better with you than others. track how you feel like, actively think what am I thankful for today? Starting and ending the day with gratitude is so important. And a lot of times my clients, your clients, they focus on the negative, like my butt, my belly might whatever. What about what you did today? Did you do a push up? Oh my gosh, you do a squat. Be thankful for what you can do like you and I fill up like with a positive kick the negative to the curb? And let's celebrate what you can do. What coins? Are you putting that long term piggy bank? I want you to think about that?

Philip Pape  30:53

Yeah, gratitudes a good one. I know I've talked about this before that. Like, I'm not a huge journaler for whatever reason, I have my own methods of thinking about reflecting on things and documenting things. And there are different tools for different people, right. It's the principles that matter whether I'm rationalizing whether or not but you'll never win that battle with me. It's been long enough. And it is what it is okay. And that's cool. But oh man, where was I going with this? See, this is what happens. This is not folks, the lot of these interviews that you listened to now they're not really scripted, right? We want to have a conversation, I was going to ask something about, oh, my goodness, was that

Pam Sherman  31:32

you can use your voice memos to you don't actually have to write in a journal. That's true. Yeah. And I keep on my notes, I keep track of my workouts, so I can see what the weight I did last time. If I need to increase it, I'll put like, increase next time. Like it's good to track really everything about your health,

Philip Pape  31:46

for sure. And okay, I know what it was about the reframing side of things. Let's dig a little more practical. And then I'll just throw one at you like that I heard from one of my community members recently. And I addressed it, I addressed it with her in my way, but I'm curious how you would do it a statement like, I'm just addicted to sugar. Like, she knows all the thing she wants to address, you know, tracking, increasing the protein training. But there's always this like, but I'm addicted to sugar,

Pam Sherman  32:13

it's time to break up with a bad boyfriend. That's what I call sugar. Like, you want to go somewhere you have goals, you just you have to be an adult sometime and get out of your own way. Like, come on. Now. You can have it on special occasions. But really, with the all the information we know about sugar, about how it's bad for our brain, right? It's actually for women, the number one bad thing you do for your skin is eat sugar, and I got wrinkles. I'm 57 I don't want more wrinkles, but you have to adult up sometimes. And as a mindset, you are addicted, take two or three days off, take a week off and then see how you feel like it's okay. To get out of your own way. Be like okay, I'm addicted. But it's not serving me. So I'm gonna break up with my bad boyfriend for a week and see how I feel she might feel amazing. On it. What did you say? That's my I like kind of back to basics with that. Yeah, no, I

Philip Pape  33:01

there's so many ways and and you know, like, it's hard. I'm not trying to quiz you on the show, honestly, like, you never know what the individual you have to talk it through with them. I think for her it was more about let's reflect on is it really sugar that you're addicted to is a certain types of foods containing sugars and fats, and let's identify where that comes in. And maybe if we start adding in the things that you're missing that need to serve you, we're gonna push those out. And what you're talking about is controlling your environment and actually having a food plan that is also a really effective tool. Right? So for folks listening, like when you go to a restaurant saying that, I don't just drink a lot. Like I'm not just myself identity as I drink a lot, okay? Like you said, Let's what it was a term woman up or I don't know, dots off and say, Okay, I'm gonna limit myself to two drinks like, so I've always wrestled with the words restrictive, strict, and deprivation. And even I use the word restrictive, usually to mean deprivation, we do want to be have some strict mess about certain things. We don't have boundaries, right? It's kind of what you're getting at. It's like, you're not depriving yourself. You're just saying, Look, I'm an adult. And I have a plan and my body is important. And my longevity is important. So I'm going to make these decisions. Is that a fair assessment of it?

Pam Sherman  34:10

Yes. I just had a client who went out to dinner she had a drink or two, I can't remember an appetizer and then rice for their dinner like Okay, so next time pick one, have the glass of wine or the appetizer or the rice. That's a lot of extra and you have goals, which are like, Oh, I never thought about like that. Yeah. And I do have a client who does have a problem with sugar. And I just said, Hey, I double dog dare you to stop for a week. Yep. You know that once you stop and she's like, Oh, my gosh, thank you. I'm so glad you put that out there to me. Because she literally she has in her office, there's candy dishes, and then there's weekends and I'm like, give me a week and then tell me how you feel. And she just needed that little extra push like, okay, and she's like, thank you so much. I got this like, Yes, as a coach. I know I believe them but they have to hear that and go, Okay, I can do it. So

Philip Pape  34:58

true. So true. And sometimes you Need a little extrinsic motivation, or you need a reminder that there's a different choice you can make, because we get in a rut. And I can tell you until now that this triggered me to think about my sugar days, I used to love candy. And I used to eat a lot of it. At night in front of the TV, from our snack drawer, it was just there, right? That was kind of like an easy change that I was just not making. And I knew in the back of my head out of guilt, right? Every night I had it, it was like this guilt of I shouldn't do this. And at some point, who knows what it was probably my birthday around Halloween, I said, Okay, I'm just at the worst time of the year for having candy is the time I'm gonna go cold turkey. And for me, that was like the beginning of the end of like years and years of development from that point. So it can be very powerful. Pam, what you're saying is just making that choice. Even if it seems like you're cutting something or restricting you're not really doing that you're just making this pivot. You know,

Pam Sherman  35:52

did you have a sugar headache for a couple days?

Philip Pape  35:54

Ah, I probably had more it could have been is probably more of like a what you're missing? A headache. Right? Like, it could be anything that for your hunger headache from because you're expecting to have it at this time. I might have even substituted with something else like popcorn or something that was like, more voluminous, less calorie dense. And that's fine, too. Right? Like it shifts you away from the thing that you don't want.

Pam Sherman  36:15

And it was that in your working out days or prior to your working days. It

Philip Pape  36:19

was my working out improperly days. Your Crawford days. Yeah. CrossFit cardio. Not showing up consistently. Yep. But that was right. That was late. 2020? No. 2019 right. Before I really started to figure things out. Yeah. Is that crazy? Yeah, it

Pam Sherman  36:36

is. But I love hearing about your journey, because like so many people didn't see it. Like we've had it together our whole lives you've ever made mistakes? No,

Philip Pape  36:42

no, it's every day, there's probably something that I quote unquote, slip up or make a less than optimal choice. But like, on the whole, as we talk about, if you've got the pillars there, if you've got the foundation and the consistency and habits, you actually have the flexibility to constantly make mistakes. Like that's the way I like to put it is you have you've built in a buffer for yourself to be human. You know? Yeah,

Pam Sherman  37:03

I have a funny story. In the 80s. I was running marathons with my girlfriends because we ran cross country in high school. And then we went to the Ohio State University where none of us were good enough to run there. So we're in the Columbus marathon. But this was the 80s all ate terribly, because we were in college and I was running with a friend. I'm like, hang on for a second. And I pulled up my shirt and like, Is there something wrong with my back? Flip is my back fat juggling. All right. I mean, we've all had our struggles, like, every professional I know has gone through their struggles with their health and wellness. And I was like, what back? Because we didn't have mirrors in the dorm rooms. Yeah, I remember getting on my parents scale. 30 pounds more than I am now running marathons like you just, we all have our struggles.

Philip Pape  37:42

Yeah, it's what makes us human. I mean, if anything, trying to be perfect could be the thing holding you back. Right. So when it comes to what you alluded to then being a coach and helping people, when we think of relatedness community, not doing it alone, asking for help, I think those are all very powerful. They're important themes. What role do they play? In all of this? Like, any extreme? Could someone just say, I'm going to do this all by myself, go alone and be successful? And even if they could win, they be more successful with with help, like, what are your thoughts on that? 100%

Pam Sherman  38:15

I just had a client today say, I thought I could do it by myself and I didn't do anything. Community is so important. I need to be around other women who are on the same journey. It doesn't matter the body size, but on the same journey, that so many people and I'll say women think I can do it. But there's nobody to fall back on. There's nobody to ask questions to there's nobody say I'm having a bad day or I, you know, I messed up or look at, you know, look at the wind that I had, because I always asked Mike, let's share winds going alone. It's and it's lonely. It's so much more fun to do in a community. Yeah,

Philip Pape  38:49

that's a good way to put it. It's lonely. Yeah, for sure. And there's some things like people who have a home gym, right? They have that concern, especially met women who are doing the group classes, right. And but it's not quite cutting it from a strength training perspective. And, actually, I'm curious your thoughts on that, because you want them to lift weights, let's say they don't even have access to that kind of gym in the region that they live in. They have the option of doing a home gym, right? And there's still these group classes there, but they're not really focused on strength training, what are your thoughts on an approach for that person?

Pam Sherman  39:22

Now? I mean, you have to do have progressive overload. And I have taken classes recently, my sister in law when I visit her and buffalo strike classes too fast, you can't get proper load. You can't think about your form. So I would say in that situation, getting a home gym is going to be your best bet. Go to take root classes for yoga, you know, for a core workout, but for strength. You cannot get enough weight. Yes, it's fine. Maybe go to one a week for fun, but to see the results that you want, you need to have more than a group class.

Philip Pape  39:56

There you go. No, I love that kind of mixing it up. And if you need a group class for some of the other things just don't make it the priority associated with the training, do the training at home and find your community elsewhere. You know, to satisfy that it. And then this came to mind to what are your thoughts on women, coaching men, men coaching women? You know, do you have any feelings on that?

Pam Sherman  40:14

I've coached a few men in my day. And I've been very successful with two. And one of them started out successful and then didn't want like I was trying to be a hard trainer. And he didn't listen to me. And we had to break up because he wasn't taking my advice. But the other two were like, you obviously what we're doing, and I coach them with food only not for workouts, and it was great. So it's you just have to find the person that you connect with. Right, you have to have be relatable. And that's all.

Philip Pape  40:41

You know, I'm always curious about that. And I thought of it recently because well, first of all, I'm always talking to women on the show now and I coach women and I'm talking menopause more and more. And it's like, a year or two ago, and I thought, that's crazy. There's no way I'm going to do that. Or people are even going to trust me. But like you said, you just have to empathize. And no one person has every experience of the people you're coaching, right? So whether it's men or women, and you know, Ally, Gilbert, she's kind of pretty big following she calls it the queen of men's health. Her demographic is men like increasing their testosterone, making them show up in the bedroom, that kind of like messaging, which is really cool. So I think it's depending on like you said, You've got to connect with the person, be authentic, and just be open to helping them however you can. And listening to them. Yeah, you do

Pam Sherman  41:26

your homework, you have these women on your so you have Karen on your show, right? Carrie Martell, you have all this great information. So it's not like you're helping women without any idea what you're talking about. You're learning and probably from all your guests. That's

Philip Pape  41:37

exactly it, you hit it on the head, you see, the listener knows I this is like my master class and my coaching, improvement by listening and talking to all of you. But also I only bring on the best of the best pound. Because I want you to you know, share your story with the world. And you've got great advice from a different perspective, usually. And so this has been an awesome conversation. I'd love to ask this question of all guests, you know, what's coming? Is there a question? Or what question do you wish I had asked? And what is your answer? Well,

Pam Sherman  42:05

I do want to go back to the group classes because I actually teach two step classes a week. And so many women have fun in group exercise, I want to say my second answer was what is the best exercise? Okay, the best exercise is the one you love to do. And when women say I don't like to work out, like what did you like to do as a kid, jump rope, might need to wear a pad but jump rope right now. It's still fun. And strength train two to three times a week, but do what you love. So if you love Pilates, oh my gosh, go to Pilates. But that is not your strength training. It drives me absolutely crazy. Phillip, when people say women say I do Pilates that strength. I'm like, It's not strength. So do what you love, go to group, get your group experience, have an amazing time. But find that way to get that strengthened two to three times a week because that is what's gonna get you to 80 and failing Great. Yeah,

Philip Pape  42:51

I think it's good to bucket like you said, put these into buckets and put that priority of training at the top and then find the weight. Like, there's no excuse, you've got to get that done. So get it done. It's kind of like you have to have food to live and you have to kind of have a house or place to live. And you have to have a little bit of money to be able to survive. But you have to have these things are non negotiables. How you do it is very flexible. But then like you said, there's this other bucket of movement, fun hobbies, community, whatever you want to fit it in where these other activities can go. And even if they let's say take a tiny bit away from your training and recovery, it could be worth it. Right? The trade off could be worth it for you if the alternative is you're not doing any of that stuff.

Pam Sherman  43:30

Yeah, I know like bar is so popular. I took a bar class,

Philip Pape  43:35

and I just need to face for those of you listen to the audio she just made kind of like

Pam Sherman  43:40

if I offended anyone that takes bar that is not strength training. Yeah, that is 150 reps of a squat. That's not strength training. Yeah, so don't market it as such. Yeah, yeah. And it's not full range of motion. They're like half squats. So if you love it, oh my gosh, do it. But then go to the gym and lift heavy weights, because that's what's gonna get you to your long term health investment, your retirement fund, that's really what's gonna get you the most bang for your buck,

Philip Pape  44:03

lift weights, that is your retirement fund for life. Find a fun way to do it and listen to what Pam saying, Look her up and I want to provide the listener a way to do that. So where can listeners learn more about you and your work on

Pam Sherman  44:16

Instagram and Tiktok. I am lowercase Pam underscore Sherman one, my website is going to change but for right now it's the perfect balance dot guru. I have a YouTube channel, Pam Sherman where I have a 10 minute playlist for those of you that want to start working out I don't know where I've got plenty of Bodyweight Workouts. If you need a stretch and nobody stretches enough. I have a whole stretching playlist. I have a bunch of workouts there. So if you want to work out from home, I would love it if you give it a try and then leave a comment so I know that you did it. Alright,

Philip Pape  44:42

cool. I'm gonna throw those in there. Let's say the top three would be IG tick tock and YouTube. Maybe, folks so yes, so we'll throw those in the show notes as always, and Pam, this was fun. I mean, the time flew by we covered covered a lot of really inspiring motivating things, but we don't just want to motivate women, right? We want them to take the action. So I And I know that's what you're all about. So thank you so much for coming on.

Pam Sherman  45:02

It was amazing. And we talked for a long time. I wish I could keep talking and I gotta go but thank you. Thank you for having me on. It's such a pleasure to talk fitness and food and all the things with you agree

Philip Pape  45:11

so much fun. Thanks for coming on.

How to Get More Fitness Results for Less Effort (The Pareto Rule) | Ep 189

What if doing LESS is the answer to more results overall...your fitness, training, nutrition, and anything else going on in your life?

Imagine achieving 80% of your fitness goals with just 20% of your efforts. Today is the first Wednesday episode where we apply engineering frameworks to evidence-based fitness. After all, engineers have made it their craft to optimize results with as few resources as possible through simple, elegant, and effective solutions.

One such framework is the Pareto principle, also known as the 80-20 rule (not to be confused with the 80% whole foods "rule" for nutrition). This rule is a way to rebalance all the important but time-consuming things in your life so you can free up time, reduce stress, and STILL get the results you want.

This episode will guide you through identifying the most impactful actions you can take in areas like strength training, nutrition, sleep, and stress management, so you can break through plateaus and optimize your time effectively.

Join us as we kick off a new series that merges engineering principles with fitness strategies. We'll dissect how to evaluate your current efforts across various health areas, revealing where you might be overcommitted and how to reallocate those efforts for maximum results.

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

Click to book a Rapid Nutrition Assessment while there are slots open this week.

Episode summary:

This episode delves into the fascinating world of fitness optimization through the lens of the Pareto principle, commonly known as the 80-20 rule, which promises to revolutionize your approach to health and fitness by showing you how to achieve 80% of your fitness goals with just 20% of your efforts. The key is to work smarter, not more, and this episode offers a treasure trove of insights on how to do just that.

The episode kicks off with an exploration of resource allocation in fitness training. Pape introduces the concept of the Pareto principle, explaining how it can be applied to various aspects of health and fitness. The common misconception that more effort always yields better results is debunked, and listeners are encouraged to focus on the most impactful 20% of their efforts to achieve 80% of their desired results. This efficient approach, rooted in engineering principles, is the foundation of the episode's message.

One of the most intriguing aspects of this episode is the merging of engineering concepts with fitness strategies. Pape, with his extensive background in engineering, brings a unique perspective to the table. He discusses how to evaluate your current efforts across different health areas, such as strength training, nutrition, sleep, and stress management. By identifying where you might be overcommitted, you can reallocate those efforts for maximum results. This approach not only helps you break through plateaus but also optimizes your time and resources effectively.

The episode continues with a focus on prioritizing health and fitness efforts. Pape guides listeners through a strategic approach to leveraging the 80-20 rule. He emphasizes the importance of identifying the top five areas that are most crucial for your health, such as strength training, nutrition tracking, protein and fiber intake, steps, sleep, and stress management. By evaluating how much effort you are putting into each area on a scale from 0 to 100 percent, you can pinpoint where you are overcommitted. The goal is to reduce that effort to 20 percent while still achieving great results, thereby freeing up time for other priorities.

To further fine-tune your strategy, Pape introduces a free 15-minute rapid nutrition assessment. This assessment is designed to help you pinpoint what's holding you back and create a quick three-step action plan for immediate results. By visiting witsandweights.com, you can book your session and start your journey towards a more balanced and efficient fitness regimen. This practical tool is a game-changer for those looking to optimize their health and fitness efforts without overwhelming themselves.

The episode also touches on the concept of doing less to achieve more. Pape explains how applying the Pareto principle can lead to significant improvements in your fitness journey. For instance, he highlights how going to the gym just three days a week can yield substantial results compared to five or six days. By focusing on quality over quantity, you can save time and still make significant progress. This approach is particularly beneficial for those with busy schedules or those who feel overwhelmed by their current fitness routines.

Pape's discussion extends to various aspects of fitness, including strength training, cardio, and nutrition. He emphasizes the importance of integrating these elements into your life in a balanced way. For example, he discusses how strength training can be optimized by focusing on key exercises and reducing the number of sets and repetitions. Similarly, he highlights how cardio should be done for cardiovascular health rather than calorie burning, suggesting that even a small amount of cardio can have significant health benefits.

Nutrition is another critical area where the 80-20 rule can be applied. Pape advises listeners to focus on the most impactful aspects of their diet, such as protein and fiber intake, rather than obsessing over every detail. By doing so, you can achieve better results without feeling overwhelmed. This approach is not only more sustainable but also more enjoyable, as it allows you to integrate healthy habits into your life naturally.

The episode concludes with practical steps to apply the Pareto principle to your fitness journey. Pape encourages listeners to identify the areas that are most important to them and evaluate their current efforts. By reallocating time and energy from overcommitted areas to those that need more attention, you can achieve a more balanced and effective fitness regimen. This approach not only improves your physical health but also enhances your overall well-being by reducing stress and increasing enjoyment.

In summary, this episode of Wits and Weights offers a wealth of insights on how to optimize your fitness journey using the Pareto principle. By focusing on the most impactful 20% of your efforts, you can achieve 80% of your desired results, saving time and resources in the process. Whether you're a fitness enthusiast or just starting your health journey, this episode provides valuable strategies to help you work smarter and more efficiently.

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Transcript

Philip Pape: 0:00

I'm going to go out on a limb here and say you're probably doing more than you need to do to get the results that you want in many cases. It's surprising, I know, because in some cases maybe you're not training, maybe you're not getting enough steps, maybe you're not getting enough sleep, and we talk about those a lot. But today we're going to focus on where you might be out of balance you might be doing too much in some areas for the results that you're getting and a way that we can rebalance that using a powerful principle from engineering, so that you can know where you're overdoing it and where you might need to step it up a little bit. And we're going to deep dive into how you can apply that to your fitness journey to work smarter, more efficiently and break through any of the frustrations or plateaus you've been experiencing because you're not sure how to fit it all in. Welcome to Wits and Weights, the show that blends evidence and engineering to help you build smart, efficient systems to achieve your dream physique. I'm your host, philip Pape, and today we're kicking off our new Wednesday episodes, where we apply principles from engineering to health and fitness, something that I don't think you're gonna find out there very often at all. We talk about evidence-based fitness and science quite a bit. We also talk about applying psychology to health and fitness, but there's not really anybody taking the principles from one of the most important fields on the planet engineering, which I have a very long, rigorous background in and applying that to fitness. And so you're going to get a new angle on Wednesdays going forward and there will only be three episodes a week now, three higher quality episodes that I'm spending more time making sure to get you what you want and need to really take your results to the next level, rather than just quickly pumping out a bunch of episodes and overwhelming you. And we're going to touch on that principle today of how less is more and how you can apply a principle to your overall fitness and nutrition strategy and make it a little bit more efficient and less time consuming. That's what we're going to talk about today, and it's a principle called the Pareto principle. It's the 80-20 principle, but you might've heard 80-20 used in different contexts like 80% whole foods. That's not what we're talking about. I'm going to explain in a little bit and, of course, before we dive in, as always, if you enjoy these concepts, if you enjoy the show if you want more content on building muscle, losing fat, improving your health and physique, especially from a different angle, right where we're more intelligent about it. We want to take advantage of the limited time that we have so that we can really enjoy life to the fullest. I want you to hit the follow button right now to help more people find the show, but also help you never miss another episode. So let's get into it.

Philip Pape: 2:49

Today. This, again, is going to be a little bit less scripted on Wednesdays. Our Monday episodes will be the more traditional deep dives. For example, next Monday's episode will be on my stair step fat loss approach, what it is, how it compares to the traditional approach and how you can apply it to potentially make a fat loss phase much easier. And then on Wednesdays, like today, today's, the very first one you are going to hear me take something from engineering and apply it to fitness and nutrition. And then Fridays are our guest episodes, and sometimes we'll mix it up a little bit, but that's the general idea.

Philip Pape: 3:25

So here's the common issue that I want to address today that we all experience. We always fall into the trap of thinking that more is better, right? More sets, more exercises, more supplements, even more protein, whatever it is that more, more, more. And at some point we hit diminishing returns with some of those things. Right, we only have so much time in the day, we only have so many resources, we only have so much money, we only have so much mental energy and there's only so much of that energy you can put into any one thing, and I'm guilty of this. But there are certain things I like more than others, so I will spend more time on them, even if it doesn't produce much for the effort. Right, and as an engineer by background, I see this as a classic case of inefficient resource allocation. Right, in engineering, we're always looking for ways to optimize systems to get the most output for the least input, and if you can apply that principle to your life, it's going to make things a whole lot less stressful and a lot easier. And I'm going to break it down and make it simple. Even though I'm talking about engineering, I am not expecting you to, you know, deal with jargon or lingo or any of that stuff, but I do like to take frameworks that have already been rigorously built and tested over decades in an industry where people have to design products that keep people safe, like airplanes and cars, for example, and they've figured out ways to optimize resources. And we could do that with our bodies. Our bodies are these beautiful machines that can be very efficient, and our time is very limited. So when we combine the two, we can get something very powerful.

Philip Pape: 5:08

Okay, this is where the Pareto principle or the 80-20 rule comes in handy. And the Pareto principle suggests that roughly 80% of the effect, the output, the result, comes from 20% of the causes or the effort, right? So in fitness terms, 80% of your results can come from 20% of your efforts. Now, this is just a rough guide, right? We don't have to actually be precise with the numbers, but the idea is this Think about this If you don't go to the gym at all, okay, what is your result?

Philip Pape: 5:45

Nothing, right, and sometimes worse than nothing. Like, you lose muscle mass and you get, you know, weaker with time. But if you went into the gym, even one day a week, you're going to move that needle up significantly from nothing to a meaningful something. Right Now, it may not be enough of a something to really push the growth like you want it, and that's where there's this threshold, where we say look, if you can get to the gym two days a week, you're probably going to start to grow your strength and muscle and be able to keep adding weight to the bar or reps every time you go to the gym. Right, and some people argue you could do it once a week if you train to the gym. Right, and some people argue you could do it once a week if you train super, super, super hard that one day. But there's some practical considerations here, like going one day a week. It's hard to be consistent. It may not be as enjoyable just doing it one day a week. How do you make it a routine, things like that? But besides that, I would say three days a week is where we see roughly 20% of your effort now is going to the gym and you're getting 80% of the results.

Philip Pape: 6:52

Right, and let's put that into hard, practical numbers. If you go to the gym three days a week and you do three or four exercises of, say, three sets, you're probably doing about 10 sets per muscle group per week, probably around seven to 10. And we've got to talk now about optimal versus good enough. When we talk about optimal in the industry, we talk about maximum output For you, the maximum output in terms of your muscle growth and your strength would be getting as much as 20 hard sets per muscle group per week. You'd have to be in the gym probably five or six days a week for 90 minutes. Do you want to do that? Can you do that? Does that make sense in your life? That's what I'm talking about. However, if you have as little as five hard sets a week and you go in three days for maybe 45 minutes, maybe not even that long, the research shows us that you can get significant hypertrophy, significant muscle growth doing that.

Philip Pape: 7:52

And so, when you think of the whole spectrum, when we think about resource allocation, if you're going to the gym five days a week and you're able to cut two of those days out and your results drop only by like 5%. You know they've gone from, say, 85 to 80%, but now you've saved two out of five days of your week. That's 40% of your week in the gym. Imagine now what you can do with that freed up time. You can get an extra hour, hours of sleep, right. You can get some other productivity, some things done for work. You can spend some time with your family. You could just relax right and recover, go for a walk, and the reason this is on my mind right now is the exact thing I told you about this podcast. We are switching from five episodes a week down to three, so very much like you can go from five days a week in the gym down to three days a week in the gym. My supposition, my assumption, my prediction, is that I'll be able to bring you more quality content in fewer days per week. You will be able to consume that content without feeling like you're falling behind or having to skip or delete episodes, and you will then get more out of it and your life will be changed for the better because of me going from five down to three.

Philip Pape: 9:06

I've had countless clients who were in a similar situation. They were doing too much, they loved to go to the gym and so they would work out almost every day. Maybe it was six days, maybe it was seven days. Now, it wasn't always strength training, sometimes it was a group class or a Peloton spinning, maybe they played tennis. And when we stepped it back and said, okay, let's first prioritize what's important and then identify the amount of effort you actually need to put in that minimum amount of effort to get all the results you really need and then save the rest for other stuff. So we're kind of applying two principles. Today we're applying the Pareto rule to 80, 20, where 20% of your effort gets 80% of the results. But we're also coupling that with the law of diminishing returns, like when you do more than that 20%, now you're only eking out a little bit more percentage. Right, they go hand in hand. So if you put in 25 or 30% of the effort now, you might get 90% of the results. Now you put in 40, 50, 60% of the effort, now you get 95%. And then you'd have to put in, you know, 100% of the effort to get the 100%. That's what we mean.

Philip Pape: 10:09

Same thing goes for cardio. We shouldn't be doing cardio to burn calories. We should be doing cardio for cardiovascular health, for our overall longevity, biomarkers, things like that. And for most people there's a certain minimum that's gonna get them a huge step change from not healthy at all, very sedentary, sitting around all day, high mortality rate, high disease rate, up to you're just fine. And that is not five hours a week of cardio, that might be an hour or two right Now. If you look at some of the recommendations, you might hear things like 120 or 150 minutes a week of cardio. That might be an hour or two right Now. If you look at some of the recommendations, you might hear things like 120 or 150 minutes a week, which again is only two, two and a half hours. And, frankly, if you're lifting heavy two or three days a week, there's a lot of that quote unquote cardio built into that. If you're walking a lot, you're also getting cardio.

Philip Pape: 10:56

So you see, where I'm going is we're trying to balance all these things or, more accurately, integrate them into your life, and you can't go all out on everything. You can go all out all out on perhaps one thing If you are super passionate about it, like we talked to Ben Lewis on the podcast and he gets in 60 miles of running a week, plus he lifts weights, but he is super passionate about endurance training and competition and he loves it, just like I'm super passionate about nutrition science. But I don't expect all of you listening to this podcast to just be spending hours and hours and hours learning about it. Hopefully you just have to listen to a few podcasts, including this one, and I'm hoping that it's number one on your Spotify playlist or that you gave it a five-star review on Apple, but either way, you might be just doing too much and need to scale it down. So, whether that's cardio or training or exercise variety or your meal planning strategy, are you overdoing it somewhere? And I'm going to tell you how to apply this principle to your life so that it's not just theory. All right, so how do we apply the 20% of your effort to get 80% of the result and not going past that and getting diminishing returns and just wasting time?

Philip Pape: 12:09

I suggest you make a list. Get out a piece of paper or do this in your, you know, like a Google doc or whatever. Make a list of the five things that are most important to you for your health and fitness. Really, the sky's the limit, but I'm going to give you some ideas, all right, that are probably going to be on the list Strength training, tracking your nutrition or your macros. Right, eating enough protein could be its own category. Eating enough fiber, getting enough steps you know enough walking in, getting enough sleep or high quality sleep, or both managing your stress you can definitely.

Philip Pape: 12:47

There may be other specific things on the list for you. For you, it might be emotional eating. Specifically, Write down five things that are the most important for you right now. And then I want you to, next to that, write down how much effort you're putting into it every week. Imagine that zero is zero and a hundred percent is. You're obsessed about it, you can't stop thinking about it, it's all you put, it's all you spend time on, right, most of you are not going to be at. You might be at zero, I don't know, but you're probably not going to be at a hundred percent. But you might be at, let's say, 50% or 75%. If, let's say, you strength train five days a week or you go to the gym six days a week, I would put that at like 75% effort right, it's most of the week. And then look at the one that has the highest number and circle it. That is the thing where you could potentially reduce the amount that you're doing down to the 20% mark, still get amazing results. And now you've freed up that resource, which is probably time for something else. So again, it's very simple.

Philip Pape: 13:53

Let's recap. Number one identify the areas that are important to you. Number two identify the area where you're doing too much. And then, number three reallocate the time and energy from that to another area. Right, the goal is not to do more of everything, it's to do the right amount of the things that matter most. And if you could rebalance your efforts, because we talk about balance, but balance doesn't mean doing everything all out in equal parts. It means integrating it into your life in a natural way that's enjoyable. They still get you the result. So if you can rebalance your effort, based on the 80-20 rule, the Pareto principle, you don't just change how you approach this, you're actually changing your mindset to allow yourself the freedom and the time to do other things and still get the result All right.

Philip Pape: 14:38

So I said it would be a little bit unscripted and it was. If you enjoyed the episode, let me know if you didn't or think I can improve Again. This is the first one. I'm going to continue improving on these. You know this is. This is step one. This is like when you go to the gym the very first time and you try a squat you've never done it before time. And you try a squat you've never done it before. You're clumsy, you're imbalanced all over the place. That's like this episode for me.

Philip Pape: 14:59

Granted, I have some other foundations, having done, you know, 300 episodes at this point, but I want these to be very helpful going forward If you want help engineering your strategy using this principle. I've got something new going on, so I used to do these 30 minute calls. I'm now doing something that's shorter and more fast paced and it's a 15 minute rapid nutrition assessment. It's not a sales call. I've said this before. I'm not going to sell you anything, trust me. I'm not going to mention my coaching at all.

Philip Pape: 15:27

What I like to do is meet people and help you identify where you might be overdoing it and how to rebalance your efforts. We're going to come away with the one thing that's really holding you back that you can change and a quick three-step action plan to get you results quickly. That's really all it is. So to book your free 15-minute rapid nutrition assessment, click the link in the show notes or go to witsandweightscom and click free call at the top. Actually, there's a link now at the top of the website, on the top right, a big button that says uh, rapid nutrition assessment. So again, click the link in the show notes or go to my website, witsandweightscom, click the big button at the top right and we'll have that discussion. We can say hello, we can meet and come up with that quick action plan for you. Until next time, keep using your wits, keep lifting those weights and remember, in fitness as in engineering, it's not about doing more, it's about doing right. I'll talk to you next time here on the Wits and Weights podcast.

From 280 Pounds to Well-Muscled Boston Qualifier at Age 55 with Hybrid/Concurrent Training | Ep 188

Have you ever dreamed of running a marathon but felt it was impossible due to your weight or fitness level? Or that lots of cardio will kill your muscle and gains? Discover how Ben went from 280 pounds to qualifying for the Boston Marathon at 55 without losing muscle mass.

In this episode, Philip (@witsandweights) interviews Ben Lewis, who began his fitness journey at 52, weighing over 280 pounds. Now, at 55, Ben has transformed his life, shedding over 100 pounds and improving his cardiovascular health while building muscle. Ben's remarkable story includes qualifying for the Boston Marathon, showcasing the potential of combining weight loss with muscle gain.

Philip and Ben dive deep into the strategies that enabled Ben's incredible transformation. They discuss the importance of balancing nutrition, training, and physique goals, all while doing what you love. Ben shares insights on sustainable fat loss, hybrid training approaches, and the significance of setting realistic goals. He also emphasizes the role of mindset and consistency in achieving long-term success.

Tune in to learn from Ben's journey and discover practical tips for reclaiming your health and fitness. Whether you're just starting or looking to refine your approach, this episode offers valuable lessons on balancing various aspects of fitness while maintaining a fulfilling lifestyle.

Today, you’ll learn all about:

1:35 What goes through Ben's mind during his workout
4:49 Training for the Boston Marathon
6:31 His fitness journey and weight fluctuations
12:51 His fitness journey starting at age 52
16:20 Lessons and motivations from his initial 2021 weight loss
21:21 Tracking progress and managing the scale
26:46 Maintaining a calorie deficit and recomposition
30:51 Using the Physique Tracker (a WWPU tool)
40:10 Hybrid training: balancing lifting and running
53:05 Prioritizing performance vs. health
57:31 What question Ben wished Philip had asked
1:00:08 Advice for others on a similar journey
1:03:48 How to connect with Ben
1:04:40 Outro

Episode resources:

• Join our Facebook group to get the FREE physique tracker

• Ben’s IG: @benelou_fitness 

Episode summary:

Maintaining muscle mass and cardiovascular health as we age can be a challenging endeavor. In a recent podcast episode, Ben Lewis, at 55, shares his transformative journey of losing over 100 pounds and qualifying for the Boston Marathon. This episode offers a treasure trove of insights on balancing intense workouts, strategic nutrition, and the importance of a positive mindset.

The episode kicks off with an inspiring overview of Ben Lewis's fitness journey. At 55, Ben has managed to redefine his health by shedding a significant amount of weight and qualifying for one of the most prestigious marathons in the world. His story is not just about losing weight but about finding a sustainable way to integrate both lifting and running into his daily regimen. He emphasizes the importance of strategic nutrition, which plays a pivotal role in fueling his intense workouts. Ben's mindset strategies, such as planning intense workouts with the knowledge of an easier session later, are crucial in keeping him motivated and focused.

One of the key discussions in the episode revolves around the complexities of weight loss sustainability. Ben shares his personal journey, which began with a community weight loss challenge. Initially, rapid weight loss was achieved through intense dieting and exercise. However, this approach was not sustainable in the long run. The episode delves into the emotional and psychological aspects of weight loss, highlighting why internal motivators often triumph over external validation. Lifestyle disruptions can significantly impact long-term health goals, making it essential to embrace sustainable practices.

Personalized nutrition is another critical topic covered in the episode. Ben talks about how tracking food intake can lead to better dietary choices. The use of modern fitness tools, such as the Zozo suit, is discussed in detail. This technology provides accurate body measurements, helping individuals track muscle gain and fat loss effectively. The episode emphasizes the importance of avoiding extremes in training and creating a strategic, flexible plan that aligns with both health and performance goals.

The episode also explores the power of seizing moments of opportunity for weight loss success. Ben reflects on his experience and the turning point that led him to take actionable steps towards his health. Creating moments of opportunity, even during busy schedules, can be crucial for overcoming insecurities and making lasting changes. The early progress in weight loss can build momentum, making it easier to stay committed to the journey.

Another significant aspect discussed is the importance of sustainable nutrition. Ben shares his approach to crafting a personalized meal plan that works for individual needs. The flexibility of making informed dietary choices without adhering to rigid diet rules is emphasized. Tools like the Ninja Creami can revolutionize the enjoyment of healthy foods, such as creating high-protein, low-calorie ice cream. Incorporating whole, unprocessed foods into the diet is crucial for long-term success.

Modern technology's role in fitness progress is highlighted through the use of the Zozo suit for body measurements. This tool, along with a physique tracker, provides accurate insights into body composition changes. By tracking muscle gain and fat loss, individuals can make informed dietary adjustments, even while maintaining a calorie deficit. The episode also touches on the significance of easy, zone two running in increasing mileage without compromising muscle mass.

The journey of balancing fitness and health goals, especially as we age, is a recurring theme in the episode. At 52, Ben recognized the importance of preventing muscle loss and improving cardiovascular fitness. He shares his experience of integrating weightlifting and running, adopting a balanced approach that prioritizes current goals. Seasonal periodization is discussed as a strategy to balance health, fitness, and performance goals effectively.

The importance of strategic planning for sustainable fitness is another crucial topic. The episode highlights the value of creating a 12-month plan by reverse engineering from significant dates and events. Setting realistic and flexible goals is essential for long-term success. The discussion emphasizes the need for grace and adaptability when life events interfere with plans. A high-energy, well-fed state is beneficial for effective body recomposition and slow, sustainable weight loss.

The episode concludes with a multifaceted approach to health and fitness. Finding joy in different modalities of movement, such as running and lifting, is emphasized. The potential pitfalls of extreme behaviors in these activities are also addressed. The psychological relationship with the scale is discussed, highlighting how tracking weight daily can shift it from a source of stress to just another data point.

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Transcript

Philip Pape  00:01

Imagine starting a fitness journey at 52, weighing over 280 pounds, and now at 55 Feeling better than ever after losing over 100 pounds, improving cardiovascular health and building muscle, maybe you've taken up running and you want to maintain muscle while shedding fat. Maybe you're eager to reclaim your health at the same time. In today's episode, we're talking to someone who did just that. He used our physique development approach to massively improve his health and body composition. While qualifying for the Boston Marathon, you're going to learn from him how to balance it all how to balance nutrition, training and physique goals while doing what you love.

Philip Pape  00:40

Today have been Louis on the show, then use our physique tracker to help him track measure and achieve a truly remarkable transformation, shedding over 100 pounds and qualifying for Boston at 55. Like we said in the intro, while building and maintaining muscle mass at the same time, yes, you can prioritize what you love to do, and what kind of athlete you want to be and still achieve your physique and health goals. We'll explore his transformation, the strategies he used for sustainable fat loss and how he makes it all work. Plus, later on, Ben is going to share his number one tip if you're trying to prioritize performance and health at the same time, Ben, welcome to the show.

Ben Lewis  01:17

Thank you. Appreciate it. Good to be here.

Philip Pape  01:20

So we met in our Facebook group, and then it's on its Facebook group. And we're like, Let's get together because you have an incredible story. I mean, you know, we love posting photos and looking at the before and after and all that. But really, it's it's what's deep down inside and kind of the process you went through to get there and why this thing works and what didn't work. So just to start off, I want to put the audience in your shoes, you know, okay, you're about to start one of your training sessions right now, maybe it's one of your hybrid training sessions, you're training for the marathon, whatever it is, maybe you're lifting and running, you know, I don't know, you're gonna tell us what it looks like? Yeah, well, I want you to take us there right into the gym or your favorite trail, or wherever it is, what is going through your mind as you prepare to tackle the disciplines involved?

Ben Lewis  02:02

Oh, wow, what's going through my mind. So typically, I either run or lift first thing in the morning. So I'm getting up out of bed, getting some nutrition and depending on which one I'm doing first on a particular day. And I'm really just thinking about the workout just thinking about what I need to do what I need to accomplish, what's the purpose of this particular workout today. So say, for example, I'll just I'll talk about today, because so today that I did a I did leg day, first in the gym. So you know, I was knowing that today is we're recording this on a Thursday and Saturday is my long run day. So I knew I had to I've got two days before my long run. So I knew I could really push it on the legs. So I'm really thinking about you know, how I'm gonna lean into the bulk area, I was doing Bulgarian split squats, Romanian deadlift, some cable step ups. And so I'm just I'm really going in thinking about getting now hard knowing that I had an easy run after that. And so yeah, I go, I go in, hit that workout, get some more food, get some, get a couple of magical days, get some carbs. And I actually eat a little bit of protein before I left when I do a lift and run back to back. So I had a had a protein shake, and some banana and prunes before I went then have Medjool dates afterward. And I took off for a seven mile super easy run. I know that for those who kinda like your listeners probably have more strength training focus. So seven miles does not sound easy. But in terms of in terms of the taxing this Oh, my cardiovascular system, I knew this because I'm gonna be super easy on this one thing, how to actually start it and I recorded one today, I will force myself to be able to sing a song that while I'm running. So yeah, real low heart rate. You know, I know zone trainings, real popular these days, we'll we'll run was actually about 60%. Zone one and 50% zone two. So it's, it's going to be that easy. And I'm just kind of pushing that run. And yeah, cool. That was fun. And it was faster than I would have anticipated to zone one. Zone two. Right. So that was nice, too. So awesome.

Philip Pape  04:01

Yeah, I meant that sounds like a lot of fun. And definitely more than a lot of listeners probably do in a typical training session. Because yeah, you're right, we're focused on lifting. And I remember years ago, attempting to train up to a half marathon and once I was at four miles or above, I'm like, this is a lot. And, you know, I've done five K's and I'm like, that even just like wins me. But a couple things you mentioned was you know, hitting it hard knowing you had an easy run after that, that strikes me as like a really good kind of mindset approach or trick where you know, you're contrasting things and saying like, you know, it's not going to be bad that bad. So I should go after it now. And then you mentioned you know, you got very specific on your protein, carbs and I love people are always asking what should I eat before workout? And you talked about some fruit, some dried fruit prunes day. I love that you got specific there. And then with the zones and all that. Yeah, man. So like, what are you training for right now?

Ben Lewis  04:51

So theoretically, I'm going to do another marathon in December. I qualified for Boston. This past December. However, Have you listeners may not be aware for the Boston Marathon, it's the number one, you have to hit a standard time for your aid. So I made that standard by about a minute and a half. However, based on the number of people who have put in applications, sometimes they have to cut off that time even further than the standard. So my standard was three hours and 35 minutes. I did 333. And some change. My strong suspicion is that I will qualify, I got the t shirt, but I won't get in the race.

Philip Pape  05:29

That's not fair. Yeah. Yeah,

Ben Lewis  05:31

there was a lot of consternation about it last this year for the 20, the one that just passed a couple months ago in April, it was like a five and a half minute buffer you had to have. And, frankly, I did well, and I qualified for Boston. But I felt like even then I felt like I could have done better. There was some mitigating circumstances that day. So I really, I want to crush the marathon. I want to conquer the marathon in December, run Boston in 2026. And then frankly, be done with marathons moved on to the half distance to shorter distance. Yeah. We could talk more about that later. But yeah, yeah, I want the server to be my third marathon in Boston to be my last marathon.

Philip Pape  06:07

Okay. And again, you your attitude, I love it, man. It's infectious. Like I want one of people to hear that. Because you're like, well, it's worth celebrating that you qualified. And yet, it doesn't have to be enough. Like you want more. And that's fine, right? Like, I totally get that of, there's a healthy frustration that drives you. And that's cool, right? Like, there's a point where it can get too much. And there's a there's a point where there's maybe not enough where you're just not pushing enough. Let's go back in time, because I want the listener to kind of go through your history here, and start about 10 years ago, right? 2013, you got down to about 175 pounds from what what were you at your max,

Ben Lewis  06:44

the max when I stepped on a scale was 277. Okay, I don't you know, when you're when you're when you're overweight, like that, at least me. So I grew up, I grew up as an athlete, and you know, playing basketball in high school and all that stuff. And you know, that I represent a lot of guys that, I think, you know, we could eat whatever we wanted to because we were so active when we were younger, you know, I was playing I was playing ball for five days a week for two or three hours. Literally, I had a bowl of I pull a butter pecan ice cream every night before I went to bed. And I weighed 155 pounds when I graduated high school and 510. So anyway, so yeah, I had some not good eating habits, and those slowly over time ballooned into I was about to 78 when I was 4344 years old, however old that was in 2013. And actually, a guy from my church started a Facebook group, I'd never heard of it. He's, he's it was he started a Facebook group at the beginning of 2013. And he invited, he was overweight. And he invited basically kind of all the overweight dudes that were heavily involved in the church to a Facebook group, and he called it let's lose it, fellas, I wouldn't looked it up again today, because let's lose it fellas. It was it was using the lose it app, which I didn't even Yeah, I didn't know there were weight loss. This was 2013 I don't even know there were weight loss apps at the time. And so it was just kind of a lark. And I was like, I really, yeah, I need to do this. And it's in the back of my head. You know, I'm, I'm 40. At that point, I guess I'm 43 My wife is pregnant with our second child. And I know I'm going to be 62 when she graduates from high school. And, um, you know, class to obese. And, you know, I'm worried about health, I want to be around for my daughters. And you know, we have an older daughter than her as well. So it was kind of always in the back of my mind, this is something I need to to I need to deal with this. I need to take care of this. I need to get back to a healthy weight.

Philip Pape  08:33

Yeah, health was a driver, but but the values were really like living for your family and being there and yeah, not being and like you said, you're representing a lot of other people. I mean, men and women who hear this who life has made things very different than in their 20s. And they're getting older, and they haven't kept up with things. So you had you did lose a bunch of weight back then, but maybe not in the right way. We want to understand what that looked like so that we can contrast it to what you did later.

Ben Lewis  08:59

So you know, I went in the app and the app gives you the option. How much weight do you want to lose per week and it maximizes the two pounds, so I chose two pounds. I was able to do it as fast possible. I really, I can't tell you other than I just want to do this why I chose the fastest weight loss. It didn't make any there's no logical reason for it. Like it wasn't, oh, I want to get 10 for this event. I didn't have anything coming up. No, no, nothing like that. It was just not want to lose as fast as possible. I didn't know any better. I didn't know any better either. So and you know, they had forums, lose it have forums back then. And people were saying, well don't eat back your exercise calories either. And you know, I started exercising. And so, you know, I was 510 270 some pounds, eating 2300 down to I think 1800 calories a day. And by the end, you know, I started running and I was lifting a little bit I was running a little too. I was doing probably more cardio than I should have for body composition stuff. But anyway, I was running, lifting and doing all the things and basically the weight loss I I looked at the journey looked at the the journal that I have of that it was like two and a half, three pounds, virtually every week for the past seven months.

Philip Pape  10:09

So good solid 1% or more of your weight every week. Yeah, gotta be,

Ben Lewis  10:13

it was more than when I was still losing three pounds a week, two and a half to three pounds a week when I was 210 to 100. I mean, and so it was getting harder and harder. So I'd have these big, you know, you get starving, you have a big band that goes up, then you then you can grit your teeth for two weeks. And then you then you just can't take it and you grit your teeth. And it was just it was I did it. But it was not sustainable. And long story short, it kind of all fell apart. When I started running. I got pretty fast he I was getting some attention for that. And so I was on Strava, which is a running app that you know, folks, you share your runs, and everybody's getting all these likes, and blah, blah, blah. And then we ended up we moved, we lived in Charleston, South Carolina at the time we moved to Greensboro, North Carolina. And you know, the time right before the move, when you got all your stuff packed up, and you're eating carrot takeout, like every single night. And then three or four weeks after you're eating takeout every single night, because you're still unpacking and I put on weight, didn't have time to exercise. And my times were a lot slower. And again, it was so outwardly focused on people seeing how good I was doing how well I was doing. And I wasn't doing as well. And I just kind of went I really I went into a cocoon and basically gained it all back over the course of you know, it was a slow, kind of slow game back to I ended up heavier than I started even. And so I won't go into all that detail. But I guess you want to take that to the beginning of 20, or the end of 2021. Yeah,

Philip Pape  11:51

let's hit on some of this, right? Because I'm sure people are listening thinking like, oh, man, I can identify with so much of that. First of all the external validation that you are seeking, right? It's like, you put that in the bucket of of motivators that are outside of you that maybe aren't sustainable as motivators, right, or even unhealthy motivators, the fast food while moving. So we built our house in 2018. Now, that was a couple years before I got into this stuff as well, myself. And then I became really good friends with the McDonald's manager. Because it's like a, it's like a block away from me. And I was like, just exhausted and distracted. And it's like, easy, it's convenient. And you don't have a routine, you don't have this discipline that you probably have now. And then you gain it all back. Like you said, you probably didn't gain it back at three pounds a week, like you've lost it. And people need to understand that, right? Because we're why people think, Oh, I just got fat all of a sudden, or I just gained a buck. But if you really are honest with yourself, it probably took a long time. Yes. You know, and which is means it's, you can easily reverse it, you know, with the right approach. So, all right, fast forward to just about three years ago, 2021, you were 52? And then your backup to 280 or 277. Max, but whatever. No, no, it

Ben Lewis  13:01

was more than that. It was out. Yeah, this

Philip Pape  13:02

one was more than that. Okay, got it.

Ben Lewis  13:04

I have to tell you the before picture I posted in the group. Technically it was from 2020. It was December 2020. My birthday was my 52nd birthday. And I was gonna start, you know, right at the New Year, because my birthday is in late December. And I was gonna start right the new year. And that, and I didn't. And I didn't the funny thing, I can't really tell you what happened, because I don't really remember the detail. But in March of 2021. So I really started in terms of like tracking my food, paying attention to what I was doing. March 15 2021. Somebody asked me what what clicked and I said, honestly, it was probably a non busy weekend where I had time to plan and get get a couple of meals together and cook a couple of things ahead of time. That probably was what it was to be honest, it was just because, you know, again, it's in my head for all this time that I've got to do this, I've got to take care of this. I've got to take care of this. And so you know, I think about like these online trolls that love the body shaming people I'm going there's probably two categories of people that are obese. There's people like me who are, it's constantly in your head. It's not not not a little it is constantly in my head every time. Every night when I could walk upstairs and I'm winded after a walk upstairs, I've got to take care of this. Every time there's, you know, I go I see people out in public, I've got to take care of this. You know, every time there's an event back in my hometown and I want to go to and I'm thinking I don't want anybody to see me like this. I gotta take care of it. It's just it is a constant battle. So it's not like I didn't you know, it's not like I was never thinking about it. I was always thinking about it, but something Something hit that second week, third weekend of March and 2021 before

Philip Pape  14:45

because I want to hear what the second type of person is. But when you were would you verbalize that often as well or was it mostly in your head? Oh, it was here. It was it was it was it wasn't like to everybody like I gotta get gotta get back in shape. I gotta do my wife your life. Yeah, okay, okay. to

Ben Lewis  15:00

my wife, but no, not not out in public or anything. I would just say the second type of person, they probably they're not concerned about it either. And, you know, why are you concerned about it? They're so concerned about ambient leave people alone. That's my point. There's no matter where they're at, just leave them alone.

Philip Pape  15:14

Okay. It's your it's your personal journey. Absolute. You have to be ready for it. You can. Yeah.

Ben Lewis  15:18

So anyway, yeah, it's not helpful when I know. And I think most people are probably where I was the vast majority of where I was of, oh, my gosh, I need to take care of this. I don't need somebody else beat me up. I'm beating myself up enough. Thank you. Okay. Yeah. And

Philip Pape  15:31

that, and that applies? I mean, honestly, that applies to so many insecurities we have about ourselves. Yeah, just be true. It may be a little overweight, and maybe just your physique in general, and maybe you know, something related to work or your relationship or whatever. It's like, yeah, you're constantly telling yourself, I've got to do this. So what prevents people from doing it? I love what you said, though, when you talked about taking non busy weekend and planning, like that actually struck me because I know, I'm a really busy guy, right? You can imagine, okay, I've seen the podcast in the work and everything else. Sometimes surprisingly, I just have this like two hour block of nothing, just very surprisingly, and rarely. And when that happens, if I could just sit down, like do something that's just been totally neglected. It can take your mind off, you know, the stress of it, but also gives you this insight and clarity to go forward and take action. So is the lesson from that, that we have to like, create those moments? Have you thought about that too much?

Ben Lewis  16:25

That's a great question. I haven't thought a ton about it. But I think you know, ultimately, yeah, it's it's creating. I mean, if I had created that space at another time, I mean, my goodness, it was dependent. You know, this, we're talking coming to the tail, the pandemic. It's not that I didn't have non busy weekends in 2020. I mean, come on. We all busy weekends. And 2020 Beginning of the pandemic, I did lose a little bit got destroyed. I don't remember why I got distracted, but I did. So but creating that space, and really just seizing that moment. Yeah, I think that's not waiting till Monday, not waiting till the New Year, I just seizing the moment when it comes.

Philip Pape  17:01

But there's magic in that man and I think, gonna necessarily sit on this topic. But there's a lot of people probably listening who are like getting motivated by this podcast and not taking action. I hope most people are. But if they're not like where you were, what is it that they can do to seize that moment, besides just do it? And I know, sometimes it is just do it. But seriously, people want to know, like, what's the secret? Ben? What are your thoughts? I know, you're not a guru. And we're just asking honest opinions here?

Ben Lewis  17:28

It's a great question. Yeah, I would say this progress definitely gives you momentum. And early on, I think momentum is is critical and crucial. So, you know, progress could be a number on the scale, it could be yet last week, I was able to jog for 30 seconds. And this week, I can jog for 35 seconds, it's you know, it's seeing something where there's some sort of tangible evidence of okay, this is working, I am getting better. Now, that's dangerous. Because sometimes, you know, we know the scale can be a fickle master. And you know, it may be that you're more tired and you're, you're a little bit slower than you were last week, your heart rate goes a little higher, whatever metric you might be using. Good that can be dangerous, but you know, save and trusting the process, at some point of this stuff works, it really does. And I can say that and we may get into that more,

Philip Pape  18:21

I'll go into this no one

Ben Lewis  18:23

really does work. It is. It is math and science in the final analysis, but there's definitely a mental mindset piece of it. But there's a lot of math and science involved too.

Philip Pape  18:34

I can totally empathize with that you know that I'm a geek at heart and nerd I like to do. And like you're right, sometimes you just have to say it, almost like forget what you're thinking and your emotion about it. And just say you've got a process, you've got some numbers planted out, start doing it, see what happens, you know, like test it out. But this is really important because the insight here for people listening is okay, you've got to see some sort of moment, you got to have the space to do that. You've got to seize it, and then do something that gives you quick progress quick wins to get motivation. What were those for you in the first like month or two back in 2021?

Ben Lewis  19:06

Well, I started tracking my calories, I got a calorie count, it was higher than what I was doing back in 2013. But still not probably not high enough ultimately. And that that change over time, you didn't see the scale move, actually the first couple of two or three days it went up and then it started going down. I had a bicycle and I started riding in the neighborhood. And you know one thing when you are really really out of shape that I found this to be in 2020 13 as well as in 2020. Why? When you're really really out of shape you make progress pretty toggle

Philip Pape  19:40

is so low your baseline so low, so the relative to

Ben Lewis  19:44

remember the numbers but you know, I probably did a 10 minute bike ride on this street at seven miles per hour the first week and it's probably eight or nine miles per hour the second week just oh, okay, I'm getting better. It was probably that big of a difference almost quit you know had to do it every other day. And I would recommend, you know, whatever cardio whatever strength training you're doing, don't try to do it every day. Take a you know, every other day, take a rest, the walk or jog walk, we're gonna start over, that's what I would do. I would jog for 30 seconds and walk for three minutes and jog for 30 seconds and walk for three minutes, probably how I would structure it. And if you can't jog for 30 seconds, jog for 15 seconds if you can't jog at all, walk for 30 minutes, just track. So I did see I saw my bike ride. I did not start I didn't start in 2013 was running it all I was afraid of my weight and my knees. Make

Philip Pape  20:33

sense? Yeah. So again, another powerful quote, you said when you're out of shape, you make faster progress. I mean, like, that's a great thing to latch on to, because that's a positive reframing of being out of shape. It's like, it's funny because I I'll have like these discovery calls with somebody who's like 300 something pounds, we just had a new client set up who's you know, on the heavier side, and I smile, I like have this big smile, like, I'm so jealous of you right now. Because you have so much opportunity to change from where you are, it actually doesn't have to be that hard, because you've got some benefits of being out of shape. And it's like, it's a weird way to think about it. But like, if you have excess fat, that's energy that your body will start using early on. That actually makes it easy to lose weight and easy to build muscle versus Rosina. Yep. Right? So that's kind of like reframing of wherever you are, you've got things going for, you've got some strengths to go with. That's pretty cool. Why don't we get into some nuts and bolts? I mean, start with nutrition, since you mentioned tracking macros, you know what, you can either go back then or you can just say like, how it's evolved. And like, what what your general philosophy has been Trisha, you know,

Ben Lewis  21:32

I'll tell you one thing, and I am a big fan of tracking protein and calories, not necessarily all not all the macros, and my primary reason I'm not a fan of meal plan at all. And my reason for that is, you know, I want to feel empowered to make these decisions myself. And when I started tracking, you start learning, I learned that walnuts are healthy, but they are luck. I mean, they're just a lot of calories. I learned what was worth it, and what wasn't worth it quote, unquote, you know, what, what indulgences were worth the calories and some some weren't worth it for me and I was it I was empowered to make that decision. It wasn't some named diet telling me you can't eat carbs or you must go less than 3050 grams of fat a day or you must do this. So it was me being able to say okay, you know, in some cases like I like cheddar cheese, but you know what I do reduce fat cheddar cheese now it doesn't pay on it. It just it's not worth it still scratching the

Philip Pape  22:29

itch of having cheese in it

Ben Lewis  22:31

but it's much it makes it worth it but I still eat walnuts I just eat fewer wow I love all but I not understanding I manage the amount of walnuts I eat so

Philip Pape  22:41

for you a healthy amount of walnuts is less walnuts. You know, there's like it's not like a walnut is healthy or not right. It's just for you less right is healthy. Yeah, there you go. Yeah,

Ben Lewis  22:50

I mean, it really was, I would want to work from home, I would want it in the kitchen and grab a handful of walnuts once every hour and a half or so. So I probably was eating 1000 calories a day in walnuts. I'm not exaggerating when I say that. It was probably 1000 calories a day in walnut. Oh yeah, love. Yeah, my wife joke like, oh my like, I'll get like, if talking about balance, I'll get like, you know, cheesecake home for dessert on my birthday. Say for example, I'll say You know, I want some walnuts on the side and why for interrupting? You don't understand how many walnuts he was. Just you don't understand he wants more walnuts and you've ever given anyone. So yeah, but so nutrition. So structuring my nutrition. Number one, like I said, I like tracking because it empowered is empowered me to figure out what's worth and what's not worth it, where I can do it and donors where I can decide you know what I don't I want chicken thighs not chicken breast and in order to do chicken thighs and chicken breasts. That means I'm going to do Greek yogurt for breakfast and not eggs. I'll do more egg whites and not not eggs for breakfast you know I can make those trade offs and I can make those decisions and they work for me I'm definitely a fan of vast majority is whole unprocessed foods of what I do in my diet and let fitting in the indulgences we just bought when I say just bought I just yesterday had my first from it the what's it called the creamy ninja creamy the things that oh my gosh, that thing is ridiculous. thing as a whole. I mean it's a game changer. absolute game changer. My 50 year old daughter heard me say that she's the one that got us to buy it and she's standing at my office door now looking very smug.

Philip Pape  24:45

Because then you could have ice cream that actually doesn't do the trade off that you have to make with ice cream.

Ben Lewis  24:51

I make. Yeah, I made a 350 Calorie pint of ice cream that has 40 grams. Yes, yes, the protein is a slicer but Ello eyes Korean Oh my gosh. Anyway, yeah, so I do a lot of vegetables, a lot of fruit. You know, the Beatles Ella's don't come from me. At this point, you know, because I'm running and lifting, I am in a cut at about 4100 calories a day average meeting men. Like consistently losing dropping body fat and, and gaining a hair muscle based on your calculator. Since mid January, just kind of since 2021, late 2021, I got down to under 190 or so, since late 2021. I haven't been above about 210 or 215 or so. And so you know, that's been between 175 and, and really the 210 to 15. That was a one time thing. So really between 175 and 205 for three years now. Yeah. So so two and a half years. Yeah. Anyway, but somebody nutrition.

Philip Pape  26:01

It's all good. These are all tangent. Trust me, I take notes, and we want to go off on these. Because that's when people are asking. I mean, first of all, I mean, sustainability is the the word we're the buzzword we always throw around, but there's a reason for that. And it sounds like you've taken that approach. I like how you said, Okay, you're not a fan of meal plans. Neither am I, I've done episodes about it all, I have one called the perfect meal plan. That's basically a mind shift when you listen to it, because it's like the perfect meal plan is the one that you make for yourself that works for you. Right? That's the spoiler alert. Yeah, 100%. And I just did one recently actually just came out this week how to allocate, you know, 1200 2003 1000 calories. But again, it's it's you got to be flexible and pick it for yourself. So that what you said was it empowers you to know what's worth it and not worth it. And I want people to understand how that that's distinguished from if you weren't tracking or you're trying to eat intuitively. And I understand there's a place where you could live that maintenance and not have to track and all that we know that. But tell us what your thoughts are on that, how it empowers you. Whereas if you weren't tracking, if you just ate mostly Whole Foods, why it might not be successful, you

Ben Lewis  27:07

know, this varies from person to person. And so I like to say that I am aware, I listen to a lot of podcasts, by the way. So I have heard you say that I'm sure but I've probably heard other people say it too. So I get they all kind of run together. I run like eight and a half hours a week and so I listen to podcasts. I'll run too fast if I listen to music so I listen to and I listen to a lot. I mean I'll help

Philip Pape  27:31

you listen to it. We want x or do you listen to it faster speeds. 1x 1x.

Ben Lewis  27:35

Just 1x. Just straight up, calm, easier, most of our runnings easier tracking versus not trying, I am aware from listening a lot of podcasts that people struggle with getting enough protein that is not if left to my own devices, I would eat three 400 grams of protein a day. I'm not kidding you. When I make even even now when I'll make a meal plan the day before, you know, here's what I'm going to eat the bar and it's invariably Okay, now where am I going to cut the protein so I can get enough carbs and fat. I know the time I know the time, okay, I can only eat eight ounces of chicken, I can't eat 10 You know, that kind of thing. So I can testify this I'm not a big I mentioned cheesecake. But other than that, I don't really like sweets, like candy. I don't like chips that don't eat any of that stuff. Even if even when not tracking I eat mostly whole unprocessed foods, you know, but I will eat too much of them. This just quite bluntly, I'll just I'll just eat too much. And I just kind of have to understand, you know, because I am super active. And I can get away with it to some degree now. So I will but I know myself. So I like to do it just to keep those numbers. I think I could do intuitive now if I wanted to. And in fact, I may do it when I hit maintenance. I'm probably what's this. I'm less than two months away from hitting where I want to be most likely probably in mid to late August I will get to right where I want to be body fat wise body composition wise and I will hit I'll go to maintenance for the official marathon training block. So I'm not trying to lose weight while training for a marathon. For me tracking this it keeps it rains me and in terms of here's what you need to do. And here's what you need to pay attention to. Yeah, for me intuitive would be too much protein too much fat. I'm not a carb hound. I get a man because I need to get him as my running and lifting. Yeah,

Philip Pape  29:23

so again, you're like dropping lots of wisdom bombs today. Seriously, you don't you don't even know it. But like, because the way you're phrasing things, people need to hear this. What Ben was just saying is like, he doesn't even eat all the things that are blamed on obesity and people getting fat right? Like too much sugar sweets. He doesn't eat that stuff. He eats mostly Whole Foods, but he just eats too much. I mean, how many times when we talked about just it really does come down energy balance even though there are 1000 roads to both sides of the energy balance equation that make it harder for people. And like for you it's just you want to eat maybe you don't like food, maybe you just crave it and you've got to track just to get the Add information, but that information empowers you to then make the trade offs to still enjoy what you want and get your results

30:07

out to 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. And now I have a more balanced diet. I weight train consistently for most importantly, I do it sustainably if a scientifically sound healthy diet and a links from body is what you're looking for. fully paid is your guy.

Philip Pape  30:51

Speaking of tracking, and spreadsheets since you mentioned it, why don't we talk about the physique tracker, which is what got us here today originally, and kind of the overall method of tracking body composition. Just you tell us your story about using it and what you how it helped you.

Ben Lewis  31:04

Yeah, so you dropped that thing. When did I don't remember when you actually posted it? It was March or so

Philip Pape  31:09

when we launched Whitson weights physique university because it's one of the tools in there and I gave it Yeah, yeah, you gave

Ben Lewis  31:15

it out for free. And I grabbed it. I had, I don't know it's another product. I had just bought these Zozo suit if y'all have heard of that thing, it's uh, it measures your it does your body measurements for you, it's just a lot easier than using a tape measure.

Philip Pape  31:28

How much does that cost? Let me ask you, I'm curious. To 100 bucks, I really it's just, it's just a like neoprene or what's the material?

Ben Lewis  31:35

I think it isn't. It's just like a body suit. Yeah, they now offer a subscription with your phone, whether your phone would do it. And they say that the Zozo suit is 2.5 centimeters, or mil, point five, and the suit isn't. And then the phone is less accurate kind of thing. But honestly, I've done it with a suit. And I've done it with a tape measure. I think it's accurate enough that I can trust it. So anyway, I had some measurements with it. And then you drop this physique track. And I was like, Oh, let me start plugging these measurements in here and see what my body composition actually is. And what I saw was, okay, and I thought this was the case in this little cut. I've been here since January, but and this affirmed that, but I'm not losing any muscle man. Yep. I mean, and according to the tracker, I've gained one pound of muscle mass since January and dropped about 20 pounds of body fat, which is consistent with what I see in the mirror, because, but what it did for me is it allowed it, you know, it allowed me to trust the process even more and go, Okay, I can bump up and I was feeling like I was feeling at a hungry and I'm tempted to just grab all the things on these days and macro factor is telling me you can eat another 150 calories a day. And that now this tracker is saying, you know you are losing fat and gaining muscle. Alright, I'm gonna say yes to that extra 150 calories a day. And that was something that I was not, you know, eating the minimum number of calories now gotten more into the mindset of, okay, I'm gonna, I'm gonna do this thing, I'm gonna, I'm gonna increase things now. And even though you're on a cut, even though I'm on a cut, I'm gonna be willing to increase when, when it's and I have been increasing my running, I was intentionally trying to increase my running base. So it, it makes logical sense that I would be burning more calories, I am running 655 to 60 miles a week. I've never run more than I hit 60 Watts during my last marathon bill, but I've never consistently run at this level, this number of miles a week. So it makes all the logical sense in the world. But I'll be honest, without the physique tracker, I would have said, I don't think I'm gonna just stay where I am. I don't trust I'm not going to take these extra calories.

Philip Pape  33:42

That's awesome. I love that use case, man, because it shows you the value of having the different types of measurements. A lot of people will use the physique tracker in a very limited scope, just kind of before and after, you know, get the numbers and understand what happened. You use it to take action or at least to comfort your mind about what other data was telling you like that. triangulating you know like double checking. Yes. And that's why I love you know, not just scale weight, but trendway and body composition and measurements and biofeedback and all that. So that's pretty cool. Now you gained a pound. So here's what's interesting for people listening. I might as well offer the physique trackers like a freebie for this episode. So you know, I'll put a link to that. But it's just to be technical. It's it's lean body mass, which is organ weight plus muscle plus fluid. But since you're losing weight, it is mainly muscle you're looking at because you've you've effectively lost. So here's what usually happens when people will see a certain amount of loss of muscle and they'll get freaked out because it's a little more than they thought. And in reality, I'm like, hold on, when you go back to maintenance, some of that's going to come right back because it's not muscle. It's just fluid. Right? Right. But you actually saw go up. So in essence, if you apply the same logic, you actually might have gained even more than that and muscle. Did you think of Got that? No, no, I did.

Ben Lewis  35:02

You're right. That is a possibility. Yeah, cuz you pull in some fluid with the muscle. Yeah,

Philip Pape  35:06

yeah, yeah. Or you've lost fluid by being in a deficit and being in hydrated state. So if it's showing a net gain, you've actually gained more than what it's saying a tiny bit. And yeah, yeah. And you've demonstrated like you can potty recomp even when you're in a deficit,

Ben Lewis  35:21

even when you're deficit, and even when you're running 60 miles a week.

Philip Pape  35:24

So let me ask you about that. Would you recommend all the listeners that they should run 60 miles a week to increase their expenditure? Okay, all right. No, no, because people, people are like, Oh, that's how you eat 4000 calories. That's

Ben Lewis  35:37

why unless you have a marathon goal. And if there are some of y'all out there that do want to improve your running, there's some great podcasts that will help you with that running explains a great way. Scott, Alyssa lenok does the messy middle and she talks about, he talks a lot about hybrid training, too. But the number one thing is and I know that this is a buzzword now in the fitness world, but that zone two running that easier running. So my increase in mileage was I you know, running coaches will tell you do 80% of your runs easy 20% 80% of your mileage, easy, 20% hard, I was doing 90%, easy, 95% Easy during those weeks when I was increasing so that I could recover so that I could still lift and lift well, so that I wouldn't get injured in my running. So make sure that if you are if you do want to increase your writing, that you're increasing it slowly sustainably, that you can recover from and that's really where that zone two really shines. It's the most you can do and still recover easily. Because you don't have that built up a lactate, we won't get into all the technical. No,

Philip Pape  36:42

I got it. Same thing with lifting, right, it's like five to 10 Hard sets will start to get you toward the upper end of like the perfect amount where you still get a lot of recovery. Whereas if you get to like 15 to 20 sets, it's optimal to like build as much as possible, but now you're impeding recovery. So with running save, I've heard that too, from runners like Uber evolved their thinking over the time, especially as they get older, right? Because that's when you start to really feel it that no, come on, let's take a step back. And you'll actually get more results over the long term. Really good with your eating habits. Besides macros and calories, which I've been thinking of doing an episode that's like, cannot just be enough. In other words, sometimes we criticize, If It Fits Your Macros for being too simplistic. And we need to consider health factors and saturated fat and fiber and everything. Yeah, which I agreed with to an extent. But I also know when I started my journey, I just thought of macros, and it made a massive improvement for me. So what are your thoughts on?

Ben Lewis  37:37

Okay, there's the 80 to 90%. And there's the 10 to 20%. And so it kind of depends on where you are. So when I was 280 pounds, you know what, just dropping the body weight has huge improvement to all cause mortality, even if you do lose some muscle mass. And so I don't I don't recommend

Philip Pape  37:57

the case for the Olympic and all those drugs today. Yeah, but a lot of

Ben Lewis  38:01

there's a case for that. So, so it kind of how far away from healthy, whatever that means. Are you so you know? Yeah. Now I'm sitting here. I'm right at 180 right now, and I'm about somewhere 15 1617 18% body fat somewhere in there. So this is where some of those 10 to 20% things do start to matter a little bit more. Yeah. So my thought is, you know, major on the majors first getting your calories, getting your protein getting your strength training, getting some cardio. Yeah, you know, the things that Phillip did you talk about on your podcast. So those are the things that are going to drive, you know, whatever percentage it is, but a large percentage of those things a large percentage of those improvements, then, yeah, you may need to hit some dial in some other levels, when you start to get closer to ideal and you start to need, you know, in order to make progress, you need to get some of these other things. It's

Philip Pape  38:58

really important that you said that, right? Because yeah, 8020 9010 Whatever. It's counterintuitive, I think maybe for people who are a bit on the closer to obese weight side, and again, I've seen this I've had clients, mostly males who are upper two hundreds or low, three hundreds. And it's tough sometimes for them to want to eat more, I'm telling me more in some sense, and they're like, well, that doesn't jive with like, I've gained weight to all these years. But they're lifting and they're eating protein. And I'm like, I don't even care about your fiber and your saturated fat to be honest, like I really don't care because you know how much change is gonna happen just from what you're doing here. And then once your slimmed up bit, you're down to 225 to 50. And you're lifting you've got muscle, you're gonna be like, What do I do next? And you're naturally going to get there. So that's a good point.

Ben Lewis  39:41

I'm paying attention to saturated fat. Honestly, I don't back fiber because I eat so much fruit and vegetables. I was tracking it and then I started looking I was like over 70 grams every day. I'm like, why? I don't even look. Why am I even looking at this anymore? Because I'm hitting it. I just the way I eat. Yeah,

Philip Pape  39:58

and that's a good point. You may not for some People certain things are easy, and you just don't have to track or even care about it, because it just happens. And that's where you can take the stress off and not track everything, but track the things that you need to change. Yeah. So we talked about nutrition and some of the Sustainable fat loss stuff. I do want to talk about your training a little bit, because I talked a little bit about the running, you have a hybrid training approach. But what does that mean? You know, concurrent training, whatever, all the buzzwords are laid on us. Yeah, because this is not our, our strength as a podcast is not that. But I want people to understand what it's like.

Ben Lewis  40:28

So I want to just say how I started, I started thinking, Oh, my gosh, I'm 55 years old, or 5252. At the time, I'm 52 years old. This is when you start to lose muscle mass sarcopenia, I'm getting older that I don't want to lose muscle fat. So I need to not drop muscle mass as I dropped this weight. And also, I get winded every time I walk up the stairs, and I can't, you know do things that I want to do I have a large yard, I get really tired doing basic yard work, I need to improve my cardiovascular health, as well as just the daily activities of living. So I didn't come at this I didn't I've never heard of concurrent or hybrid or any of that stuff. It was just, these are two things that I know are good for my health. So I'm gonna do these two things. And eventually, somewhere along the line, I started podcasts and fitness Instagram. And, and this hybrid concurrent thing. It was what I was already doing. You know, but by the time I learned that term, I was probably lifting three to four days a week and running four to five days a week, you know, the 25, that's fine, the 30 ish mile run, you're doing a, I think I'll do an upper lower upper lower split. So the time maybe I'd switch to push both. I prefer push pull a six day push, pull leg, push, pull leg, but because I live close to my jam, I can get there easily. So point being Yeah, it was I came at it with a health mindset of these are things that are going to be good for my health and healthspan and lifespan. And so I just kind of attack both of them. And then at some point, you know, they started to, okay, how do I do both of these and have time for them? And you know, you have to just you have to figure out, you know, what season are you in right now, right now, I'm training for a marathon. And you know, if I listen to you, and I've heard you say this, you know, I listen to you. And you'll say well always do your lifting before you run it. You listen to runcoach. And they will say always do your running before you care about what you care about most you do first. And so I'm like, Oh, I've kind of adopted that from my own sort of, what am I focused on right now right now I'm building a vase, I'm running mostly easy running, I can really get lifting. So I am lifting first these days, I'm hitting, I'm working harder on my strength. I'm got a huge cardiovascular base. I mean, again, I'm running 60 miles a week. But I'm running easy. And I can do that with very little finally, even after a hard lifting session, I can run 3045 minutes later, and I really feel not seeing any substantive difference in like my performance, you know, my heart rate is this and my speed is that and that's probably right at what it would have been if I hadn't lifted beforehand. So I'm seeing that anyway. But anyway, yeah, you just, but there's gonna be seasons. You know, I can look at my log from last fall when I was getting ready for the marathon were qualified in Boston, I dropped my lifting two days a week. Yep. And you know, there's a lot less so you know, I may drop it and, or two to three days and drop just due to two upper body, one lower body and, and so it just, you know, you just have to kind of focus on whatever it is that right now, in this particular time is important to you. I've actually already drawn up a 2025 Yeah, Jewel, I'm presuming I'm going to mega qualify in December. And most of the 2025 I can just do true hybrid where I'm going to do as much as I can of both but not overdo it. But just really, I'm going to allow me to do a balance, do a real balance thing for much of 2025 is my plan. Okay,

Philip Pape  43:56

man, some really cool things in there. First of all, you touched on periodization and seasons, you use the term seasons very early when I got my nutrition coaching cert, that was definitely the language used in the context of like, if you think of an athletic season, you have a preseason where your prep season where you go after it you know, offseason when you recover. And then did I miss one but you know what I mean? What in between? Oh, yeah, the offseason is actually where you develop your skill, right? Like you might go after? Yeah, but you talked about planning into 2025 Just this morning, somebody posts in our community. This is our paid program. One of our courses asked you to put together a 12 month plan there like I want you to think ahead of an entire year think about the holidays. Think about what you want to do think about how you want to move the seasons how hot and cold like all that stuff and put together Oh, yeah, it just like you're doing you're you're backing it up. You're reverse engineering from you know, events dates. Yeah, maybe you have a wedding, maybe you want to look great on the beach, it doesn't matter whatever is driving you plan it in because we're good. Humans are really good at using like special milestones and moments and holidays to drive things. And so we take advantage of that. So I'm just putting it out for the listener like that's a great tip Ben just said, like plan out the next 12 months. Do you have any advice specifically on how people can start doing that? Like, because they may, they may think it's just kind of overwhelming. What even do I do over the next 12 months? You know, well,

Ben Lewis  45:13

you know, Excel is your friend, you can

Philip Pape  45:17

get your you're going right to the tool. All right, you're like me, man.

Ben Lewis  45:20

For me, that was my friend. Okay, here's, there's, here's the weeks. And literally, I started with just here's the weeks and what, and then looking at you, you've used a great term that reverse engineering, so I'm going to reverse engineering. Okay. Yeah. All right, the pool opens and Memorial Day weekend, and I'm not saying this was necessarily me. But yeah, the full Memorial Day weekend, I want to be coming right out of a cut down. Yeah. But a lot of people are probably gonna think you know, so think about that. All right. So then I set up, okay, this is when I'm going to, I'm going to straight train. And you know, I'm going to do my, whatever, 12 weeks or 16 weeks, whatever that number might be, and you work backwards from there. And then, you know, for me as a runner, it's like, I want to do a half marathon in 2025. And there's one near me, it's actually in Mount Airy, North Carolina, Andy Griffith hometown, where the show was kind of the show was kind of based on Mount Airy, and you get to take a picture with Barney, Barney Fife. Qmobile. Yeah, so that, that's, that's always like the second week of November. So I'm kind of Alright, so we're gonna remember, half marathon training is going to take me 12 weeks, I'm going to work back from the second week of November and then think about Alright, so that's when I'll start scaling back lifting. So then whatever that 12 We I don't have that spreadsheet in front of me right now. But whatever the 12 weeks, sometimes it was sometime it says some week in September. So up to that time in September, I'm really going to go hard on my lifting, you know, perfect man. So that that kind of things, it's really those events, those things that what you where you want to be at certain times in the year,

Philip Pape  46:51

as I'm thinking of that, what how do you is it a completely perfection oriented plan? Or do you put in some wiggle room and some like buffer in there? For me,

Ben Lewis  47:01

I put I start with best case scenario, just but just understanding it, you know, I need to have grace with myself and life can happen. And you know, just be okay with that. I'll really be okay. When, when life happens, and I hate I get sick a lot less now that I'm eating healthy, whole unprocessed foods all the time, or most of the time that I get sick a lot less and I'm healthy. I'm a healthier person, but I do get sick. You know, okay, maybe gotta take a week, two weeks off, just to let your body heal. And that's okay. Yeah, for sure

Philip Pape  47:37

we see it. I mean, again, as you get older, you got the surgeries and the injuries in life and kids in COVID. And now all these other things that happened, right? This theory came up with my mind now that I wanted to pick your brain on Okay, so you okay, you're eating like 4000 calories in a deficit, right? Yeah. Like your expenditures is 4800.

Ben Lewis  47:56

Macro. fattener has my expenditure around 46 4700. Okay. All

Philip Pape  48:00

right. So you're eating a lot of food, like you're just eating a lot in terms of volume and calories and energy. Yes, you're running a lot, but you're adapted to it. You're lifting as well. We've seen this kind of unusual outlier version of body recomp. I'm just going to call it that. Because it's not like results are not typical kind of thing. Yeah. Do you think that there's an element here, kind of a formula that you're applying here that is putting you into a high energy? well fed state that is akin to not dieting, but because the energy balance is still dieting, that you're losing weight? You don't say? Yeah,

Ben Lewis  48:38

I should have said that. Okay, I did not specify that. So I am losing intentionally my I am losing way slower than I ever have. Even slower than macro factor. I think I set it for point. Oh, 5%. Body fat. So that's my intention. Point. Oh,

Philip Pape  48:58

5% a week. Okay. point or point? 5.5. Okay. Well, that's, that's reasonable. That's, you know, it's moderate. Yeah. But yeah,

Ben Lewis  49:06

most people want to get close to that one. So, yeah, most people want to but I'm doing point 5%. And, yeah, so. So part of it I'm losing you referenced is when you're still obesity. Body fat is energy. And excess body fat is energy. And so yeah, I suspect that my body has been using some of that fat for muscle building. Yeah, yeah,

Philip Pape  49:28

but not really. Yeah. So wait, let's I don't want to leave it. I'm gonna challenge you on that a little not challenge but you're at a much higher level than the average person in terms of your absolute calories. You just are being Sub Sub 200 male, right? Yeah. Typically, I see people's expenditure being on the upper end 4000 On the far upper end, like, you know, a bigger guy and everything, but usually it's around 3000 to 3500 At most, and then when they're dieting they're down to like 2500 or 2000 calories. They are getting to the point Weigh Down where their body feels, you know, even if it's moderate, you are eating a ton of calories. And so my like, my theory goes is the energy coming in even though a lot of it gets burned? It's kind of circling through. I wonder if that puts you in a better health state or metabolic state, even while you're losing such that your body doesn't feel like it's dieting as much you know what to say? Right?

Ben Lewis  50:21

This is just so much more sustainable. Yes. In terms of my hunger cues. Yeah. So even though I'm burning it all and losing fat, I do not feel hungry. Yeah. Because I mean, you know, you don't have time. You know, I eat a, I typically eat 1000 calories by the, by the time I pre workout, Intro workout and parry workout. I've eaten 1000 calories in the morning, and I'm eating 1000 basically 1000 Calorie breakfast 1000 Calorie lunch 1000 Calorie dinner and 1000 calories in the morning before breakfast is basically how it tends to play out. And yeah, I'm not hungry. I I program in snacks and fruit and stuff. And sometimes I forget to get up and then I forget to go get an orange or some blueberries or whatever I put in for a snack for the day. Yes, that absolutely happened.

Philip Pape  51:11

So now you're also running a lot. And so people are gonna think, because here's the thing, I always have to caution people, especially when they start work with me, like we're probably going to do less in the short term, because you're probably doing too much and you're stressing your body, especially women doing too much cardio, but now we're talking to a guy here you Ben that's doing a ton of cardio, like a ton of cardio. And so what makes it actually work for you. You talked about balance, but still it's a lot. It's a lot of volume. Is it sleep? Are you getting nine hours of sleep? What is it that's keeping the stress load down? Do you think

Ben Lewis  51:42

you said that earlier? Now that I think about it? I do think it's the quality, the quality and the amount of nutrition really have to be it? I'm not a great sleeper. It's funny. My wife asked me fairly recently, a week or two ago, she's like, Have you stopped drinking for good or asset? I don't know. I've literally I've never met like, I've literally never been drunk in my life or even tipsy in my life. But I would have a glass of wine here and there. I haven't had any in. I think it was around 2022 I'm not even sure. So it wasn't like a conscious, I'm not gonna drink it. This day. I just kind of stopped at some point. And I'm not saying you know, so. So the point that I don't consume alcohol, which is you know, it's a recovery in heaven because it hurts your recovery. So I really focus on recovery, and getting walks in and you know, active recovery on the days that I'm not running or not lifting, doing a little bit of active recovery, doing, you know, real life stuff on those days. You know, I'm not a great sleeper. I know it's important. I try to sometimes I just wake up. Yeah. I'm getting in bed. I am typically in bed before 8pm every night. Okay, but I don't sleep eight hours, almost never. Okay,

Philip Pape  52:54

no, it's good to understand what what is your sub count come out to be when you include all your running? What is it roughly a day?

Ben Lewis  53:02

Don't check it much anymore. It's like 20 to 20,000?

Philip Pape  53:05

Well, no, just so now I want to get to that pivotal. Like we teased early on, you know, a lot of people will hear all this the concurrent training, the hybrid training, and the fact that you went after two goals, right, that sometimes seem contradictory with performance, and health. So what's like the number one piece of advice that you would have for people who are like, I do want to prioritize both of those with my, my approach in my training? Yeah,

Ben Lewis  53:30

so performance and health is similar to the whole thing I was saying about running and lifting, you've got to periodized and decide what right now is the thing I want to focus on. I'll give you my personal example. That said earlier, I really want to focus on just nailing a marathon this fall. Okay, that is not an optimal health goal. It is a performance goal. And quite frankly, you know, I would say, as a runner, I feel like I've gotten on a bit of a bunny trail doing marathons, like, as I start, you know, I started at health, I'm working on this health, and now I'm chasing this rabbit over here of the marathon and really kind of nail that. I would probably say, even as somebody who's, you know, who's who's running nine hours a week ish, and you know, do a 1618 mile or every week, probably 90 minutes is the cap for any run that he would ever want to do. So point being I know that I am not optimized for necessarily health right now, quote, unquote, I am getting close to optimize performance. But as I said earlier, I'm going to change that. I'm going to do this and I plan to get out of Marathon. I plan to get out of the marathon business, if you will. Yeah. You know, it's a nice goal. It's a fun goal. And I'm not saying if you're a runner, you could keep running marathons. That's your thing, but I don't think it's optimal for my health pursuits. Yeah, quite frankly.

Philip Pape  54:47

Yeah. So makes it you gotta go off to one or the other. What are your thoughts on lifting because kind of the extreme version of that would be bodybuilding where again, that's not healthy. But is there this interesting space where lifting weights as a performance goal to an extent actually can overlap more with health. I wonder, right? Yeah. So, for

Ben Lewis  55:08

me lifting is at pros lifting and running really differently, like lifting. I want to progress, like, oh, I want to see is getting a little bit stronger. And my six to eight rep range like I, people ask me, you know, how much can you bench? I have no idea. I have never one rep max. I don't, I can't come up with a reason I Why would want to try to

Philip Pape  55:29

we should, we should try.

Ben Lewis  55:32

No, but you know, I've built muscle, I feel like I'm strong. You know, for a guy my size in particular, I feel like I've got a lot of strength. But I really approach that with a muscle building strength, you know, mobility, plyometrics sort of it is health. It's an aspect of health, as you're saying, I'm able to approach lifting much more with a pure health thing. I need to build and maintain muscle mass. And that is my focus. I'm not tempted to go do a bodybuilding show. I'm not tempted to take some anabolic stuff. And I'm not tempted to be enhanced. I mean, that's not even it's not on my radar. Yeah.

Philip Pape  56:14

And similarly, you alluded to the fact that keeping running under a certain level can also be aligned with health so that again, there's a spectrum and there's extremes, you can go off to the extremes, knowing that they're going to be contradictory with the health goal, but not necessarily. It's not going to just trash it in. So you know, long term, it might even support it long term when you get out of it potentially because you're periodized. And then mentally I imagine it's like you want it like you want it you want to win this thing, right? You want to crush your marathon.

Ben Lewis  56:43

I think the lesson is also kind of what what drives you what's fun, and drives you and what keeps you in the game. Really what keeps you know, what is it that keeps me going back to the gym? Every morning? What keeps me running every day, you know, I enjoy it. So awesome. You got to find modalities of movement that you you personally enjoy. I mentioned that started with biking, I realized.

Philip Pape  57:07

Yeah, like many of us don't like running.

Ben Lewis  57:10

I just like it. And so I have I mean, I have right behind me an indoor bike that I bought that I use. I do use it for recovery. Right? Sure. Warm enough recovery. Yeah, I use it once a week. But it's never grabbed me like running and lifting has Oh, I don't do it as often. Alright,

Philip Pape  57:31

we touched on so much today, man. You know, this question is coming because you listened to the show, right? But what one question Did you wish I'd asked what is your answer?

Ben Lewis  57:40

Oh, gosh, no, I'd written down something that I forgot what it was. That we never talked about the scale.

Philip Pape  57:47

Yeah, it was. It was I had a lot of notes, man. Yeah, that would have been one this. Let's jump into it. Okay, talk about your relationship with the scale. Yeah,

Ben Lewis  57:54

yeah. So, um, and I was in 2013. Man, it was, it drove everything. It was awful. Yeah, it was terrible. It was, you know, I gotta get up and hope to sit and TMI. Like, I gotta poop before I get on the scale. Because I don't want that extra few ounces or whatever, you know, oh,

Philip Pape  58:11

man. I've been I know what you mean. No, but yeah,

Ben Lewis  58:14

I mean, and, you know, it was it was ridiculous. And now it has evolved to, honestly, it's done it by weighing every day, ironically, just kind of facing that giant eye wave practically every single day, when I don't wait, because like I'm traveling or, you know, I have to whatever reason rush out the door really fast. But now, it's just another data point. And partly, you know, that's probably because I am tracking and I know my diet is dialed in. And I know it worked. Because I know this stuff works. I trust the process. I keep playing that. And I know, you know, I've had you know, there's you know, there's some variability and ability. What's the word I'm looking for? There's some, it's not 100% accurate when you track it. Yeah, that's what I was trying to say. I know, there's something but you know, I know that today I've had 44,050 calories. And I know that that's a deficit from what I burn. And if I'm up a half a pound, tomorrow, whatever. And if I'm down, if I'm down to half a pound tomorrow, whatever, that's just how it works. And I've seen I posted in your Facebook group, I mean, my skill track for the last four, whatever since January, five months. It's just been. It's going down. But it's not. It's not this. It's not. It's a lot. Oh, yeah, for those for those listeners a lot of humps. But I know I know where it's headed. And you know, even I was able to say up, I've surprised myself and when I said it, I was like oh my gosh, that's so weird that I can just say that out loud with confidence that in two months, I'm gonna be at 12 to 15% I'm just kind of know that I trust the process that much because I've started tracking it every day and just seeing kind of how it works when you're hitting it. And that also relates to not being hungry. I don't. I just I'm way more confident. I'm not going to have these crazy binges because I'm eating enough

Philip Pape  59:59

so you're seeing it released. Trouble, the scale has improved because you're tracking it every day you have the knowledge, awareness power to know, this is going to fluctuate. Yeah. Yeah. What do you say to someone who, because I've seen a spectrum with Clint working with clients, where 90% of the time that is true, there's 10% of the time where somebody does track daily, because all my clients check daily, where it's still a mental roadblock for them. And I have different techniques that I worked through with them, because there's usually something else going on, and some reframing and things. But how would you like talk to a friend who's trying to lose their weight for the first time, and they're, like, I've been weighing myself every day, but just jumped jumped three pounds today, I'm freaking out, you know, what would you say to them?

Ben Lewis  1:00:39

You know, I would leave with compassion. I mean, our culture has trained us so poorly in this area. You know, we say, it's been interesting, as I've gotten in the podcast world to hear you and others use the fame, fat loss, you know, which is more what's what risk is really what you want to do, and not just weight loss that, that we're, you know, we're gonna do, we're working to remove or reduce body fat. And so I would lead with compassion and just be like, you know, I understand why this is such a, it was a problematic area for me. You know, I'd be I can speak to you, as someone who have been there, man, or lady, or lady, I've been there. I totally get it. Here's what did work for me eventually. But I'm not gonna say I had a great relationship with the scale. I mean, I've been down again, I've been down, under, I've been at a healthy to semi healthy body weight for almost three years now. But I'm not gonna say my relationship with scale has been good for three years, I'm gonna say my relationship, the scale has been outstanding since probably February or March ish, when, when I really decided I'm gonna lose, I'm gonna lose slowly. I'm gonna cut slowly is the first time in my life. I've cut slowly every time I go up as I want to get rid of that fast. But no. So definitely, I guess not I think about it. I think I would go there. But you know, let's talk about what a slow cut looks like. And that is what has taught me to trust it is doing it's actually doing the slow cut. And I know that I want to track so your your little rapid two week fat loss protocol thing? I've heard that No, once, once I get into maintenance, I might play with that song. I do think there's a place for that slow loss that really helps you feel confident and better that relationship where it's like, you know what I'm not, I'm not trying to lose two and a half, three pounds a week. I don't want to get down to x weight by the beach, or by Memorial Day or by, you know, the class reunion or the wedding or whatever it may be. Okay,

Philip Pape  1:02:37

yeah, no, that's well said, I mean, focus on the process, don't go so fast. So you have realistic expectations, and then use the scale as a tool, you know, rather than an indictment on you know, your soul.

Ben Lewis  1:02:51

I would say practically speaking, you know, using using something like macro factor, I also just use a good old seven day average in Excel. You know, I put it in excel every day, and I just a good old is my seven day average. So that helps. That helps. It was just a data point in the seven day average, not the be all end all today. I'll probably talk to folks about that, too. There's also an app, I know you're an app guy, this is a this is a freebie happy scale. It also doesn't It doesn't it doesn't moving average, if and if you have any smart skills sync to it automatically. And it can give you a moving average, just might be an alternative for those that don't want to pay for macro. doesn't want to pay for the macro factor.

Philip Pape  1:03:29

And actually, if you want to do a Ben's do with the spreadsheet, and I don't know if Ben you want to upgrade your spreadsheet, macro factor uses a 20 day exponential moving average. So yeah, yeah. But then it requires data points. Yeah. I didn't mean to be the No at all, man, I tend to run it get into that mode sometimes. So just sharing knowledge. Awesome. This has been really cool. Where do you want people to find you and reach out to

Ben Lewis  1:03:51

you? Oh, yeah, so I am and I can use the help I should have said this earlier. I'm gonna make a quick statement here. We were talking about folks that you know, have a lot of weight to lose, I found a random person on Instagram that is just really we're talking about making those little progress gains and like, I'm watching her run, get from a 16 minute mile to a 15 minute mile and the joy that she is having just hitting that hitting that that little bit faster mile pace. So Anyway, point being those of us that are in these journeys on Instagram, and I've just started following her and just cheering her on. Those of us that are in these journeys that we don't have these large social media followings and whatnot, we can we would love your support and it's called it's Vinny Lu fitness, I'm sure you'll put the link in your show notes but it's at Vinny Lu Vinny Lu ve n e l o u underscore fitness and Instagram that's where I would love your support. Having that bit of external validation is helpful and joyful and I think it does help so definitely

Philip Pape  1:04:49

for sure if you're listening go right now follow Have you have used IG Instagram yet Benny Lupin is b e ne Liu underscore fitness and I'll include that in the show notes and give Been a follow up please do if you you know, joined the show and you want to follow him and just say hello, I'm sure he'll say hello back. And then man, it's been a pleasure. I didn't you know, I didn't know exactly what we'd get into here, but it's like, it's all the good things people need to know about how to tackle this mentally, physically and otherwise. So thank you so much for coming on.

Ben Lewis  1:05:16

Thanks for having me. I appreciate it.

This Over 50 Family Man Lost His Power Belly (36 Pounds) But NOT His Muscle or Strength! | Ep 187

Are you over 40, juggling a demanding career, family responsibilities, and struggling to stay fit? Meet Jerry Bonanno, a 50-something family man who shed 36 pounds of fat and 5 inches off his waist without losing his hard-earned muscle or strength.

Philip (@witsandweights) talks with Jerry about being over 40 and struggling to balance a demanding job, family commitments, and staying fit. Maybe you've been hitting the gym for years but still have difficulty nailing your nutrition, or the daily grind has taken a toll on your physical health. You're eager to reclaim your health, lose fat, and feel strong again, but the challenges seem overwhelming.

Jerry reveals how he transformed his physique and reclaimed his health despite a hectic lifestyle. Tune in to hear his inspiring journey and practical tips that YOU can use to do the same.

Today, you’ll learn all about:

1:16 Jerry's discipline and training routine
6:52 Managing aches and pains during training
10:34 Jerry's motivation and health goals and why he worked with Philip
14:32 Dietary experiments and sustainability
18:12 Prioritizing his physicality to maintain a fulfilling life experience
26:06 Reduce friction: Work hard and smart to achieve goals effectively
29:14 The importance of tracking calories and protein intake
34:54 Why Jerry came back for a second time
39:53 Focusing on the process over the outcome
46:05 Shifting to the carnivore diet
49:21 Understanding personal data and adjusting nutrition
51:52 Intuitive eating with tracking for a balanced approach
54:31 High-frequency, low-volume weight training program without cardio
57:17 Maintaining health and physique goals
58:56 The question Jerry wished Philip had asked
1:01:25 How to connect with Jerry
1:02:02 Outro

Episode resources:

• Jerry’s IG: @thebasementape

Related Episode:

• Ep 115: How Tony Lost 15 Lbs, 8% Body Fat, and Built Lifelong Strength with Barbell Training

Episode summary:

In today's episode, we delve into the remarkable fitness journey of Jerry Bonanno, a testament to defying age and achieving health and strength in your 50s. Jerry’s story is one of perseverance, discipline, and smart choices, offering a blueprint for anyone looking to transform their health at any age. He managed to lose 36 pounds of body fat and five inches off his waist while maintaining his muscle mass. His success was not just about weight loss but about rekindling a love for lifting and prioritizing muscle-centric health over mere numbers on a scale.

Jerry's journey began with the challenge of fitting fitness into a busy lifestyle. Despite early morning wake-ups at 4:30 am, he made strategic nutrition and consistent training a priority. His basement gym, equipped with a power rack, specialty bars, and a Titan shoulder press machine, became the epicenter of his transformation. Jerry emphasizes that the key to his success was sticking to the basics and maintaining consistency.

One of the significant hurdles Jerry faced was the pitfalls of restrictive diets. Initial attempts at nutrition and fitness were marked by struggles and temporary successes. It was seeking professional guidance that helped him navigate these challenges. Jerry's story highlights the importance of finding a balanced and sustainable approach to nutrition that fits into real-world situations, leading to better long-term health and well-being.

Physical health plays a crucial role in enhancing overall life experience. Jerry's transformation journey reflects this connection. Inspired by personal influences like Arnold Schwarzenegger, Jerry rediscovered his passion for lifting weights. He emphasizes the necessity of being "unreasonable" with oneself to make fitness a priority, even amidst long commutes and family obligations. True change, according to Jerry, requires personal responsibility and the courage to push through excuses.

Transitioning to early morning workouts, Jerry discovered increased productivity and a sense of accomplishment. His personal experience of shifting his workout schedule after his first daughter was born and building a home gym to reduce friction highlights the importance of adaptability. Working hard and smart simultaneously, Jerry drew inspiration from philosophical insights and practical advice from peers in the fitness community.

Nutrition tracking played a pivotal role in Jerry's success. Combining effort with intelligent strategies, Jerry transitioned from a casual approach to a more structured and tracked method of eating. He learned the critical impact of nutrition on strength training and overall fitness. By accurately tracking his nutrition, Jerry could manage his health and fitness goals more effectively.

Understanding and managing the relationship between nutrition and overall well-being is vital. By focusing on key performance indicators like caloric intake, protein consumption, and daily steps, Jerry could better manage his health and fitness goals. Tracking progress and understanding the role of consistent, process-oriented actions were essential components of his journey.

Practical strategies for increasing physical activity and making dietary adjustments were crucial in Jerry's transformation. From walking a dog to using a treadmill and habit stacking, Jerry explored various methods to boost daily steps. Transitioning from a carnivore diet to incorporating more carbs, Jerry addressed concerns about type 2 diabetes and processed foods. Monitoring biofeedback elements like hunger, digestion, sleep, and stress helped him understand the impact of dietary choices on overall well-being.

As Jerry transitioned from powerlifting to bodybuilding-style training, he emphasized the importance of high-frequency, low-volume workouts. Shorter, more frequent gym sessions helped maintain motivation and avoid burnout. Auto-regulated training, rather than chasing all-time personal records, allowed Jerry to adapt his training to his unique needs and goals.

Connecting with a supportive coaching relationship was a significant factor in Jerry's success. Finding a coach who understands the unique needs of hobbyists balancing fitness with other life commitments can make a significant difference. Jerry's journey underscores the importance of personalized coaching and a supportive fitness community.

Jerry Bonanno's inspiring fitness journey is a treasure trove of actionable advice and personal stories. From the importance of consistency and sticking to the basics to the benefits of early morning workouts and mastering nutrition tracking, Jerry's story offers valuable insights for anyone looking to achieve their fitness goals.

🎓 Join Wits & Weights Physique University

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Transcript

Philip Pape  00:01

If you're over 40, juggling a demanding job, family commitments and trying to stay fit, this episode is for you. Maybe you've been lifting for years but struggled to get your nutrition Right. Or perhaps you've lost touch with your physicality with all of life's responsibilities. You're eager to reclaim your health to lose fat feel strong again, but the challenges seem overwhelming. In today's episode, we are talking to someone just like you who managed to lose 36 pounds of body fat and five inches off his waist despite a busy lifestyle and without losing his hard earned muscle or strength.

Philip Pape  00:42

Today I have longtime client Jerry Banano on the show. Like I mentioned in the intro, Jerry used the Whitson weights approach of working smarter and more efficiently to shed 36 pounds of fat and five inches off his waist in his 50s. Without losing his muscle size or strength. We'll explore how he balanced the demanding job, family commitments and community responsibilities while making significant strides in his physical health. In this episode, we'll discuss how he did it and what you can do to replicate his results. Jerry, I'm super excited to have you on the show. Great to be here. Thanks.

Jerry Bonanno  01:14

Appreciate it.

Philip Pape  01:15

So let's set the scene here. Right you train your your handle on Instagrams at the basement ape, right basement ape. Yeah, and you're about to start your next training session, I want you to take us there into that dark, dank basement gym of yours. What is running through your mind as you prepare to lift? What emotions are bubbling up, walk us through the sights and sounds of training as Jerry, from that electric anticipation before you grab the bar to the raw intensity of each rep, paint us a picture of Jerry's world?

Jerry Bonanno  01:45

Well, I wish I could not. I wish I could fill that in. But here's Well, I train like a lot of people who are trying to juggle a lot of different things, I train pretty much first thing in the morning. So I'll take you from the point where my alarm goes off, which is usually around 4:30am. And the first thought that comes to mind is not any of that it's go back to sleep. Good one. Yeah. So typically, literally, that's the first thought that goes through my head, like everybody kind of struggled to get enough sleep. So I'm usually working on six, six and a half hours asleep, and I catch up sometimes on the weekends. But typically then just convinced myself to get out of bed, usually I'd only takes a few minutes, which is good. And then honestly, these days, I'm not really commuting every day, I'm working from home most days, which is great because I can eat before I train. So usually go down and get something to eat and pretty much the same thing every day, and combination of some carbs and about 40 grams of protein. And usually then can let that settle for about 20 minutes. So I have that luxury. And then I'll go down into the basement. And you know, right now, I mean I'm, I'm training on a six day a week kind of body parts split when Andy Baker's bodybuilding templates. So usually there's one big lift involved, there are heavier kind of barbell oriented lifts or something that I'm really pushing hard to progress on. And then after that, there'll be some more kind of like by building movements that are usually higher rep things that I can move a little bit faster on. So typically when I first start, as far as warming up, I use the movement that I'm going to do to warm up I don't do any really special warm up. Usually something hurts whether it's you know, to a mild to moderate degree, I'd say about a third of the time, it's my mid back through the time, it's my left shoulder and a third of the time, I'm pretty much paying for it. So that's the reality of it, you know, when you get up to the ripe old age of 50, I guess so. With that I'll usually like I said, I'll start with warm ups in on that they move it and then move through that that usually takes the longest and then I can really get the session going from there and usually get done in about an hour, maybe some 45 minutes to 75 minutes if I'm really kind of moving a little bit slow that day or there's a lot of stuff to move around in the basement. I can do most things down there. I mean, I have a power rack barbell couple specialty bars, machine

Philip Pape  04:10

press. You got a machine press yeah

Jerry Bonanno  04:14

that was my my one of my favorite recent pickups. Yeah, that tighten shoulder press and you know, lateral raise machine that I got pretty used but it was pretty much right out of the box and I look for stuff with a small footprint. I don't have a tremendous amount of space. So I let tower and a shoulder press machine like you mentioned and I have a bench rack it's the tighten, rip off of the west side bench rack, which works just fine for me and you know, that's probably frivolous. I could probably bench in my squat rack but I like having that set up and you know I can just jump on it when I'm done and have an adjustable bench and a couple of heavy dumbbells for rowing and stuff like that. And that's about it. I think I have a 40 to 45 degree back raise too so not a lot of crazy hold you up. Yeah,

Philip Pape  05:00

yeah. And so So it's funny because I gave you this really dramatic setup. And then the answer is, you know what, I'm a discipline guy, I have a routine, I have the same kind of temptation and friction as everyone else. First person, when you get up in the morning, I just want to hit that snooze. But it's like, you just do this and actually love that answer. Because people listening, you know, they're always looking for some big secret or some big motivation. And, and it really, it isn't that it's like the bread and butter basics of just you got to get into this routine and do it right.

Jerry Bonanno  05:28

I think it's funny, because, like, especially after I lost the weight with you lost the body fat with you really changed the way I live is always big and stronger, or whatever. But now, shutting that body fat really has kind of, I think, improve the way I look. So now especially people like well, what do you do? You know, what do you do, and it's like, I did the same thing I did 15 years ago, essentially, outside of nutrition, which is just get up. And it's like, it's always the first step. And it's always the same first step, you know, and then you just keep going from there. So, you know, there's, there's no secret, but I will say, you know, once you develop that discipline, and you start seeing results, you know, the motivation does build, you start stepping into identity a little bit instead of chasing it. So you're, you know, it gets better as you go along, especially when you taste a little bit of success. So you

Philip Pape  06:20

step into the identity, rather than chase it, that's gold man like that really is like, because we do talk about having this feature identity. And people are like, Well, yeah, that's great. But you know, I have this huge gut, or I'm not very strong or whatever. And it's like, you just have to start take those steps. And it doesn't have to be hard. You know, we're going to talk about some of the steps in here where even Jerry after all those years of, you know, lifting and knowing how to do that the nutrition, there were still some, some gaps, maybe some knowledge gaps and process gaps that had to be filled, in which no shame in that, right, we all get to learn some of that somewhere, and then apply it. You mentioned when you work out, you warm up, you know, with your lift, you have a big lift some accessories, and usually something hurts I think that's the most important thing to talk about for a second. For us, older guys, women and men. And you've said left shoulder, it's the same shoulder for me, because that's how I have my surgery. But mid back, you know, a little back fatigue, mid back fatigue shoulder, sometimes your pain free, does it stop you in any way? Or how do you work with that?

Jerry Bonanno  07:15

No, I mean, pain is kind of one of those things, that's, you know, you have to kind of, it's a little bit individual. I mean, I know I'm not injured, you know, I know myself by now, right? So you have to be careful. I mean, you shouldn't be in agonizing pain, do with anything, you know, you need to kind of stop and reevaluate if that's the case. But, you know, for me, it's like my back hurts, mostly because I've slept on my stomach, you know, since I was eight or nine years old, and I'm trying to break myself that habit, but it's pretty hard. So I don't think that's been great for my back. And then a couple years ago, I had a hernia repaired really electively, it wasn't a problem. And I came back a little too fast from that and actually tweaked my back for the first time ever and never had back issues. And so that lingers a little bit. But you know that and I think shoulders is just trying to push by bench up over 400 pounds a couple years ago and bench to leak and a lot of flat benching did kind of tight my shoulders up a little bit. So got some of that mobility back by changing my training up a little bit. And think things like that. So the I think aches and pains are not necessarily injuries, right. So I think you got to you learn how to figure yourself out as you go. But I think you should anticipate at least a little bit of this kind of hurts this thing that we do sometimes.

Philip Pape  08:34

So it's uncomfortable. Yeah, yeah, you

Jerry Bonanno  08:37

shouldn't like like, you know, I guess there's a distinction, you shouldn't really be a joint really hurts or something is amiss, you should definitely honor that. But you're gonna feel it from time to time. And sometimes you just need to take it slow and train through it. And hopefully, it's nothing. And usually by the, you know, after the warm ups, the pain is pretty much gone. You know? So, yeah,

Philip Pape  08:58

yeah, I think that's important. It's something I think about a lot too. And I recently posted something about pain and bad form. And somebody chimed in and said, Well, it's not really the bad form. It's just something that you're unprepared for, you know, you're not you haven't trained for whatever it is. And that's why you don't want to just jump into things and not warm up. But also, if you know yourself, like this morning, I did shoulder press, dumbbell shoulder presses the second week in a row after several months of not doing them because of my shoulder. And it's painful when I start warming up, but it's a pain that I know will warm into it, go away, and then I'll be able to respond and guess what will happen the next day actually feel a lot better. And you kind of have to learn that about your body. Right? That it's, you balance it and don't use it as an excuse, but you also got to be smart about it. Yeah,

Jerry Bonanno  09:43

you should definitely pay attention to it. Don't Don't ignore it, you know, note that it's there. And then, you know, like I said, just take it slow warm up. You mentioned the shoulder press machine that that machine has been great for me. I think it's really made a difference in my shoulder training. But you know, every time I sit down on it The first to warm up sets, it's like, Man, my shoulders are kind of feeling it by the time I get to the third or fourth set the pains gone. And I'm pretty good to go. So sometimes, like you said, it's just warming up. It just getting through that initial kind of body's just saying, Okay, this is what you want me to do. And you're kind of limbering up and not being so tired. I think sometimes there's a reflex when you get into a position that's a little stretched, and you tighten up, and it causes a little bit of discomfort or pain. So yeah, pain is tricky. But I think there's going to be some level of discomfort if you're going to list especially over the long term. So yeah,

Philip Pape  10:34

cool, man. So what I want to do now is kind of like they do in the movies, or in a good TV show that we'll talk a little bit about the recent before, after, or the recent before we started working together. And then we're gonna do like the flashback like 10 years ago, or 20 or 30 years ago, and kind of work back because I want to tie these concepts together. So kind of the status quo here of where were you before we started working together? Like around that moment? You know, why you reached out your physical, your mental state? And you're like, Okay, I gotta do something different. Okay, yeah,

Jerry Bonanno  11:06

so we started working together, it was almost just just a little over a year ago, I think, July 1, last year, we started our first, you know, three month cut. And I think where it was then is, I was pretty big and strong, but I was too heavy. I mean, I had known that for a while I was hovering around like 250, and I'm only five, nine. So it's a lot of weight to be hauled around, I didn't have a lot of like, you know, subcutaneous kind of jiggly fat, but I had a pretty good power belly going. And I just, you know, when I hit, when I was approaching 50, I always told myself, like, I was pushing my strength was from my strength had competed for a little while, you know, and local powerlifting meets and things like that. So, but I always told myself, you're really too heavy, you know, to be heading into your 50s, there's no reason for you to be this heavy. And as that birthday approached, that was in December, I had tried a few times on my own had, you know, had some temporary success, but really never got my arms around nutrition the way I did when I started working with you. And then you know, we're both in the same kind of lifting club so so you in there knew that you lifted knew you, you know, you're not, you're not quite as old as me, but you have some gray hair. So I said, Well, this guy's you know, he seems to be have a relatively kind of demanding and normal life. And he's lifting and doing this stuff. And so I said, Well, I think he'd be a good person to work with and some other folks in the group had worked with you. So I really mentally, I was in a position where I don't like when I know I have to do something, and I can't, I can't get it done, it bothers me. So this is something that I just I knew for a while, like, you need to get your arms around this and get it under control. Because frankly, you know, my bloodwork at that time, I was kind of, you know, if there's the four or five indicators for metabolic syndrome, I had been told a couple of times, like, I wouldn't quite diagnose you with metabolic syndrome. But, and that's only because you're you have so much muscle going on. But if that starts to tank, like you're gonna be in that space real quick. So I have kids that are relatively young, we want in high school want to go into middle school. So I thought, and that's a more life to do here. And I'd like to do it in a way that doesn't have me, you know, in a really unhealthy place. So that's where it was before we started. Yeah,

Philip Pape  13:26

and there's a lot of that, like, personal values in there, which are important. We talk about people's you know, why and why they do things. And that's, that's super deep for you. So it kind of makes it I'll see easy to make that decision in a way. First of all, thanks for telling me that my gray hair actually served me well. It's kind of funny, because once it started Gray, and I'm like, actually look older I because I used to be up till the age of like 3035 Like, look like a 20 year old. So, you know, I keep the six o'clock shadow. But um, yeah, you said you had had some temporary success in the past. I do want to talk about that. But your bloodwork was maybe getting a little worse. However, you had a lot of muscle I use guys like you and you in particular as a good case study for folks as to why muscle centric health is important. And we shouldn't just focus on weight loss because the effort you put in all those years to build muscle is really helping you as a buffer as a massive buffer. I mean, huge buffer against the health issues where you could carry a lot of excess weight according to BMI standards, and still be in that normal range. So but not where you want to be ultimately. So that makes sense. Okay, you were doing carnivore before we met, right? Or it's one of the things you've done. I

Jerry Bonanno  14:36

did a stint on carnivore. That was probably the last thing I really tried before we we got together. And yeah, I just you know, I have a history of type two diabetes in my family. And so, you know, I thought, well, I'm probably not great on all these cards and the processed food that I'm eating, and so I was looking around for something that was pretty straightforward, even though it was very restricted. I mean, that's kind of the two sides of, of something like carnivore, it's, it's very restrictive, but it's not that complicated to implement, because you can only eat a couple things, you know, so that, you know, I'll give it its do it, I lost 13, or 14 pounds on it and then leveled out because I really wasn't tracking my calories or anything like that it was just, like, cut out a bunch of stuff. So but you know, it was very hard to sustain, you know, finding steak and eggs, you know, and other stuff constantly to eat while you're trying to work, or you're at a meeting or you're here or you're there, you're traveling can get challenging. And so, you know, I just stopped doing it, because I couldn't sustain it. And then you know, that a little time passed. And then after that I came to you, but you know, those I know, you know, for people that have specific, maybe conditions that works, but for me, it worked. I couldn't tell why it worked. Because there was so many variables that were adjusted at the same time, you know, but it wasn't a long term solution. And frankly, I feel just as good now eating a good balance of macros, then, as I did, then, probably better. So yeah,

Philip Pape  16:09

yeah, more carbs. And like you said, yeah, when you're traveling or just anywhere, you have to rely on someone else for food man, just trying to find protein alone. Yeah, let alone just a pure like carnivore style diet is going to be, you know, it's expensive food, it's usually has to be cooked, like, you know, so. So instead, they put out the sandwiches, and they put out the croissants and all that good stuff. Right? Right. So it was simple, but restrictive, which we hear constantly when it comes to these diets, you know, and I've been there myself with keto and Atkins back in the day and everything. But it's like, yeah, simple list of foods, just eat this. Don't eat that. And you're like, in the real world? No, it doesn't work. Right. What? So that's one of the obstacles, it wasn't sustainable. Is there anything else that comes to mind before we worked that, you know, later on you, you gain some insight into?

Jerry Bonanno  16:53

Um, I mean, me personally, it did. I think the other thing it did that, you know, that helped was I wasn't eating anything processed. Right. And so that that was another helpful, you know, attribute of that, I think, mostly, it was just that it wasn't something I was going to be able to do for the long term. And, you know, it wasn't, I mean, there's other foods you want to eat, you know, that that are just that you're eliminating? I mean, I'm not super, I always joke that I grew up with some really good cooks. And so I'm kind of over it. I'll never get food that could again, you know, as like my grandmother, or my uncle's cooked, or my mom and dad. Yeah. So, but my wife had great affection. I should take that back. She has she cooks really well. But But yeah, it's it's just that I'm not super attached to specific foods. But I mean, there's really not a lot of variety there. So it just wasn't something I was going to be able to do, you know, for the rest of my life and realization after four or five months,

Philip Pape  17:49

you know, yeah. Now, there's a concept. There's a concept that you've talked about physicality. And I want to get into that, because I want to tie that into why besides health, right, why you want to lose fat and how it connects to your training, because you're a lifter, we want people to lift, we want people to get strong, and a lot of people may not have the history you do of doing it all those years. But regardless, it's an important thing. If you permit me, I'm going to read something that you wrote to me. Sure. And I'm going to try to do it in like a dramatic documentary voice. If that works, and then we'll see if we can throw some music behind it. So just came up with this. Let me let me give it a shot. All right. Yeah. Like a lot of men of his vintage Jerry binotto started training for sports in high school. Growing up on a steady stream of Arnold action movies in the 80s. Jerry played football and wrestling training hard from age 13 to 23. But then he lost touch with his physicality, focusing on work graduate school law school, starting a family and getting his career off the ground. He found himself in his early 30s, having accomplished a lot in those areas, but in a less optimal place physically. Despite being extremely busy, he started taking steps in earnest to get back in touch with his physicality. He rekindled his love of lifting and has been training consistently and hard for the past 15 years. Jerry is a big believer in men being unreasonable about prioritizing their physicality, as they hit middle age and continuing to train hard into their 40s 50s and beyond. Sometimes you just need to be in Jerry's own words, too stupid to quit. All right, so maybe it wasn't as dramatic with the music. It might be. We'll see. I have to ask how stupid adequate Are you? And how unreasonably Do you now prioritize your physicality? What does that mean?

Jerry Bonanno  19:38

Okay, well, yeah, so, as far as the physicality thing goes, I mean, I think that I'll get a little metaphysical here. But look, no matter what your face system is, or what you believe, or don't believe, like our experience here on Earth, is we live it in our physical bodies. There's no escaping that right. So, you know, this is what you have while you're here. and all of your experiences are going to be filtered through this kind of physical, you know, show that you inhabit. So, you know, to me, if you don't pay attention to that your experience here is not going to be what it should be. And so, you know, that's kind of on the deepest level. But I mean, you know, everybody wants their clothes to fit and to look the way they want to look. And I did grow up on a steady stream of Arnold movies. And, you know, Carl Weathers and you know, Lou Ferrigno, and semester Stallone and all that stuff. So, you know, as a little kid, you're looking at that and said, Whoa, you know, that's pretty awesome. Like, I could do that. I could handle that. And what's your favorite of those movies are like Commando, but okay, you know, you know, I promise I kill you last and all that stuff. I like that whole thing. But anyways, um, so yeah, so that is kind of the physicality part. And a lot of times, you know, we're, when you're running around trying to get from point A to point B, especially over a period of years, which would happen to me from my mid 20s, to like my mid 30s, you know, you lose track of that. And I had started when I was young. And with that, it was really important, in kind of my formation, a lot of these really physical kind of experiences, like you mentioned, with sports and things, and then that all went away, and covered a lot of ground and other areas, but like you said, just had lost kind of that piece. So I think, struggled to get back into it. I mean, I went in a few different directions, and then came back to lifting for the reason that I think it attracted me first, which, which is that it was really one of those things is there where it's like, you think there's something wrong with you, or you're not where you think you should be. And you can actually fix it almost exclusively on your own, you don't have to show up at a class at a certain time, you don't have to deal with an instructor, you don't have to, you have to do any of that. If you don't want to, you could do this, it's basically up to you. And being kind of a naturally, you know, introverted, shy or type person. That was awesome. It's like, okay, so there's something not right about me, and I can actually fix it, you know, I can do that. And so that was encouraging. Some people get discouraged by that, if they're the solution, and maybe part of the problem, I find that super encouraging, it's harder to change other people than it is to change yourself. So but in order to do that, as the demands kind of pile up, you have to be what I say is like, you have to be unreasonable about it. And I can give you a kind of an example with me when you know, pre COVID I was, I had a very long commute in and out of work, pretty demanding job, like young family, all that kind of stuff. And it was a lot of commuting, I mean, no, no BS, it was close to four hours a day community. So it's like, okay, I want to build lifting back into my life. So how am I going to do that. So basically had to get up at 415 every day for about 11 years, and just went to the gym, then. And then, or all my stuff got ready and went to work. And, you know, tried to do that four days a week, or three days during the week, and then list on the weekend, a day on the weekend. And at various points in there, of course, you're gonna, you're gonna start thinking, what am I doing, I'm getting a can't get enough sleep, I'm getting up, I'm getting home, and I have to, like, pack up for the next day, and I'm trying to eat and, you know, talk to my wife and spend some time with my kids. And then I got to throw my clothes together and get in bed and get back up. So that's what I mean, with being unreasonable. You have to, there's plenty of reasons not to do it. I mean, today, even you know, you wake up and you don't want to get out of bed, you know, you're tired or, and, you know, and so you have to be reasonable with yourself and get yourself to do it. Don't give yourself you know, and out. Yeah, there's, there's, I think you just have to always, you have to always understand there's always three good reasons not to do what you should do. What you know, you should be doing. But you have to do it anyway. Yeah,

Philip Pape  23:47

you have to do it anyway. I mean, it sounds like it's so connected to your purpose and who you are. And it would be awesome. If everybody listening could could find that. And everybody can I'm not saying they can't. And it's even if somebody's listening, like but I like group classes, or I want to do whatever you just said like you're gonna give yourself reasons not to do and I've heard that too, with new clients who I'm trying to get them like training with barbells or whatnot. And like, but I really love the group group class and the question I have to ask yourself is what do you really want out of all this? And is that gonna get you there? You can definitely do things in your life that you enjoy that maybe don't serve that purpose. But you have to make the space and prioritize is what you're talking about is prioritizing, but like not even giving yourself the reasons they may exist but so what you do it I mean, that's cool, man.

Jerry Bonanno  24:29

And that's that's just to add to that that's why the early morning thing because you know, I'm just like yeah, you get stuff pops up that you didn't know was gonna be there and no matter how carefully you plan you're gonna get your time gets sucked up by other things. So it does first thing like nobody else is even awake. So nobody can get in the way you know, so but you have that's it's it's not the most reasonable thing all the time but you have to go there sometimes to get it done. So I

Philip Pape  24:58

hear you man, I used to I used to say I'm not a morning In person, and I know a lot of people listening probably nod your head like, Yeah, I'm not a morning person, I can't do that. But again, that's the, I want you to keep this be unreasonable in your head, just say, Well, what if I did do it? What if I did it for like three weeks or four weeks, you know, three or four days a week, I just did it and experiment with it and see how it makes you feel, I guarantee you're gonna get the day started. You're gonna be pumped, you're gonna have the energy, you're gonna like, I accomplished something huge already. And the most important thing for me right now for my physicality, and so the rest of the day is like, you know, easy.

Jerry Bonanno  25:28

Yep, yep. And it's, and it's gonna just be frank, it sucks. I mean, it's gonna suck your heart when I first transitioned to doing that, because I was lifting after work before my first daughter was born. It was horrible. I mean, I was like, This is the worst. Like, I can't, I can't do what I was doing after work. I can't, you know, I'm really not awake yet. All these excuses, right? And they're not. They're real. I mean, but it's like, okay, you're gonna acclimate to it. And now I can't train it at night. I'm weaker. At night, you know? So, if you'll get used to it, you know, and it's if it's that or nothing, then do it in the morning. Exactly.

Philip Pape  26:06

Do it. How did did you at some point, make a decision elsewhere to make a trade off so that it wasn't so hard? Or like you didn't have that long commute? Or did it just naturally your job changed?

Jerry Bonanno  26:17

That happened through COVID? Yeah, okay. You know, we started all teleworking and it kind of stuck. So, you know, for me, that's, that really changed my life, frankly, quite a bit, it helped me to really be able to get a little more rest, and I think help with my consistency. But I stuck to the mornings. And I kind of built out the home gym as my, my kids came into the picture. So I did go to a very, I had the luxury of training at a really good powerlifting gym that was just outside of DC where I work. And you know, some great people there, Mac Gary and Suzy Gary, who were from Maryland, awesome in the powerlifting world, and they taught me how to live. So I had to look, I got lucky, I had them there. But even when I was doing that, I would stop there on the way out of DC and then come home and I wouldn't get home until 830 or nine o'clock at night. And so once once my kids came into the picture, I figured I think my wife had been really good about it. But at that point, it's like, Okay, I gotta be around after after work. So switch to the Lord.

Philip Pape  27:17

Yeah, so you just Okay, so you switched, you are deliberate things that you did, right? Like you switched in the morning, you built your home gym, you did things to reduce friction, even when there was reasons to have a lot of friction, you kind of moved it around. And that's the important message. It's like, you can't always eliminate everything that's still right there. Yeah. I

Jerry Bonanno  27:35

mean, it's kind of like, you know, I mean, this thing, like, be unreasonable, it's good. It's a good Maxim like, but don't grind yourself into a note for no reason. I mean, be smart to like, if there's things you can do to reduce the friction, do it. And the other thing is that I just want to mention with that sounds inconsistent, but like, you have to give yourself some grace one. So, you know, if you're on a four day program, and you only hit three days, that week, or a five day and you only hit whatever, you know, don't quit, Don't drive yourself into the ground with that just keep going and move past it's gonna happen, you happen, it's

Philip Pape  28:06

gonna happen. So a couple of times already, you've mentioned, you know, working hard and smart at the same time. So shout out to our friend, Tony Perry, who's in the Andy Baker's barbell club with us. And he was on the show before. And he and I chat all the time, very philosophical guy. And he gives me some business advice as well. And I was talking about this podcast and updating the description, which I did. So for those watching, read the new description, it says something about working smarter and more efficiently. But my original draft was working smarter, not harder. And you know, that's kind of a cliche, trite thing that people say, and he's like, What are you talking about? Man? He's like, No, you still want to work hard. You just do it. You combine it with smart. And that's how you get everything. That's how you work efficiently. And so you're hitting on those themes of like, there's effort, and it's hard. And anybody listen to the show that wants it to be easy, or fast or quick in any way, not going to happen. Not going to happen. You're going to have to go after it. But you could do it in a smart way. And what I won't don't want you doing is working hard and not getting the result because that's that's the discouraging thing. When you're not an intelligent and you're working hard. And you're like, Well, I'm working hard, but it's not working. Okay, we're trying to teach you that here on this show. And Jared, Jerry has been there. Yeah. What about the food side along this whole? Like, again, now we're going back in time, you say physicality is was super important. Was nutrition or food, like on par with your training? In terms of the focus?

Jerry Bonanno  29:26

No, okay. Okay, that's the thing that I've kind of come full circle. I'm now being where I am. It wasn't and and although I probably looking back, I mean, I was lifting, I understood that I needed to eat relatively well. I needed to get enough protein, this that and the other thing, and I thought I was kind of doing that, you know before but I'll say a couple of things and kind of reflecting what I started working with you. So what I was doing is just kind of eating free grazing but trying to pick up enough protein so I thought be useful. But looking back back, I really wasn't keeping track anything. So I had no idea really how much of anything I was eating, right. And so, again, it's pretty simple stuff. But when I started working with you, I mean, I would say looking back a few things, if you're not tracking what you're eating, you have no idea how many calories you're eating, I don't care. If you think you do or not, you're eating more calories than you think you are. That's super hard to judge, even if you're kind of paying attention. And you have no idea how little protein you're eating, if you're not tracking, because it's not easy to get a gram per pound of body weight of protein, right? Or point eight, or whatever you're trying to do. And like me, personally, when we started working together, I thought I was eating a lot of protein, because, you know, I'm lifting and I'm, I'm doing all the things, but I was probably lucky if I was eating 140 grams of protein a day, and I was 250 pounds. So that's not even close, like now, you know, I'm getting a gram per pound pretty much every day, just because of the way I eat, not even really going out of my way, the way today. So those were really the two things. So I was kind of like aware of nutrition and what I should be doing. But when I compare it to what I was doing with lifting and training, like I would never go lift and not write down when I did like, yeah,

Philip Pape  31:11

yeah. Or it's like your budget, your training all these other things you try? Yeah. And why don't food? Yeah. But for

Jerry Bonanno  31:17

some reason with nutrition, I was like, Yeah, I'm kind of doing it. Yeah. My

31:22

name is Tony, I'm a strength lifter in my 40s. Thank you to Phil and his Whitson weights community for helping me learn more about nutrition, and how to implement better ideas into my strength training, Phil has a very, very good understanding of macros, and chemical compounds and hormones and all that. And he's continuously learning. And that's what I like about Phil, he's got a great sense of humor, he's very relaxed, very easy to talk to. One of the greatest things about Phil, in my view is that he practices what he preaches, he also works out with barbells, he trains heavy, not as heavy as me, but he trains heavy. So if you 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 they'll help you out.

Philip Pape  32:05

That's a good segue into the things that you did change in your approach. And kind of strategically, tactically, I mean, that was a huge one. That's step one, you know, when I work with a client, in our physique University, it's like the onboarding, the second module is tracking. And if you're like, oh, I don't want to track I mean, track. So have you had an experience of tracking food ever in the past? Where at all? And then if you did, was it ever unpleasant? Or was this the first time you really started tracking, I

Jerry Bonanno  32:31

had tried to track a couple of times in the past. And then going way back, I think, in my mid 30s, I had some success with it. But I was just tracking what I was eating, I didn't really have a plan, or even with macros, I wasn't really paying attention on school just focused on calories, you know, and so I had done it in the past, but I think having like, Okay, I'm going to get into a calorie deficit, I'm going to keep my protein high enough to maintain or keep trying to maintain what the muscle I have during this cut. And I'm going to do it for a period of time. You know, it's not like, I'm just in the deficit forever, like, we're going to run this deficit for the way we set it up, I think, and this was more like, you know, just how I think it's like, I'm going to run this deficit for a specific period of time. And there's a rate that I should be losing at, but I'm just gonna focus on like, the leading indicators, like doing the things, and where I end up is where I end up at the end of three months. And it's gonna be dictated by how, you know, closely I can stick to the plan, and probably a million other things that happened in your body when you're trying to do this, but it was, I think those were the things that really changed with was having a plan, having an end date, and like saying, Okay, let's do this, and let's get, let's stay on track. And I think the tools that you have, and you're really good at data analysis, you know, and so, you know, I'm, I would show up for a coaching call, say, I think this is happening, and, you know, you say, Well, you have the data like I have it right here, let's look and it's like, yeah, that's happening or not quiet, or here's why it's happening or whatever. So I think all of that is really what changed. And interestingly, like that stuff, you know, I think we did I think two, you know, we did two, three month cuts together. And, you know, that's all stuff I've, I've gotten on a scale pretty much every day, we can talk about that too. I know that's another bugaboo for some people, but I'm a big believer in weighing yourself every day. And then, you know, tracking food and tracking macros. Now, if that's all you want to do, I think you can probably get most of the way where you want to be just doing that stuff. But

Philip Pape  34:38

yeah, that's a great message, right, like, so. We talked about on the show all the time. And I'm like, if you just listen to all the episodes and apply it, you'll be successful. Knowing that however, there are specifics to to you that you may not quite understand even when you have that which is probably, which is why I want to ask the next question, but they don't want to dig back into what some of the details is. Why did you come back to me a second time If it happens, it happens more than people would think, where it's like, you know, I want you to fire me when we're done. But then there's always things you can learn and help that you can get to make the process easier. So I'm just curious about that. I think

Jerry Bonanno  35:11

for me, it's it was, we had a lot of success, the first run. And there might I mean, this is not the only reason I think the service was really good. All of that stuff. I mean, it worked. We clicked, you know, it was fun working with you, you know, there was nothing forced, it was like, how do you want this to go? How much help do you need? Where do you need to help? You know, so it was very much customized to me, which was great. But also, there was a little tinge of fear or anxiety that like, I don't want to just have done that, and then try this on my own. And for No, I wanted to make sure like I had it. And, and it's really interesting, because virtually the same thing happened in the second cut, this happened. And first, we got a little over 15 pounds of scale weight off, or we turned off our retract it. And you know, overall, over both cuts, I mean, my my waist Trump five inches. So I was kid you and you kind of owe me a new wardrobe. That's good. But But know that that's why I really wanted to do a second run with you and just make sure I had everything down and could replicate those results. Yes,

Philip Pape  36:18

it's interesting, because I find that the most successful people that do this are the ones who are also willing, they're curious, first of all, like you asked a lot of great questions as we work together and took advantage of whatever we could and even got, you know, challenge me on a number of occasions to really do my research and know my stuff. But the most successful people will have that curiosity and will seek help. And we'll look for every tool available to like accelerate that process as much as possible. So that yeah, eventually, you can just do it on your own with complete confidence. Whereas the people that aren't as successful, it's like, I could do it on my own, they kind of refuse to reach out for help. And I'm not saying you have to pay for a coach or I get it. Not everyone can afford that. But like, just rely on other people for like, I found that time and again, with every aspect of life, even if you are training by yourself in your dank basement gym, you learn from a lot of greats that came before you. And I'm sure you learn from a lot of people who are your peers? So Oh, yeah. Tell us about like, as we work together, you are asking great questions and trying to learn, I feel like you're trying to get in your own education in nutrition above and beyond just tell me what steps to take. Right. Right. Yeah,

Jerry Bonanno  37:27

yes, yeah. So I mean, for me, it's just the way I'm wired. Like, I need to understand at least at a more than an inch deep level, why I'm doing what I'm doing. Because, for me, it helps with a lot of the stuff we talked about earlier, which is like, there's going to be resistance, there's going to be internal resistance from yourself, there's going to be things that push in on you from the outside, your results may vary a little bit. So if if you don't understand what's happening, you know, that tends to spite your anxiety. And for me, your fear your and you get wrapped around the axle, you know, and it's kind of one of those things where I thought, this is another reason for the second run, it's like, you know, let's get a few another inch deep on this and see and make sure you understand what's going on. And I have more interest than I have bandwidth. So I think this stuff is really interesting. But I needed to basically nail down what are the I always thought about this, and my kids are probably sick of hearing, it's like, what are the big rocks that I need to get into the container? And if I have time, and like I said bandwidth or interest, I'll worry about the little rocks in the sand getting in there. But I need to know, what are the big ones that I need to move the needle? And I wanted to make sure I had my arms around that stuff. And, you know, that's kind of my motivation for, for doing it. I mean, it's it's, you know, education has been huge in my life changed the course of my life, really, to be honest. And but you know, it's one of those things that's kind of addictive, because the more you learn, the more you find out, you don't know. And so it's kind of a cycle. Yes, you can get addicted to it. And some people don't like that, because it's it's a little bit. You know, sometimes it's painful learning stuff, because you figure out what you don't know or what you had wrong. So you have to be able to, like deal with that. But yeah, anyway, that's why I kind of came back. And that's why I tried to dig a little bit deeper on certain things, you know, to make sure I understood, yeah,

Philip Pape  39:19

for sure. And, and it's like a filter, right? Like you said, What did you just say you said I have I have a lot of interests, but not all the bandwidth. It's like, it's like, if somebody just wanted to learn everything in the world, you'll never be able to read all the books that exist ever, like there's more being produced than every day than you could possibly ever keep up with. So how do you get to that, especially if it's not your area of expertise, and I mean, that's why I hear coaches all over the place business and podcasting and training, and it's a guy I understand there's an investment of money, but there's money time trade off, and usually you get way more results from it as a result. So tell us about the you talked about leading indicators. I like that so it makes me think of KPIs of profit. This oriented like in the now things you can measure ahead of time, so that on the back end, you get the result. It's like in a company, right? You don't measure toward profit, like you don't act toward profit, you act toward all the little actions day to day customer satisfaction and delivery and things like that, that get you the profit. And the profit is just you know, gonna happen. Same thing with weight loss, fat loss, whatever, you don't lose 20 pounds, you track your macros you eat your carbs, you try. Right, so tell us some of the most important indicators other than tracking food that you've already mentioned, that you found in the process with

Jerry Bonanno  40:34

nutrition. I mean, well, first, I learned this, like super young. So I was lucky. And I learned it through sports, one of the sports teams I was involved in was super successful, I was kind of mediocre, but the program was exceptional. And the thing that stuck with me about that program was they never talked about winning, all we did was win, but they never talked about winning, they talked about performance. And I remember, you know, walking off the mat, winning, getting chewed out, walking off the mat, after having my butt kick butt fighting, and having people hugging me and, you know, telling me what a great job I did. So it was like, oh, you know, this is this is how you get good. You know, you just focus on the process and what you're supposed to be doing and how you're performing. And so just like fast forwarding into nutrition, it's like, well, you know, this is why like, working with you, and getting the plan together was so important. It's like, okay, here's the rate of loss, here's where you should end up by the mass at the end of the three months. But here are the things you need to do this week to get there. And it's like, okay, total calories, like protein intake. Really, for me, I mean, I tried to focus on the few big things, it was, you know, controlling my total caloric intake and making sure I got enough protein, at the highest level that was really were my kind of leading indicators every day, and every week. And, you know, I would get on the scale every day. And And those were now my daily skill weight was not, you know, you talk about this a lot, it's like, that's gonna fluctuate, but when you get on a scale every day, and you put it into whatever app you're using, and if the app is good, you know, it's gonna give you a weight trend. So you're gonna be able to see where you're going, you know, but getting on recording it and then hitting your targets every every day, every week, or in for food intake. And whether you need to drink more water, we did a thing where we my steps. Remember, in the beginning, I sit here all day, you know, with smoke coming out of my ears thinking really hard, but I don't move a ton other than lifting weights, right? That's why that was a big change. When we got that up to 8000 steps. And then 10,000 steps a day, my heart rate dropped from like high 70s to like high 60s, like almost overnight, you know, so it's like, I want to reduce my heart rate. What am I going to do like my focus on that? Like, no, you have to get up and walk around. There wasn't even like training. It was like, just go walk, you know, get

Philip Pape  42:52

Yeah, and actually you you don't even focus on steps. So So you're saying is one of the results is the heart rate, an intermediate result is higher step count. But even that is not the KPI. The KPI is the activity that gets you the stripes.

Jerry Bonanno  43:03

It's like, I tried to, like shrink it down to like, what do I need to do today? Because I find, like, yeah, about this week, or so to your point, it's like, you need to get up every so many get up every so many minutes and walk or go out for a walk or, you know, whatever. And those are like the most immediate things that you need to do, I think, because I think what happens if you don't do that is like, okay, so we do that math at the beginning of the cycle, and I should lose 17 pounds at the end of this three months, right? But I only lose 14. So then it's like, oh, well, I failed, I missed by three pounds. It's like you're 14 pounds lighter than you were when you started You dummy. And you're and you're less fat, and you're healthier. And that's a win a

Philip Pape  43:44

huge one. Yeah, you weren't fixated on the number, you're you're fixated on the process, and you gotta get your mind,

Jerry Bonanno  43:48

right. So it's like, that's why I think that's so I mean, everybody wants to win, whatever the win is, but you're not going to get there if you don't do the things that you need to do every day to get there. And I think you're way better off focusing on that stuff. And see where the where you end up and obsessively focusing on that outcome. Yeah,

Philip Pape  44:06

and correct me if I'm wrong, but half the time when you ask the question, like, what do I do for x? The answer is either, what do you think we should do? Like, what? What will work for you? Or why don't we look at the data and figure out what it's telling us? Because, again, I think a good coach isn't just gonna say do this. I mean, a coach can do that, right? In certain cases, it's like, no, just do this. But in a lot of cases, it's like, I gotta work with you. You know you better than me, right? I'm not a I'm not your nutritionist, you know, sitting there every day planning out all your meals. It's like, you got to live your life, man. So you tell me these five, five options for hitting this KPI and let's make it happen.

Jerry Bonanno  44:44

That's exactly right. I'm glad you brought that up. Because it's like, that's not what this service is that you provide. It's not like here's your breakfast. Here's your snack. Here's your lunch. You know, it's what kind of foods do you like to eat? You kind of get a feel for the for that part. Listen and say, Okay, this one's good. It's rich in protein, it's very protein dense for the calories, right? This one not so much. Maybe you pick that up when we come out of the cut, you know, and then, you know, you kind of let the person put their own kind of micro package together. But you're, you're kind of guiding guiding people through how to do that. And that's right. I mean, whether it's getting more steps, it's like, Well, do you have a dog? What do you have the what? How can you get more steps in you know, and it's like, oh, yeah, I have a dog, you know, I can walk the dog. Or I can do you have a treadmill? It's like, yeah, if you if you absolutely have to, at the end of the day, if you want to get another 1500 steps in or teeth out, you could walk on the treadmill, you know, it's like, oh, yeah, I have a, you know, have a TV next to the treadmill, I could listen to a podcast or do something while I'm walking on track habits. So it's like, you know, if you I think that's really that's, that's right. It's a difference between a coach and like a nutritionist or something like that. Yeah,

Philip Pape  45:55

yeah, even the approach you take isn't always set in stone, because life changes or situations change. Sometimes my answer is just try it out. Try it, try it out for two weeks. And if you don't like it, we'll try something else, like, you know, okay, so one of those things, despite all that, I will look at your data, right. And there were times where I'd look at things and see insights or opportunities. And I'm like, Hey, Jerry, you know, this, this can you can do better here, right? Like, we can move up, you can eat more carbs, whatever it is, and, and kind of identify that, but then it's still up to us together to figure out how to do that. Yeah, let's just talk about carbs. Because you went from carnivore, which is all animal products, no carbs. I mean, it's like, even lower than keto in a way, right? It's like practically no carbs at all. Because you're just not eating anything with carbs. What was that shift? Like, for the carbs? Were you like, yeah, Heck, yeah, no problem, or there's some difficulty.

Jerry Bonanno  46:42

I don't think I was like that, I think, you know, you were always my carbs are always a little bit low. You know, and at least in the beginning, I think I got better at it. And I think it was just not eat, you know, it was the carnivore experience was kind of a manifestation of this, but I think I had really internalized this, like, we're on carbs. Like, I think Mark Bell used to call it that, you know, it's kind of funny, but it's like, I think I had kind of internalized that and said, Well, I can't eat any carbs. Because like I said, doctors history of type two diabetes, and this and that the other thing, and it was like, you don't want to overheat carbs and processed foods. And really, sugar, I think is the is the big thing. But it's like, okay, you know, you can have some rice, or you can have fruit, like, I like fruit. And, you know, depending on what you're eating, you know, there could be a fair amount of carbs and those so it's like, okay, you can eat that stuff, like, you know, you're just, you're just going to eat it and try to make it conform to the goals that we've set out with your macros. So that was a big one. I think the carbs and we did find a kind of an interesting little anomaly with cuz my wife does kind of keto. And so I think we're trying to figure out like, I was hitting my calories, but the way that the, you know, the standards work, calories per gram, I guess, of carbs and fat I was, I found this like, keto bread, and it's full of fiber, and it's not that many calories. So it's like, how are you like doing this? Why are your carbs not higher? You know, what are you actually eating? And we figured out Oh, it's, it's this stuff. And there's like a ton of fiber in it. So it's like

Philip Pape  48:13

20 grams

Jerry Bonanno  48:14

and slices. Like, it tastes kind of like bread. So,

Philip Pape  48:19

I mean, it's great for a fat loss phase. It's one of those like, little hacks that's

Jerry Bonanno  48:22

good for fat loss. Yeah, I think that was one of the things and also, I think, even the movement was a challenge, you know, because if your job doesn't require you to get up, and actually mine requires me to folk to sit down and focus, it's like, you know, you're, you're kind of battling that. So if you're not really conscious about it, you can really, you can take on your movement, and doesn't help when you're in a car if you if you're not moving. So those kinds of things, I think we had a really kind of check in adjusts every once in a while. And I need to be reminded, you know, once a while,

Philip Pape  48:54

we all do, man. I mean, I'm in a fat loss phase right now. And I'm seeing it slow down. And I know exactly why it's because my steps are like 4000 lower than they normally are. You have the data. Like it's clear, it's clear as right and you know, what's going on. Now, during this these two cuts? What about your biofeedback, like things like hunger, digestion, sleep stress, like, were any of those problematic at any point or challenging in any way? Um,

Jerry Bonanno  49:18

you know, well, beginning there was, you know, I didn't I wasn't once I adjusted what I was eating, you know, and started eating less kind of processed stuff that's very calorie dense, but not very satiating, you know, and not and kind of nutrient deficient. To be honest, you know, that kind of went away there was hunger initially, but once we figured out okay, you know, you need to eat more chicken and a cut, you're not going to be eating steak. You're going to be eating more more chicken more fish. Regular was like, you know, my, my found source of protein that was really satisfying. And so the hunger was one thing, but that eased off pretty quick. And once I kind of slowed down and just ate and then stopped, you know, and kind of realize your full, like, you're not hopefully anymore, like you can move on to something else. Or, and also the other thing, I think that I realized that I had to adjust to was I wasn't really drinking enough. That's another thing I've I've struggled with fluid, you know, water. And so sometimes you're thirsty, but for some reason you think you're hungry and you're eating so the hunger was one thing digestion. The other thing that I didn't mention, before we started working together, I started to really experience for really the first time, some acute kind of digestive stuff like reflux, I got really bad heartburn for the first time in my life, like, before we started working together, kind of like mild reflux, after you eat, having to clear your throat just just kind of stuff where it's like, what is going on here, you know, let that let off, kind of right away, when we started to cut and has stayed gone, as long as I'm not drinking too much alcohol or doing getting off track too much. I can feel it when I go when I when I do go to a social event and maybe have some few extra drinks, or I'll eat out or something. And it's like, yeah, I can definitely feel it in in the digestion area. But, and I also the other thing that we did with that was got on a probiotic. And and that helped a lot too. So yeah, it was the digestive symptoms. And the hunger were kind of two things that while the digestive symptoms led off, and the hunger did ramp up a little bit. But once I adjusted and started eating better foods, better quality food, it wasn't really a huge issue for me. Yeah,

Philip Pape  51:37

yeah. And we and you know, hunger is different for everyone. And it depends on how fast you're going and how much weight you start with like being a bigger guy, I always noticed that bigger individuals will have maybe a little less hungry just because they have like the fat stores to draw from. It's kind of a weird phenomenon. But this whole idea of, there's always this debate about Intuitive Eating versus tracking. And we talk about doing both together. And the fact that you have all the data and you're tracking, it all develops that intuition. And what you're saying is now you know that if you go have some drinks, or do this, you feel it at a lot of people aren't even in tune with that they just kind of are living in a certain way. They always feel that way, potentially, and they don't notice the contrast. Right? And you mentioned like hydration. I know. And this may not be for everyone. When I'm in fat loss, if I start to feel like my stomach is empty, like, almost like not just hunger, but it's like there's a void in there. I know, it's probably because I haven't drunk enough. It's not that I haven't eaten, it's going to happen. And I go get a glass of water and like an hour later, it starts to subside. Yep. So it's just kind of being in tune with those things is super important. Yeah, probiotics. That's that's a whole thing that gut health, it's fun to get into. All right, just a couple more things before we we sign up. Were there any other I guess, aha moments that we didn't cover? From your whole journey? Whether it was mindset, sustainability, you know, specific tools or tactics? No, I

Jerry Bonanno  52:55

mean, I think what you just mentioned was one it was I had always heard this debate between intuitive eating and more tracking, I think they kind of are complimentary. Like, for me, intuitive eating didn't mean anything, what I didn't know how to eat was like, Well, I'm just gonna eat whatever, it doesn't eat me first. And try not to eat too much of it, you know, but it's like, but now I can do that. Because, again, it's getting on the scale every day. You know, that's, that's another big one and learning to eat the right way. It's like, now I know what right is for me. And what is going to keep me out of body weight that I think is better or healthier for me. And so I know what 40 grams of oatmeal looks like now, because I stare at it every morning on the scale. I know what it looks like, I know what eight ounces state looks like, I know what six ounces of chicken looks like. It's probably off but not I'm not eating 18 ounces of chicken. I'm eating maybe eight if I think it's six. So I think that that was one of the big aha was was oh, all this tracking now allows me to be a little more intuitive posed to you, you need that data and you need to learn first what's right and what it looks like. And then you can identify it out there without all the support.

Philip Pape  54:05

Yeah, it constantly comes up because the premise people have is when do I not track and it's like, Well, that may not even be a question like, you don't have to not track you could just track at different levels or pause tracking the whole spectrum nobody's telling you to do any of this stuff. But if you want it data that's how you get it is track and measure stuff. And I think it's kind of obvious, but I know I get people have emotional attachments to these things that have to be shifted up training. I know I wanted to ask you about your training. So like people want to know, did you all of a sudden go into a fat burning training program with high reps and lots of cardio?

Jerry Bonanno  54:39

No, no, I didn't do any any cardio during either of the cuts. I mean, I I tried to you know for general health like you said

Philip Pape  54:47

would say that again say that again. So people hear zero cardio zero cardio

Jerry Bonanno  54:51

other than walking other than just trying to be healthy and moving a little bit. Yeah, I didn't need it and I don't think it would help and I just did my my like from a weight training perspective, I mean, I came from more when I learned how to lift again, in my early 30s, I started in a powerlifting kind of setting. So I learned the three big lifts, learn how to progress on them was great, you know, as a base, I think I've gradually moved more now, as I've gotten older into more of a bodybuilding type, training split. You know, there's, I love all these debates about, you know, whole body and body parts splits, and people are like, at each other's throats and stuff, it's like, it's all moving away. And, you know, there's, there's big things that you need to have in place in your program for it to work. And then there's a lot of variability in there a lot of elbow room. So I didn't train, I didn't change too much I did go to what I did, though, the biggest change was I went to a higher frequency, kind of lower volume per session type of training program. So I went from like a four day, maybe upper lower split, to a six day body part split, where the sessions are much lower volume per session, still training hard, pushing really hard on work sets, like close to, you know, technical failure, the reps really need to slow down on those work sets, if you're not going to do as many of them. But I found that that was beneficial for me it I felt better, I think I was, you know, technically probably generating, you know, more muscle protein synthesis maybe more often. And it worked for me, it was motivating. I could get in and out of the gym, I didn't dread, you know, a 90 minute session in the morning. And so, but that was it, I would say that was like a tweak of the dial rather than a, you know, a major shift. But that's it really, it's

Philip Pape  56:38

important to understand. So people understand, right? There's the principles that never change. But there are some things that can benefit you in fat loss. And I know, from your program, I'm going to say two off the top that from what you just said, one is, because you have for higher frequency and shorter sessions, there's some sort of balance across the week, knowing that you have a lower energy available to you that that could work for people and feeling more recovered. Even though you're working more, you know, you go into the gym more often. But if they're shorter, another another thing is more auto regulated type program. It's not a powerlifting. Like you're always hitting one RMS or prs. You're hitting that day's PR, perhaps but not necessarily in all time, PR every time right. So what's next for you, man? What are you doing now? What's next?

Jerry Bonanno  57:19

IFBB pro card man now, I think you

Philip Pape  57:24

got to talk to Eric Helms. Oh, that's natural, though.

Jerry Bonanno  57:26

Yeah, I think I'm gonna, you know, I really am comfortable with the way I am now I'm hovering around, you know, 25 to 26 to 27. Depending on, you know, how much if I have any alcohol or eat out, yeah, wait can jump three pounds in a day easy. And you taught me you did not gain three pounds fat overnight. Don't freak out, give it a couple of days, it'll come back down. But I think I want to, I'm going to hang there until maybe later this summer. And I think I am going to do another cut in the fall, try to get down to my goals, the two teens, you know, and maybe live around 220 For the time being and maybe see if I can stay there. And for a while. And you know, just keep going. And I could see myself doing this mini cuts or cuts every so often for the next decade, keep my weight where I want it and just keep my blood work where I want it and and look the way I want. So that's really it, man. Nice man.

Philip Pape  58:20

Yeah, I'd say it's kind of like maintenance. I mean, you've gotten to the point where small tweaks will get you there. And that's, you know, we started you just wanted to shift toward that equilibrium or you want to be now maybe if you want to maximize your leverages, you get down closer to a five to 10. I don't know No, I'm joking. Because the height times three formula in our in our forum,

Jerry Bonanno  58:38

I have Cody kind of every once in a while will send me a message and say, why don't you just do a bench only competition? You know, like you're fishing, right? You know, like, well, if I if I get old enough, and I'm the only one left? Like I probably wouldn't say There you go. But no, I've toyed with that too of trying to get back into maybe compete once a while. But I'd like to do that at lower body. All

Philip Pape  58:56

right. So you know, what question is coming? Is there a question that you wish I had asked? And what is your answer?

Jerry Bonanno  59:02

Had it had it? And I think I answered it already. I think we covered a lot unwittingly in my urge to fill the time and say interesting things. But my question was going to be Why did you you know, for you to ask me why I hired you, you know, in the first place you specifically not a coach. And I think yeah,

Philip Pape  59:19

and you kind of answered that. But I for my ego if you want to add to that, not just I think

Jerry Bonanno  59:25

I can add to it a little bit. I think one of the things for people like me who would like a hobbyist man, this isn't my, my main thing or even my second or third thing is super important to me. But really, for me, it was looking for somebody that kind of understood that population. And you have a really unique skill set for working with general population. I think you could probably work with whoever you want it to. But people who are really juggling a lot of stuff who do this because they like it and they want to take it to the next level without having to consume their entire Are life presuming that, hey, I can, you know, I'm gonna, I'm going to be able to devote massive amounts of time to this. So your unique skill, I think Phillip and I mentioned this to you before is you can operate at any level of depth that a client would walk. And that's, that's really, I think, a unique skill because there's some people that are really deep, but they can't pull back. And like some weeks, it's like, Man, I just didn't know what to do. I'm really busy. Like, everybody's stressing me out, I got 10 million things, other weeks that lets off and it's like, well, why this why that why the other thing and you're not, like, frustrated by that or anything. So I think that's really I think what I wanted to make sure I covered is that if you're looking for help like that, I don't I don't know of anybody better to get it from so

Philip Pape  1:00:45

appreciate that man. No, I appreciate that. And I mean, the general thought here is you know, finding a coach that can communicate with you and work with who you are and where you are in life and yeah, it's not like any coach can work with anybody. You got to find the right for you. And you know, you've got to gotta be able to be friends with them in a sense, right? Because as we're working together, if the personalities bash too hard, that's going to be tough as well. So yeah, I consider you a friend and you've been awesome to work with so far and I know we're going to be continued to be in touch we're in the lifting club and everything and I hope everybody listening here got just tons of even just practical advice, let alone motivation and philosophical inspiration from you with with everything you've done so well done and thanks so much for for coming on. I do want to give people a chance to reach out to her if you wanted to tell tell them how Yeah, I

Jerry Bonanno  1:01:32

mean like folks that have Instagram account it's basically like a zoo cam in my basement just me going down there and training there's no talking or anything like that. So if you want to get in touch with me, I think the handles that the basement eight and credit the Tony Perry for calling me that and the list that didn't know lifting club and kind of stuff. So you can you know, reach out to me their request to follow me or whatever the thing you do on Instagram is okay, and you know, if you want to send me a message, I'm happy to respond or share whatever I can help you out. So I'm

Philip Pape  1:02:03

not far ahead of you with Instagram. Being we're not we're not that far apart in age, but like I didn't grow up with it. So I'm just still struggling through but we'll throw the handle in there at the basement ape. It's been a lot of fun. Talk with you today. God, thanks for coming on doing this. Have the courage to you know, share what you've been through and thank you. Awesome. Thank you

My 3 New Dieting Methods for Smarter, Easier Fat Loss in 2024 | Ep 186

Are you sick of counting calories but still want to shed fat? Is your metabolism stuck in slow motion? Do you want to lose fat but feel overwhelmed by complex diet plans?

In this episode, Philip (@witsandweights) throws out the traditional calorie counting approach and dives into nonlinear dieting for fat loss. He argues that the stress of daily calorie restriction backfires, slowing your metabolism and making it challenging to stick with your diet. Nonlinear dieting offers a more flexible approach, allowing you to vary your calorie intake throughout the week or month. This can keep things interesting, prevent metabolic slowdown, and make fat loss more sustainable.

Philip also discusses the benefits of nonlinear dieting. He shares three specific strategies you can use and emphasizes that these are just starting points. The key is to find a nonlinear dieting approach that works for you. So ditch the calculator and get ready to experiment with a more enjoyable path to your fat loss goals.

Today, you’ll learn all about:

2:19 The problem with the traditional approach to flexible dieting
6:12 The power of nonlinear dieting
15:54 The 3 new creative dieting methods
27:02 The mindset shift with nonlinear dieting
29:19 Outro

Episode resources:

• Watch this video to download and setup MacroFactor

• Learn about Wits & Weights Physique University

Episode summary:

Embarking on a fat loss journey often feels like navigating a minefield of conflicting advice and restrictive diets. But what if there were a smarter, more flexible approach that made the process enjoyable and sustainable? This episode of Wits & Weights delves into innovative strategies for achieving fat loss through flexible dieting and calorie cycling, offering a fresh perspective on how to balance dieting with real life.

Traditional dieting methods often involve sticking to rigid daily calorie targets, which can lead to mental fatigue, metabolic adaptation, and social life challenges. By contrast, flexible dieting and calorie cycling introduce variability and personalization into the diet, making it easier to adhere to in the long run. This approach acknowledges that our bodies and minds are adaptive systems that respond better to varied stimuli than to monotonous routines.

One of the main issues with traditional flexible dieting is the constant mental strain of adhering to the same calorie targets every day. This can lead to feelings of restriction and deprivation, which are counterproductive to long-term adherence. Flexible dieting, on the other hand, allows for psychological flexibility by incorporating planned breaks and higher calorie periods. These breaks help mitigate hormonal imbalances and provide temporary metabolic recovery, making the dieting process less taxing on both the body and mind.

Calorie cycling is a creative nonlinear dieting method that keeps the diet engaging and effective. For example, the "wavelength diet" cycles through three different calorie levels over a three-week period: an aggressive deficit in week one, a moderate deficit in week two, and maintenance calories in week three. This approach helps maintain mental engagement and sustainability by varying the intensity of calorie restriction. Another method, the "3-2-2 split," involves three days of aggressive calorie deficit, two days of moderate deficit, and two days at maintenance, offering a weekly variation that aligns with different levels of physical activity and social commitments.

Personalization is key to making any diet plan effective and sustainable. By tailoring the diet to fit individual lifestyles and needs, one can make fat loss a seamless part of their routine rather than a temporary fix. This episode emphasizes the importance of aligning dieting strategies with personal schedules, preferences, and even menstrual cycles for women. For instance, a strategy that alternates between calorie deficits and maintenance periods can be particularly beneficial for women by syncing with their menstrual cycles, thus making the diet more manageable and less stressful.

Incorporating flexible dieting and calorie cycling into your routine offers several benefits, including psychological flexibility, metabolic recovery, and improved social life balance. By strategically varying calorie intake, you can work with your body's natural rhythms and lifestyle, making the dieting process more enjoyable and sustainable. This approach not only helps in achieving fat loss but also fosters a healthier relationship with food and body image.

One of the biggest reasons diets fail is the mental strain of constant restriction. Even if you're flexible with your food choices, hitting the same calorie target every day can feel oppressive. Nonlinear dieting strategies, like calorie cycling, provide planned breaks from low-calorie periods, giving you something to look forward to and making the process feel less restrictive. This psychological flexibility is crucial for long-term adherence and success.

Metabolic adaptation is another challenge that comes with traditional dieting. When you consistently eat less, your body adapts by slowing down your metabolism. While you can't completely stop metabolic adaptation, nonlinear dieting allows for temporary metabolic recovery periods, which can enhance overall performance and reduce stress. These recovery periods can lead to better outcomes by providing more energy, better sleep, and improved hormonal balance.

Balancing social life with dieting goals is a common struggle. Nonlinear dieting strategies allow for more flexibility around social events, making it easier to enjoy meals out without derailing your progress. By thinking ahead and incorporating higher calorie days into your diet, you can maintain a balance between enjoying social occasions and sticking to your fat loss goals.

Hormonal benefits are another advantage of flexible dieting and calorie cycling. Prolonged dieting can suppress hormones like thyroid function and increase stress and hunger levels. Periods of higher calorie intake can temporarily relieve some of this hormonal pressure, making the dieting process more manageable. This approach works with your body's natural processes rather than against it.

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Transcript

Philip Pape  00:01

Let's say you started tracking your macros and hitting your daily calorie goals consistently, fat loss is happening, but something doesn't feel quite right. Despite the freedom to choose your foods, the relentless grind of meeting the same targets day after day is starting to wear you down. Your energy fluctuates, your mood isn't great, and your social life and eating out well, let's say they've seen better days. So what now? Do you grit your teeth and power through? Or do you throw in the towel risking all the progress you've made? What if there's another way to approach this one that could revolutionize your fat loss journey and all future dieting phases. In this episode, we're diving into a smarter, more efficient approach to dieting that breaks the monotony of daily targets, and might just make the whole process a lot more enjoyable. Get ready to rethink everything you know about flexible dieting.

Philip Pape  00:57

Welcome to Whitson weights, the show that helps you work smarter and more efficiently to build a physique you want. I'm your host, Phillippe. And today we're diving into a topic that could completely transform your approach to fat loss. Picture this, it's Friday night, you're out with friends eyeing that delicious pasta dish on the menu. You've been diligently hitting your calorie target every day this week. But you're torn? Do you stick to your usual macro budget and order something less appetizing? Or do you indulge and feel guilty about ruining your diet? We've all been there. That constant mental math the feeling of being trapped by your daily calorie goal, even when you're following a flexible dieting approach. But what if I told you there's a way to lose fat without feeling like you're constantly fighting against this fixed budget is fixed daily number, a method that allows for more flexibility, enjoyment, and even strategically planned higher calorie days. And that's exactly what we're exploring in today's episode. Now before we dive in, if you're enjoying the show, if you want more content on building muscle and losing fat efficiently, like today's dieting methods episode that you will not find anywhere else, hit that follow button right now or whatever it's called in your app, hit follow, hit subscribe, whatever it's called, so that you get notified of future episodes, and it helps people find the show and ensure that you never miss an episode. So let's just dive into today's topic. First, we're going to talk about the main and the glaring problem with traditional approaches to died. Second, we'll introduce the smarter, more creative approach that I've been teasing you about that solves this problem. And finally, I'm going to give you three specific instances specific methods that accomplish this just three, and you can come up with many others yourself to give some inspiration on how to apply this to your situation. So let's talk about the problem with traditional approaches. When most people think about flexible dieting, and by the way, if you're not familiar with that concept with that term, today's podcast is a little bit more advanced, because it assumes you know what I'm talking about. But really what it is, is setting calorie and macro targets using an app like macro factor and hitting those targets and then you can eat whatever you want to hit those targets. Okay? There's a lot of other nuance, okay, how do you hit your macros, your saturated fat, your fiber, all that good stuff, meal, timing, supplementation, all of that, of course, but the gist of it is hitting those macros. And when you think about flexible dieting, most people think about a consistent daily calorie target. You know, like, every day, I'm gonna hit 2200 calories. You know, you know the drill, if you've been there, right? You hit your macros, you stay in your deficit, if you're in a fat loss phase, you rinse and repeat day after day. And just be consistent. And you'll get there. And while that's true, you will maintain your deficit if you hit the targets, and the targets are aligned to your metabolism. The problem is that our bodies and our minds are not machines, we're not robots, as much as I've told coaching clients, Hey, you, you know you executed like a robot this week. It's not necessarily a compliment. It's just an acknowledgement that you've been altra consistent, but we can't always be that way because of life. Right? Our bodies, our minds are complex. They are adaptive systems. And I like to say body and mind because they they work together but they also independently create, you know, the challenges that we face during something like a fat loss phase. So they adapt and they respond to the change that's going on. They respond to variety. They respond to whatever is happening in your life, the stimuli and the traditional approach of just having your macros and calories and then tracking them can definitely work. It works for a lot of people, but it can lead to some issues. The first and maybe biggest one being mental fatigue, because you are you are constantly restricting yourself to an extent as much as I talk about not using restrictive dieting, I'm referring to not restricting the foods. You do have to restrict something like the calories the amount of energy coming into your body to maintain that day. deficit. Now, you may be doing other things like increasing your activity, reducing your stress that increase the amount of calories you burn, thus not having to restrict as much with the calories. But there is some level of restriction. And so even if you have this flexibility of your food choices, the calorie level, that is what can be exhausting for people, especially when it's day after day, the same thing. Then we have metabolic adaptation, which is your body just being smart and trying to do its thing and get you back to homeostasis, it starts to slow down your metabolism to match the lower calories coming in to match your reduction in weight to match your reduced you know, your hormones. Well, your hormones downregulating are the expression of that metabolic adaptation. Okay, and so there's that right, and so calories will continue to drop as you go through the fat loss phase. And then there's the whole social and life aspect of this, right? How many times have you turned down an invitation to go out to dinner, where he felt guilty about enjoying a meal, or you, you know, had, quote, unquote, had to say no to that cake, you know, at the party, because it didn't fit your calorie budget, which you might find is rigid in those situations, but like no ifs, ands, or buts about it, okay. And this is where something called nonlinear dieting comes in. And this is going to bring us to our second segment. So we talked about traditional dieting, traditional flexible dieting, I should say, we have calories and macros that are fixed every day. Now we're going to talk about the power of nonlinear strategies for addressing everything I just mentioned. So nonlinear dieting, sounds like what it is, it's not linear, you're not hitting the same number every day. All right. Instead, strategically varying your calorie intake, to work with your body's natural rhythms, and your lifestyle and your by your body. I also mean your mind, your minds natural rhythms. It's a smarter, it's a more efficient approach. That's what we're all about being creative, and finding things that work for you for fat loss. And this often leads to then better results. And, more crucially, an enjoyable, sustainable process, right. And even though fat loss is a restrictive process, by definition, you can make it more tolerable, more enjoyable, more sustainable, and quite a bit so. And so we're going to break down why nonlinear approaches can be very powerful. And there are six key benefits that I want to highlight today for you. The first one, as I've alluded to, is really the psychological flexibility. Alright, one of if not, the biggest reasons that diets fail is the mental strain of the constant restriction, especially if you're going too hard, too fast. Like that is a definite, but even if you're going at a moderate rate, it can still become mentally taxing right fatiguing, mentally fatiguing, especially have a lot of weight to lose. And even though you're flexible in the food choices, you're like, Okay, I gotta hit the same calorie every day, it can feel oppressive. And I've had clients and we have clients in our coaching program, who will say, you know, my goal this week is to hit my macros. And I'll say, Well, what do you mean by hit your macros? And they'll say, Well, I want to get it within plus or minus five. And I'll say, Well, why don't we expand that a bit, and be a little more flexible, knowing that on a given day, you Something may come up, and you can't hit it that rigidly right. And already, we're talking about more flexibility than just hitting the same number. But nonlinear dieting, dieting strategies are intentional, they build in planned breaks from something that feels too low, in terms of calories, and then it gives you something to look forward to. And it makes the process feel less restrictive a lot of is just perception. And the overall average for your fat loss phase is the same, but you make it feel less restrictive. And therefore you're, it's like you're releasing this pressure valve, right for your mind. So that's the big one is the psychological flexibility. The second benefit of nonlinear dieting, is metabolic adaptation. Right? This is where again, your body is an intelligent system. When you consistently eat less, it adapts by slowing down your metabolism. And when you use a nonlinear approach, you're not going to stop metabolic adaptation, let me be totally clear on that you can't stop it, okay. But you can go through phases of recovery from that adaptation temporarily. And then back into the adaptation, rather than just kind of hanging out in that fully adapted state all the time. So there again, more of it. It's more about perception than anything. But it definitely can have some physical and physiological benefits when you have periods of not dieting within your dieting phase. That gives us a little bit more performance. It gives you a little bit lower stress, more sleep, things like that, and that actually can accumulate into better outcomes. All right, the third benefit of of nonlinear dieting is the social life balance. Right? How many times have you struggled to fit social events into a dieting phase? It's a very big thing that comes up all the time. And one of the first resistance Chances are points of friction I get with people is like the, you know, men and women in the 40s 50s busy lives and professionals, you know, they don't want to change everything right? When they hear like, about my coaching program that like, do I have to change everything right? And they're kind of thinking do I have to do I have to live like a bodybuilder? No, absolutely not. Things like nonlinear dieting, right, which I use more often than not these days with clients, allow for more flexibility around social occasions, so that the diet fits your life, not the other way around setup, making life fit around your diet in this artificial way. You're just making your diet fit your life, you're thinking ahead and saying, This is what my life looks like, I've got periods of boring routine, and I have exciting moments where I want to go out to eat more food, right? That's life. And you can actually enjoy the dinner out with friends, and not derail your progress, which is really what we're trying to get to when we talk about sustainability. The fourth, I think it's the fourth, the fourth out of six here is the hormonal benefits. Now this is a little bit questionable. I'm gonna explain why. But when the metabolic adaptation we talked about earlier, you know, suppresses your hormones to an extent. And part of the hormonal changes are higher stress, higher hunger to reduce thyroid function, right. And all of these happen during prolonged dieting. But if you can have periods of higher calorie intake, you can just relieve some of the pressure on those hormones at least temporarily, which then creates a massive perceived benefit as well. Right. So again, we're we're working with our body's natural process, not against it. But again, you cannot permanently shift or undo metabolic adaptation, it's going to happen, you're just kind of moving around where it happens, so that it aligns better with your your rhythms. And then our next point, when it comes to nonlinear dieting, is just sustainability in general, long term, right? By having flexibility, you get better long term adherence to the diet, right. So it's not just a short term thing, it's okay, I need to I'm gonna die it for four or five or six months, because I have a decent amount of weight to lose, I have 20 3040 pounds of fat to lose. And that sounds like a grueling slog, right? Or I can go very much slower, but it's gonna take a lot longer. I don't want to do that either. But if I go too aggressively, then it's going to feel like really, really tough to stick to. So what do I do? Well, assuming you have kind of somewhere in the middle, you can make it even more easy to stick to with a nonlinear approach, you're not just going straight, as a straight line, you're mixing it up, right? You're not just white knuckling through, it's an approach that you can maintain for this long period of fat loss, but even shorter periods can benefit from it. And then the last benefit of these approaches is the personal personalization, the customization. Like to me, that's rule number one about all of this stuff, and fitness and training and nutrition is everyone is different, you know, yeah, we're all humans. But we have subtle differences, not only in our bodies and minds, but how we live our lives. And non nonlinear strategies let you tailor it to those to your preferences are there's a concept? What if you like to eat cake? Or you like donuts? You like pizza? Can we still fit those in? Yes, and it's not just fitting them in, you know, randomly, it's fitting them in in a way that doesn't feel like you're sacrificing the rest of your day, or you're like saving a bunch of a bunch of calories. So you have to have this or cheat meals, none of that, right. We're gonna, I'm gonna give you some examples, and you'll see what I mean. But being able to tailor it to those things into how your body responds, and heck, even to your menstrual cycle, if that makes sense. And we're going to give you an example that soon is what it's about. And this can make all the difference. It really can. You're not then forcing yourself in a one size fits all approach. I can't tell you how many clients had an aha moment, when after a few weeks of dieting, they're like this kind of hard. And I'm struggling a little bit to be consistent. We're like, well, we don't have to do it this way. We can have more calories here, less calories here. Oh, we can do that. Yeah, absolutely. At the end of the day, it's just math. It's just math. And now you're moving the math around. I talk about engineering and systems. And that's what I'm talking about coming up with a creative solution that works with your body. Right. So the key takeaway here, in this second segment about approaches or about nonlinear dieting is that you have options beyond the daily grind of hitting the same calories every day. You don't have to be machine you don't have to be a robot, right you can make you can come up with the smart, varied strategies and make the process more intelligent, more efficient, more sustainable. And dare I say more enjoyable? Yes, even though it is fat loss.

Philip Pape  14:32

Hey, this is Philip and I hope you're enjoying this episode of Whitson weights. I started with some weights to help ambitious individuals in their 30s 40s and beyond, who want to build muscle, lose fat and finally look like they lift. I've noticed that when people transform their physique, they not only look and feel better, but they also experienced incredible changes in their health, confidence and overall quality of life. If you're listening to this podcast, I assume you want the same thing to build your ultimate physique and unlock your full potential. Whether you're just starting out or looking to take your progress to the next level. That's why I created wit's end weights physique University, a semi private group coaching experience designed to help you achieve your best physique ever, with a personalized done for you nutrition plan, custom designed courses, new workout programs each month, live coaching calls and a supportive community, you'll have access to everything you need to succeed. If you're ready to shatter your plateaus and transform your body and life, head over to Whitson weights.com/physique, or click the link in the show notes to enroll today. Again, that's Whitson weights.com/physique. I can't wait to welcome you to the community and help you become the strongest leanest and healthiest version of yourself. Now back to the show. So okay, we've talked about the problem with traditional approaches, right, hitting those same targets every day. And then we've talked about the power of nonlinear dieting. For a final segment, let's talk about the three new dieting methods that I literally just invented for today's show. But they are inspired by the different ways that I've customized plans for clients in the past and just a caveat, these are just three specific examples of an infinite amount of permutations of possibilities. So don't just run with this and say, well, Philip said, there are three methods, I'm going to use one of those. The whole point is the customization that I just talked about. That's the principle, okay. And if you just apply a little bit of creativity, if you sit for a minute, and think about your life, and your schedule, and what you like to do on the weekends, what time of day you train, and how many days you train, the days that you're hungrier than other days. Ah, well, how many of you, does that resonate with? That? You've probably heard influencers, say, like, you got a carb cycle and eat more carbs on training days? And in reality, it depends, it depends on do you need more on a training day, maybe you're the type that actually has your appetite suppressed when you train, and you're hungrier on recovery days, right. So all of those types of things, those nuances for you, if you think about them, maybe write them down right now, you can arrive at a fresh perspective that aligns with both nutrition science and your personal psychology. So I mentioned calorie cycling, which is often called carb cycling, because you eat more carbs on training days and fewer on rest days. And then protein and fats are relatively constant, right? That is a basic form of nonlinear dieting. You're probably already familiar with that. But I want to dive into three creative strategies that I came up with for this episode. And then I even gave them some nerdy, maybe marketable names. So I'm gonna, I'm gonna give you an informal, you know, trademark on this, I don't even know if they exist out there. I didn't Google it. So hopefully, I'm not violating anyone else's. And for all of these, just so you know, how the how the numbers work, I'm going to be using percent bodyweight per week for the calorie deficit. So I'm not using a percentage calorie deficit. So you might have heard other people talk about like, a 15% deficit a 20%. deficit, I'm using, how fast you're losing the weight. So how much of your body weight per week are you losing? That's, and the best way to do that easily on your own is with macro factor, which is definitely my favorite food logging app, because it also lets you set a fat loss goal and a rate of loss. And then you can tweak the rate of loss. While your goal is still active and implement one of the strategies I talked about today or come up with your own, you could just easily tweak it, right. And that rate of loss will change the amount of calories you're eating. Okay, I'm going to link to a free YouTube video in this show. So under show notes on our episode resources, I have a free video about how to download and set up macro factor for your initial phase for your initial like body recomp phase. So again, go into the shownotes episode resources and click the link for that. But let's start with the first strategy of the three that I'm going to give you today. All right, I'm going to call this one the wavelength diet, or an alternative name, name I just thought of is riding the wave, okay. And this involves cycling between three different calorie levels over a three week period. And I got the idea because in strength training, we often cycle and there's something called 531 or eight, five to where you cycled a number of reps every three weeks, and then you reset, so you can do the same calories. And here's what it looks like Week One. Week one, you start in an aggressive deficit. I always like aggressive first, when you're fresh, you're mentally fresh, you're physically fresh, you've got a decent amount of calories to work with. I always like starting aggressive if you're going to start aggressive and and less aggressive rather than the other way around. So week one, start in an aggressive deficit. And you might aim for up to 1% of your body weight per week, right in Maybe it's a little bit less, it depends on how many calories you have to work. This is where again, working with a coach you can customize to what makes sense for you. So it's not too extreme. So let's say 1% body weight per week, you do that for a week, then in week two, you shift it down to a moderate deficit of, let's

Philip Pape  20:15

say, a half a percent. So like he dropped by half a percent a week. So if you started at 1%, now you go to half a percent. Or if you started at point seven, five, now you get to point two, five, right? You don't want to really go below 2.25, because then you're not really losing weight, are you. So that's we to moderate deficit, week three, you bumped the calories up to maintenance. So week one aggressive, we to moderate we three maintenance, then you repeat, aggressive, moderate maintenance, three week cycle, and you just repeat it. And the beauty of this approach is that it builds in regular week long diet breaks, right? It's like, it's like riding a wave, you've got the dips, but you have your picks to look forward to. And you're constantly kind of mixing it up, which is great for mental psychology for a lot of people where you're still consistent for an entire week. But then the next week is something new. And then the next week is new after that, and now you're ready to reset. So just to put it in simple numbers, let's say you weigh 200 pounds, you start at 1% or two pounds a week. And so your deficit is 1000 calories. Now some of you might be like, well, that's a huge deficit depends on your starting calories. That's why I said you don't have to go 1%, it could be a little bit less. So you get 1% or two pounds a week for a week, then the next week, you go down to one pound a week, right? And that's like a 500 calorie deficit. And then finally, you go to maintenance calories, which is no weight loss, right? You're just eating and maintenance. And then when you do the math, what does it average out to it averages out to half a percent body weight loss per week. So you did very aggressive at one moderate had half, very well fed it at zero. And when you average it out, it's still a half percent loss per week. And so you you plan that out to say, okay, assuming an average half percent loss per week, how many weeks I need to go to get to my goal, right? Or given a duration? How much am I going to lose over that duration. So aggressive, moderate maintenance, repeat every three weeks. That's the wavelength diet. Okay. So strategy number two is what I call the three to two split. And this is a weekly approach. So within the week, you're going to break it down like this, you're going to have three days aggressive. So again, let's say 1%, two days moderate, let's say a half percent, and then two days maintenance. So three to two, aggressive, moderate maintenance. Now notice that out of the seven days, three of them are aggressive, two are moderate, and two are maintenance. So this gives you more frequent variation in your intake within a week. And this can be great for those who struggle with, you know, longer periods of restriction. And yeah, even a week for some people can get a little taxing sometimes. And so it allows for even more flexibility in scheduling your, let's say, your higher calorie days can be the weekend, the last two days, the maintenance calorie days could be Saturday, Sunday, or maybe you shifted and it's, you know, Friday, Saturday, around social events, right, or maybe that's around your big workouts where you need to be really well fed for those leg workouts, right, and then kind of in the middle of the week, you're starting to get tired of the diet. So you shift to that moderate before we get to the weekend, kind of kind of glides you up into the weekend. Right? So maybe you choose Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday for aggressive Thursday, Friday for moderate and then maintenance on the weekend. And you can just make it work however you want. Right? So if you do the math, in this example, it still averages out to about point 6% per week, because you got a little bit of that bias with the three days that are aggressive. So you got three days aggressive, two days moderate, it's not like evenly split. Anyway, it doesn't matter. I mean, that's, that gets you in the ballpark, you can shift it however you want, you can shift the numbers. So that's the second strategy, which I call the three to two split. And then the third strategy, the final strategy I want to share is the alternating fortnight right now, for those of you especially in the US who don't use that word frequently, or at all it means 14 days fortnight, right, two weeks, I see it definitely use more with people from the UK and Australia right from the Commonwealth areas. And I thought I would make this a nod to them. So the alternating fortnight not to be confused with the game fortnight operates on a two week on two week off cycle. So again, very simple. The first two weeks is your moderate to aggressive deficit. So you got some flexibility here, maybe it's point five, or maybe it's all the way to 1% It depends depends on what works for you. Okay, two weeks at a moderate to aggressive, then weeks three and four, the next two weeks are slight or even at maintenance. So slight deficit or if you're maintenance, so you've got very aggressive and very not aggressive at all. And then you repeat it every four weeks, right? So two weeks, two weeks, two weeks, two weeks. Now, this is an interesting strategy because it allows for longer periods at each calorie level creates that consistency. It can be beneficial for those who find like all the frequent changes disruptive and don't want to constantly be changing their app or their targets, right where As others really love to do that. And then interestingly, this can be aligned with women's menstrual cycle. And this is actually comes from a few of my clients who had very different hunger profiles in the two different parts of their cycle. And we did something like this. And it worked wonders, because the two weeks of the moderate to aggressive deficit can coincide with the follicular phase, when many women do find it easier. And the two weeks out on your maintenance aligns with the luteal phase when hunger and cravings usually increase, okay, but men can use this as well, again, it doesn't matter, it's just, you know, two weeks on two weeks off kind of gives you that break, the two weeks off, remember, doesn't have to be a maintenance, you can keep yourself in a diet, but just make it very slight. And it's still gonna seem like a lot more food than when you're in the more aggressive deficit. Now, the length and the symptoms and all that vary from person to person, like we were just talking about women with menstrual cycle, some women don't experience the difference, right. So again, you have to personalize this. But it's a great example of how we work with our body's natural rhythms. And we make fat loss more efficient, and less stressful. All right. So that's just three examples, I'm sure you can come up with a lot more. Because you know, the goal here isn't just to lose fat, it's to do so in a way that's sustainable a fit into your life. And as we wrap up this segment, I do want to emphasize that it's it's not about picking the best strategy. It's not about going with one of these three in particular, it's finding the one that aligns with you, your lifestyle, your preferences, your schedule, your goals, and it's fine to test and experiment, try one of these out, try one, if you want to try one of these, go for it. That's why I included them in here. Come up with your own right. The beauty of this, these approaches is by definition, their flexibility, so you can do whatever you want with them. Right? And maybe you can think of another one that would work better for you. And if so, if so, I'd love for you to send me a message on Instagram at Whitson weights, and let me know what you came up with. Or you could just say hello, just just say hello, say, Hey, I'm a listener of the show. Love the episode. Here's why. And if you have questions, send them my way, as well. So Instagram at Woodson weights. Okay, so now that you understand the power behind nonlinear dieting, I want to emphasize it's not about the strategies, it's the mindset shift that these represent. It's getting away from all or nothing thinking, which dominates so much of diet culture, it just does. It's like you got to do this and be on and go after and work hard and be disciplined and get after or else, you know, you're a loser. Right? Or maybe we do that to ourselves, let's be honest. Okay. And instead, it's flexible and sustainable. And that word, those words, like, they can't really be overused, because they mean what they mean. And that is what we want. And if your approach is not those things, if it is not flexible enough is not sustainable. Question it, question it? What can change to make that we don't just throw up your hands and say, Oh, well, it's just not going to work for me, right? Oh, well, maybe I am the unique snowflake. And I'm sorry to use that term, because it can be triggering, but still snowflakes are all unique. So there's a reason we use that. I'm the one that is not going to work for it. No, no, no, no, no,

Philip Pape  28:04

let's get creative, right? Because you're not just changing how you eat. It's not just a diet. Even though I use the word diet a million times today, you're changing how you think about food, how you think about your body, how you think about the process of transformation, which really is just personal and physical and mental growth. You're setting yourself up for long term success, not the quick fix. So next time, you're faced with a choice between this one size fits all restrictive dieting, even if it is flexible dieting with macros and calories and you're like this doesn't feel right. Maybe I should just eat intuitively before you do that, and give up. There's a smarter way, a way that works with your body, not against it. All right. And that's the power of nonlinear dieting. That's the power of channeling your effort and thinking about these things. Because yes, it can be hard. But it can be smart as well at the same time and that way you get something for your heart. That's what we want out of this game, isn't it, we want to get the result. And other people aren't thinking about this stuff. Right? I rarely hear about nonlinear dieting strategies or if I do they're like always the same ones. You've got a blank slate tabula rasa on this thing. And also, using your mental muscle will lead you to find other things in your fitness and health that you might be able to personalize. So there's that benefit. All right. If you are intrigued by these strategies, if you want to explore how they could work for your specific situation, if that's something that might interest you. In my Whitson weights physique university program, we do dive deep into customized approaches like this all the time. We tailor the nutrition plans, we tailor the strategies, we give you real time feedback, as these issues come up to your individual needs and your lifestyle. Right? We help you implement these smarter these more flexible methods for fat loss, right? Most of our clients are aiming to lose between 20 and 50 pounds of fat and we help them get there. Or maybe you're trying to build muscle many of our clients do both. All while giving you on Going support and adjustments and feedback. Yes, there's a community. Yes, there's courses, all that fun stuff. But at the end of the day, what you're looking for is how do I implement this for me. And if you want to learn more about how we could help you do that, how we can apply these concepts from today to your journey, click the link in my show notes to learn more about the physique University, or head over to Whitson weights.com/physique Because getting personalized guidance is exactly how you take your results to the next level and you stop spinning your wheels. Again, click the link in the show notes or go to Whitson weights.com/physique. Until next time, keep using those wits. Keep lifting weights and taking it one day at a time. I'll talk to you next time here on the wits and weights podcast.