Microscopic Muscle Growth for Huge Gains (Justin Cottle) | Ep 232

Have your muscle gains stalled? Do you struggle to build muscle as fast as others despite your best efforts in the gym?

Philip (@witsandweights) connects with anatomy expert Justin Cottle to dive deep into the cellular world of muscle hypertrophy. You'll learn why some people build muscle faster, what happens inside your muscles as they adapt to strength training, and how understanding these processes can unlock your muscle-building potential. If you want to go beyond the surface level and truly understand how to build muscle efficiently, this is for you.

Justin Cottle, a former lab director at the Institute of Human Anatomy, returns to the show to break down the science of muscle fibers, the role of protein synthesis, and how our genetics influence muscle growth.

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Today, you’ll learn all about:

2:02 Cellular differences between hypertrophied and untrained muscle
3:37 Breaking down muscle fibers and tissue layers
7:15 Fast-twitch vs. slow-twitch muscle fibers
10:03 The role of protein and amino acids in muscle growth
15:30 The connection between carbs and glycogen storage
20:22 The three types of muscle tissues
24:18 Eccentric vs. concentric contractions and training
28:48 Training variation and breaking through plateaus
32:44 Genetic variability in muscle fiber composition
36:43 Mechanisms beyond individual fiber growth (e.g., hyperplasia)
39:09 The importance of rest and recovery for hypertrophy
45:30 Role of muscle damage in hypertrophy
49:34 Practical strategies and training methods for lifters
52:21 Advancements in muscle growth science
55:50 Where to find Justin
56:24 Outro

Episode resources:

• Youtube: @thedissectionroom 

• Substack: @thedissectionroom 

• Instagram: @realjustincottle

• Learn anatomy faster: kenhub.com

Related episode:

• How Anatomy Impacts Your Gut, Muscle Mass, Hormones, and Health with Justin Cottle | Ep 177

Episode summary:

In the latest episode of the Wits & Weights podcast, host Philip Pape sits down with Justin Cottle, a former lab director at the Institute of Human Anatomy, to delve into the fascinating world of muscle hypertrophy. This episode promises to enlighten listeners on the microscopic wonders of muscle growth, exploring how cellular and genetic factors can significantly influence an individual's ability to build muscle mass.

The conversation kicks off with a deep dive into the microscopic processes that underpin hypertrophy. Justin Cottle brings his expertise to the table, highlighting the importance of understanding the subcellular changes that occur with regular strength training. Muscle hypertrophy, the increase in muscle size, is influenced by factors such as the increase in sarcoplasm and the presence of more nuclei within muscle cells. These indicators are crucial for enhancing training effectiveness and maximizing gains.

Listeners are then taken on a journey through the intricate anatomy of muscle fibers. The episode sheds light on the various layers of skeletal muscles and the roles of connective tissues like endomycium and epimycium. These structures organize muscle fibers into functional units, while organelles like myofibrils and mitochondria play pivotal roles in muscle contraction and energy storage. Understanding these elements is key for anyone looking to optimize their workout regimen and tailor it to their unique physiology.

The episode doesn't shy away from tackling controversial topics, such as the role of carbohydrates in muscle function. Contrary to modern dietary trends that demonize carbs, Justin Cottle emphasizes their importance as a primary energy source for muscle contraction and brain function. Carbohydrates, stored as glycogen, are vital for supporting both slow and fast-twitch muscle fibers. The discussion highlights how a balanced intake of carbs is essential for fueling intense workouts and ensuring optimal performance.

A fascinating segment of the episode is dedicated to exploring the relationship between muscle growth and metabolic processes. The hosts discuss how different muscle types, including skeletal, cardiac, and smooth muscles, contribute to overall metabolism. They examine recent findings that suggest athletes may have a higher basal metabolic rate due to increased organ size, a hypothesis that underscores the complex interplay between muscle growth and organ function.

Genetic variability also takes center stage in this episode. The hosts explore how subtle changes in training can influence the central nervous system, leading to improved performance. They discuss the genetic factors that affect muscle fiber composition and hypertrophy potential, acknowledging that some individuals are naturally predisposed to excel in specific physical activities due to their genetic makeup.

Rest and recovery are highlighted as crucial components of any fitness regimen. The episode delves into the science of rest, emphasizing its role in muscle repair and growth. Adequate rest periods between workouts and proper sleep are essential for replenishing glycogen stores and allowing for muscle repair. The conversation underscores the significance of integrating proper nutrition, particularly carbohydrates, into recovery routines to enhance athletic outcomes.

Looking to the future, the episode explores the exciting potential of personalized supplementation and AI in health and wellness. Justin Cottle shares his insights on how advanced technologies could revolutionize personalized medicine, offering tailored solutions based on an individual's genetic profile. This forward-thinking discussion promises a future where bioavailability and targeted treatments enhance natural bodily processes, paving the way for groundbreaking advancements in health and fitness.

Overall, this episode is a treasure trove of insights for athletes, fitness enthusiasts, and anyone curious about the marvels of human anatomy. With expert guidance from Justin Cottle, listeners are equipped with practical advice and scientific knowledge to unlock their muscle-building potential and enhance their performance. Whether you're looking to optimize your workout routine, understand the role of genetics in muscle growth, or explore the future of personalized health solutions, this episode is a must-listen for anyone committed to achieving their fitness goals.

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Transcript

Philip Pape: 0:01

What exactly causes muscles to grow. If your muscle gains have stalled or you want to get more out of your lifting, you might be missing a piece of the puzzle that even most trainers don't know about. Today, we are shrinking down into the microscopic world of muscle growth with an expert on human anatomy who's seen firsthand what really happens when your muscles adapt to training. You'll discover the intricate cellular dance that occurs with every rep and your recovery, why some people seem to pack on muscle effortlessly while others struggle, and how understanding these hidden processes can inform your training approach. If you're serious about strength training and muscle growth, this episode will show you how to unlock your muscle building potential by understanding what happens at the microscopic level. By understanding what happens at the microscopic level, welcome to Wits and Weights, the podcast that blends evidence and engineering to help you build smart, efficient systems to achieve your dream physique.

Philip Pape: 0:56

I'm your host, philip Pape, and today we're peering through the microscope at the fascinating world of muscle hypertrophy with Justin Cottle, who is back on the show to dig a little deeper for those of us who are serious about lifting weights and building muscle. Justin is a former lab director at the Institute of Human Anatomy. He's a pioneer in using real human cadavers to educate the public about the human body Very unique angle, especially when we talk about lifting and hypertrophy. He's also the creator behind the Dissection Room, a YouTube channel and Substack newsletter devoted to dissecting life, creativity and what it means to be human. Today you'll learn about muscle growth down to the cellular level, including types of muscle fibers, how they respond to training stimuli, what actually happens inside your muscle cells when you use them, and how understanding those subcellular stress and adaptation cycles can inform your training. What can we actually do about it and why? Some people seem to respond differently, based on their genetics, and some people may require a little more effort. So, justin, it's awesome to have you back on the show, my man.

Justin Cottle: 2:00

Thanks, philip, it's great to be back.

Philip Pape: 2:02

And so we're going to learn something new today. We're definitely going to learn something new. I presume that you've spent countless hours in the lab or maybe looking at muscle tissue under a microscope at some point at that level, or at least know a lot about it, and I guess what I first want to understand is what do you actually see when you look at the cross-section of muscle between someone that's been lifting and has gone through hypertrophy for a decent part of their life and someone who hasn't, maybe somebody who's been sedentary? Do we have that, something like that?

Justin Cottle: 2:32

Yeah, yeah. So what you'll see is basically just more space, I mean cells. For anyone who's ever seen like a micrograph or say like a slide that you'd look through a microscope, it oftentimes just looks transparent. So I mean, there's not like this sexy answer of like oh, you can see all these proteins really like in this robust form. I mean, you can.

Justin Cottle: 2:51

You definitely can see when there are more, when there's more protein, but at the same time, a lot of times it just looks bigger, like. What you're seeing is almost like it's just the space which in a muscle cell we call the sarcoplasm. The sarcoplasm is actually just going to be larger, and so what you're just seeing is more of that. You're also going to see more nuclei, typically, just because, as a lot of people in the fitness realm will know, especially like, the more you get hypertrophic, then you're actually going to have more nuclei attached to the cell. So you'll also see that, but it's more about space than anything else. It's just an increase in space and then you will see some more protein as you're looking through it.

Philip Pape: 3:29

So it's kind of swollen jacked at that level already. So you could even just it's a microcosm of what we see expressed ultimately at the physical level or the macro level. Why don't we break that down a little more? Then, when we talk about muscle fibers you mentioned nuclei, maybe the types of muscle fibers when do we want to start this so people understand what the heck's in a muscle? Because we really oversimplify it sometimes. I think it'd be helpful to take that little journey.

Justin Cottle: 3:52

Yeah, by the way, if this gets to be just too much of the weeds, you can let me know, because we can talk on this for quite a bit of time. And I love that we're talking about it because I think every time I hear this conversation happening on the side, the anatomy and the micro anatomy are kind of touched on, but very briefly, which I totally understand, but I think it actually helps really like just justify specific training regimens and things of that nature. So if you actually took a skeletal muscle which, by the way, there's three different types of muscle you have skeletal, cardiac and smooth Cardiac is only found in the heart and then smooth muscle is basically like in your organs. So if you focus on skeletal muscle, if you took a cross section, like, let's say, like you cut mid brachium, so you're looking through the biceps, you're looking through the triceps, and then you like peeled apart the muscle fibers, you would actually see a whole variety of layers, right? So basically you have skeletal muscle cell or the muscle fiber, same thing and then what you do is you wrap that in connective tissue called endomycium. So if anyone's ever like in the literature and they see endomycium, that is the connective tissue that wraps individual muscle cells and then what you do is you put those into like a honeycomb structure that we call a fasciculus, and that honeycomb structure is just a bundle of muscle fibers and then so that's wrapped in connective tissue and then you bundle those together. So it's like you have all of these honeycomb structures all bundled together and you wrap that in another layer of connective tissue called epimycium, layer of connective tissue called epimycium, and you now have a muscle. So a muscle is actually bundles of bundles of muscle fibers. And then you even wrap groups of muscles together with fascia. So people have probably heard of fascia before, but that's just like the macro anatomy. That's what you'd see if you just cut your own arm or you were in the cadaver lab and you were looking at it. Cut your own arm or you were in the cadaver lab and you were looking at it.

Justin Cottle: 5:47

You could then go inside the muscle cell itself and this is where I think a lot of people it starts to get interesting, really exciting, although I will say the connective tissues do come into play in terms of, say, like stress and damage to the cell. So when you're working out you can damage those connective tissues, which is part of just the whole repair process and just getting stronger. But if you went into the muscle cell, that's where you're going to start seeing what are called organelles. So people have probably heard of organs. Organelles are tiny little structures that we all probably learned about in eighth grade biology, so like mitochondria, lysosomes, paroxysomes, but skeletal muscles have a very unique organelle called a myofibril.

Justin Cottle: 6:27

The myofibril is this really long tube essentially of protein, and that protein is what we all know and love in terms of like what we want, right, like the more protein, obviously, the stronger it's going to be. And what you do is you organize in these little contractile units called sarcomeres. So sarcomeres are basically like these membranes and protein bound areas that have a bunch of protein and they all just attach to one another and then they contract and get shorter. And so this is where people might be familiar with, like myosin, actin. These are the contractile proteins. So if you looked inside of the sarcomere, this is all microscopic so you can't see this with the naked eye. You have myosin attaching to actin and when it does that, it pushes on actin and that's what causes the contraction to occur. But you also have to understand that surrounding all of the myofibrils, all of the protein. That's where you get glycogen right, that's where you have all these different enzymes, that's where you get glycogen right, that's where you have all these different enzymes, that's where you put water, it's where you have mitochondria and this is where you start to see the subtle differences in muscle fiber type.

Justin Cottle: 7:31

So if you've ever heard of like slow twitch versus fast twitch, right, like basically the difference there is basically how much mitochondria does the cell have? How big are those mitochondria? If you have a lot of them and they're pretty big, you're looking at a slow twitch or a type one fiber. If you don't have a lot of mitochondria but the cell diameter, by the way, is bigger, in a type 2a or also you'll hear about type 2x, those are just fast twitch fibers. So basically it's like what you're looking for to determine is this cell a slow or versus fast twitch is mostly mitochondria and then the diameter of the cell, and so that's the kind of stuff you're really looking at, although there are hybrids which are kind of interesting. You have, like, some muscle cells are somewhat slow twitch, are somewhat fast twitch and they can change over time based on demand and training, which is obviously really interesting, for you know those in the fitness realm, so it's like and, by the way, slow and fast twitch, they get their name for exact reasons you probably suspect.

Justin Cottle: 8:33

It's just how fast does that do the proteins contract? And there's a whole variety of factors that go into that. And, by the way, like all that I've just said is touching the surface, there are countless other structures that are in and around the cell itself. But I mean, from a micro anatomy perspective, those are probably the need to knows right, like it's based on protein. It's based on how fast those proteins contract and the diameter of it and then around those proteins, how much glycogen, how much water, how much mitochondria is stuffed in there, and that's pretty much what determines if something is going to be you know that fiber is going to be growing strength wise, or if it's going to actually just be increasing in size, which would we would pretty much just call hypertrophy.

Philip Pape: 9:16

Okay, I'm drawn in, man, I could just let you keep going. Literally you could take over the podcast talking about this, because, yeah, if anybody's taking a biology class, they know it can get so complicated, and I'm sure you could do an entire semester on just skeletal muscle and actually that'd be fascinating for me, I think, but just at a high level. So so we recap what we're saying here is there's kind of multiple layers here. There's muscle cells, they're bundled into fibers, they're bundled together, there's bundles of bundles grouped with fascia and then down at the lowest level or one of the lowest levels within the cell, we have these organelles, especially myofibril, a tube of protein, and so that is correlated with strength and also contraction because of the myosin and actin, and then surrounding that is some glycogen and water.

Philip Pape: 10:01

I think I kind of got what you were saying. So it leads to some follow-up questions, because what I really want to connect is what do we do about this? Right, we can geek out on it all day, and I've got some interesting follow-ups here that I didn't expect to ask. So the first one is with the protein. People think about consuming protein, get that breaking down into amino acids, and then how does that get back to these proteins in the muscle, because it's not like it doesn't just travel there and then become muscle tissue. There's some synthesis going on. Can we just briefly?

Justin Cottle: 10:31

discuss that process? Yeah, absolutely. So this is where you start to hear. There's a lot of talk these days about the mTOR pathway if anyone's ever heard of like TORC1, torc2. This is a really fascinating pathway, not just even for, like muscles health, but I mean just cellular health. It's about protein synthesis. It's interesting just for longevity purposes. So you know, those in the longevity sphere are just really excited about mTOR. Mtor stands for what is it? I think it's mammalian target of rapamycin.

Justin Cottle: 11:00

The point here is when you digest proteins right, so digesting is literally just breaking apart the proteins. Most proteins your body can't absorb at the size they are. So you have all these enzymes that break the proteins down into amino acids, and so those amino acids are going to be the building blocks of protein. And there's no at least to my understanding, we still haven't found any kind of targeted type of protein. What I mean is eat this protein, these amino acids will build this muscle or reinforce this specific area. Instead, what happens is the amino acids are distributed throughout the body based on demand, and that demand is based on environmental influence. So obviously, if you are working out a muscle right, if it's under tension, you have all of this micro damage and micro tears. That's a signal that we need to reinforce it. And there are certain amino acids that are going to be better for protein synthesis. I mean I would imagine a lot of your audience is going to be familiar with, say, leucine for example. So you're talking like these are your, you know your branch chain amino acids. Those are going to be fantastic with the mTOR pathway to synthesize more protein.

Justin Cottle: 12:06

So basically what happens is these amino acids go into the myofibril and what they make is more myosin and actin. And the more myosin and actin you have in theory and I say in theory because it's there's a little bit of nuance to this but the stronger the muscle is going to be able to get. And basically strength you could actually say very specifically is how many actin or thin filament proteins are around the myosin protein. So in human beings, if I'm remembering correctly, I think it's six. So basically a myosin protein has two heads to it and then around it you have six different options for it to actually bind to. In human beings that number varies when you go in the animal kingdom and some creatures including insects, if I remember correctly have a wide variety or larger number of actin and thin filament, which means there's more options for the myosin to attach to, and it actually equates to more strength. That's why, like insects are just dramatically stronger for their body weight than you are right. You?

Philip Pape: 13:17

can't lift. Oh yeah, allometric scaling yeah yeah, we'll talk about that, right, sure.

Justin Cottle: 13:21

So the point, though, is that's what the amino acids do. So the amino acids are basically you can't make more skeletal muscle cell right. You're essentially born. There's always debate, but, generally speaking, you're born with as much skeletal muscle as you're ever going to have. What's changing is going to be the amount of nuclei on those cell and the protein inside of it, and that's what the amino acids go to, and those branched chain amino acids and everything it just protein synthesis, reinforces and builds myosin, actin, other proteins in there, like titan, nebulin. There's so many varying proteins inside of there that are all being just fueled and built together in response to environmental damage.

Philip Pape: 14:00

Cool. And if we man I can go off so many tangents If we took someone and just completely eliminated, say, leucine from their diet and got all the other amino acids, what would happen?

Justin Cottle: 14:11

That's a really good question. I'm not even sure I have a great answer for you, I would say.

Justin Cottle: 14:17

I mean, the thing is, the human body is extraordinarily adaptable. So you know, you have to just think about it in this really broad perspective, that basically and we might have even talked about this on our last episode, I forget that I like to think of humans as being more opportunivores, in the sense that we eat whatever we can eat whatever we can, and your body is ridiculously good at extracting nutrients from things that don't seem very nutritious, and so I wouldn't be surprised and I don't know off the top of my head, I'll be completely honest with you if we have ways of converting for leucine or other pathways that can adapt, I'm pretty sure that's the case, but at the same time, it's not a good thing. Right, like, leucine is important and you want that, and I know you know, especially for your audience. We're talking about optimization, and so that's where leucine is going to be very important, but I don't want to make it seem as though you're going to fall apart without it.

Philip Pape: 15:07

Yeah, yeah, I love these thought experiments, because when you go, people usually ask the other way, like, well, I'm trying to get more leucine because I know how important that is, how important is it really? And obviously we're not. So the thought experiment is go the other direction and if you completely eliminated it, because you know more of the research now is showing us that really getting the total protein is where it's at and we shouldn't necessarily overthink the sources, as long as we have a diverse diet, like you said, opportunivore, just eat a good variety and you should be good. So the proteins okay. So that's really cool that we can't make more muscle cells, skeletal muscle cells, but we have more nuclei. So we'll get back to that.

Philip Pape: 15:41

Two other things you mentioned. One was the glycogen, and that brings to mind carbs, and every time I put out an episode that's like carbs aren't the problem or carbs are okay for you, you get all the hate, like all the YouTube hate, like how dare you? Carbs are terrible, you need to cut carbs. Anyway, I don't want to make this a carb loving episode, but what is the relationship between carbohydrate, sugar, glucose consumption and the glycogen you're referring to supporting our muscles?

Justin Cottle: 16:07

First of all, I can totally empathize with you on that. Like in these days, if you even minorly support carbohydrates, it's a hot button topic. So glycogen is glucose, it's just the storage form of glucose. You have to understand that when it comes down, we go back to slow twitch versus fast twitch Mitochondria. They use oxygen to convert glucose, as well as fatty acids, as well as lactate, into ATP. Atp is the energy currency of the body. So what's nice is slow twitch is filled with mitochondria, just filled with mitochondria, which means if you are actually using slow twitch muscle fibers, you're not really working out. Basically, you are not in an anaerobic state. There's plentiful oxygen. Slow twitch muscle fibers primarily burn fat and so it's when you start doing more explosive or high demand activity that you're going to start contracting more of the fast twitch fibers, and these are anaerobic, meaning that they don't really utilize oxygen. There's mitochondria in there, but I mean, compared to the slow twitch, they don't. Instead, what they utilize is another pathway called glycolysis.

Justin Cottle: 17:20

Glycolysis happens in what's called the sarcoplasm. So again, if you had like the diameter, if you like, took like a cross-section of a muscle cell, all the space where you all the little organelles are floating in that's called the sarcoplasm and there's a fluid in there called cytosol, and that that in there is where chemistry occurs, basically a glucose molecule. So a sugar molecule is broken down into pyruvate. We don't need to get into the actual biochem here. The point is you get energy but you don't get a lot. This is one of my favorite things. Like if I took one glucose molecule and put it into the glycolysis pathway, you get two ATP. But if we kept that process going and you were able to give it to a mitochondria, you would end up with 36 ATP for that same one glucose molecule.

Justin Cottle: 18:11

So that means with oxygen you get more energy. Without oxygen you still get energy, but not enough. So what that means is fast twitch fibers are relying on an anaerobic pathway. They don't get as much energy, so they need more glucose to pull from to try and get energy in those times of high demand. What this means is you need glucose. There is no ifs, ands or buts. Glucose is the fuel source for your fast twitch muscle fibers, right? So they're like your type 2X fibers. Specifically, those fibers need the glycogen and they just have this, all these storages of it that they can pull from and then they can metabolize, they can get the energy, the ATP, they need for that muscle contraction. It's so important. If you did not get glucose in your body, your liver would do what's called gluconeogenesis, and gluconeogenesis is where your liver is like I'm going to start destroying other parts of your body to get the glucose.

Justin Cottle: 19:12

So the idea that we don't need glucose or we can operate without it, I mean, I think that's a modern convenience thing. Right, it's something that we just. This is where nutrition gets fun. It gets interesting and exciting. We're talking more about a biohacking perspective, but I mean very explicitly your body needs carbs. Carbs are essential. It's what red blood cells operate off of. It's what fast twitch muscle fibers operate. Red blood cells operate off of. It's what fast twitch muscle fibers operate. Glucose is what your brain runs off of. So you need glucose, and glycogen is just how you store it.

Philip Pape: 19:43

Yeah, I think it's fascinating. You'll still get people who are sticking to the like. Well, your body can convert or can use fat as its primary storage mechanism, but then when you look at studies comparing two groups of bodybuilders in a surplus, the one that has higher carbs tend to build a lot more muscle, and there seems to be a reason for that. So I think that's important. I love the way you put that, really the whole conversion mechanism and the pathways too.

Philip Pape: 20:05

We recently did an episode about the three pathways. You know the ATP-CP and then glycolytic and then the other one, the aerobic pathway, but whatever the name is, and they kind of all work together. So if you're lifting heavy or even if you're doing intense exercise or HIIT type cardio, it all kind of draws on that and why we need glucose, okay. So the other thing you mentioned just very briefly early was the three types of muscle and you mentioned skeletal, cardiac and smooth, and the smooth is associated with organs. I want to touch on that quickly because recently Macrofactor put out a review of lots of the BMR literature and they found that athletes at rest have a higher BMR than non-athletes accounting for body composition, and they suspect it's due to higher organ size and that organ size has been increased through their activity, through being an athlete Not born that way, necessarily, but they've actually grown their organs and I want to ask you about that what do you think when it comes to metabolism and muscle around organs, the smooth muscle is there a correlation there?

Justin Cottle: 21:05

That is really fascinating, and now I want to dive into that myself. I hadn't heard that, and I mean, just like my instant reaction is it's not all that surprising, that makes sense. But it's really, really interesting because, I mean, smooth muscle is fundamentally different than skeletal muscle, though, and I think, like this is something that's worth diving into real quickly. Like, both cardiac muscle and skeletal muscle are what we call striated. Striated means like if you actually looked at you again, you can see the proteins and they look striped. That's what striated means Cardiac muscle. It does it differently than skeletal muscle, but they're both striped.

Justin Cottle: 21:40

Smooth muscle isn't. Smooth muscle is basically like you have cells that are next door to each other and they form sheets, and then what you can do is you can mold that sheet into like a tube shape or like into a stomach shape, into a bladder shape. Like, smooth muscle is the type of muscle you put places that you don't want to think about that action right, you don't want to voluntarily like how annoying would that be if you had to manually release your stomach, move things through your intestines? The smooth muscle exists to contract, but what that means is how it contracts is more through an electrical stimulus and the whole sheet contracts at once.

Philip Pape: 22:18

That is so cool. Okay, I never thought of it that way because it's involuntary and it all contracts at once because it's a big sheet. Also, just so people know, if you eat organ meat, if you've ever had heart, it's very much like other muscle tissue and that makes a lot of sense because it's striated. Throw it in some chili, you hardly notice it's there. But if you got a little liver, you see it, you notice it. Anyway, continue.

Justin Cottle: 22:38

That's really cool.

Justin Cottle: 22:38

So it's like when it contracts in unison, right?

Justin Cottle: 22:41

So, basically, what's happening is I mean, you could literally just you could put this to any shape you want, and what that means is it's going to just contract at once.

Justin Cottle: 22:50

Well, at the same time, though, organs, their function, are going to increase with other metabolic increases, right? So if you're putting on more muscle mass, then globally, there's going to be more demand for, like even just generally speaking, you're going to have more waste products from muscle cells that need to be cleaned out by the kidneys. So, therefore, that would make a lot of sense that the kidneys are going to have to respond in size, or at least in function, and upregulate to adjust for that, and that should happen across every single organ. That's what I'd be interested to see, right? I don't want to make it seem like it's a one-in-one correlation, right? Like? You put on this many pounds of muscle mass, and then your kidneys, your liver, they grow, that's, you know, some similar amount, but it makes complete sense to me that smooth muscle would need to respond, because the smooth muscle is going to need to work harder, based on the just overall global increase in metabolic processes.

Philip Pape: 23:45

Yeah, it's fascinating. It's another reason people can kind of latch on to for all of these what seem to be mysterious reasons that a more active lifestyle also allows you to eat more and burn more calories, which you know is a struggle for people who like. Food is a part of everyday life, and nutrition and just the amount you eat is part of the whole process. Yeah, I recently learned that, and you know, organs make up like 5% of our mass, but they consume half our BMR. So if you could even move them a little bit, it's going to make a difference. So cool man.

Philip Pape: 24:14

Yeah, maybe that's a future topic for one of your uh, your YouTube or one of your articles. Yeah, yeah, so okay, uh, where do we want to take this next? How about contractions? You know, concentric versus eccentric contractions. We talk about different types of training for muscle growth and people always trying to find the next best thing lengthened partials, eccentric only right, overloaded, like let's just overload the down position on a bench press. What are your thoughts on all of that? Regarding what you know about how muscle fibers work, are we overthinking it? Is that like not necessary, or is there some value there?

Justin Cottle: 24:46

My gut. It's not necessarily gut, but I mean like there's definitely research to back this, but I think it's more so an overreaction. You know, I think there's some kind of psychological thing that we all think and hope and expect that there is this secret sauce somewhere. We just got to find that one little thing. And the thing is a lot of times that's true, you know, there's so much truth to that.

Justin Cottle: 25:08

But if you look through and I know you're going to very well understand this, right, if you look through the history of this aspect of trying to find the most optimal way, the most optimal type of contraction, whether it's eccentric, concentric, so on and so forth, it's going back and forth, right, whenever we think we have something, then we don't, and then we have something we don't. To me it's like I mean, we can very clearly say, okay, eccentric is going to, you know that's going to shred muscle tissue Absolutely. However, does that make it more conducive to hypertrophy? Not really, at least not that I've seen. You know, like there's been times we thought that was true, right, people will know like time under tension was just so you know that was TUT, that was an acronym, everybody knew it, yeah.

Justin Cottle: 25:49

And then now it's kind of like well, I don't know about that actually, and that's where it's like to me, from my understanding of the body. It's like it's not about as much as I wish there was some optimal type of contraction. It's more so about just diversity, and that's always what it seemed to me, right, it's not that you're only doing eccentric or mostly doing eccentric, it's okay, it's. You're doing full range of motion, right? You're doing concentric, you're doing eccentric, you're doing isometric, you're looking for diversity with this, you're getting creative with it, right? Like if you're stuck in the pattern, if you're just sitting there doing the same routine over and over, obviously your muscles are going to adapt and so you need to break that routine.

Justin Cottle: 26:31

To me, it's all about diversity. And so when you add that diversity with individuality right, as any coach will tell you then it's like okay, well then I also have to take it person by person. And as much as we want this like cookie cutter, like this is the rules. That here's your 10 commandments. This is exactly what you do.

Justin Cottle: 26:44

The body just doesn't work that way, and muscle tissue very much doesn't work that way. It's meant to respond to specific demands and then it gets used to them, and so you have to be able to surprise the muscle in certain ways. But at the same time, there's obviously general guidelines that are true, right, like you know it's, there's certain activities that are going to be a little more targeted for fast twitch versus slow twitch. There's all sorts of things that you can work within, but in terms of, like, concentric and eccentric and those things, I've just personally felt like we've been overthinking it, like the everyone's been overthinking it for a long time yeah, okay now, that's good to hear, and we also know the eccentric makes you sore like sore as hell.

Philip Pape: 27:24

You know, if you do too much of it, like if you do a bunch of air squats, you're're going to get sore and the benefit may be minimal depending on if your body's totally used to just doing body weight movements.

Jerry: 27:35

I just wanted to give a shout out to Philip.

Jerry: 27:37

I personally worked with Philip for about eight months and I lost a total of 33 pounds of scale weight and about five inches off my waist.

Jerry: 27:46

Two things I really enjoy about working with Philip is number one he's really taking the time to develop a deep expertise in nutrition and also resistance training, so he has that depth. If you want to go deep on the lies with Philip, but if 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 familiar with the performance and body composition goals that most lifters have. And also Philip 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 Philip and also have access to some tools likely that you can continue to use. If all that sounds interesting to you. Philip, like all good 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, philip.

Philip Pape: 28:48

I want to challenge, maybe, or hit on something you said about muscle surprise or and I know other terms have been used, like confusion and shock and everything, and I want to separate the bro stuff from the reality, because you talked about not getting stale, not hitting that plateau, and the first thing that comes to mind to me is how people, in my opinion, too often change things up, don't make enough progress and, for example, if you do a bench press and the next time you add five pounds, that's also different, like that also causes adaptation, even though it's the same movement. So where's the separation on? Let's be consistent for a while with our training and actually do the same movements and progress on them versus we need to change and our bench press is stalling, so let's move to a pause or a closed grip or tricep work. You know what I mean.

Justin Cottle: 29:34

Yeah, absolutely yeah. You hit the nail on the head right Like the bro. Science with this can really take over if we're not careful. And so, for most people, most of the time, stick with your routine, stick with what's working, because it's going to continue to work, and you'd be surprised at how long often it's going to continue to work. And you know, it's like a lot of times we talk about at the extreme levels or the opposite ends. The extreme ends, you know, we're talking about the elite of the elite. That's when they you start seeing these pretty interesting plateaus, and it takes a lot of cognitive effort and time and experimentation to figure out how do we break that plateau. That's not most people. At the same time, though, there's genetic factors, there's individual factors, there's dietary factors, there's all sorts of things that can just kind of come out of left field and all of a sudden can stall out a little bit here or there.

Justin Cottle: 30:18

And what I mean by surprising the muscle, it's like I'm more talking neurologically where it's like, you know, if you think about it, like you're just getting this repetitive action potential being sent to the sarcolemma. So the sarcolemma is the outside of the skeletal muscle cell, and then you have a neuron that's right on the other side of it. So this, that location where the neuron is communicating with the sarcolemma, is called the neuromuscular junction. That's where acetylcholine is, you know, transverses the cleft. And then what I mean here is, like when we're talking about like just how a signal is sent.

Justin Cottle: 30:50

You know, sometimes a quick little jolt, a little bit of a change can actually alter this enough to where you can start playing with motor units in subtle ways. That can almost I don't want to say trick, that's not the right word but it can influence your central nervous system to start maybe trying new things, maybe sending more motor units or more prolonged action potentials. So it's more of like you are just neurologically being diverse, as opposed to like changing your routine from the ground up. Right, it's just it's being willing to play with it. And oftentimes you said it add five pounds, right, like you know, it's like maybe you're just adding a little bit, you still do the same routine. It's those incremental progress can be enough too, can also definitely do it. So it's not like you need to change everything and, just like you know, basically go out in the woods and just like chop wood and do all this kind of stuff.

Philip Pape: 31:39

Yeah, no, I love the phrase neurological surprise. I'm going to steal that in the future and give you credit for it, because that's a really good way to put it. It reminds me of a form of training that I've done in the past and I'm probably going to do again, influenced by Westside Barbell, louie Simmons, back in the 80s. These were powerlifters, but my coach has a programming style based on that, and on two days of the week max effort days you actually test a 1RM, the day's 1RM, not your max PR, but what is the 1RM at that moment? Even if you're in a fat loss phase, you don't have as much energy and you've lost weight. What is your 1RM in that moment?

Philip Pape: 32:13

And then you do some back offsets, but the key is, over about six weeks you're rotating the variance of that lift.

Philip Pape: 32:20

So every Monday if you're doing, you know, back squat, this week you're going to do a pause back squat and then a box squat and then a front squat, and you're basically rotating with the idea of being that if you kept doing the same one, you would get so fatigued and the adaptation wouldn't be worth it anymore. It just kind of reminds me of that, right, because even that's a subtle difference in the movement, but it's enough, like you said, to unlock something going on with the motor units. I think that's awesome, that's really cool. Okay, so you mentioned the variability between humans in part of your answer there, the genetic differences, and I know we got into that last time how any one thing that you examine in the human body could have on the record, you know, 15 variants but in reality 200 or infinite permutations. How does that play out when it comes to, I guess, muscle fiber composition and but hypertrophy potential, specifically like the genetic variance between people?

Justin Cottle: 33:12

Yeah, that's a great question. So, like I mean broadly speaking, I was thinking about this in, like in just preparation for, you know, our interview, where I was like if I could just say, like, what are the four things? Well, there weren't four at the time. I've narrowed it down to four things, 22 things. Like hypertrophy, just broadly speaking, just means the cells getting bigger, and so if you add more protein, then it's obviously going to get bigger, which means if you're actually training for strength, then you're obviously getting hypertrophy. But that's not what we really mean, right, like we're talking an increase in cell size. So basically, the four things that make hypertrophy right is an increase in protein, an increase in the sarcoplasm, so like glycogen, mitochondria, things inside of the cell, inflammation which comes from I mean, like everyone knows this you get swole, right. So you're just literally going to engorge. But also during the repair process. And then satellite cell activation, right, the cells on the side that lend their nuclei to make the cell actually bigger. But what's interesting about that is every single one of those has genetic variability, right? How well do you, you know, build your sarcoplasm? How well do you build protein? How many satellite cells do you have available to you, which is likely predetermined at birth, right, like you think about, like some bodybuilders, just no matter what, are going to be better than everyone else. There's just, there's nothing that could possibly, there's no hurdle that you could cross, that it would get closer to them and it could just be they have more satellite cells available to them, so they have more myonuclei, and therefore it's just.

Justin Cottle: 34:42

There is these types of variabilities with it, with skeletal muscle type, right, like that goes. That goes into the fiber, I mean into the protein amount. Some people will have a higher density of slow twitch. Some people will have a higher density of type 2a or 2x or more hybrid fibers. I am not super clear on like. In terms of like, I imagine there's probably ethnicity differences. I imagine that there's just geographical differences, but I'm not. I don't want to give anyone bad information, but at the same time, it's like there are clear differences with this, and we see this in athletics. Right, you don't have to look anywhere else outside of athletics to just see that some people it's like their body's built for explosive movements, like it's just like they do it better. Well, that's probably because they do. They have probably more 2x fiber and they are literally contracting faster than you and there's no amount of training that you could ever do to overcome that.

Philip Pape: 35:34

Before you go on, I'm sorry. I was talking to my wife last night about a kid we grew up with and he was like half my age and he could just fly barefoot on the asphalt and he can run. It wasn't even believable how fast he could fly and you're like that. There's something genetic there. Anyway, continue.

Justin Cottle: 35:49

I totally get it Like. It's just, some people are better at certain actions, and that's okay, right. That doesn't mean that you can't be great. That doesn't mean that you shouldn't strive for the best you can do. It's just we all have these genetic limitations. They definitely exist with fiber type.

Justin Cottle: 36:02

What's fascinating to me, though, is, you know, if you went back 20 years, we used to think like you couldn't even change your fiber type at all, and now we're like, wait a minute, training can actually change fiber type. Maybe it's more subtle, maybe it's not that big for most people, and you really only see that those gains at the ends of the extremes of the spectrums. But at the same time, it's like it's amazing to me how much we've learned in just the past 10 years around fiber type and what can actually change based on training, and I don't want you to think like, if you're have more slow twitch, that you're going to not be able to do, you know explosive type workouts. At the same time, though, I mean you are going to be limited to some extent to how good you can get for sure.

Philip Pape: 36:44

Yeah, I think was it our conversation? I think it was last time. We talked about how, if you look at the world of athletics, there are so many types of sports and the ways that you use your body that you may be optimal for one and may not even know it, unless you try different things right. And some people maybe luck out and they grow up and they love something because they're good at it. But I do like the more powerful message that, okay, there's this range, there's variability between humans. Some people are on the outliers and they're going to be elite. Fine, maybe you're not trying to do that. You just want to look great, feel great, perform great, maybe enjoy some sports and there's something you can do about it. And so one thing is the fiber type. What would you say is the other thing, or two out of those four areas protein, cycloplasm, inflammation and satellite cell activation that we have the biggest impact over?

Justin Cottle: 37:33

I mean, like, when it comes to inflammation and repair, I mean that's obviously going to be just like how you rest, right. I mean this just goes to show, just like that's a good one.

Philip Pape: 37:37

Let's talk about that.

Justin Cottle: 37:39

It's always surprising to me how I love that things have changed. Right, like rest and its understanding of the importance of rest has really started to make some changes, but I still think there's a lot of significant work that needs to be done with it in terms of, like, even just resting in between sets, like we can take, like just talking about in your workout, versus, okay, are you resting for 24 hours, 72 hours? How are you cycling through muscle groups? You know, is it upper, body, lower? But like, there's all this nuance to it.

Justin Cottle: 38:04

But rest is so important because this is how you replenish glycogen storages.

Justin Cottle: 38:09

This is how you because if you destroy I say that maybe not destroy if you injure the muscle tissue through micro damage, through micro tears, right, you have the lactate, you have all this stuff.

Justin Cottle: 38:20

It takes time to rebuild that stuff and you want it to take that time and you want to give your body that time because you will come back stronger. You will 1000% come back stronger. So you're going to get that immediate hypertrophy from the inflammation and swelling and then it's going to transition into actual hypertrophy because you've constructed more mitochondria, you've constructed more proteins, you've given your body the time to actually adapt to the situation that you put it in right, like if you're changing your routine or if you're just adding more weight or whatever kind of change you're making. You got to give yourself time to recover, and that can sometimes be 72 hours or more. Right, the importance of rest it really just comes down to. You know you got to give your body the time to do what you want it to do and what you are. You know you really are doing when you're working out.

Philip Pape: 39:13

Yeah, there's that. We all have that immediate gratification. And it's funny you mentioned immediate hypertrophy versus actual hypertrophy, because there is a thought of getting a pump, getting sore, sweating, enjoying your workout, all of which can be wonderful things as far as motivators in the moment, but not all of which are necessarily an indicator of what is to come when not coupled with the follow-up action of rest. And you pointed out the different types of rest, which is great Cause I was thinking, okay, we're going to talk about, you know, sleeping and resting between sessions, but let's, you know, start small and work our way up the pyramid between sets. Very important, right, because we've heard we see a lot of people doing the 20, 30 seconds and just like going to the next one, which again, could be effective if you're doing mile reps or some form of like close to failure training and you want to be more time efficient, but it also may not be enough.

Philip Pape: 40:04

If you're doing, say, a deadlift or back squat and now you know you're not giving yourself enough rest, then we have between our sessions in general and then between muscle groups being stimulated across those sessions. It's kind of like an overlap when we do a four-day split or something you might work out three or four days in a row, but they're different muscle groups and then finally recovering your glycogen storage due to all the tearing and whatnot, and that's where nutrition, and again carbs and everything, can come into play as well, as well as not training fasted, in my opinion. So, all of that said, are there like a couple, like big tips I'll call them low hanging fruit for folks that you've seen. They don't do enough of that. Hey, do this, and it kind of could be a game changer on your road to recovering better.

Justin Cottle: 40:50

The only one that really truly comes to mind is something I'm so glad I think we even might've talked about it a bit last time, I think and if we didn't, we should have is sleep, and you just mentioned it. Right now, I'm still surprised at how many people aren't really prioritizing sleep, how many people say they are but they're really not. And sleep is just one of the most important things you can possibly do and I swear, every single month it's becoming more and more important, or at least more and more in the public eye. People are just talking about it more and more, and it makes me so happy.

Justin Cottle: 41:20

It's finding that time to really take care of your sleep is such an important one. But at the same time, just a more lower scale, I would say just taking time and resting between sets is probably one of the easiest ones. I understand that you could get bored. I'm not saying you have to rest. I mean, I forget what it is. It's something like you can go as high as like four or five minutes, like that's like a real solid recommendation. But I totally understand where you're just like jittery.

Justin Cottle: 41:45

You're just like I want to talk, right, but at the same time you jittery, you're just like I want to talk right, but at the same time, you know, taking that time, taking the time to rest, not being afraid of resting, it's really only going to add what? Maybe 10 minutes to your workout. I mean, it's not going to be that big of a deal, but little things like that really go a long way. But that's what comes to mind immediately is just be sleep.

Philip Pape: 42:04

I mean both of those. Obviously sleep. I feel like sleep is one of those unsexy topics. Every time we bring it up, if I make an episode about it, I'm like how do I even title this thing? Because people are like going to skip or delete. I just feel that from people when we talk about sleep and maybe there's a way to make it more interesting and tie it to the result. Maybe you have ideas on that.

Philip Pape: 42:23

But the resting between sets you mentioned you know four or five minutes. I think that's a great recommendation when you're getting started and you're trying to progress and lift heavy and just kind of give yourself the best shot to get all the reps. Because one of the things I hear from newer lifters is I just missed my reps, what do I do? And I'm like, well, don't miss the reps. And the way you don't miss the reps in the first place is probably taking longer rest periods. I'm guessing that's like the thing you're not doing other than, okay, you're not sleeping, you're not eating, you know all the other recovery aspects. So yeah, that's a good one. That's a good one, jess. I did want to ask you about you mentioned the genetic differences. Something you mentioned there made me think of that bull, that cow that's like overly muscular. Do you know what I'm talking about? I don't think it's urban legend. It's like a genetic defect that caused this bull to get like massively muscular. Do you know what I'm talking about, or no?

Justin Cottle: 43:16

I don't. I don't know, Okay, I mean you're welcome to like. Tell me about it.

Philip Pape: 43:20

No, I don't have the details on it, it just came to mind. I remember seeing it and it was like just imagine Ronnie Coleman times three as a bull okay.

Justin Cottle: 43:30

That's the most terrifying bull ever. Is what?

Philip Pape: 43:32

you're Unsettling. It revolts you to look at it because it's so unnatural. But of course I'm sure people look at that saying how do I get the pill to do that for me?

Justin Cottle: 43:41

Anyway, yeah, yeah, I will say I don't know, for some reason, this is what jumped in my mind. Yeah, yeah, I will say I don't know, for some reason, this is what jumped in my mind, just kind of. What's been interesting is there has been a kind of a shift in the myonuclear domain hypothesis. So the myonuclear domain hypothesis has to do with the myonuclei from the satellite cells. So basically you can think of it like this right, as the cell gets bigger and you add more nuclei, the idea is, what we used to think for a very long time was that the nucleus is only responsible for a certain radius within the whole diameter of the cell, and so you actually have a ceiling for how big that muscle can get, because there's only so many satellite cells that you can have and they can only control so much of an area.

Justin Cottle: 44:24

What's been interesting in the past few years is that we're starting to kind of like think that's not true and what it really seems like is the nuclei can be responsible for a whole lot bigger of an area than we thought, and there and it may even be boundless in some situations, which actually could suggest that hypertrophy doesn't have a ceiling we obviously have a long ways to go to figure out how to get even bigger. I mean I, if you're thinking maybe, or the reason I'm thinking this maybe we really could have Ronnie Coleman times three, you know, just in human form, which would be ridiculous. There's a lot of work that needs to go there. I'm not saying that's it's ready, but it's interesting to think that, like, maybe the ceiling that we thought was there is not actually there and we just got to figure out how to keep on pushing.

Philip Pape: 45:07

Okay, my own nuclear domain hypothesis. That is the hypothesis or it's a counter to that.

Justin Cottle: 45:17

So that's the original hypothesis, is really just saying generally that a nucleus is in charge of a radius. But within that hypothesis we used to think that it was smaller than the data is actually suggesting it is. So it's still under the same name, still the hypothesis. It's just evolving.

Philip Pape: 45:34

Makes sense. Okay, no, that's awesome. I'm going to look more into that. These are all great follow-ups, really good stuff, okay, cool. So you also mentioned muscle damage. So, maybe, going back to anatomy and what you've seen in the lab or what the research says, how crucial is the damage itself for growth? Let's use the right language so people understand what's happening, because we talked in simplistic terms damage, repair, what's really going on and how important is that?

Justin Cottle: 45:57

It's everything. Without damage, without stress, there's no way for tissue to respond and cells and proteins and all of these things to respond. Everything is about stress. There's always an optimal amount of stress. Obviously you can go far beyond and then we have problems. But without stress there's no way to actually modulate, there's no way to change. And so what's actually being affected?

Justin Cottle: 46:22

When you hear like micro tears we all hear about micro tears and it's like a lot of people be like does that mean that is the muscle fiber literally tearing, like, do I have a hole in my muscle? Maybe, kind of, not really, though it's more microscopic. You can have a rupture in the sarcolemma. So again, that was the outside of the muscle fiber. But you can also I'm going to start just dropping terms you can actually shred what's called the sarcoplasmic reticulum, which is what stores calcium. You can start breaking the T-tubule, which is like this invagination, it's like a tunnel that goes into the muscle cell, which is where calcium is going to travel and the action potential. You can shred the actual Z-membranes, the Z-disks, which are like borders of one individual contractile unit. So I can keep on going, you can literally start.

Justin Cottle: 47:09

So when we're talking about muscle damage, there's a lot of things that can be damaged and that doesn't mean that everything does get damaged, and I don't think we have. At least if we do. I don't know this, I don't know how to like, I can't say like this workout will damage your Z membrane as opposed to your T tubule. I don't think. It probably gets that specific. But at the same time it's like the damage can be quite extensive and as long as you're staying within those or you're not overdoing it, then you can actually get some pretty robust repair. Because if you have more efficient T-tubules, then you are actually making it more efficient for the action potential to propagate through the muscle fiber. If your sarcoplasmic reticulum becomes healthier, calcium will be released more efficiently, which could potentially lead to a stronger and faster muscle contraction.

Justin Cottle: 47:57

So when you start actually seeing what's being repaired and being like fortified, you can start seeing how hypertrophy. A lot of times people just view it as the muscles just getting bigger. You're not necessarily getting stronger, which is just a really nonsensical way to view it, because you are getting much stronger. Maybe it's not exclusively with how much protein, but the cell itself is getting stronger, it's getting healthier, it's getting not just bigger. I mean you're literally going to perform better. And again, this just goes back to rest and why rest is so essential because you want to maximize that repair. You want to give your body the time to do that, because if you're not, you're continually injuring the same thing and your body's getting the signal but it doesn't have a way to properly fortify everything.

Philip Pape: 48:41

Yeah, it doesn't think it needs to go beyond that original capacity each time it repairs is what I'm hearing. I do want to hit on the hypertrophy being bigger, not just being muscles being bigger, but also strength, cause yeah, that is a big misconception. It's often this false dichotomy that people create, like are you training for strength or are you training for muscle? Right, and granted, there are extremes, like if you look at power lifters, they may be going for max lifts in a very unique way that you're not going to want or need to do to build muscle, but they kind of lead to the same result because powerlifters are jacked Like once they lose the fat man. You look at Brian Shaw and those guys that have now leaned out and you're like it's incredible. They never thought about or focused on building muscle per se.

Philip Pape: 49:25

And we also know that powerlifters now train in a more well-rounded way, not just doing the big lifts. In fact, that's probably like 20% of their training. The rest of it is accessory work and support work. So are they effectively equivalent? Or if the average lifestyle lifter is listening to this podcast, watching this show, and they're like Justin, what's the best way to train? If I just want to look good. Maybe I want to have a six pack, but I mean and we know nutrition is part of it I just want to look good, be fit. General performance right. Like where would you send them? Easy question, right, yeah?

Justin Cottle: 49:59

You know, and I will say, like I'm not a coach or anything, you know it's like for me. It's like my understanding of this is more based in the science and just like you know for my own working out. But what I would say is, unless you are on those opposite ends of the spectrum, right, if you're really just going for elite type status, I don't think it matters all that much as much as it just means finding something that works for you, because, again, I guarantee, if you were training for hypertrophy, you're going to get a lot stronger too, right? Like, whatever differences are going to be there, you're probably not going to be seeing it in any short term aspect, and so it almost doesn't matter as much as just like, are you seeing results? And that's that, to me, I would say, is what you really want to be heading towards.

Justin Cottle: 50:42

It's more focusing on your nutrition, it's focusing on consistency, it's focusing on all the stuff that we all know we need to do that sometimes we skimp here and there. It's saying, no, like, I'm going to take this seriously, I'm going to get my, I'm going to just check all my boxes and then I'm going to start seeing progress with that. That's, to me the most important thing and that is going to carry you a long way, like a long way just doing that alone. And then what's fun is then you can start experimenting. You know, that's where you can start playing with this and then you can start optimizing.

Justin Cottle: 51:15

So it's I don't know yeah, it's for me, I don't know that I'd send them anywhere outside of just like developing not just the habits, because so many people have the habit of going to the gym right, getting your workout. It's just more like it's everything also around it. It's treating it like an ecosystem. You know, again, it's the getting the sleep, it's getting all that. It's not drinking alcohol. There's so many things that if you can start working on, you're going to see results. That's what I would say.

Philip Pape: 51:40

We're kindred spirits. My man, that's the exact answer I was hoping for, because it is not a binary answer. None of these things are. It's what is going to work for you and, like you said, it's not just doing it. It's doing it, measuring it in some way, seeing that it's working. If it's not working, something has to change, and it may just be one small thing. But don't keep doing what you're doing just because someone says it's the right thing to do if it's not producing results for you. Absolutely, love that. That's what we're all about.

Philip Pape: 52:04

You also talked about having a system or an ecosystem, having just something that works for you. That's part of your routine. I mean, I get up every day and I'm like if I don't train? I don't train every day, but I mean if I weren't training for a week, I would get antsy. I have to do it. It's what works for me, so find what works. I know we're wrapping up on time here. One last question here is do you think what we're learning about this at the cellular level, about muscle growth, about the research, is going to like how is it going to evolve? And, specifically, do we think are there like, any revelations that haven't been discovered or we're trying to get to, that will inform what we are doing in the gym, like is there still a big black box or mystery somewhere that you're hoping we will unlock in the near future?

Justin Cottle: 52:45

You know that is a really good question. And yes, there are plenty. I mean, I don't know, it's hard to say, maybe black box, but there are still plenty of mysteries. A lot of the mysteries within physiology, just generally speaking, is how things work together. Like, if you like, we can see a lot of things there. Like, I want you to put yourself into the position of, like, a research scientist. You can see all the parts. You're just not really sure how they work together, and so the refinement in our understanding of how these parts go together and also the timing in which they do that, there is a lot of room to go with that.

Justin Cottle: 53:16

And what's really exciting for me I know this is a term that's like everyone's kind of getting sick of right now but with AI, a lot of times people think of AI just being this LLM thing like chat, gpt, but there's a lot of really interesting advancements being made in material science, in pharmaceuticals, in the supplement industry, right Targeted medicine and personalized medicine to where it's like what I'm excited about and I can't give you a timeframe on this, like I throw around the number 10 years, I throw around the number five years, I really don't know but I'm excited for like personalized supplementation. I'm excited for kind of like better understanding of what the genetic tests even mean. I'm really excited for how we're going to get better at just delivering these supplements, so not only just giving you what you need, but making sure they are bioavailable to you. To me, I think like we're just starting another revolution, another kind of just huge expansion in this space, where we're going to start feeling healthier than we ever have. It almost sounds science fiction. It almost sounds like pie in the sky type stuff, and that's why I'm like constantly amazed that it's not where it's like I have to catch myself when I'm looking into this and I'm like, are you serious? Like that's actually on the forefront.

Justin Cottle: 54:26

You know, um, I mean imagine just, you know, not even needing to, like you know, take like testosterone or any of these like exogenous hormones. Instead, we're just taking care of the body's natural processes to not only build protein but to inhibit protein degradation, to break down. Like there's so many things that we can play with that we are playing with that are going to start being publicly aware. That I think people are going to be really excited about. So I would say, like in the next 10, 15 years probably. We're going to see some of the coolest advancements things right now that, like we are just used to being science fiction. I think that's all in the pipeline and people are going to be pretty amazed.

Philip Pape: 55:03

Yeah, I'm excited about that. I mean, you mentioned like geneticbased personalization and also doing something that can unlock the limitations, like the protein limitation you said, protein degradation where it's like you combine that with the lifting and the eating properly and it's like you just accelerate that process even more. Very exciting, okay, is there anything you wish I'd asked in this conversation? I know we could probably do another hour on this topic.

Justin Cottle: 55:28

No, actually that's the one thing I want is I want to do another hour sometime. So that's what's fun is. It's like these conversations can go so many different directions in so many different ways. I've loved every part of it, but I do want more. I do want more.

Philip Pape: 55:40

Yeah, awesome, and I hope and I know our listeners have gotten a lot out of this, and hopefully your students as well and everybody, especially when we can kind of combine these different industries and how it all comes together. Thank you, man, this has been really awesome. I want people to know where to find all of your the stuff where you geek out and you talk about what you're excited about. So where can people go, justin?

Justin Cottle: 55:59

Yeah, so you can find me at the Dissection Room. You can find me YouTube channel. You can find me all over social media these me, all over social media. These days, I'm also starting to work at a company called Kenhub. They are the world's leading anatomy educator. So if you guys go to Kenhubcom, you can also see a lot of I'm doing videos for their YouTube channel. I'm doing I'm all over the place these days. So just find me the dissection room. Kenhub is the good place to start. How do you spell Kenhub? K-e-n-h-u-b.

Philip Pape: 56:31

Okay, cool, awesome. Yeah, I'll include those in the show notes, as always and, man, this is a pleasure. I learned a bunch of things and these are probably going to spawn some other episodes on my end too, to dive into some of these topics. So I'll hit you up with questions if I have them, which I know I will, and then we'll connect again in the future. Justin, thank you so much for coming on, my man.

Here's Why Your Diet SHOULD Be Restrictive for Fat Loss (Design of Experiments) | Ep 231

"You don't need to restrict your diet to lose fat."

How many times have you heard that? Yet you're still not seeing results.

Here's the truth: some level of restriction in your diet isn't just helpful – it's essential for achieving your fat loss goals. But it's not about cutting out entire food groups or following a rigid meal plan.

Learn how the engineering concept of Design of Experiments (DOE) reveals why smart restrictions actually work better for sustainable fat loss. You'll discover how to create a flexible, effective nutrition plan without feeling deprived or overwhelmed.

Rethink everything you know about dietary restrictions and learn how to engineer your perfect fat loss strategy.

To support the show, please take a moment to leave a 5-star rating and review (links for Apple and Spotify). It helps others discover the podcast and lets us know what content resonates with you. I will give you a shout-out on a future episode!

Main Takeaways:

• Design of Experiments provides a framework for approaching nutrition systematically

• Reasonable restrictions act as helpful guidelines, not rigid rules

• This approach allows for flexibility while still moving you toward your goals

• By gathering data and making informed adjustments, you can optimize your nutrition over time

Episode summary:

In the latest episode of Wits and Weights, we dive into a revolutionary approach to nutrition by blending engineering principles with dietary strategies. This episode aims to redefine how we think about dieting. Forget the conventional wisdom that demands you cut out entire food groups or follow rigid meal plans. Instead, we're exploring how you can achieve lasting fat loss by applying the precision of engineering to your nutrition plan.

At the heart of this episode is the concept of "reasonable restriction." This approach challenges the notion that all dietary restrictions are inherently negative. By employing a method known as the design of experiments (DOE), listeners are guided on how to strategically manipulate variables such as calorie intake, macronutrient distribution, and meal timing to meet personal health and fitness goals. Much like managing a financial budget, it's about making informed, calculated choices that lead to sustainable results.

The episode emphasizes the importance of protein intake, recommending a strategic minimum to support body composition goals. By focusing on nutrient-dense foods, individuals can ensure they meet their essential vitamin and mineral needs while naturally reducing ultra-processed food consumption. Additionally, the episode discusses meal timing as a personal toolkit, offering strategies such as pre- and post-workout meals or intermittent fasting to enhance dietary adherence without feeling deprived.

A significant portion of the episode is dedicated to introducing a flexible nutrition framework. This approach promotes personalization over rigid rules, aiming to reduce decision fatigue and accommodate lifestyle needs, such as social events and cravings. It's likened to budgeting for long-term health goals, where nutrition becomes an enjoyable, efficient part of daily life rather than a chore. This framework allows individuals to tailor their dietary restrictions in a way that is both practical and aligned with their unique lifestyle and fitness objectives.

One of the standout features of this episode is its focus on reducing the psychological burden often associated with dieting. By employing a flexible set of guidelines rather than rigid rules, individuals can navigate their nutrition journey with greater ease and less stress. The episode underscores the idea that reasonable restriction provides more freedom, not less, by offering clear targets that eliminate the constant decision-making associated with food choices.

Listeners are encouraged to engage with the podcast by leaving reviews, which not only support the show's mission but also provide valuable feedback for future episodes. This engagement is crucial in helping the podcast reach a wider audience and continue delivering evidence-based, engineering-inspired content.

Ultimately, this episode of Wits and Weights offers a refreshing take on dieting by applying engineering principles to create a more sustainable and enjoyable approach to nutrition. It invites listeners to rethink their relationship with food and discover a personalized path to health and fitness that doesn't compromise on the foods they love. By adopting the strategies discussed, individuals can achieve their body composition goals while maintaining a positive and flexible approach to their dietary habits.

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Transcript

Philip Pape: 0:01

Should you count calories, track macros? Should you cut out carbs or specific foods? Should you avoid dieting altogether and just eat intuitively? Will any of these approaches get you the result you want? If you're confused about all of this, this episode is for you. We are going to dive into an engineering concept called design of experiments and tie it into why some level of restriction is actually helpful, but not necessarily the restriction you've heard about. By the end of this episode, you're going to have a more sustainable, enjoyable way to approach your nutrition while still being successful, achieving the fat loss that you desire.

Philip Pape: 0:52

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 are hitting on a controversial topic in the nutrition world, and that is restricting Dietary restrictions, restriction in general and just the word, the term, the language that we use around restriction. Now we are not talking about eliminating entire food groups or macros like carbs, or following any sort of extreme diet whatsoever. Instead, we are going to use an engineering concept called design of experiments to show why some level of restriction is actually beneficial but not what you think and then how to implement it in a way that's sustainable and enjoyable, so that you can hold two concepts in your head at the same time and realize that there is a way that these all work together. And before we get into it, if you've been enjoying the show, if you're a longtime listener, or maybe you've just checked out a few episodes and you want more content on what we talk about here building muscle, losing fat hit the follow button so that people can find the show and you don't miss an episode. And then, if you're willing to take an extra small step with your time and find value in the episodes, take a moment to leave a five-star rating or review in your podcast platform of choice Ideally the platform you're using right now to listen to this show.

Philip Pape: 2:24

All right, let's get into this concept, because there is an elephant in the room in the nutrition world with the word restriction. It's gotten a bad rap, right. We've heard all the influencers, all the coaches, myself included, have said you know, you don't need restriction or you can get your goals without dieting, without restriction. And you see, you hear people say that, like you don't need to diet. Uh, and sometimes it's taken to the level of not only do you not need to diet, you don't need to track anything, just eat intuitively with your hunger signals. And while, while every one of these approaches there's a rationale behind it, there there's a little bit of truth to whatever they're saying. It often then leads to a rigid approach that is overly restrictive in the way that prevents you from getting results. Does that make sense? Like you're restricting the wrong things? Let's just start with that premise.

Philip Pape: 3:16

And then, on the flip side, you have approaches that tell you you know, cut out entire food groups, follow rigid meal plans we're talking about traditional diets like keto and the like carnivore, what have you. And that doesn't seem to be working well either for people, because they might quote unquote lose a lot of weight and then they binge it right back. They gain it right back. You hear the very rare story of oh, my friend's been on keto for four years and loves it. Okay, great, 99% of people don't. They don't love cutting out a ton of possible foods from their diet. And so is there a middle ground? Or is there even a different ground that is not even on that spectrum that we're going to talk about today? Yes, okay, and I want to use something called design of experiments DOE from engineering, and this isn't a stretch at all.

Philip Pape: 4:05

This is actually a really good approach to think about this. This is a method to plan, conduct and analyze experiments. That's what it is Plan, conduct, analyze experiments efficiently. We all know I love efficiency, and the goal is to understand the relationship between the factors that affect a process or a system and then the output of that process or system, while working within the constraints that you have all the real world constraints and so I want to apply this to nutrition. Think of your body as the experiment, your nutrition, your diet as the inputs right, the input factors, the inputs, and then your goals your physique goals, body composition goals, whatever have you as the output. Your body is the experiment, the food is the input, your goals are the output. So, like in engineering, we have to work within certain constraints to get those results, and so, when we look at design of experiments, there are four elements that we can use and apply them to nutrition.

Philip Pape: 5:06

The first one is what I'll call controlled variables. In design of experiments, we select specific variables that we're going to change, while we keep others constant. In nutrition, this means what can you change, right? What variables can you change. We can change calories, we can change our macros, like protein, carbs, fats, right and then we can see how they affect our results. So there's certain variables that we keep constant. There's certain variables that we change. So, for example, in keto, you would keep something constant and that is the level of carbs. You cut out all carbs and that doesn't change. So that's an example.

Philip Pape: 5:47

The second element is the constraints. So, again, in engineering we operate within limitations, like time, resources, materials. In nutrition, our constraints might be our daily calorie budget, our macro targets, our food preferences, our lifestyle factors. Some of these might even be non-negotiables, some of them are just upper or lower limits or ranges right, you can even hear some flexibility in here even though they are constraints. The third element is optimization, because the goal of design of experiments is to identify the best combination of variables to achieve the results you want.

Philip Pape: 6:24

Okay, ah, this is where the magic's going to happen, everyone, because in nutrition, this means finding the right balance of all the variables whether it's macros, calories, food choices that lead to our goals while still being enjoyable and sustainable. That, for us, is that is going to be my definition of optimal, not that it's perfectly tuned to get you the results at all costs, but that it gets you the best result while being something you can live with and enjoy. And then the last element here is efficiency. All right, design of experiments aims to gain the maximum output or information with the minimal experimentation or inputs. Right, so get the most for what you put in. And in nutrition, this translates to making those little tweaks, those little strategic changes in our diet based on the data and the results, rather than thinking that an entire extreme approach or diet or rigid plan is going to solve it, and when it doesn't, you switch to an entire separate plan. That makes sense. So we're actually making these adjustments with all these variables along the way. Okay, so hopefully I haven't lost you just with that setup.

Philip Pape: 7:39

Here's where the concept of reasonable restriction comes in, and I don't remember what podcast I was I had a guest on and we were talking about restriction versus deprivation, and a light bulb went off for me when I realized, you know what, at some point, if you need to lose fat and go into calorie deficit and release energy from your body, there is some level of restriction, as in a constraint, as in a limit and it doesn't mean you have to restrict things that cause you to be miserable, however. So, just like how engineers they set parameters for their experiment, we can do the same thing and figure out what it is that allows us to do this in a sustainable way. We can set some guidelines not to deprive ourselves as a rule, like a carnivore, where you say, just cut out all plant-based foods and deprive yourself and tell yourself no and abstain from them, and deprive yourself of, and tell yourself no and abstain from them. In fact, it's not even about deprivation if you know that you have a trigger food for a craving and saying I'm just going to abstain from that. It's really creating a framework that allows us to achieve our goals efficiently, and my definition of efficiently includes not having to psychologically beat your head against the wall and feel like you're constantly depriving yourself of the foods you love, for example. So what does reasonable restriction look like in practice? Okay, this is really cool here.

Philip Pape: 9:02

The first one is about we'll talk about calories. Let's really get nuts and bolts Calories. We don't need to meticulously count calories, we don't need to weigh everything to the gram, but having a general target and awareness through some form of tracking right, kind of like having a budget for your finances so you know how much you are spending, in this case, how much you are spending on you know eating food calories, so that you can make informed decisions. Now I do like logging my food. I do like using an app like MacaFactor to log food so that you can see, in the ballpark of you know, a few hundred calories of what you're eating. But don't take it overboard to where you're obsessed about every little tenth of a gram. And you know you can do this with more generalities, you can do this at a higher level and still have a really good, solid awareness.

Philip Pape: 9:54

Then we have our macros right, protein especially, and we know that prioritizing protein intake is one of the most effective strategies for body composition. And if we just have a minimum like 0.7 grams per pound of our target body weight every day, right. So if your target body weight is I don't know, let's say, 200 pounds, I don't know if you're gaining or losing, let's just say it's 200 pounds for easy math, you'd be going for 140 grams minimum a day, right. And this is again, guess what. This is a form of restriction, because you are restricting what you eat to being at least 140 grams of protein, just like you are restricting what you eat to be within a certain calorie target. That leads us to number three food quality, again, another restriction. Now, no food is off limits, but if we have a constraint that says we're going to emphasize nutrient dense options most of the time so we know we get enough vitamins and minerals, so that we know we are more full right, we have the food volume and it tends to crowd out more ultra processed foods. Well, that's a form of restriction, but it's additive. It's adding in things that you need and want and making sure it's things that you like and that tastes good and that you love to cook and prepare. So you're adding a food quality restriction.

Philip Pape: 11:12

The next one is meal timing. This is another restriction, because you're saying, okay, I'm going to have I'm not going to train fasted, I'm going to eat some protein and carbs before I train. I'm going to have a post workout meal. I'm maybe going to spread my protein intake throughout the day you don't have to, but this is what I want to do for my goals and you are going to eat at certain times of the day. Well, that's a form of restriction. In fact, you could take that to the extreme and talk about fasting and intermittent fasting. That is a form of restriction and again, I'm not saying that's good or bad. It definitely doesn't have any more benefit than any other form of meal timing other than from a practical standpoint, from a logistical, schedule standpoint, adherence standpoint. But that is up to you to decide. What level of restriction do I want with my meal timing? Because if you just say I'm just going to eat whenever and I'm not sure how the macros are going to be balanced out, and maybe I'll train fast and maybe I won't, you're not going to hit your goals that way. So you have to have some guidelines for meal timing.

Philip Pape: 12:08

And then the last level of restriction, of reasonable restriction, is the tracking itself. Now, I already alluded to this when I talked about calories. But the actual act of tracking things in general, not just calories but progress photos and body circumference measurements and biofeedback, those are restrictions. Because you're saying I am going to put a constraint on myself, that I am going to take a moment, right A few minutes every day to identify these and measure these things. That is a form of restriction, reasonable restriction, versus just not doing it.

Philip Pape: 12:39

So now you might be thinking okay, this sounds like a lot of rules. This sounds kind of rigid to me. There, like a lot of rules. This sounds kind of rigid to me. There's a lot of things you want me to think about, but the key difference is these are not rigid restrictions. They're very flexible guidelines that give you a framework, a set of principles to work within, and you can actually have a wide range for all of them, like calories, for example.

Philip Pape: 12:59

If you're losing fat, you can lose fat at different rates of loss. You can go aggressive or not. You can shift your calories day to day. I mean, I could go on. There's a million ways to do this. I've had episodes in the past talking about the various ways to structure your fat loss plan so it fits within your life. Very flexible, very flexible. But what's nice about having a calorie target is you know you can control for energy balance and yet you can still eat a wide variety of foods. So, again, these are flexible guidelines. It's like having a map for a road trip. Right, you know the general route to get there, but you can still take detours. You can still enjoy the journey along the way. Right, You're not going to detour constantly, but in general, you've got flexibility to do that.

Philip Pape: 13:44

So if we were to make this very specific let's say you are in a fat loss phase, using the design for experiments approach, you might set a moderate calorie deficit right Of uh, uh what am I trying to say here? Half a percent of your body weight per week, and then you set up protein minimum, say that 0.7 grams per pound of target body weight. Then I'm going to basically eat whatever fats and carbs I want within my food preferences. After I hit the protein to hit that calorie target roughly within, say, 5%, 10% I'm going to track my food and wait for a while to see what's happening and I'm going to evaluate the results and then make adjustments. And so this gives you clear targets and minimums and ranges to aim for, but still allows for tons of flexibility in your food choices and your indulgences and having some cravings and those kinds of things that other dieting approaches tend to restrict that end up causing failure.

Philip Pape: 14:44

Dieting approaches tend to restrict that end up causing failure. So it is a far cry from the you know, eat whatever you want approach, but it's also a far cry from ultra restrictive diets that eliminate entire food groups. And so this method is what it is, adaptable. As you gather more data about how your body responds, you can refine your approach. Maybe you find you perform better with slightly higher carbs.

Philip Pape: 15:03

Yes, you might be one of the many, many, many people who want to be on a moderate to high carb diet because they perform and recover better. Or you might having a larger breakfast helps control appetite throughout the day. You know, it might be the opposite. Maybe you perform better on lower carbs. Maybe you don't want a big breakfast. You see what I mean. You have the flexibility to do that, and yet you still have some constraints. You are still restricting something so that you can remain within a big box, a big envelope, so to speak, to get to your goal, and then you can optimize the plan over time, like engineers refine their designs through multiple iterations.

Philip Pape: 15:40

So the cool thing about this the surprising perhaps thing about this is this approach of reasonable restriction actually gives you more freedom, not less. It gives you clear guidelines and therefore you eliminate the constant decision fatigue that comes with trying to be perfect all the time. You know your targets, which means you can plan for social events, for travel, the days and when you want a slice of pizza or ice cream which is my vice, or even, yes, alcohol. It's like having a budget for your finances which lets you spend on the things you care about, because you still know you're on track for retirement or your kid's education, and so, instead of viewing restrictions just as a blanket negative, think about the helpful guideline version of restriction that we talked about today, and this can kind of change the game for you when it comes to nutrition and health. So I just want to recap.

Philip Pape: 16:36

Number one design of experiments is a framework to approach nutrition where you have reasonable restrictions that act as your constraints they're your guidelines instead of rigid rules. This then allows for flexibility while still making progress towards your goals, and then you gather data and make informed adjustments along the way to optimize it, and so that makes it very individualized, very personalized. It's exactly what I do with clients and why it is not a one-size-fits-all, why I'm not a macro coach, why I don't provide a template. You can't just download this nutrition plan and run it. It's not a meal plan. It's very personalized, optimized, efficient way where you're like oh, this is way easier than I even thought it would be. I'm eating the food I love. I'm eating the food I love. I'm not very hungry most of the time and I can train effectively and just feel great, feel and look my best, all right.

Philip Pape: 17:27

So, again, if you got any value from today and you haven't already, take a moment to leave me a five-star rating in the app that you're using right now and then, if you're feeling generous in fact, this is coming out around my birthday in October, so a birthday gift to me would be a review.

Philip Pape: 17:42

That would be the best gift you can give me is giving me a review for my podcast. It would be incredible. It just takes a few seconds but makes a huge difference in helping people discover the show and it also gives me some feedback on what resonated with you. Your support you just listening to the show right now really means the world to me and it supports me so I can bring you the evidence-based and, like today's episode, the engineering inspired advice that I love making for you and I hope you enjoy receiving. So, if you found value in any of our episodes, including this one, head over to the rating section, leave that five-star rating and, if you're generous, a review, and I will be eternally grateful. It'll help us reach more people with our message. Until next time, keep using your weights, lifting those weights and remember a little restriction in your diet isn't deprivation, it's smart engineering. I'll talk to you next time here on the Wits and Weights Podcast.

How to Find Fitness Motivation When Nothing Seems to Work | Ep 230

Are you having trouble staying motivated with your fitness goals? Do you start strong, only to lose momentum after a few weeks? Are you wondering why discipline and willpower never seem to be enough?

Philip (@witsandweights) dives into the psychology of motivation and the hidden forces that drive our behaviors. You’ll learn why relying on willpower isn’t a sustainable strategy and discover seven types of motivation to help you stay on track long-term. From internal motivators like intrinsic enjoyment to external motivators like social support, Philip covers how to identify your primary drivers and create an environment that fosters lasting motivation. Whether you're just starting your fitness journey or looking to reignite your passion, this gives you the tools to build systems for success that don’t depend on fleeting discipline. Find out how to use multiple sources of motivation to crush your goals without relying on willpower alone.

📋 To learn how to reframe your goals and implement them, even when you’re not “motivated,” so you can finally be consistent with your fitness and nutrition, join my email list here or at https://witsandweights.com/email and reply to ask for my “Action-Oriented Goals” guide.

Today, you’ll learn all about:

1:19 Holly's (listener) question
2:29 Why willpower isn’t enough for long-term motivation
4:15 Seven types of motivation explained
9:00 A client's story about motivation
14:14 How to identify your primary motivators
17:10 Tips for creating a motivating environment
19:15 How action can spark motivation and using the "motivation wave"
22:04 Outro

Episode resources:

• Join my email list here or at https://witsandweights.com/email and reply to ask for my free “Action-Oriented Goals” guide.

Episode summary:

Unlocking motivation for a successful fitness journey is a nuanced topic that goes beyond sheer willpower. This episode delves into the psychology of motivation, explaining why aligning your actions with personal values is essential and how understanding different motivators can sustain your drive toward fitness goals. Discover how to tap into the right sources of motivation, such as intrinsic joy or social incentives, and how they can significantly impact your journey.

One of the fundamental insights shared is the concept of ego depletion, which explains why willpower is a limited resource. This phenomenon underscores the importance of finding motivators that resonate with your personal values, as they are more sustainable. Understanding these psychological aspects allows individuals to craft a personalized motivation plan that isn't solely reliant on discipline.

The episode explores seven types of motivation, ranging from intrinsic and extrinsic to fear-based and social motivators. Intrinsic motivation, for example, is derived from the inherent satisfaction of an activity, like the joy of a runner's high. In contrast, extrinsic motivation might come from external rewards, such as compliments or winning a competition. By identifying which type resonates most with you, you can leverage these motivators to fuel your fitness journey effectively.

An inspiring story featured in the episode is that of a client named Marie. Her journey illustrates the transformative power of aligning motivations with personal values. Initially trapped in a cycle of ineffective fitness plans, Marie discovered that her true motivator was her desire to be active with her kids and serve as a role model. This realization shifted her focus from external goals, like fitting into old clothes, to more meaningful and aligned motivators. As a result, she found joy in her fitness journey and achieved lasting success.

The episode provides a wealth of practical strategies to optimize motivation. Reflecting on past successes can help you identify what has consistently motivated you in the past. Consideration of your core values and identity is crucial, as aligning fitness goals with these elements can significantly boost motivation. The episode encourages experimentation with different motivational approaches, emphasizing that motivation is not one-size-fits-all.

Creating a motivating environment is another key strategy discussed. Setting process-related goals, for instance, can help maintain motivation by focusing on actionable steps rather than just outcomes. Celebrating small wins and connecting goals to a deeper purpose are other effective tactics to foster a resilient mindset. By building systems and routines that align with personal values, individuals can maintain a consistent drive, even during low motivation periods.

The episode wraps up with an invitation to obtain the Action Versus Results-Oriented Goals Guide. This guide is designed to help listeners align their actions with desired outcomes, providing a practical approach to goal setting. It reinforces the idea that motivation is not just a fleeting feeling but a skill that can be developed and refined over time.

In conclusion, understanding the psychology of motivation and aligning it with personal values is essential for a successful fitness journey. By exploring different types of motivation and implementing personalized strategies, individuals can create a sustainable drive that transforms their fitness goals into achievements. This episode is a valuable resource for anyone looking to enhance their motivation and achieve long-term success in their health journey.

📲 Send me a text message!

👩‍💻 Book a FREE 15-Minute Rapid Nutrition Assessment

🎓 Join Wits & Weights Physique University

👥 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!

🏋️‍♀️ Download Boostcamp for free and access 70+ evidence-based workout programs

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Transcript

Philip Pape: 0:00

If you're really good at getting excited to finally start going to the gym or fixing your nutrition and then, after only a few days or weeks, you struggle to follow through, or you find yourself constantly starting and stopping diet plans, unable to stay consistent. Or maybe you've achieved some success but you can't seem to stay motivated. This episode is for you. Today, you'll learn about the psychology of motivation, those hidden forces that drive our behaviors, so you can harness them rather than letting them control you. You'll discover why willpower is never something to rely on, how to tap into more powerful sources of motivation, and the surprising ways your environment shapes your actions. If you're looking to reignite that drive and passion, this episode will give you the tools to finally achieve long-lasting motivation with your physical fitness. 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 are tackling something that is so fundamental to success in fitness and in life, and that is motivation. This episode was inspired by a really good question from a long-time listener, holly B. Holly, if you're listening and I know you are thanks for the inspiration and shout out to you for the question. Holly asked, quote what motivates someone? What are the different kinds of motivations, like external, internal, fear-based, goal-setting, timeframes, peer pressure, performance, etc. So she's kind of setting up the list already for us here. It is a fantastic question, because understanding motivation is often the missing piece. It is the key to achieving whatever the goal is, especially in fitness, where an effective plan requires going to the gym and training multiple days a week and making good decisions most of the time almost daily for your food and your lifestyle. So today we're going to break down the science behind motivation, including seven types of motivators and how you can use these to understand what drives you without relying on discipline or willpower. Now, if you want your question answered or if you want a shout out on a future episode, you can send me a text message using the link in the show notes. So, on your mobile device, click the link to send me a text message and send me a question, and that question will be featured in its own entire episode, or a Q&A, or hey, let me know how you'd want it to be featured and I will definitely take that into serious consideration.

Philip Pape: 2:29

All right, let's get into the topic and I want to break this down into four segments today. The first is the psychology of motivation and why willpower isn't enough. And then the seven key types of motivation and how they influence what you do, your behavior. The third segment is how to identify your primary motivator so you can use them to make progress. And then, finally, some practical strategies to create a motivating environment and then maintain that long-term drive, because we want our motivation itself to also be sustainable, motivation itself to also be sustainable.

Philip Pape: 3:07

So I want to start off with a common misconception that motivation is at any point about willpower or discipline. And how many times have you heard someone say this and you may have said it yourself I just need more willpower to stick to my diet, or I just need better discipline, or I just need to do it, just need to go to the gym consistently. That's all I'm missing is the doing of it. And while action is a part of the equation, when it comes from a place of this reserve, this limited resource we know as willpower, there is a problem because there's something psychologists call ego depletion, the idea that self-control or willpower draws upon a limited pool of mental resources and it can be used up. And when we rely solely on that, then we're setting ourselves up for failure and we instead want to understand what's deeper, the deeper psychological forces that are at play here, because motivation isn't about forcing yourself to do something, it's not that. It's about aligning the actions with your values and then creating the right environment and tapping into both internal and external drivers. Okay, and it'll all become clear as we move forward what I mean by all of that. Okay, aligning actions with values, with the right environment, with both internal and external motivators. So this brings me to seven key types of motivation that research has identified, and if you understand these, then you can use the right motivators for you and your fitness journey.

Philip Pape: 4:35

So the first one is intrinsic. Intrinsic motivation is when you do something because it's inherently fun, enjoyable, satisfying and for fitness. This might be the runner's high you get from a run as much as I'm not a runner people talk about that all the time or what I really tap into the sense of accomplishment after a tough, intense training session where I've hit the numbers, I've progressed, I've worked my muscles, whatever it might be. That's intrinsic. Number two is extrinsic, and this involves external rewards or punishments, things like winning a competition, getting compliments on your physique right. The external validation of your physique, avoiding health issues is even an external or extrinsic motivation. And again, there's no right or wrong with any of these. We can tap into any combination of these at any time to make the whole thing more frictionless and not have to rely on willpower and motivation or discipline.

Philip Pape: 5:34

The third type of motivation is identified motivation. This is when you do something because you recognize that it is important, even if it's not inherently enjoyable. This is a really key one in our space because, for example, you might not love every workout or training session, but you do it because you understand its value for your health and goals. That's still motivation. It's not willpower. There's something there that takes the place of willpower that gets you to show up and go to the gym. Number four is integrated motivation, and this is when an activity aligns with your core values and identity. If being an athlete, being fit and healthy, is a key part of who you are, you're more likely to stay motivated. It's what you do. It is who you are. To the point and I can identify with this to the point where it feels off not to do those things. It actually takes more willpower to not go to the gym. That is a great place to be.

Philip Pape: 6:36

Number five is fear-based motivation, and I think it's important to recognize this because, while it's not always positive fear in fact, fear is almost never positive but it can be a powerful motivator regardless. For example, fear of health problems, right, fear of type two diabetes, fear of osteoporosis, losing mobility as you age, those things might drive you to train as well. And so there there could be a reframing of a positive from a fear, and that's what I like to do, but just understand that that is one of the drivers we have. Number six is goal-oriented motivation, and this is setting specific, measurable targets and working toward them. So notice, I put it in its own category right, I want to lose 20 pounds of fat, I want to deadlift 300. It's that kind of approach, and humans really love goals, we love going after numbers and progress and specific endpoints, and, again, there's nothing wrong with that, as long as it aligns with what you're doing in a positive way. And, again, it's just one type of motivator, not the one we rely on.

Philip Pape: 7:39

And then number seven is social motivation Very important, very powerful. This is peer pressure, accountability, the desire for social connection, working out with friends or a training partner joining a fitness community Facebook group'm a coach and so I fully recognize, when I hire a coach, how much it motivates me in so many ways, whether it is peer pressure, whether it is the support, whether it is hey, they're waiting for me to check in and show that I've made progress, so I better get my butt in gear. So it's kind of an external thing, but it is very integrated into self-motivation in being related to a community and be motivated by a social group. We are social creatures. All right now you might be wondering okay, that's a lot. Definitely go back and review those seven motivators if you need to identify which ones are most resonating with you. And you're wondering okay, what's the best one?

Philip Pape: 8:35

And like any of the stuff we talk about on the show, there's no one size fits all answer. Different types of motivation work better for different people and in different contexts, different situations, which can change week to week, month to month, year to year. The key here is understanding what drives you personally and how to leverage multiple sources of motivation. So kind of like putting together your menu of motivation so that willpower gets to become a smaller and smaller slice and just disappears from the pie altogether and all you're left with is things that just motivate you to naturally get the job done. So let me tell you about, like the typical client I work with and I'm going to I'm thinking of a specific client, I'm going to protect her identity and use a name. I'm going to I'm thinking of a specific client, I'm going to protect her identity and use a name. I'm going to call her Marie and this particular client.

Philip Pape: 9:23

When she came to me, she was over it, like she was done. She tried all the diets keto, low carb, even some extreme stuff like those juice cleanses, all of it and she'd always kind of start out strong, super motivated, quote unquote but then eventually life would get in the way, life would happen, and she'd find herself back at the beginning and stuck in a cycle Very common that I deal with when clients come to me and then she felt like she couldn't break free because the only option was to start a new cycle of something that she knew inevitably would fail. And Marie's motivation had always been about well, I want to be able to fit into these clothes, or this dress that I wore at my wedding 10 years ago, or the jeans that I wore in my twenties. And that was the problem. Even though it's, it's an external motivator of some kind at least it seems to be she was focused on a goal that wasn't meaningful. It wasn't meaningful to her anymore. So, yeah, it's external, but it wasn't aligned, and if you go back and listen to the seven motivators, notice the recurrence of the motivation being aligned with you and your goals. And so it was something that she thought she should care about, not something that actually mattered to her right now and then that's why it never stuck. So we dug deeper I always like to dig deeper when we do our onboarding call and then as we move forward, because I think mindset is the biggest part of this and then we wanted to tap into the types of motivations that aligned with where she was in life.

Philip Pape: 10:50

So for Marie, it wasn't about fitting into the dress, it was about having the energy to be active with her kids, right, and be a role model for her kids. And, yeah, maybe being leaner and stronger and fitter was an outcome of that, but it was a lagging indicator. The true motivator was her children, and that is what we call integrated motivation, but that's not it. She also realized that she missed the feeling of accomplishment from her workout. She wasn't getting the progress and yet she was working out a lot, and that's a disconnect, right. And so we wanted to lean into intrinsic motivation and help her find an activity that she enjoyed and gave her progress, which happened to be lifting weights. And I know a lot of you are thinking well, I don't like lifting weights. Well, when lifting weights gets you a result that is highly satisfying and also gets you the physique and the health and the role model that you want to be, it gets you the things that you want, you will like it. That's kind of where I'm going with that you.

Philip Pape: 12:36

And then, to top it off, we got her connected, of course, with a supportive group in my coaching program and she was able to tap into that social motivation, which is hugely important. In fact, just this week I had someone in my group who was actually she wanted to cancel, and this happens occasionally. Where somebody is very motivated, they get started, get started. We get her the tools and onboarding and a plan and even the accountability and the calls. But there was a piece of it that wasn't aligning for her and it was. It was a specific type of tracking that she didn't like it wasn't tracking in general. It was. It was thinking she had to track in this specific way and it wasn't aligned with her Right. So we had to tap into the true motivators of why she's doing this and find a way that actually worked. And she did. And the only way oh, my whole point was the way she was able to do that was bringing it up in the group setting and actually have two or three of my other clients chime in with their ideas, rather than the coach just saying this is what you need to do, and kind of help her brainstorm through it. And as a collective group we were able to say okay, here's the thing we suggest. You said oh my God, I hadn't even thought of that. That actually sounds like a lot of fun. Let me do that. And now she's making progress.

Philip Pape: 13:47

So, going back to Marie, you know, over about a 10 month period we worked together. Yeah, she lost like 27 pounds on the scale and 4% body fat. And while that's important from a pure numbers and fat loss perspective, it wasn't because she was chasing the number or some outdated idea of what she thought she should look like, but because she was living in a way that matched her values. She wasn't just going through the motions anymore, she was enjoying her training sessions, and then she wanted to eat in a way that worked for her and supported it, and then she started to feel strong and confident again, again, and then, of course, yeah, she lost some fat and got leaner as a result, which was almost like almost didn't matter at the end of the day, because the other things were already satisfied, and so the key here for her wasn't finding willpower at all. It was aligning her motivation with what truly mattered to her, and that's where the real change happened.

Philip Pape: 14:42

So let's apply this to you. Let's break down how you can identify your primary motivators and use them effectively. First, reflect on your past successes. Think about times when you've been consistently motivated in your fitness journey or in any other area of your life, something that you've done. That seems like a hard thing that other people may not do, but you do it, and you do it consistently, and there's some reason for that, and you don't feel like you're forced to do it either. What drove you? Was it the intrinsic enjoyment of the thing? Was it the pursuit of a goal? Was it the support you had from your partner or a group, right, identify the thing aligned with one of the seven motivators and it could be multiple. So that's the first thing to do is look at what you've done successfully in the past and what motivated you.

Philip Pape: 15:28

The second, I want you to consider your values and identity. What's important to you? How does fitness fit into your overall vision for your life? Right, the more that you can align your fitness goals with your core values of who you are, who you want to be, but really who you are should be living right now to be that person, the more motivated you'll be to pursue them. All right, that's the second thing is to consider your values and what's important to you. Third, I want you to experiment with different approaches. So I talk about this a lot, experimentation. There's no one size fits all. There's no plan. There's no here Do. The Philip Witson Waits plan of motivation doesn't exist. It's very individualized. This is why a lot of people hire me as a coach to help them find what this is for them.

Philip Pape: 16:14

I want you to try setting specific goals and see how that affects your motivation. Or join a class, or find a training partner or a group. Join our Facebook group totally free and tap into that social motivation right. Go through the list of motivators and figure out which one seems most accessible, interesting, something that you can identify with right now and give it a shot. Pay attention, then, to how these different strategies impact your drive and your consistency, because for one person, a goal might be a great idea. For you, it might be intrinsic or social support. It's okay and it's beneficial if you have multiple sources. I think of it almost like motivation diversity, or like your nest egg, right? Don't put all your eggs in one basket. Don't put all your eggs in one motivation basket. Rely on multiple sources, it's okay. You might be primarily driven by health concerns, which is a form of identified motivation, but you might also enjoy the social aspect of a group workout, and I'm not against that. I have plenty of clients who love group workouts, so we kind of blend in a little bit of strength training, a little bit of group work, and they enjoy it. You might enjoy the sense of accomplishment from hitting a target, like getting your lift to a certain number. It's all fine, okay. So that's kind of how you reflect on this and then identify how you want to go ahead.

Philip Pape: 17:34

If I were to get a little more specific and practical in terms of the environment. So that you can make this even easier and even more frictionless, I've got a few tips that come to mind. The first one is always set process-related goals, not just outcome goals. So, even though I mentioned before, yeah, you can set lose 20 pounds as a goal, I would want to set up micro goals that get you to that. Like I'm going to train three days a week, I'm going to eat protein with every meal, and so on, and those are more within your control. Every meal and so on, and those are more within your control. They're more today, things you can do. Check off the box, say I did it or I didn't, and then move on, and then you get those regular wins that keep you motivated. Huge fan of that.

Philip Pape: 18:17

The second one is taking more control of the environment as best you can, and this could be joining a gym where you don't feel intimidated or that has the right equipment, finding a training partner, following people who inspire you I hope I do, and this show does but also weeding out the people that are toxic and don't inspire you, but following the people that do, and even controlling your physical environment and your kitchen environment, for example, because it does play a huge role in your motivation and you do have some control over its shape, how you shape your environment. The next tip I have for you is habit stacking Always love that one Attaching your new habits to existing routines. So, for example, tying your workouts to your morning coffee, tying your walking to listening to a podcast. You know, taking the power of something that's already so ingrained in what you do and then just tweaking it to add this extra little thing that seems like no big deal and before long it compounds into something amazing. And so you know I I could go on. I don't want to make this episode too long, but if, if you can make it so that you feel like you're accomplishing and celebrating things just about every day along the way. It might not be all the things, it might be okay, you made this meal choice today that you're proud of. Okay, you took a nice long walk today that you're proud of, but every day there's something that's going to keep tapping into intrinsic motivation and build momentum. And then the other types of motivators can also come, you know, kind of pile on and just going back to the why right, connecting your goals to that deeper purpose of playing actively with your kids or grandkids, feeling confident in your own skin, the stronger that why, the more resilient this motivation will be. So those are some tips I have, as I mentioned before.

Philip Pape: 20:08

You know, people ask me how do you find motivation? And I think motivation often follows action, not from discipline or willpower, but just from these simple little things. We often feel we need to be motivated to act right. We often feel we need the motivation first to oh, how do I get motivated? But taking action that's fairly effortless and frictionless can create this motivation through the wins, and that's why the just show up mentality can be powerful. Right, even if you don't feel like training, commit to getting to the gym and doing it for five minutes, and then you'll find that once you start you're like, yeah, well, I'm here, I'm going, it feels great, let me do the whole training session. And that ties into a concept called the motivation wave. All right, so that's my last thing for you here the motivation wave.

Philip Pape: 20:55

Motivation itself naturally ebbs and flows. It's not a constant. All right, you want to build systems? We talk about systems In fact, it's in my opening of every podcast building systems that carry you through life and low points of motivation. And here's the little trick I have for you when motivation is high, that's when you want to use it to set up these systems, and then, when motivation is low, you're going to rely on your systems and just focus on showing up. This is a game changer. This takes the pressure off always needing to feel motivated and instead you're just focused on consistent action. That's it, and then, over time, you build momentum, you create the results and guess what? It keeps motivating you forever, and I love that. I think it's awesome, I think it's empowering.

Philip Pape: 21:44

So let's recap what we talked about today. The first thing is that motivation is complex and it's beyond willpower and discipline. It's a totally separate thing that I want you to think of as something that we do want to look for instead of discipline. Second, there are multiple types intrinsic, extrinsic, identified, integrated, fear-based, goal-oriented and social. Number three is that the most effective motivational strategy is personal. It's the one that works for you, depends on your values, depends on your goals and preferences. And then, number four, creating a supportive environment and using multiple sources of motivation is the key to long-term success. And once you do that, action is easy, it creates motivation and it just builds on itself. So remember, understanding and using motivation itself is also a skill. It's also a skill. It's okay if you're not there yet. It takes practice and refinement. I want you to be patient with yourself. I want you to experiment with different strategies and just keep showing up. If you do that, you'll be good. All right, if you found value in today's episode.

Philip Pape: 22:45

If you want to take the next step in harnessing that power of motivation, I created a guide as part of my coaching program and I'm going to give it to you for free. It's called Action Versus Results Oriented Goals and it's going to help you transform your approach a bit and think about how you set goals today and how you might shift those goals to something that creates action instead of focusing on a result. And that goes back to what I talked about earlier with process orientation instead of results orientation. All right. And the guide's gonna show you how to shift from vague goals to very specific, actionable ones that help you build momentum and then tie it into the motivators. You'll learn how to reframe those goals. You'll learn how to implement them in your day-to-day and then stay consistent, even when motivation itself isn't quite at its highest.

Philip Pape: 23:32

So if you want to get your copy of the Action Versus Results-Oriented Goals Guide. Join my email list, click the link in the show notes or go to witsandweightscom slash email and then, when you're on the list, just reply to it and say, hey, I want the action-oriented results guide and I'll send it right over Again. Just go to witsandweightscom slash email to join my list and ask for the action-oriented results guide. All right, until next time, keep using your wits lifting some weights, and remember, when it comes to motivation, action is sometimes the best catalyst. I'll talk to you next time here on the Wits and Weights podcast.

The 5 Stages of Fitness Over 40 (Your Health and Longevity Roadmap) with Allan Misner | Ep 229

Are you over 40 and frustrated by slow progress in your fitness journey? Do you find it harder to build muscle, lose fat, or maintain energy levels like you used to? Do you need help creating a sustainable plan for health and longevity?

Philip (@witsandweights) sits down with fitness expert Allan Misner, host of the 40+ Fitness Podcast and author of The Wellness Roadmap, to break down the five key stages of fitness transformation after 40. Learn how to stop wasting time on ineffective workouts and diets and build a clear path toward lifelong health and success.

Allan shares the five key stages of fitness transformation after 40, offering practical insights on how to make lasting changes in your health, even if you’ve struggled for years. He’ll dive into the mindset shifts, motivation strategies, and systems you need to stop spinning your wheels and finally achieve sustainable fitness results in midlife and beyond.

📱 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. https://witsandweights.com/free-call

Today, you’ll learn all about:

1:46 Stage 1 - The catalyst: When you realize something needs to change
7:32 Stage 2 - Starting over: Facing the challenges of starting a fitness journey after 40
10:11 The turning point when Allan decided to change
13:11 Stage 3 - Sustainability and balance: Training for a Tough Mudder
19:38 The importance of long-term vision and sustaining your results
24:50 How to build self-motivation and lasting habits
36:40 Stage 4 - Bouncing back: Dealing with setbacks and injuries to keep the momentum going
46:20 Stage 5 - CARGO: Celebrate, align, recalibrate, and go for long-term success
52:30 What Allan wished Philip had asked
54:45 Where to find Allan
55:16 Outro

Episode resources:

• 40+ Fitness Podcast

• Instagram: @40plusfitnesspodcast 

• Book - The Wellness Roadmap

• Quiz - Find Your Primary Fitness Mindset

Episode summary:

As we journey through life, the inevitable passage of time often brings new challenges, especially when it comes to maintaining our health and fitness. This episode explores these challenges, offering insights into how individuals over 40 can pursue a healthy and fulfilling lifestyle. This episode features Alan Meisner, the seasoned host of the 40+ Fitness Podcast, who shares his own experiences and wisdom gained from over 600 podcast episodes.

The journey to fitness beyond 40 begins with a personal commitment to change. The episode opens with a compelling story about a life-threatening experience in Malaysia, which served as a catalyst for the host's fitness transformation. Alan Meisner joins the conversation to share his own journey, including a humbling moment on the volleyball court that made him realize the need for a healthier lifestyle. The discussion emphasizes the importance of creating a roadmap for health and longevity, which involves understanding the five key stages of fitness transformation.

Commitment is a recurring theme throughout the episode, as illustrated by the host's decision to improve his health after a scare in Malaysia. This transformative journey was marked by a commitment to self-education and the pursuit of daunting challenges, such as participating in a Tough Mudder event with his daughter. The episode highlights the significance of setting bold goals and the role of self-discovery in driving personal growth and transformation. The journey to fitness after 40 is not just about physical changes but also involves cultivating a mindset of self-love and resilience.

The episode delves into the concept of self-love as a driving force for maintaining independence and vitality in later years. Inspired by a personal story of a grandfather who lost his ability to enjoy golf, the conversation emphasizes the importance of having a vision for a future filled with activities and independence. Self-love is framed as a proactive effort to improve one's health, allowing the body to heal and grow. Overcoming self-doubt and forgiving oneself for past mistakes are key components of this journey, as motivation is earned through intrinsic and extrinsic means.

Navigating setbacks is an inevitable part of the fitness journey, and the episode provides valuable insights into overcoming these challenges. Self-awareness and mindset are crucial for achieving personal goals, and understanding one's current capabilities is essential. The discussion explores the role of accountability, whether through a coach or personal tracking methods, and the importance of aligning actions with clear objectives. By addressing psychological barriers and embracing flexible goals, individuals can add real value to their lives.

The journey of resilience and recovery is exemplified through Alan Meisner's experience with a rotator cuff injury. Despite the setback, Alan remained determined to complete a Spartan race, demonstrating the power of persistence and adaptability. The episode emphasizes the importance of seeking top-notch medical professionals who understand athletic needs, as well as maintaining range of motion and a proactive approach to physical therapy. These elements are crucial for overcoming physical challenges and maintaining progress.

The episode concludes by exploring the concept of tackling challenges and embracing difficult tasks as a pathway to achieving desired results. Building stamina through hard work enables individuals to enjoy activities like hiking and fosters a sense of accomplishment. Alan Meisner's extensive experience, with over 600 podcast episodes, offers valuable guidance on training, nutrition, and psychological aspects of fitness. The episode encourages listeners to explore Alan's resources for fitness, health, and mindset insights, highlighting the virtues of persistence, adaptability, and hard work in maintaining a zest for life at any age.

This episode is a testament to the power of commitment, self-love, and resilience in pursuing health and happiness beyond 40. Through personal stories and expert insights, the episode provides a roadmap for crafting a lifetime of wellness and vitality. Whether you're just beginning your fitness journey or looking to overcome setbacks, this episode offers valuable lessons and inspiration to help you thrive at any age.

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Transcript

Philip Pape: 0:01

If you're over 40 and have been struggling to get fit despite trying all the diets and workouts, or maybe you haven't yet started your fitness journey and want to reclaim your health, this episode's for you. Today, I'm sitting down with fitness expert Alan Meisner to reveal the five key stages of fitness over 40 that you must go through to transform your health and physique. When you understand these stages, you create a roadmap that clarifies your purpose and your approach to health and physique. When you understand these stages, you create a roadmap that clarifies your purpose and your approach to health and longevity. The best part is that getting this right means you'll actually do less of the ineffective workouts and dieting you've been struggling with, because you'll have a clear path to focus your fitness in midlife and beyond. Welcome to Wits and Weights, the podcast that blends evidence and engineering to help you build smart, efficient systems to achieve your dream physique.

Philip Pape: 0:53

I'm your host, philip Pape, and today we are mapping out the journey to better health and fitness after 40 with Alan Meisner, host of the 40 Plus Fitness Podcast and author of the Wellness Roadmap. Now Alan is a certified personal trainer, nutrition coach and functional aging specialist who's helped thousands navigate the ups and downs of getting fit in midlife and beyond, and he had me on his show recently and I was very excited to sit down with him again today. Today, you're going to learn about the five stages of fitness transformation after 40, from the moment you realize things need to change to finally achieving your goal and then maintaining it for life. Through Alan's experiences and, in my opinion, his masterful storytelling, you'll discover how to make that commitment and build a system that will give you lasting success, no matter where you're starting from. Alan, my man, it is good to see you again and welcome back to the show.

Allan Misner: 1:46

Thank you, Philip.

Philip Pape: 1:47

This is exciting and I should say welcome to the show, but welcome back to seeing you again, yeah, so let's just start with the moment that someone realizes things aren't quite working anymore. Maybe they've put on a little weight, maybe they're not as strong, they're feeling tired, they don't have the energy. We all have kids and family and obligations as we get older. What is that catalyst for change that you've seen in most people over 40? We're just going to start there. What is that catalyst for most people?

Allan Misner: 2:18

Well, most of us over 40 are getting to a point in our lives where we're in this kind of weird place in the middle. Our kids are getting old enough that they don't need us as much. So if you're a woman, there's that. If you're a man, it's like, okay, the kids are out and about doing their sports, I might be driving them around, and then eventually now I'm handing them the keys and they're driving themselves around. So again, it's that stage out. And then we also get to see our parents, who are kind of forecasting our future, and so if we're living the same lifestyle they live, that's our future. And they're seeing the illness, they're seeing the things going on there. So for a lot of people, that's the point where they're kind of bridging and figuring this stuff out.

Allan Misner: 3:01

Now, I was in a very weird place when I hit my mid-40s, because I was very successful in my career, but I was not successful at pretty much anything else Relationships, health, fitness, all of it. And so while I had started making the decision that I wanted to change, I went through eight years of just yo-yo. Some people talk about hitting rock bottom. I got drug across rock bottom over eight years. Okay, you got the scrapes to show for it, right, right. And so it started like I was sitting on the beach in Mexico and I had forced myself to take a vacation. I should have been celebrating. I was like I've made it to vice president of a Fortune 500 company at the age of 39. That's the dream, right? Well, so I went down to this timeshare. I literally bought the timeshare, sight unseen, pretty much. I just walked in and said sell me, because I knew if I put the money in, I would start taking that annual vacation. So I'm not going to let that money burn. And so I did.

Allan Misner: 4:01

I forced myself to take a week off, and then I forced myself to sign up to take another week off every year, okay, and so I was kind of on my way a little bit, but it was haphazard and it wasn't controlled. And so the next day I was pretty happy because they had beach volleyball on the schedule. So the week the daily schedule was put up and they had beach volleyball every day. I'm like this is gonna to be so cool, because I used to play competitively when I was younger. Well, I wasn't younger, I was in really bad shape.

Allan Misner: 4:30

So I went out to try to start playing volleyball, and this was not the two-man volleyball that I played a lot, or the four-man that I played some. This was like six on six. So this is take a step bump, take a step bump. Just one game of that had me completely wiped out. And so I'm just I'm sitting there the next morning and I'm like what in the hell happened? You know where did I go? Cause this isn't me. Uh, I'm not someone who dies on a volleyball court at 39 years old. And so I kind of made the decision to change right there. I even had someone take a picture of me with my shirt off, which was insane, and if you go to my website and you look at my About Me page, you see that photo. It's also in the book. But, yeah, I was not very proud of that picture, but I thought that'll be enough to make me change. Of course, it was an all-inclusive resort. Alcohol was already paid for, so, yeah, I commenced to drink my ass off for the whole rest of the week.

Allan Misner: 5:26

I'll start on Monday. You know, yeah, you had the idea, but not quite yet, and so I did try, I did try, I would try this, I would try that, I would look for things. You know what can I do? And there was nothing. There was nothing out there that really told me how to train myself, because everything that was out there was well, you need to do what everybody else does. You're just like everybody else. But I did the Insanity workout, just the benchmark test. I bought the DVD set because it looked cool. Shanti is awesome, it's energy. That's a P90. This was Insanity was also. Yeah, it was Beachbody.

Philip Pape: 5:56

Yeah, yeah, beachbody, this was.

Allan Misner: 5:57

Shanti, and so Shanti was just. You know, he's fit. The reason I didn't go with P90X because I had done that when I was younger was that they did require dumbbells and a pull-up bar. So I was like, okay, I can't do that traveling. So I bought these DVDs, I took the time to diligently rip them all onto my iPad and so here I am. I have all the workouts. I said, okay, I'll sit down and do the benchmark test here, so I know where I am. Okay, so I do the benchmark test and it's very, very motivating. They're dancing around, everybody looks great, they're smiling, they're having fun. I'm not having fun, but I'm doing it.

Allan Misner: 6:31

The next morning I couldn't get out of bed. It was like men had just sat there and beat me with a baseball bat all night. I'm just laying in the bed like, oh my God, it hurt to reach over and grab my phone to call into work, because there was no way I was going to be able to get it to work and do my job. So I didn't do a single one of those workouts again ever. They were still on that iPad when I handed them over to IT.

Allan Misner: 6:56

So there's that first period where you don't really even know what you need. You don't know what's going on and it's easy to tell yourself this isn't a problem. Everybody's overweight, everybody's living like this, everybody's doing this, so I'm just like everybody else, so there's not really a problem. Problem and so not to steal. We're not stealing from the stages of change. If you notice, there's five stages we're going to go through. They do align with the stages of change. I was in pre-contemplation for those eight years. I would try something, maybe, or do this or piddle, but I wasn't really in it.

Philip Pape: 7:32

What's interesting, Alan, is and people can relate to this there sounded to be multiple points that were realizations or wake-up calls that you went through, but then you may have attempted to act on it, maybe not, and even when you did, it wasn't right for you, it wasn't the thing that would work and therefore you didn't stick with it.

Philip Pape: 7:51

And so there are these fleeting realizations that probably happen often right Throughout a year, or even a month, or even a day. We're thinking about this stuff often and then it's like what do we do with it? So, even though it's pre-contemplation, you get to the point of taking action, and the action doesn't even seem to get you what you want if it's not the right action.

Allan Misner: 8:11

Right, right. So I remember this because I read this email I wrote years ago, but I was in Malaysia and when I was getting there it was Ramadan. So Ramadan is a season of fasting. They don't eat during the day, they don't even drink water. It's like for 12 hours. They don't do any of that. And so what I was doing was I said, okay, I'm going to have a good breakfast, I'll have a breakfast with some coffee and I'll have a water in there, but I won't let anybody see it, and then I'll eat a reasonable dinner.

Allan Misner: 8:44

And I did that for the first week. The second week, I'm like, okay, now I'm just going to add some walking. I'll walk for an hour. Well, malaysia is very, very humid, so those are sweaty, sweaty walks, okay. And so I did that the whole second week and I was actually losing weight. I was feeling pretty good going home. I flew home and I got home and I spent the weekend. I kept up with it.

Allan Misner: 9:06

Well, like, on Tuesday morning, I'm sitting at work and I start convulsing and I literally threw up and shat on myself at the same time and hit the ground, and they wanted to call an ambulance. I said no, no, no, let me clean up here and then I'm going to go home, clean up, rest. If I still feel bad, I'll go to the hospital. I did go to the hospital later, after I slept a few hours, but what happened was because I had drank so much water and I'd sweated so much, I was dehydrated and I'd washed out all of my sodium. So I was close to going into a coma, doing what I thought was the right thing Quit alcohol, just drink water, exercise hard. It wasn't hard, it was walking, but for me at the time it was hard. An hour of walking and sweating and boom, here I am laying down on the floor, convulsing, almost going into a coma. And so it was that thing of not knowing what I didn't know, thinking I can just do what I've always done, and it didn't work. So you know, for me the next stage started.

Allan Misner: 10:16

I happened to also be in Malaysia, which is interesting. I traveled there a lot, though at that time in my life. So my daughter and I got on a phone call and she said to me, because she was getting into CrossFit and she had just become a level one CrossFit coach. And so she says to me daddy, would you come watch me do a CrossFit competition and I'm like I just felt this pit in my stomach. I'm like I'm not supposed to be a spectator in my daughter's life. I'm supposed to be a participant, I'm supposed to be there with her doing it. Well, I did go watch her. I'm not that bad. I did go watch the competition.

Allan Misner: 10:53

But that was the moment where there was like a click in my head and I'm like, okay, this is a problem, this is hard, it's really hard, but it's not so hard that I shouldn't be able to do it. So what is different between all the hard things I did? You don't make it to the C-suite age of 39, a fortune 500 company without doing some hard things. You don't do what I did in the military without being able to do some hard things. So I was like what makes this different? And that's when the word hit my head. It was like commitment. For For all those other things that I did, I committed to do it and I became fanatical, obsessed with doing it and doing it right. So I knew that's what I needed to do here.

Allan Misner: 11:38

The problem was I was traveling so much that I couldn't hire a coach, a personal trainer, and there was no one doing this online. There were no books, there were no podcasts, there was no nothing. And so I was like, okay, well, I've got to figure this out. So I'm like I guess I have to become my own personal trainer. So I went for the certs you know NASM I got my corrective exercise, fitness, nutrition, the functional aging specialty, all these other things I started doing. And then I started figuring out what I had done wrong all those other times. And so now I had a plan, and now I was starting to train the right way, I was starting to eat the right way and I was able to start making change. But there was still just one piece missing.

Allan Misner: 12:29

And this was when I realized I tend to at that point in my life, I tend to not move unless I have something scary to do, something that's going to force me to really push. And now that I've done this and I've worked with thousands of people, I've come to realize there's five of these mindsets, and I had actually worked through a few of them on the way up. But what I am now, or what I needed was then, was I was an Atlas. Now an Atlas, uh, in my vernacular is the is the book, you know the map book that we used to have when we were younger, not the God holding the earth. But I went out and I said, okay, I need something big and scary. I went out and I said, okay, I need something big and scary, a big goal like something big. So I called up my daughter and I said, hey, how about the two of us sign up for a Tough Mudder eight months from now? I had no business signing up for a Tough.

Philip Pape: 13:22

Mudder.

Allan Misner: 13:23

The 13-mile run in very hard terrain to do anything to move through. And then they're just going to throw in 25 obstacles just to make it fun With penalties too, right? Well, they didn't have the penalties. That's the Spartan. Spartan does the penalties.

Philip Pape: 13:38

Oh, that's Spartan right With the burpee penalties yeah.

Allan Misner: 13:41

That's Joe, but no, so here's the deal. I realize, okay, I have a level one CrossFit coach daughter and I have this thing I want to do and I don't want to just do it. I don't want to go on there and her have to stay back with me or for me to say, go on without me, I'll finish. That just wasn't the personality. I was like, okay, look, I'm going to participate with her on this thing at her speed, she's not going to have to slow down for me. And that's what I did. I started training a lot harder, started pushing myself and over the course of eight months well, really, 11 months total I lost 66 pounds of fat and I gained 11 pounds of muscle, dexascan to Dexascan Awesome At the age of 46.

Philip Pape: 14:28

And that's what we're here for.

Philip Pape: 14:29

So people, are okay, now people are hearing this. Let's rewind just a little bit. You mentioned the word scary and I know in your book you said that your vision isn't necessarily the highest pinnacle you could reach or the most difficult goal you can imagine. It's the precise image of what you want. Your vision should scare you slightly, but you know that's where you belong in your heart. And so when is your vision not scary enough? Because that's what you just said it's like it's got to be scary. When is it not scary enough?

Allan Misner: 14:55

Well, yeah, I mean, some of it doesn't have to be. So one of the ways I kind of talk about it now a lot is I say, okay, what do you need and what do you want? Okay, I live on a Caribbean island and there's not really an ambulance service that you can rely on. So if my daughter, my wife, were to fall and hurt herself or to have some kind of medical emergency and she's laying on the floor and I have to get her to the hospital I suppose about two miles away I've got to be able to pick her up and get her into the car and drive her there. So I need to be physically strong to be able to lift my wife and do that.

Allan Misner: 15:39

I live on an island. I don't actually have a driver's license, so I'd be violating the law in Panama by driving her there, but it's an emergency. I'm going to break the law Sorry, panama, but gonna but I don't have a driver's license because I live on an island. From one side of the island to the other is no more than 14 miles, so I can walk anywhere on this island I want to be, and so I need to be in the physical shape to walk where I want to go. If I'm out with my wife and she says, hey, we're going to stay or we're going to go to this other place, it's like no problem, I'll walk home, I can do that from anywhere on this island. Okay, so I need that.

Allan Misner: 16:18

But what do I want? Well, I want to have an active lifestyle like kayaking. I kind of wish we had tennis courts here. We don't, but at some point we might move somewhere. I want to be able to just step in and start playing that. When I travel back to Puerto Vallarta, which I do about once a year, I play volleyball. I want to be able to play volleyball. So my vision right now, at 58 years old, is to be a very active 58-year-old. Now our daughters got married about two years ago, both of them six months apart. Congrats, okay.

Philip Pape: 16:55

So there's going to be grandkids, and good luck.

Allan Misner: 16:58

There are going to be grandkids and I can tell you the same mindset that I had with my daughter I am not going to be a spectator in their lives. So babies and kids crawl and run around on the floor. They sit on the floor and they watch television. They, when they go to the zoo, they lose their freaking minds and they're running everywhere. I want to be the grandpa that can do that. And then, when they're older, I don't know what crazy stuff they're going to be doing. But you know we didn't have Tough Mudder growing up. You know we had our stuff, but it wasn't that. And so I don't know what they're going to be doing 20 years from now. But guess what? I'm going to want to be the person doing it. So I'll be that crazy 80 year old doing this thing. Like, what are you doing? I'm like having fun with my grandkids, that's what I'm doing. So that's what I want. Now I'll tell you this other story. We might not make it through your whole five stages, but okay. So here's the next story.

Allan Misner: 17:59

My grandfather loved golf. He loved golf more than people. He was a salesman which, back in that day, you went golfing with potential buyers, to make deals. So he golfed practically every day of his life. He lived on a golf course. He loved golf. At the age of 80, he had to give up playing golf because his balance wasn't there, his strength wasn't there. He could not swing a golf club anymore. Now a lot of people say, oh well, he's 80. Okay, last few years he lived till he was 95. So the last 15 years of his life he didn't get to do the one thing he loved most. I don't want that. I don't think anyone wants that, and so if I can fix it, I won't. Now I'll flash forward 10 years. He can't make it from the chair to the bathroom in time when he realizes he has to go and so he has to call down to the care desk because he's in this. You know homes, he's all these little one bedroom houses, apartments. He can't make it down there, so they send someone up to clean him up because he can't even clean himself up.

Allan Misner: 19:04

I want to be able to wipe my own butt when I'm 105. Okay, so I need to be able to wipe my own butt when I'm 105. Okay, so I need to be able to wipe my own butt when I'm 105. I need to be able to open my own jars. If I want a pickle, I'm eating a pickle. If you can't open the jar and you want a pickle, you ain't eating the pickle. You get someone to help you and now you're no longer independent, you're dependent on tools and other people and you're in this decline and I don't want that. I don't and I don't need that.

Allan Misner: 19:33

So when I look at vision, is it scary? Well, my side of the vision is not scary at all. I'm wiping my butt, I'm playing with my grandkids, I'm doing any sport that I want to do my entire life, because I build the foundation and I'm going to keep building on the foundation to be able to do it. And so, as you start looking at vision, the value of vision is it helps you forecast your future and the fact that the human body, the most wonderful gift you've ever been given, is your body. It's a machine that you live in that can repair itself and get better. If you do the right things, it heals itself and it gets better. That's crazy good, isn't it? That's amazing.

Philip Pape: 20:19

It is amazing, and it is amazing, and I want everyone to experience how amazing that is, especially at this age, when they don't think it might be possible. Right, that's what we're unlocking here. If you've got one more breath.

Allan Misner: 20:30

If you've got one more breath, you could do something to improve yourself. Yeah.

Philip Pape: 20:34

So maybe to keep us on track with the phases, but naturally segue into the next one. Somebody's saying, okay, this is great, I could do something like I can get a piece of paper and write all the things I need, all the things I want. That's a great starting point, catalyst, for you know, I have some wake-up call that's driving me. Now I'm going to solidify what that really looks like, my future self. But now I have this doubt, I have this self-doubt. I'm critical of myself, I'm not sure of my capabilities. I don't even know if the body can do what you're saying, Alan. And so one of the things you talk about is self-love, and that's one way to empower us. You could take it however you want, but what is the first step toward that next step right? Either embracing the self-love or getting that power to become unstoppable. Know that you can do this before you even take that step.

Allan Misner: 21:20

Yeah Well, anything you do to improve your body is an act of self-love. And so when you define it that way and you're like, okay, I've got this guy in my head, you can bleep me if you need to bleep me. So just fair warning, I called the voice in my head the fat bastard. Okay, that's that guy. He's miserable and he's terrible, and if I screw up he's all over me.

Philip Pape: 21:43

Does he have Mike Myers' voice? Is it that fat bastard? No, no, no, not that one.

Allan Misner: 21:48

No, but he's an evil dude, this bastard, no, no, no, not that one, no, but he's, he's, he's, he's an evil. This was even before that, I think. But this is an evil dude. And so if I let him own the frame of the dialogue, I lose. And so I have to realize if I make a mistake, I have to start with forgiveness. Okay, if I forgive myself, I'm a human being. I shouldn't have done that. I did. I can't undo it, but I can learn from it. And so if I go at it and say, okay, I want to show myself self-love, I'm going to forgive myself because I'm not perfect, haven't met anybody who is. I've heard there was one, but I didn't meet him that way. So you know, you start that way and then you learn from what you've done.

Allan Misner: 22:33

Now, one of the key aspects of this where I think people get lost is they think that they don't have what they need. You know, it's like I don't have willpower, I'm not disciplined, and that's not how all this works. So motivation is not magic fairy dust that shows up and that you hope sticks around. Hope doesn't get you very far, and motivation is not received. It's earned.

Allan Misner: 23:01

And so let me explain how this works, and it's pretty simple, but there's two types of motivation. There's the intrinsic type, which is internal, and there's extrinsic, which is outward, to someone else. So the extrinsic is based on accountability, and so the easiest. And there's two layers there's a leader layer and then there's a social layer. So the easiest way to get motivated is to hire a coach. You're going to show up for that coach. You share your goals, they help you with your programs, and they're there. You show up for that coach. You share your goals, they help you with your programs, and they're there. You show up. That accountability gets you motivated. I don't want to be there at five o'clock in the morning, but I told Dave I'd be there at five o'clock in the morning.

Allan Misner: 23:40

I'm there at five o'clock in the morning. Okay, that's accountability which creates motivation. And then maybe I joined some groups so I get in a running group or I do the spin class or water aerobics class or any other kind of group that's going to help me stay accountable. They say peer pressure and people think peer pressure is a bad thing. It's only a bad thing if you have bad peers. If you surround yourself with good people, like Jim Rohn told us, we become good people. Okay, so find a group and get accountability from them. If you want to do CrossFit, as an example, I was in the five o'clock CrossFit class. We same people, we were the five o'clockers and it was the same people that show up.

Allan Misner: 24:22

They show up every day, for most days, and you just all know you're all there and you see them, hi, how are you doing? And now they expect you there. If you're not there, they might even call you hey, dude, you okay, what's going on? Okay, that's accountability at a social level. Now, that only goes so far, because you get a workout partner and the workout partner breaks his arm doing something stupid. He's not going anymore. Are you going to stop? And for a lot of people, if you only rely on accountability, you probably will.

Allan Misner: 24:52

So what we want to do is we want to focus on the intrinsic. Now, the intrinsic is really cool because that is about self-efficacy, and self-efficacy is hugely powerful. So there's two layers for this as well the leader and the social. The leader level is basically self-management, where you become the CEO of your body and you start making decisions on what you're going to do and what you're not going to do, and then what we do in business and which you know from engineers if something's not working, I've got to fix that process. So I have a failure. I want to fix it. So we put friction in to stop things that we don't want to happen and we take friction away to make the things that we do want to happen easier.

Carol: 25:37

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 Philip Pape.

Allan Misner: 26:18

So we build these frictionless and frictioned areas to kind of wall us in and make it easier and easier to do the things we want to do. Here's one example for me. So I wanted to work out. Two o'clock in the afternoon was the best time to go to a gym, so I knew that. So I told my boss I'm going to work, work out from two to three. That's going to be my lunch hour. I'm going to block it out of my calendar. I'm going to do this thing. Obviously, if you need me I'll be here. But I'm going to go work out Now what I needed, and so I would forget a shirt, pair of shorts, socks.

Allan Misner: 26:54

But one day I forgot one shoe, and I don't even know how you do that. I still, to this day, cannot tell you why there was only one shoe in that bag. I do not know. But I just knew this is something I have to fix as the manager or CEO of my own health and fitness. I want to do this. I had signed up for a Tough Mudder, I had to do this. I said, okay, what do I need? I said, well, I got to do stupid checklists. That's what we do. So I made a checklist, everything that was supposed to be in the bag. I laminated it and every evening, when I was brushing my teeth, set the bag out, pull the list out one by one, from the top to the bottom. Everything is in the bag. The list went in the bag. I put the bag right by the door so I would have to either jump over or trip over to go to work in the morning.

Philip Pape: 27:40

Yeah, we would call that mistake proofing right, mistake proofing the process.

Allan Misner: 27:43

Exactly so. It was looking at the process and say how can I make this easier? Because I would use that bag, especially the one shoe day bag, to not do the workout and I'm like I can't keep doing this. And so over time, you're doing this as self-manager, making it easier, you're developing habits and you're developing values. So now, at the social level, you now begin to identify as that person, that healthier, more fit person.

Allan Misner: 28:18

The easiest example I can give you is okay, so someone says I'm going to start a walking program. So they start walking, they're walking and maybe initially 15, 20 minutes, they up it to 30, maybe 45. Then they start throwing in little jogs and then eventually they say hey, and they get a friend and they all sign up for a 5k. And now they're buying shoes. And they're buying, hey, and they get a friend and they all sign up for a 5k. And now they're buying shoes and they're buying water bottles and they consider themselves a runner. They now identify as a runner. And so at five o'clock in the morning, when the alarm goes off, what are runners? Do they run? It's an automatic. They don't even think about not running. In fact, if they got injured and can't run or the weather was too inclement and they can't run, they feel bad, they'd be frustrated, yeah Right.

Allan Misner: 29:02

So that identity of identifying as a person who's fit you've now come full circle. You have unlimited motivation and the person that does the best with this has their feet in all four of them. So you have a coach that's helping you get better at things you want to get better at. You have people around you that are right peers, so the peer pressure is positive and pushing you. You are doing the self-management, so you're making things easier and better.

Allan Misner: 29:29

I get on a plane, I'm going to fly somewhere. I go and research gems near my hotel. I go and pre-look at menus at all the different local restaurants to figure out what foods, where's the best place for me to have dinner, what does the gym at the hotel look like? And if that's not good enough, is there another gym that I can get a day pass for? So a little bit of research, and so you're doing that and then, yeah, you identify as someone. That's who I am, this is what I do, this is how I live. So you have unlimited motivation. It's not something you find, it's something you learn.

Philip Pape: 30:03

Yeah, and I love that mental model with the grid, cause I'm thinking I'm sure you have something that you know.

Allan Misner: 30:07

I absolutely do.

Philip Pape: 30:09

I'll, I'll send it to you, Okay, Is it? Is it kind of self-accountability, CEO of your own body? And the other is relatedness, which ties into the social layer but also the individual identity. There's a lot of cross-correlation here with Well it all is.

Allan Misner: 30:38

The thing is well, you know, psychology, engineering, accounting, they're all systems, and the human body is a system, you know.

Philip Pape: 30:47

Yeah, no. So speaking of that, then it's true, Systems. I heard somebody talking about how they didn't like the word habits because you're creating a system and I'm like, well, that's semantics, but you do talk about this quite a bit. I know in your book you say that it's kind of a lagging indicator right Of maybe all these accountability factors that come first. Does that mean that we put the cart before the horse when we think of habits, kind of in a vacuum, rather than the commitments that lead to what you just talked about, leading to the habits?

Allan Misner: 31:17

Right. So what we're going to do is we're going to go on a particular diet. We need to lose weight. Okay, I'm going to do this diet. Well, you're putting the strategy and the tactics ahead of the brain. Okay, you have to have the commitment first. You have to do some self-awareness first to know okay, am I someone who's going to hurt myself because I'm looking in the rear view mirror and seeing the 29-year-old me that could pretty much do anything. I could tackle a freaking car if I wanted to and not get hurt. Or the guy I am today who will definitely get hurt if I get hit by someone on a trike, if I get hit by someone on a trike. So you have to start working through the mindset stuff of understanding what am I? What do I need? So I, like I said, I have the five mindsets. You can go to 40plusfitnesscom forward slash quiz and that'll tell you your primary one. But I worked through all five of these. I was looking in the rear view mirror at who I was, rather than realizing where I'm sitting and where I needed to go.

Allan Misner: 32:16

There were points in time when I just didn't get enough traction and I wasn't doing it consistently enough to see or feel anything, and so I would just fall off. It'd be like Monday through Friday I'd do great, and then Friday night I would mess up. And then that rolled a Saturday, sunday, and I might start back on Monday, or three weeks Monday, or four months Monday, and so I needed traction, I needed to see it. So I needed gamification of okay, I need to mark something down every time I do this so that I want to run that streak. I want to see more of this. So I was a tires person and then I was a co-pilot early on, and what I mean by that is everybody else's obligations and needs went above my own. The job was first If I had to work a 16-hour day and I didn't get my workout in, that's good. I put in a 16-hour day, but I didn't get my workout in, and I'm sitting at the hotel bar eating my dinner, drinking some beers, because it just didn't feel like doing anything else, but go in, get myself sedated and go to bed, start it over and do it again tomorrow. So you have to do some self-awareness to know what you need to do, and a coach can help you do that, particularly if they're the right kind of coach. But they're going to hold you accountable, they're going to get you moving.

Allan Misner: 33:33

And then that's when you can start figuring some of this stuff out. Do you need to have a list that you pack your bag the night before? Do you need to avoid trying to do too much at one time? Do you need to see your consistency on a map? Do you need to convince yourself that three weeks is not enough time to know that something works? So you start a diet. Three weeks later it's like well, I've only lost two pounds and I actually gained about us three, but I gained one back. So this doesn't work. Quit, put the brakes on, go do something else. Like you're never going to get anywhere.

Allan Misner: 34:07

So you have to at least understand what your tendencies are. And then you meet the fat bastard, or whatever name you want to call your bad boys, and you start saying I need to show self-love, I need to be kind to myself. I need to realize when I'm using those words that I would never say to another human being, never in a million years. If a friend came to me and says, hey, even an enemy came to me and said, hey, I want you to hold me accountable, I would not use the words that my internal voice uses when I screw up, when they screw up, I mean because I would never talk to another human being that way, but he does. He does if I let him. So it's understanding all the psychology and mindset and motivation stuff and getting that all in place and then the strategies and tactics begin to make sense and add value to your life.

Allan Misner: 34:59

So there is a cart before the horse. You have to have a destination before you start driving. Okay, it doesn't have to be a clear destination because I don't have to have the GPS totally loaded, but I do know I have to get out of the parking lot before I can go somewhere else. So I could start driving out of the parking lot before I really know where I'm going. But after that I need to know am I turning right or turning left? I got to have directions before I get on the road and we don't do that. We just say, okay, well, just keep going left.

Philip Pape: 35:28

Right, yeah, so I like how all of these interplay, because what did you just say? Yeah, the direction and the plan, kind of in parallel with the accountability. That helps you gain the confidence that this thing's actually working. And it made me think of in engineering you'll have um, there's a particular guy I'm thinking of. He was an amazing electrical designer, you know could design anything and the joke was that he will design the perfect system to the wrong requirements. You know, if you give him the wrong requirement, that's what he'll design. He'll design the perfect system to the wrong requirements. If you give him the wrong requirement, that's what he'll design. He'll design it perfectly to those requirements.

Philip Pape: 36:02

So there is a sense of upfront having the. If you have a coach, for example, yes, they're going to help you with the nuts and bolts and the direction and they'll help you with all the psychology and the accountability along the way. And there's degrees of this. Right, Alan, Just listening to a podcast like yours will be a great first start, because you're a coach in their ears You're not necessarily somebody you hired, but you're the person giving that sense of wisdom and direction.

Allan Misner: 36:25

But I will say this information is only valuable if you act on it. For sure, For sure. How many technical manuals have ever been written and never read?

Philip Pape: 36:36

Yeah, there's a lot of content binging without the action to go with it. All right. So we've got the realization. Then we have, we have the wake up call. Then we kind of have facing the challenges of starting over. At this age we have the beginnings of commitment leading to the development of system and having accountability. Then we get to the point where maybe things are rolling a bit and we have some momentum, and now we have some sort of setback or life gets in the way, as if life just doesn't always exist right, as if it's supposed to be smooth sailing. But injuries, especially at this age, work stress, family obligations, interruptions to your sleep, you've got kids all of these things are inevitable. So maybe tell us a story about how do we deal with that, because that's super common.

Allan Misner: 37:20

It is, it is, and so there's two stories I like to tell. Okay, so I'll tell the base story that I use and I put this in the book. So you imagine you're driving down the highway and you're on a road trip, you know where you're going, and then you see this sign and it's the world's largest carved beaver. Next exit Got to stop. Right. Of course, I got to see this thing. So instead of going in and having a plan, you just go off the highway. And then you see the next sign Albino alligators, one mile down the road. Well, crap, we got to go see the albino alligators, right. And then you get down there and across the street, is this wonderful, you know best ice cream in all of the Northeast. So now you got to go across the street and have the best ice cream in all the Northeast. And now you've been off the highway for well over an hour and a half when all you intended to do was just see that damn Bieber.

Allan Misner: 38:15

Okay, so we're going to have detours, we're going to go off path. Now, sometimes they're important. So if my buddy called me up and said hey, alan, I'm going through a tough patch right now and can we just sit down and have a few beers and talk. Guess what I'm going to do. Even if I'm training for something, even if I want to cut weight, I'm going to go have a couple beers with my friends. Now I'm going to buy the best quality beer that bar sells. I'm not going to do crap. I'm going to get a good IPA, good beer. Okay, I know a lot of people don't agree with IPA, but I love IPA.

Philip Pape: 38:47

There are two camps. It's okay. You're allowed to have. You're allowed to like inferior beer, it's all right.

Allan Misner: 38:53

Anyway, but I'm going to go have beers with my friend, and so that's not a necessarily planned detour, but I can have a plan of how I'm going to do it. It's like, okay, I'm going to have a beer, and then I'm going to have a water, and then I'll have a beer and then I'll have a water. Okay, so that's the plan. And then tomorrow I, just when I first get up, make sure the first thing I do is drink water. Okay, not going for the coffee, because I'm up a little later and I'm going to want the coffee. Have the water first, water before coffee, so I'm good and hydrated, and then I can go to the gym and do what I got to do.

Allan Misner: 39:29

Okay, I don't have to skip that workout if I manage my hydration. Okay, I might be a little tired because I didn't get enough sleep, but I'm going to make it work. Okay, that's the plan off, plan on. So if I went in and said, okay, there's the wooden beaver, what we're going to do is go, we're going to stop, we'll get the selfie, and then we're going to go into the bathroom, I'm going to fill up with gas and we'll get right back on the highway, that would have been a successful detour.

Philip Pape: 39:48

Instead of just letting it carry you along.

Allan Misner: 39:51

Letting. Yeah, I screwed up, I'm off, I'm out, so having a plan going out and a plan coming back in. And so I was 51 and I was getting ready to do a Spartan. I'd signed up with a Spartan because I wanted my brother to do it with me. I have brothers. My youngest brother is 25 years younger than me, but this brother was like 13 years younger than me. So at the time I'm 51, he's in his late thirties, and so I'm like we're going to do, well, let's do this Spartan, and that is the one with the penalties, the penalty burpees, and so we're going to do it. And then it turned out that his daughter was having a recital that weekend, so he wasn't going to go. So I'm like, okay, I'm doing it by myself. But I was training for that.

Allan Misner: 40:34

I hired a coach. Yes, coaches should hire coaches. I wanted to get strong. So I had a strength coach and Dave was a really good strength coach. This had nothing to do with him.

Allan Misner: 40:44

I was trying to do dumbbell, overhead presses, military press seated, and I was stupid about how I got the weights up and I really didn't need to be pressing 80s, but I was, because Dave's a really good strength coach. I got really freaking strong and I tore a rotator cuff and I knew when I did I'm like, okay, that's like tore off the bone or that's not even connected anymore. I knew it and so I told him. I said, okay, dave workout's over. And he's like what happened? I said I think I just tore my, I tore my rotator cuff. He's like, oh, oh, no, man, I'm like, okay, no problem. No problem, I'll see you on Thursday. He was like what I said? Well, I won't be able to do presses, but I could probably do everything else because I was still going to do the Spartan. I'm an. That was the push. You know, I'm gonna do the spartan. You got one more arm and you got two legs. I got the other arm and I can't tear it again. Yeah, it's true, I feel you man, okay now. Uh, it still hurt a lot, but I kept training and the training itself.

Allan Misner: 41:51

We didn't do any presses. We tried a couple different things like using the sm Smith machine and changing angles and doing declines. None of it really worked. And so I went and did the Tough Mudder and then I went in and saw the surgeon and I told the surgeon I said I tore my rotator cuff. He says how do you know? I said I know. And he says well, let's take an x-ray. I took the x-ray. He says yeah, it looks like you did tear it. And then he did a couple of strength moves, you know. He put your arm up. He said push, push, pull. He said yeah, it's pretty much tore. I said yeah, pretty much tore. He said they, you know, the insurance companies want to send you to PT. I said that's not going to do any good. He said that won't do any good. He said I'm going to ask like okay, he put it in, they got me to do the MRI. It was yeah, I was shredded, it was gone. And so he's like okay, we're going to go in for surgery.

Allan Misner: 42:46

I went in for surgery on Thursday. I was out and in PT on Monday. So I walk into PT on Monday and the PT guy's like well, when did, how long ago did you have the surgery? I'm like Thursday. He's like you're already here. I'm like yeah, this is, this is my on-ramp. Okay, it's time to recover.

Allan Misner: 42:59

The detour was the surgery and now I've got to get right back on the highway. So that was my plan. I was going to do the tough. I'm just going to do the Spartan, because I was dedicated to do the Spartan and I did it and it hurt like hell and I got it done. And then I'm like, okay, now I get the surgery and I'm on ramp and every bit of homework he gave me I did. I understood why I was doing everything, everything I was supposed to. I literally was probably his best client because I could just I just walk in and say same workout as last time. He said, well, I want to add one exercise and he'd show me how to do the exercise. And boom, I just do the whole workout by myself. Okay, he put the ice cuff on to cut the, to basically bring down information after the workout. But I did all the workouts myself. I got all my but.

Allan Misner: 43:44

But the core thing was, because I had done all the training all the way up until the surgery, I never really lost much range of motion. So they lay you in there and they start measuring range of motion. He's like, he's like I know you're in your 50s, but you've got the range of motion at this point that I've never even seen in athletes. What did you do? I said I just kept training. I couldn't do any presses, but I could do pulls, and so my arm is. You know, I just grab hold of the bar for lat, pull downs and sit down and it stretched my arm and then I could pull. So my arms never didn't go through the full range of motion. I never put myself in any kind of sling to avoid the pain because I knew it was already tore. I couldn't tear it again.

Allan Misner: 44:30

So I did all these things knowing that that's my plan during this detour, and then my on-ramp is to get my PT done as quickly as I possibly could. I got through because my range of motion was back to about 100% within three weeks. He's like I don't even know if we can start strength training now, right now, because I've never put anybody strength training in just three and a half weeks. So let me talk to your surgeon. Surgeon says well, alan thinks he can do it. He can do it, do it. You know and that was the other thing If you get hurt, get the best, get the best PT, get the best surgeon. Look for someone who works with athletes. Yes, and don't just tell them I want you to fix me and make me stop hurting. Tell them you want to be back to performance of where you were before, and a good surgeon and a good PT will get you there.

Philip Pape: 45:22

Yeah, I can relate to all of that because I also had rotator cuff surgery last year and I have my deadlift. Harness was one of the fun toys early on. I'm like I got a deadlift, but it wasn't there with two arms quite yet. So let's get creative. I think the point here that you're saying is these things are always inevitable. They're probably quite yet. So let's, let's get creative. I think the point here that you're saying is things, these things are always inevitable. They're probably more inevitable as we age. And there's something you can do. There is something you can do. Don't make, don't make excuses for yourself, and it's not like a yeah, just get out there and just be reckless. It's figure out a way around it to move forward. I do like that specific advice about finding PTs, doctors, trainers, all who understand lifting and athletes. It makes a massive difference. They'll be aggressive when they need to be and they'll also understand why you do what you do, because the other guys just don't have a clue.

Allan Misner: 46:08

These are guys that did the division. One football team in town, they get it, they get it. And so when I walked in and said, no, I performance, I don't care about pain, I care about performance, they're like okay.

Philip Pape: 46:20

Yeah, so all right. So full circle back to the. I guess we're we're kind of in the last stage here.

Philip Pape: 46:25

I don't know, we'll see how the show notes tie up with all these, uh, what we're saying here but you know some is someone has gone through this process. At this point they're definitely getting results of some kind, both physical, mental and then deeper results. I'm sure that surprised them along the way they get to this point. Maybe it is a fat loss phase, maybe it's something more than that, maybe it's performance related. People always ask how do I maintain that? Now? That mentality probably comes from the quick fix weight loss of like you lose your weight, you gain it, you lose your weight. We're not doing it that way and I would argue that it's almost easier to maintain something when you've done it this way. But tell us, how do we reground ourselves? Maybe have a new goal, have a new kind of thing that pushes us to the next level?

Allan Misner: 47:07

So yeah, that was one thing about my book that I wanted to make sure I got into, because so many people think, well, yay, race is over, go back to eating fat food and then you'll end up having to do this whole thing all over again, or maybe. So what I did? I called it CARGO. Okay, so it's an acronym and the C means celebrate. You should be very proud of yourself for doing this, because so many people don't. If it's weight loss, I want you to think about one billion people on this planet are obese. I saw that stat the other day. Dr Lahnke's book and it was like that just floored me and then I realized how right it was. I mean, just even in the United States, there's over 100 million obese people. That's insane, but it's getting worse.

Allan Misner: 47:54

So you've done something that a small fraction of people like you're in rare air. You're a very special individual if you've lost a substantial amount of weight, because most people don't, and most people don't keep it off. But go ahead and celebrate Now. This is not celebrate with a jelly donut or cake or a bunch of alcohol. This is celebrate yourself. Or a bunch of alcohol. This is celebrate yourself. You've shown yourself this much self-love and you're at this point because you did something important. You did hard things and you should be very proud.

Allan Misner: 48:28

Now, after that, you need to realign yourself. So the A is about alignment, and what you're going to realize is that you feel different. You are a different person. This change that you went through was not just a physical change. It changed who you are as a human, and other people are looking at you differently. You may even have a whole different new set of friends that you didn't have before. Okay. So just recognize that you will be treated differently based on where you are, and you have to accept that. Okay, the next is to sit down and recalibrate your GPS. Where, where did you? Where do you want to go next? A lot of times, people will climb out of a hole. I was in this hole.

Allan Misner: 49:14

I was over 60 pounds overweight and I climbed out of the hole and I could have just stayed there. But there's this mountain in front of me that I can also climb. So we go from dealing with a problem or despair to aspiration. So what do you really want? You know you could lose 30, 40 pounds, but what do you really want? Well, I want to wear the jeans that I wore in college. You still have those old things. Yeah, pull them out. Pull them out and get ready. That's your new thing. I'm going to be wearing these jeans by February. Tell yourself that, set that as the standard. That's your new vision. Okay, I'll be wearing the same size jeans when I go to my class reunion next year. I'll be wearing the same size jeans I was wearing in high school. Okay, set the goal, set the aspiration. Okay.

Allan Misner: 50:04

So you recalibrate your GPS. I'm like, okay, I feel good at 205, but I'll be optimal at 185. That's where I want to go. And then go. That G-O is go, go, do it.

Allan Misner: 50:17

And this is a cycle that you'll just roll over and over and over. So, if you look at, what we emulated here is the cycle of change we went from pre-contemplation. I didn't really know, I had a problem. I was okay with it, I was accepting it To recognizing I have a problem in contemplation, to determination or preparation, which depending on which one you look at. But basically this is where you make the decision, where you really commit to doing something. Then you have action, then you have maintenance and then it's a cycle. Now, the cycle doesn't always have to go in a positive direction, but if you do this right, you just keep cycling through.

Allan Misner: 50:56

Okay, I want to get the fastest speed for over 80 in the a hundred yard dash. I want to continue to play tennis and beat the kids when I'm 80. I want to be doing whatever crazy thing my grandkids are doing when I'm 80. So you kind of get the idea that this is just these cycles of your life. As you go through, we age and we don't want to follow the curve, the way the curve is taking us. We see where that curve takes us. It's illness, it's chronic, it's horrible and we lose our independence along the way. I don't want that. So it's a loop. I don't have to do another Tough Mudder, so that's not my loop anymore. I have to carry five-gallon bottles of water all over this place.

Philip Pape: 51:49

That's what I have to do fun and I think it opens up more options. When you have all these loops, you may you may have the setbacks, like the surgery, but it just you know, you have the confidence from your past cycles of this that you can then go for something else. So, yeah, I love that recalibrating, not not only climbing out of a hole. You've done that.

Allan Misner: 52:09

Now it's just the sky's the limit, I mean no-transcript pieces of advice that I think are kind of wrong. And one is just start, and I used to think that was right, but now I know, just think Really, get your head straight first, because if you just act and you just do the thing, you won't stick to it because you haven't built, you haven't made it easy enough. So fix your plan, have a plan and execute on the plan. In that order Okay. And then the other one that people like to do is just for exercise, just do something you enjoy. And I think that's a bad one too, because if you, you know, I I enjoy laying in a bathtub, but that's about as strenuous as I would want to get if I just did something.

Philip Pape: 53:22

I'm so glad you said that, because that ties with the doing hard things. I'm so glad you said that. Nobody likes back squats when they start, but when you get good at it, you start to.

Allan Misner: 53:31

I want to. If I want to be able to wipe my own butt when I'm 105, I'm going to have to be able to do squats. I'm going to have to have the dexterity to twist and do the paperwork, and then I'm going to have to have the speed and agility to be able to get up from where I am and make it in there in time. So there are fitness aspects of everything we do in our lives. Train to be that person. Be fit for task, and if the task is making it to the bathroom and wiping your own butt, that's the task. Train for it so you can keep doing it.

Philip Pape: 54:03

Yeah, and I think a good physical analogy is when you go to the gym and do a set, you're always doing something harder than last time. It's never going to be easier, but that gives you the results. So I mean a good analogy for that. All right, I love that. So just start is should be really just think, you know, come up with a plan, fix it, go after it and then just doing something you enjoy should be. You know, choose hard things, do hard things and maybe you'll enjoy them, maybe not, it doesn't matter. Almost it's going to give you the result, but you'll enjoy the things you do enjoy.

Allan Misner: 54:30

Like you like hiking and you build stamina on an elliptical machine because it's six feet of snow outside when a season comes around, you're going to have the stamina to do the hiking you want to do. So you do hard things, so you can do wonderful things.

Philip Pape: 54:46

That's great, Alan. Where do you want listeners to find you?

Allan Misner: 54:49

Okay, well, the 40 Plus Fitness Podcast is available. Wherever you're listening to podcasts, including here where you're listening to wits and weights and I have the website 40plusfitnesscom. That's 40plusfitnesscom, and all my stuff's there. You can links to the book, links to the podcast, link to everything I do Love to hear from you. So come out there and say hi, and I hope you get fit and healthy and enjoy your life.

Philip Pape: 55:17

Awesome. I'll include those in the show notes. Everybody here go follow 40 Plus Fitness Podcast, because he gets into all the details, the nitty gritty, all the training and nutrition stuff, as well as mindset psychology we talked about here, and he's going on 600, well over 600 episodes, so you guys will love that. Thanks again, alan, for coming on. It was a lot of fun to do the back and forth with you. Appreciate your time.

Allan Misner: 55:37

Yeah, thank you, philip.

Why Bodybuilders and Marathon Runners Train SO Differently (Critical Path Method) | Ep 228

Are you training for the wrong outcome?

Are you working hard, going to the gym, but things aren't quite lining up for your physique and body composition goals?

Imagine a fitness plan where every effort counts, and nothing is wasted. 

Learn how the Critical Path Method (CPM) explains why bodybuilders and marathon runners have such contrasting approaches and how you can determine where on that spectrum YOUR goals are so you can save time and be more efficient with your fitness.

Discover:

• How to identify your fitness "critical path"

• Why doing less can often lead to better results

• How to eliminate time-wasting exercises from your routine

• The power of laser-focusing on what truly matters for your goals

Whether you're aiming to build muscle, lose fat, or improve endurance, this episode will help you optimize your training for maximum results with minimum wasted effort.

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. 

Main Takeaways:

• The Critical Path Method reveals why different physique goals require different training approaches

• Focusing on your "critical path" activities can accelerate progress while reducing overall workload

• Regularly reassessing your critical path is key as your fitness journey evolves

• Eliminating wasteful and unnecessary activities is often as important as adding the RIGHT activities to your plate

Episode summary:

In the latest episode of the "Wits and Weights" podcast, we delve into the intriguing world of fitness planning by merging the contrasting realms of bodybuilding and marathon running with the Critical Path Method, a powerful tool from project management. This method is typically used to identify essential tasks in engineering projects, but here, it is applied to streamline fitness goals, whether they are focused on muscle hypertrophy or cardiovascular endurance. This strategic alignment ensures every effort counts and eliminates wasted time, enhancing your journey to your ideal physique.

Listeners are guided to understand the stark differences between the training regimens of bodybuilders and marathon runners, and why these two groups train so differently. Bodybuilders focus on heavy lifting, volume, and muscle building, whereas marathon runners prioritize endurance and mileage. These differences stem from their distinct end goals: muscle hypertrophy for bodybuilders and peak cardiovascular endurance for marathon runners. This episode explores how the Critical Path Method helps in identifying the most impactful activities for your specific fitness goals, thus eliminating wasted effort and optimizing efficiency.

The episode further emphasizes the importance of prioritizing critical tasks to achieve specific fitness goals. By drawing parallels between project management in engineering and fitness planning, listeners learn about the inefficiencies of pursuing conflicting goals simultaneously. The discussion highlights the need for specificity and prioritization in fitness journeys. By identifying non-negotiable activities and allocating resources effectively, individuals can stay focused on their primary objectives, reassessing goals and adapting plans as personal needs and circumstances evolve.

One key takeaway is the idea that efficiency is not about doing more, but about doing the right things. This principle is reinforced by illustrating the critical path for bodybuilders, which includes progressive overload, resistance training, and adequate nutrition. Similarly, marathon runners have their path focusing on running volume, cardiovascular improvement, and proper fueling. By recognizing and emphasizing these paths, listeners can avoid the common mistake of trying to pursue multiple conflicting goals, which often leads to inefficiency and frustration.

The podcast encourages a strategic approach to fitness that mirrors engineering principles, reducing stress and increasing adherence to fitness plans. By identifying critical tasks and eliminating non-essential activities, listeners can save time and energy, leading to better results. This efficiency-focused approach helps reduce stress, improve confidence, and enhance long-term adherence to fitness goals, which is crucial for sustainability.

Listeners are also introduced to the concept of a rapid nutrition assessment, which is available on the host's website. This practical tool helps identify critical path activities, providing a structured strategy to accelerate progress. The episode concludes by reminding listeners to keep focused on their goals, blending fitness and engineering for a structured approach to success.

In conclusion, this episode of "Wits and Weights" offers a comprehensive guide to achieving fitness milestones with a structured approach. By applying the Critical Path Method to fitness planning, listeners can align their bodybuilding and marathon goals, prioritize critical tasks, and eliminate inefficiencies. This strategic alignment ensures every effort counts, maximizing workout efficiency and achieving desired results. Whether you're lifting weights or logging miles, this episode provides valuable insights into streamlining your fitness journey.

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Transcript

Philip Pape: 0:01

If you're the type of person who spends lots of time focusing on your training and going to the gym to build strength and muscle for your ideal physique, but you haven't seen the transformation that you envisioned, this episode's for you, because today I'm explaining how the critical path method and engineering principle clarifies why bodybuilders and marathon runners train so differently and how this applies to your fitness journey. You'll learn to identify the most impactful activities for your specific goals, and that allows you to focus on what truly drives progress and then eliminate wasted effort. This approach often means doing less overall work while accelerating results, efficiency being the name of the game. So if you've been putting in this consistent effort but not seeing proportional gains, what I'm outlining today will show you where to refocus your energy for maximum impact. 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 dissecting a question that puzzles many people who are into this fitness and strength training. Why do different people with different goals, like bodybuilders and marathon runners, train in such radically different ways, such that they get different results? It might seem obvious, but it's not, because you are probably one of those in the camp who lift weights, who want to build muscle, want a better physique, and you're a bit frustrated because it doesn't seem to be going the way you expect. So we are going to use the critical path method, cpm a tool from project management to break down these contrasting approaches and show you how to apply this principle to wherever you fall on that spectrum to optimize your own training regimen. And, of course, before we dive in, if you're finding value in these engineering inspired insights and episodes, hit the follow button. Just push follow right now so you get notified of future episodes. You don't miss them and it helps others discover the show. And, as a bonus, if you'd like to give a rating and or review in the podcast app you're listening right now I would be very grateful for that.

Philip Pape: 2:19

All right, let's get into it today, and I want to talk about the paradox of the world we're in here when it comes to fitness physical fitness Because on one hand, we have bodybuilders and I pick that because those are kind of the extreme example of people who are focused on consistent heavy lifting and weight training and volume, isolation exercises, compound lifts all of it to kind of build the strongest, most developed physique they can. On the other hand of the spectrum, we have marathon runners who are purely focused on endurance, logging extensive mileage, almost to the detriment of any resistance training. Of course we know now that fitness and strength and resistance training is helpful, no matter who you are. But even if you watch the Olympics and you just look at the physiques, you can tell there's a marked difference in muscle mass and body fat and things like that. And this stark contrast. You might think, okay, that kind of makes sense because they train differently. But it's still perplexing when both are held up as a model of fitness. Right, like people are, on one hand, a marathon runners are considered athletes and they're very and they're in the elite, you know the, the ones who are very competitive. On the other hand, so our bodybuilders but they couldn't probably run in a 5k and do super well. Uh, and I say that in all kindness, because kindness, because I know that if they did, they would have to sacrifice some of their bodybuilding goals. So it's not an insult to them at all. It's a matter of specificity, right? How do you determine which method aligns with your objectives in the most efficient way, the most specific way so you're not wasting time doing the things that don't really matter for your goals, and that's the important thing. I care doing the things that don't really matter for your goals, and that's the important thing. I care about efficiency. I don't know about you. I'm kind of lazy in that sense. I don't want to waste time doing these other things. So here's where we bring in the critical path method, cpm.

Philip Pape: 4:17

Now, in engineering, anybody who's familiar with managing projects and schedules and this could be hey, if you're a stay-at-home mom, if you're a homeschool teacher you guys are some of the best at managing budgets and schedules. But in the business world and engineering, a lot of people are familiar with this concept where you have to identify the most critical tasks in your project from start to finish. That if that thing is delayed, it's going to push back the entire schedule, right? If your materials for the foundation of your house haven't arrived, you can't build a foundation of your house and it's going to delay everything else with your house. You can't build a foundation of your house and it's going to delay everything else with your house, whereas if the you know siding hasn't arrived, you might have a lot of time until that happens before it matters, right, and even then you could live in a house that has no siding, for you could literally live in a house without siding. So the essential tasks form what we call the critical path.

Philip Pape: 5:14

And so if we apply this to this extreme of bodybuilders versus marathon runners, starting with the bodybuilders right, the bodybuilders have a critical path that usually includes spending time in a building phase, the improvement season some people call it right A gaining phase, using progressive overload, resistance, training, building muscle, being in maintenance or in a surplus, having sufficient protein, calories and carbs and plenty of recovery to just build, build, build, build. That's the critical path. Why? Because if you don't take that time, you'll never have anything to reveal once you diet down later. So if you forget that, it's like the foundation of the house. You're done. You have to start there at some point. Obviously somebody who's already built muscle multiple times over their career or their life. They've gone through that already. They've built that foundation.

Philip Pape: 6:03

Now, on the other hand, we have endurance athletes and marathon runners, and their critical path looks like gradually increasing their running volume, improving their cardiovascular endurance, optimizing the economy of their running and then properly fueling for those efforts which may be at the detriment of, say, protein or building muscle or even strength? Potentially right, not that those things aren't a foundation as well. And so the divergence in these two paths, these two critical paths, which are completely different goals, stems from their distinct end goals. The end result right, the bodybuilder aims to maximize hypertrophy of their muscles. The marathon runner is focused on peak cardiovascular endurance two very hugely different adaptations.

Philip Pape: 6:47

And where most people go wrong is they attempt to pursue multiple, often conflicting goals simultaneously. They want to build substantial muscle, but then they also want to improve their work capacity and their endurance. And then they're trying to lose body fat. Right, and this is akin to trying to, you know, construct a skyscraper and a highway with the exact same crew and resources. Right, they have to go back and forth and back and forth. It's very inefficient and it's often very ineffective.

Philip Pape: 7:17

And so the beauty of the critical path method is emphasizing prioritization. Like, what do you really care about? Right, like in a complex engineering project, you can't do everything at once. Same thing with your fitness journey you have to periodize, you have to focus on the tasks that will propel you the most directly toward your specific goal, and then the training itself has to emphasize that specificity. So what does that look like?

Philip Pape: 7:43

Well, first we have to know what that goal is. If you listen to this podcast, it's probably in the realm of building your physique and health, building muscle. There's an underlying reason that you're doing that right, a deeper why. And yes, you definitely want to start there with who you are and who you want to be, who you are living the life of now, the routine that would be lived by someone who's an athlete, someone who's strong. But then you obviously have to get to the nuts and bolts of something not vague, like I want to get in shape, or I want to get healthier, but I'm going to lose 20 pounds of fat, or I'm going to gain 10 pounds of muscle. I mean, we need to get to some level of specificity, just from a practical perspective, right.

Philip Pape: 8:24

And then you want to identify the critical path for that goal. What are the non-negotiable activities? So, if it's fat loss, this might include, of course, creating a calorie deficit. I mean, it's just a very simple thing that a lot of people take for granted, because you get hung up on well, I need to cut carbs, I need to cut this, or I need to increase my cardio, whatever. No, you just need a calorie deficit, however, that comes in a sustainable way for you, and you need more protein to hold onto the muscle and you have to use resistance training to maintain that muscle. So these are elements on the way with your critical path.

Philip Pape: 8:59

And now that you know that, you get to allocate your resources, your time, your energy, your mental focus to those activities and those activities alone, not to the exclusion of your family and your work and those things, but to the exclusion of other physical fitness related activities that don't get you to your goal, does that make sense? And so then you're going to de-emphasize or, yes, temporarily eliminate activities that don't directly contribute to that goal. It doesn't mean you're never going to do that, but they take a backseat to your focus in this moment, in this period. And then, guess what you do? You execute to that and you regularly assess the critical path because it's going to shift as you progress. Your needs and your goals might evolve, and they can evolve next week. I'm not suggesting that you constantly change what you're doing. I'm suggesting that as you transform, as you progress, as things happen in your life, like potentially injury or your vacation or whatever, you might need to shift those. Maybe you have a new goal you want to go after, like you want to run a 5K. Well, that's going to shift your goal.

Philip Pape: 10:04

So let's say you're a 40-year-old person and you're aiming to lose 30 pounds of fat and you want to gain noticeable muscle definition. Your critical path is going to include some key things. It's going to include, at some point, a moderate calorie deficit that's well controlled. It's going to include a certain type of macro balance, high in protein and enough fats and carbs for hormones and performance. It's going to include resistance training, probably three to four times per week for most people, emphasizing compound movements, strength, higher load activities, but also supplementing with accessories and isolation work. It's going to include a certain amount of sleep right, nightly sleep that's high quality, seven to nine hours typically and it's going to include some level of activity and movement daily right, a daily step goal or some other way to keep yourself active. Now notice what is not in the critical path for this person Excessive cardio, overly strict calories, like a crash diet would have, because that would actually be so detrimental You'd lose muscle.

Philip Pape: 11:04

It doesn't include two a days. It doesn't eliminate entire food groups. It doesn't include lots and lots of running, I think I mentioned that. Excessive cardio. There's a lot of things that it doesn't include, and if you're doing some of those things, even if you're doing them for fun, you still want to reassess your priority for those relative to what you're doing.

Philip Pape: 11:23

I'm not saying cut fun things out, I'm just saying you're probably doing a lot of things and some things can stand to be reduced or eliminated, at least for a while, and so the power of this method extends beyond just identifying what you need to do. It's what you don't need to do, and that's where a lot of people get stuck. They try to incorporate every little fitness strategy they come across, every podcast, every idea, every tip that they hear, every 1% thing, right From cold plunges to red light therapy, everything, and then they spread themselves too thin and then they get a suboptimal results, whereas most people just finding the few critical path things they need to do and doing them modestly, consistently, right, not even like 100% consistent. They're gonna get incredible results that way, right. And so if you apply CPM, you'll find that a significant portion of what you're doing right now is probably wasteful, it's probably not necessary, and so if you can eliminate the non-essential tasks, you're going to save time and energy and you're going to get better results. And that is the definition of efficiency, because you could have a greater focus on, and intensity on, what truly matters, and that's going to reduce your stress, that's going to give you confidence, that's going to improve your long-term adherence, which is sustainability. So, again, it is not about just what to do, it's what you can skip right?

Philip Pape: 12:44

A lot of the clients that come to me are exhausted. They're trying to do it all. They're cramming in daily spin classes or cardio or boot camps. They might be lifting six times a week. They might be doing tons and tons of um I'll call it meal like, obsessive meal prep, obsessive calorie tracking not kind of a more relaxed, uh, flexible tracking that I prefer.

Philip Pape: 13:07

And then when we apply this approach of what can we get rid of first rather than what you need to do right, I don't, I don't even want to tell you what you need to do. Let's say what not to do first and get that off your plate. Give you some more resources back, give you reduced stress. Then the effort goes to where they need to be and then you reclaim your time and energy and you start accelerating your progress because you're no longer dividing your resources. And again, that is why something like this, the critical path method, can be very effective Strategically not doing the wrong things. That's the way I'm going to put it Strategically not doing the wrong things so you can optimize your time and energy and basically be a super efficient, well-managed you know fitness enthusiast here.

Philip Pape: 13:49

All right, as you contemplate your strategy based on this episode, moving forward, keep this critical path method in mind. Take out a sheet of paper, ask yourself and write down the things that you're doing for your physical fitness, physical health, and ask yourself for each one is this truly essential for my goal? If not, what do I do about it? Do I reduce, do I eliminate? And if this discussion resonates with you and you're eager to identify your own critical path and you're not quite sure where to take it, I always provide free calls that you can get on with me.

Philip Pape: 14:19

They're called 15-minute rapid nutrition assessments and it's very focused, very fast-paced. We look at what you're doing today, where you want to be, what are your critical path activities and what are the things in the next 90 days that will get you unstuck so that you can accelerate your progress and have less stress doing it. So if you want to schedule that, just click the link in the show notes or go to witsandweightscom and click the big button at the top. Again, the 15-minute rapid nutrition assessment is always available. I always have spots on my calendar and what I see is the people who sign up for these are the ones who stop stagnating. They start getting tangible progress even when they do it on their own.

Philip Pape: 14:59

I'm going to be totally honest Not everybody signs up with me as a client. That's totally cool. If I could even get you some information that gets you moving and reduces that stress and gets you toward the physique you want, I'm all for it. So go ahead and use the link in my show notes or go to witsandweightscom, click the button at the top for the rapid nutrition assessment. Until next time, keep using those wits, lifting those weights, and remember that in fitness as in engineering, success often comes down to identifying and following the critical path and eliminating what is unnecessary. I'll catch you on the next episode of the Wits and Weights podcast.

7 Surprising BMR Facts (Your Metabolism Isn't Broken) | Ep 227

Is your metabolism holding you back from achieving your fitness goals? Do you ever wonder why your progress slows down despite your best efforts? Why do some people seem to burn more calories than others, even at rest?

Philip (@witsandweights) uncovers 7 surprising facts about your basal metabolic rate (BMR) that will completely change how you think about fat loss, energy, and fitness. You'll discover how factors like body composition, organ size, and even athletic habits play a huge role in your metabolism. From the truth about aging and its impact on BMR to debunking myths about metabolic adaptation, you'll learn practical insights to help you work with your body's natural processes and achieve better results. Whether you’ve been feeling stuck or frustrated, understanding your BMR might be the key to unlocking your fitness goals.

🎞️ To learn how to download and setup MacroFactor for free so you know your exact metabolism for any body composition goal, watch this video or go to https://youtu.be/HTOmVtR9UZw (don’t forget to use code WITSANDWEIGHTS to try it for free!)

Today, you’ll learn all about:

2:48 Fact 1: The wide range of normal BMRs
5:34 Fact 2: How organ size impacts BMR
7:22 Fact 3: Allometric scaling of metabolism
9:11 Fact 4: Athletes' secret metabolic advantage
13:11 Fact 5: How BMR changes with age
14:35 Fact 6: Metabolic adaptation during fat loss
18:07 Fact 7: BMR and PCOS misconceptions
21:20 Outro

Episode resources:

• The MacroFactor BMR Series

Related Episodes:

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

• Carbs Aren't the Problem (Keto, Paleo, Bioenergetic, and Pro-Metabolic Diets) | Ep 224

Episode summary:

Understanding metabolism is crucial for anyone looking to lead a fit and active lifestyle. In this episode of Wits & Weights, host Philip Pape delves into the often misunderstood topic of metabolism, revealing surprising insights that can revolutionize your approach to fitness and fat loss. At the heart of the discussion is the basal metabolic rate (BMR), the energy your body requires just to stay alive. Contrary to popular belief, your metabolism is not solely determined by muscle mass and activity levels; it also heavily relies on the energy demands of vital organs such as the brain, liver, heart, and kidneys. These organs, despite constituting only a small percentage of body mass, account for a significant portion of your BMR.

One of the most common misconceptions addressed in the episode is the idea that metabolism inevitably slows down with age. While it's true that BMR can decrease over time, this decline is often attributed to loss of muscle mass and decreased physical activity rather than age itself. By maintaining muscle mass through consistent exercise, individuals can effectively counteract the age-related slowdown. Moreover, athletes demonstrate a fascinating connection between athleticism and metabolism. They often burn more calories at rest, thanks in part to larger organs like the heart, which support their increased physical demands. This insight highlights the importance of regular exercise and strength training in maintaining a high metabolic rate.

Another key point discussed is the phenomenon of metabolic adaptation during weight loss. As you reduce calorie intake, your body may conserve energy, making it seem as though your metabolism is slowing down. However, this adaptation is largely reversible once normal calorie intake resumes. Understanding this concept is crucial for setting realistic expectations during a calorie deficit and ensuring sustainable weight loss. The episode also explores the concept of allometric scaling, which describes how metabolic rates vary across different body sizes. Larger individuals have lower BMRs per unit of body mass compared to smaller individuals, emphasizing the need for personalized fitness and diet strategies.

Philip Pape provides practical guidance for kickstarting your fitness journey, beginning with the initial maintenance phase. By calculating your starting calories and macros, you can tailor a diet and fitness plan that aligns with your body's unique needs. This personalized approach is further supported by tools like the Macrofactor app, which uses actual nutrition and weight data to calculate true maintenance calories. The app offers personalized recommendations, taking the guesswork out of tracking your metabolism and making it easier to achieve your fitness goals.

Throughout the episode, the importance of understanding and working with your body's natural processes is emphasized. Rather than relying on generalized guidelines, listeners are encouraged to embrace the uniqueness of their own metabolism and make informed decisions that support their fitness journey. By leveraging the insights shared in this episode, you can transform your understanding of metabolism and achieve a healthier, more efficient lifestyle.

The podcast episode is a treasure trove of information, debunking myths and offering actionable tips for anyone seeking to optimize their metabolism. From the surprising facts about BMR to the empowering message that you can control much of your metabolic fate, the insights provided are both enlightening and motivating. Whether you're an athlete looking to enhance your performance or someone simply trying to navigate the complexities of metabolism and weight loss, this episode of Wits and Weights is a must-listen.

In summary, unlocking the secrets of your metabolism is not just about understanding calorie expenditure but also recognizing the role of your body's organs, muscle mass, and physical activity. By challenging misconceptions and embracing a personalized approach, you can harness the power of your metabolic powerhouse to support a fit and active lifestyle. With practical tips and resources at your disposal, you're well-equipped to embark on a successful fitness journey.

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📱 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

If you've ever felt like your metabolism is working against you, no matter what you do, or that you're destined to have a slow metabolism because of your age, genetics or hormones, this episode is for you. Today, I'm going to reveal 7 surprising facts about your basal metabolic rate, or BMR, that will completely change how you think about your metabolism and fat loss. When you understand these facts, you'll see that your metabolism isn't broken or mysterious. It's just a bit unique and, more importantly, you'll learn how to work with your body instead of against it. Understanding your BMR could mean less struggle with fitness and nutrition, because you'll be able to make informed decisions that align with your body's natural processes. So if you've been feeling frustrated with your progress, constantly trying new diets but not maintaining your results, or simply confused about what's going on with your metabolism, what I'm going to outline today will give you the clarity and understanding you're looking for. 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 diving deep into the world of your basal metabolic rate, or BMR, which is simply the energy your body burns just to keep you alive. It is part of your metabolism, but a big part of it. We're going to explore seven surprising facts about BMR that will change how you approach diet and fitness. From the range of normal BMRs what's considered normal to the truth about metabolic adaptation during weight or fat loss, we're going to uncover multiple facts about your metabolisms that you might not have been aware of to give you more confidence in what to do with your training and nutrition. Now I want to give a shout out to the team at Macrofactor for putting together the very in-depth series of 10 articles highlighting the latest research on this topic, which I borrowed from heavily for this episode, because they are among the best in the industry at examining metabolism science, and I've added a link to the article series in the show notes so you can go straight to the source. Speaking of Macrofactor, if you want to take the guesswork out of calculating your metabolism and tracking your calories and macros, I do highly recommend trying Macrofactor. It's the only food logging app that uses your actual nutrition and weight data over time to calculate your true maintenance calories not just an estimate, not just a calculator. It's based on your actual body's response, and then it makes personalized recommendations and you can try it for free for two weeks using my code wits and weights all one word wits and weights. Just click the link in the show notes or search for macro factor in your app store and again use my code wits and weights all one word.

Philip Pape: 2:50

All right, let's talk about the seven BMR facts that I wanted to pull out from those very in-depth articles, which are extremely detailed. They cover a lot of the science and background, and I wanted to pick just the things that really stuck out that I think confuse people or will clarify things for you. I learned a couple of interesting things in the process as well, which is always a lot of fun. The first fact is the wide range of what are considered normal BMRs. Actually, let me take a step back.

Philip Pape: 3:18

What is BMR? Basal metabolic rate is the energy or the calories that you burn every day just to keep yourself alive, and it represents usually roughly around two-thirds of all the calories you burn. The other calories you burn are from digestion and exercise and non-exercise, but we are focusing on the big piece of the pie called the BMR, which is usually what causes the confusion for people as to what is going on with my body. So let's start with a fact that might blow your mind maybe, and it's very surprising for a lot of people One in five people so that's 20% have a BMR below 1200 calories or above 2200 calories per day. Okay, so the range of what's considered normal is huge. It's much wider than most people realize, and that variation exists because of differences in body composition. That's a big one. We talk about it on this show all the time. With muscle mass, you take two people of the same weight, age, gender, height, and yet one burns a lot more calories than another. Sometimes it's simply a function of how much more muscle the other person has, but it's also due to differences in genetics and your overall health, and I'm just going to use that as a catch-all when it comes to lifestyle and all the things that could possibly affect your metabolism.

Philip Pape: 4:43

So this kind of one-size-fits-all approach to dieting, where you hear specific calorie targets or numbers that are generalized, even for similar body types, or even when you use a calculator online, that is fundamentally flawed. Even though we love to have targets and we love to have ranges, it's so wide it's almost useless when you just look at it. That way, your friend might be able to eat 2,000 calories a day and maintain their weight, while you might need to eat 1,600 or, on the other end, 2,400 to do the same, even if you're roughly the same size and everything else. And people are frustrated by this. They're like, well, why does so-and-so get to eat way more than I do? And if you understand that this variation exists in the first place, it means that you have to find what works for your unique body, right, not just following general guidelines or comparing yourself to others. So that's the first big one of how wide that ranges.

Philip Pape: 5:37

The second fact today is how your internal organs impact BMR. And here's another thing that might surprise you your high metabolic rate organs so that's your brain, liver, heart and kidneys account for over 50% of your BMR, but they only make up 5% of your body mass. That's incredible. They are very hungry. These organs are like the leads of your metabolic band, the lead singers in your metabolic band. You know they are screaming out and taking up all the attention and energy and asking for calories all day long. Okay, they just, they just don't stop.

Philip Pape: 6:19

And what's even more interesting is that small variations in that organ size between people can significantly affect your BMR. So, for example, two people weigh 165 pounds, right, and they both have 130 pounds of fat-free mass, but one of them has organs that are 20% larger than average and the other person has organs that are 20% smaller than average. Their BMRs could differ by about 230 calories per day, and that is a bigger difference than you'd see from gaining or losing over 20 pounds of muscle. So this highlights why BMR can vary so much between individuals, even when they have a similar size and body composition. So it really isn't just about muscle mass, even though we often oversimplify it to that. It is not. It also explains why the standard BMR prediction equations you find online can sometimes be off by quite a bit because of organ differences. Crazy, right. So that's the second fact to be aware of, and it's not much you could do about that, and that's okay, it's just awareness.

Philip Pape: 7:27

Number three, something called the allometric scaling of metabolism. Now you might think, okay, as people get bigger, their metabolic rate just increases proportionally or linearly. That's not quite how it works. In fact, I've talked about this a little bit on my scaling laws episode a while back. You can go to my podcast and search scaling laws. If you're not sure how to do that, reach out. Anyway, it doesn't increase linearly or proportionally just because you're bigger.

Philip Pape: 7:55

In reality, larger people have lower BMRs per pound or per kilogram than smaller people, and this is due to a principle called allometric scaling A-L-L-O metric allometric scaling, and allometric scaling describes how characteristics scale across organisms of different sizes. As organisms get larger, they tend to slow down. In relative terms, an elephant obviously has a higher BMR than a mouse, but per unit of body mass, the elephant's BMR is much, much lower. And this applies to us too, as humans. Right, the very largest human adults are more than five times larger than the very smallest human adults. So, just literally, body mass. This means that the linear equations, like the ones often used to estimate BMR, tend to overestimate BMR for particularly small people and underestimate it for very large people, and so if you understand this, it can help you set up more realistic expectations, right? A lot of times it comes down to just not expecting more than you can for your own size when it comes to your metabolic rate. So that's. Number three is that allometric scaling, understanding that so if you're very large or very small, this could affect you BMR.

Philip Pape: 9:12

Fact number four athletes.

Philip Pape: 9:14

Okay, athletes have what appears to be a secret metabolic advantage.

Philip Pape: 9:19

And what I would say is that if you think, okay, I'm not an athlete, tell me about athletes, but I'm not an athlete.

Philip Pape: 9:24

I want you to question that premise before I go on, because you can become an athlete, and I don't mean you compete in a sport or get paid professionally, I mean you train, you lift weights, you act like an athlete, you live like an athlete. In fact, that's something I encourage everyone to do on the show, it's something I strive to do, it's something anyone of any age, any gender, no matter where you are, no matter your injury history, can do. So just keep that in your head and this might motivate you then to get back to the gym, to go train, to step it up, to do what you maybe haven't been doing, and that's because athletes have higher BMRs than non-athletes, even when accounting for differences in body composition. So again, kind of like the Oregon fact, where it was above and beyond body composition differences, athletes also seem to have higher BMRs. And again, we're not talking about people born as an athlete, we're talking about people who act as athletes, something anyone can do.

Jenny: 10:16

Hi, my name is Jenny and I just wanted to say a big thank you to Philip Pape of Wits and Weights for the 15-minute rapid nutrition assessment he offers for free. During that session, I found he asked really good personal questions that helped him be able to give me excellent advice and tangible tools which I've applied, and since then I have lost 12 pounds where I was otherwise stuck. Now that I'm closer to my weight goals, I'm focusing more on my fitness and muscle and strength. So I just really want to say thanks, philip, for all of your encouragement and the free tools you offer, as well as the positive podcast message. It's really helped me.

Philip Pape: 11:00

So two people can have the same amount of muscle and fat, but if one is an athlete, they're likely to burn more calories at rest. And this is probably due to a few factors. First, athletes guess what tend to have larger organs, particularly the heart, to support their increased physical demand. So I was wrong earlier in the episode when I said you can't do anything about your organs, forgetting about the heart, because the more healthy you are, the bigger your heart is, therefore the more calories you can burn just from that. And I've always wondered why is it that people who train and build muscle seem to burn way more calories than you would expect, even for themselves, just from the muscle mass? Like if you just took muscle mass, you know roughly at most nine calories per extra pound of muscle mass per day. It's not much at all, and yet they burn way more than that. Is it just that they're burning more calories in general, or is it some of these other factors, like a bigger heart, because they're more healthy? Second, regular intense exercise itself, the training itself, movement training, lifting weights, sprinting, cardio, doesn't matter can lead to lasting metabolic adaptations. Okay, your body adapts to these things. You're doing that increase energy expenditure even when you rest and again, I'm not just talking about muscle mass You've become a person who your body expects to be athletic and to be moving and it craves all that energy all the time. So your energy expenditure is simply higher, even when you're resting. And then the really interesting part if that wasn't interesting already is, as I alluded to before, you don't have to be a professional athlete to see these benefits. Even recreational exercisers, trainers, you know, people who just occasionally, more than the average population, are active, tend to have higher BMRs than completely sedentary people. So if you're looking to boost your metabolism regular movement, regular exercise, especially strength training, because it combines a lot of these into one, one of the best things you can do it's not about burning calories to lose weight. It's really about increasing your energy flux and being a person who just needs and wants and craves that energy to be a thriving and active individual, which is a much more positive way to look at it in the relationship and context to food and protein and carbs and all the things BMR.

Philip Pape: 13:14

Fact number five and this is how BMR actually changes with age. You've probably heard that your metabolism slows down as you age, especially after 40, right, that's the big line. The truth, as always, is a bit more nuanced, because BMR does decrease with age, but it's very gradual through most of our adulthood. How gradual? Well, research shows that BMR decreases by about 1-2% per decade from your 20s to your 60s. So that's like 20 to 40 calories per decade, which is not exactly your metabolism dropping off a cliff, like many people are fearing. Now. This rate of decline does approximately double or triple beyond age 60. But even then, it's not as dramatic as it's often portrayed, because much of this decline is due to something you can control. It's due to the loss of muscle mass and decreased physical activity, not aging itself, and that's empowering. That means you have control over it. That's such a positive message. This means that by maintaining muscle mass through strength training and staying active, you can largely offset the age-related decline in your BMR. So if you're in your 40s or 50s or beyond and you're worried about your slowing metabolism, take heart, because your BMR likely hasn't changed as much as you think and you have a lot of control over keeping it high. All right, bmr.

Philip Pape: 14:38

Fact number six let's talk about metabolic adaptation. Okay, this is your body's protection mechanism, right? If you've ever been on a diet, if you've ever been in a calorie deficit of any level, you might notice that your loss in body mass, your weight loss, slows down over time. You tend to start to hit plateaus, or it gets harder even if you keep eating the same amount, and this is due to a phenomenon called metabolic adaptation, which we do talk about it a lot, but if you're new to the concept, it's simple During weight loss I should say more clearly, during a calorie deficit, which will induce weight loss, if you're truly in a calorie deficit though some people can be in a very slight calorie deficit and the weight loss is so slow it's unnoticeable.

Philip Pape: 15:20

During this calorie deficit or weight loss, your BMR decreases more than would be predicted based on changes in, say, body composition alone or even the weight loss itself and the adaptation. For most people it averages around 5% to 10%, and it's your body's way of conserving energy. Right, it's your body's way of conserving energy when it senses a shortage in resources coming in, and we know that this is temporary, it is largely temporary. It is caused by hormones such as thyroid. We've seen, we know studies that have compared, that have looked at thyroid production. You know TSH, t3, t4, and we see this almost immediate drop 5% or so, 6% I think was the average from the study and it kind of stays there at that level.

Philip Pape: 15:59

It's not like it keeps dropping while you continue to be in the deficit. Now maybe if you ramped up the deficit it would drop more. But let's say you're in a 500 calorie deficit and it drops by 5%. It's going to stay there for the next, say, 16 weeks of your fat loss phase and then once you return to maintenance calories and your weight stabilizes right, most of the metabolic adaptation reverses. You know, some studies do suggest that a very small amount let's say sub 5%, 3 to 5% might persist long-term after significant weight loss, might persist long-term after significant weight loss, but it's much less dramatic than many people fear and it's probably just the piece that's due to you weighing less. In other words, it's not really metabolic adaptation, it's just I mean it is, but it isn't right. It's you weigh less, your body just doesn't need to burn as many calories carrying around less weight. But the adaptation from hormones that was more dramatic during fat loss, that recovers and so if you understand metabolic adaptation, then again you can have realistic expectations.

Philip Pape: 16:56

During a dieting or a calorie deficit phase it's normal for the rate of loss to slow down over time unless you are tracking and aware of it and then adjusting your calorie intake to continue making progress. That's the key. We need to maintain the calorie deficit, not the calorie intake, right? Because if you just calculate your number at the beginning and you're at one calorie level and you eat 500 calories less than that, you might start losing weight at the beginning, but then it slows down because the actual calories you need are less due to this process. So you need to eat even less or do something else that bumps your metabolism up. So this doesn't mean your metabolism is broken or that you can't continue to lose more fat. I mean you can lose an incredible amount of fat if you are aware, if you're tracking and you're managing your lifestyle properly.

Philip Pape: 17:43

I help clients do it all the time. I can help you do it. If you want to reach out and you're like I don't buy it or I'm not sure, or my metabolism is so unique, I don't think this is going to work for me, it will, it will. I've seen every unique little corner, case and situation you can imagine and there's always a solution. It may be more creative and different than you think Right and that's part of my episode today is like. The awareness of it is step one, and then how to apply that to you specifically as step two.

Philip Pape: 18:09

All right, let's go to the seventh BMR fact I want to talk about, and this is related to women's health and PCOS. Pcos is polycystic ovary syndrome and you might have heard that PCOS lowers your BMR and that it makes it harder for women with PCOS to lose weight, and this comes primarily from a single study from 2009. But if we look at the totality of research on this topic, we find that PCOS doesn't appear to have a significant impact at all on BMR. The 2009 study that suggested otherwise had some methodological issues right, issues with its methods that likely lead to inaccurate results. All of this is explained in the detailed articles, so I you know again, shout out to Macrofactor if you want to go dig into that Now.

Philip Pape: 18:56

This doesn't mean that women with PCOS don't face challenges with managing their weight and their fat loss. They do, but they're more likely related to hormonal imbalances affecting hunger and fat storage you know, not a dramatically lower BMR and those can be controlled in some level via lifestyle, via how aggressively you diet, via taking breaks and going to maintenance and eating enough to recover and strength training, and on and on and on. You know more sleep, better stress and so on. So this fact again highlights the importance of you don't want to just cherry pick studies. You don't want to fear monger on one thing. You want to look at the broader body of research when you make any conclusion about health and metabolism. So those are the seven facts I wanted to share about your BMR.

Philip Pape: 19:40

But the most empowering thing about these is realizing that your metabolism isn't some mysterious force working against you. It is a complex, adaptive system and it's doing its best to keep you alive and functioning. So if you can work with your body's natural process, if you understand it and work with it instead of fighting against it, thinking that you have to force yourself to cut calories or do some crazy thing that doesn't feel right, then you can achieve better results, faster results, more sustainable, more efficient results in your fitness journey. All right, as we wrap up, I want you to remember that, even though we're talking a lot about BMR, it's definitely an important factor in your energy expenditure. It's just one piece of the puzzle.

Philip Pape: 20:23

The other pieces are your daily activities, your training and exercise and, of course, the food you eat, which all you know, like protein, which all play very critical roles in your body composition and, of course, in your health. In fact, I recently came out with an episode about carbs and I had people arguing that well, no, maybe carbs come into play with calories and expenditure, but not with health. In other words, you can eat too many carbs and it's bad for your health. And that kind of misinformation and nonsense is what I'm trying to eliminate when we have these discussions right, because a lot of it does come down to metabolism and energy balance and lifestyle. It never comes down to a specific food Again, unless you have an intolerance that you know about. But besides that, we can't generalize.

Philip Pape: 21:08

On the other hand, understanding your BMR is important because it helps you make more informed decisions about your diet and fitness routine, even though it doesn't define you. It doesn't define your potential for change. If you want to be an athlete, you can be an athlete and you can get the results you want. And then remember, if you want to take the guesswork out of calculating your metabolism and tracking your calories and macros, definitely give Macrofactor a try.

Philip Pape: 21:32

I created a free video showing you how to download and set it up for that initial maintenance phase so that you can calculate your starting calories and macros. So just click the link in the show notes for the video, or just grab the app off your app store and use my code WITSANDWEIGHTS all one word, but again you can watch the video, it'll walk you through. Or you could just go into it and have fun and use my code WITSANDWEIGHTS all one word to extend the free trial to give it a shot. Until next time, keep using your wits lifting those weights and remember that your metabolism isn't broken. It's just a bit unique for you and and I'll talk to you next time here on the Wits and Weights podcast.

Build an Aesthetic Physique Without Destroying Your Mental Health with Laurin Conlin | Ep 226

Do you feel trapped by obsessive dieting and constantly analyzing your body? Are you sacrificing your mental health in the pursuit of fitness goals? What if you could build an aesthetic physique without losing your peace of mind?

Philip (@witsandweights) takes us to the intersection of fitness and mental health with IFBB bikini pro and mental health advocate Laurin Conlin. They discuss how to break free from obsessive behaviors and anxiety around food and exercise, especially in the highly competitive world of physique sports. Laurin shares her journey and the mental costs of chasing the perfect body, offering practical strategies for overcoming food-related anxiety and adopting a more flexible, mentally healthy approach to fitness.

Laurin Conlin is an IFBB bikini pro, owner of Redefine Healthy Brands, and host of The LoCoFit Show podcast. She holds a Master’s in Exercise Science and is pursuing a Master’s in Clinical Mental Health Counseling. Laurin’s expertise bridges the gap between physical health and mental wellness, making her a unique voice in the fitness industry.

📱 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. https://witsandweights.com/free-call

Today, you’ll learn all about:

3:28 The shift from rigid to flexible dieting and its psychological impacts
6:52 Why food awareness is crucial but can become an obsession
10:01 How childhood behaviors shape our relationship with food
21:22 The mental toll of competitive physique sports
31:46 Why most people need more muscle before considering competitions
41:57 The balance between food awareness and obsession
49:33 Self-reflection and its role in sustainable fitness
54:44 Laurin’s plans to integrate fitness and mental health counseling
100:39 Where to find Laurin
101:53 Outro

Episode resources:

• Instagram: @laurinconlin

• YouTube: @LaurinConlin 

• Website: redefinehealthybrands.com

• The LoCoFit Show Podcast: redefinehealthybrands.com/podcasts

Episode summary:

Balancing fitness and mental health is a complex yet crucial endeavor, especially in the high-pressure world of bodybuilding and physique sports. In our latest podcast episode, we sit down with IFBB bikini pro and mental health advocate Laurin Conlin to explore this intricate balance. Laurin’s journey from a competitive athlete to a passionate spokesperson for mental wellness offers valuable insights into tackling the psychological challenges that accompany the pursuit of physical perfection. Her story underscores the importance of prioritizing mental health in the fitness journey, revealing how societal perceptions of mental well-being have evolved.

In the first segment of our conversation, we delve into the psychological costs associated with chasing the perfect body. The pressures of physique sports and the influence of social media can lead to food-related anxiety and obsessive behaviors. Laurin shares her experiences transitioning from a bikini pro to a mental health advocate and her ongoing pursuit of a master's in clinical mental health counseling. She provides practical advice for adopting a mentally healthier approach to fitness, helping individuals break free from the cycle of rigid dieting and disordered eating behaviors. The discussion highlights how mental well-being should take precedence over aesthetic goals.

As the conversation progresses, we explore the evolving landscape of mental health awareness and nutrition trends. The journey into nutritional research reveals how mindset plays a pivotal role in the success of dieting approaches. Even flexible dieting strategies can fall short without the right perspective. The impact of social media on fitness culture is examined, emphasizing the need for personalized coaching that addresses individual client needs and challenges. This segment provides valuable insights for anyone striving to find balance between nutrition and mental health, revealing that mindset often dictates the flexibility or rigidity of any diet plan.

The broader landscape of physique competitions, disordered eating, and body image challenges is examined in the next chapter. Laurin’s pursuit of a master's in clinical mental health counseling highlights the importance of bridging the gap between mental health and fitness. Reflective practices and self-awareness are emphasized as essential tools for personal growth. Meditation, often dismissed as "woo," is discussed as a potential game-changer, even for skeptics. This part of the episode is packed with insights and practical advice aimed at helping listeners cultivate a healthier relationship with fitness and nutrition, empowering them to make informed and sustainable changes.

Throughout the episode, we also explore the complexities of eating disorders, particularly in the context of bodybuilding. The conversation touches on internalized perceptions of body size, obsessive behaviors, and the rituals that can develop around eating and exercise. We discuss the prevalence of eating disorders among competitive physique athletes and how non-food-related issues often drive these behaviors. The need for better understanding and treatment strategies for eating disorders is highlighted, drawing from both personal and professional observations.

Understanding motivations in physique competitions is another key topic. The different mindsets and motivations of those interested in competing are categorized, emphasizing the importance of self-reflection and understanding personal motivations before entering this competitive space. The potential psychological impacts and the lack of barriers to entry are noted, with examples from Instagram fitness and professional athletes illustrating the unrealistic expectations that can arise. The significance of informed consent and realistic goals is stressed, encouraging listeners to assess how bodybuilding fits into their broader life context.

Navigating body image and competition mindsets presents its own set of challenges, particularly when working with older demographics. The importance of understanding client motivations and the risks of pursuing quick results, including the use of performance-enhancing drugs, is discussed. Long-term well-being is prioritized over short-term achievements, with a focus on building a solid foundation before considering competitive bodybuilding. Misconceptions about the sport are addressed, underscoring the need for thoughtful decision-making in health and fitness journeys.

Exploring food awareness and disordered eating reveals current trends in the health and wellness space, where tracking food and having physique-related goals are sometimes viewed as disordered. The intuitive eating and Health at Every Size movements are examined, highlighting potential misinterpretations or miscommunications, particularly on social media. The importance of food awareness is emphasized as a crucial component of overcoming unhealthy eating habits and achieving health and longevity. Misconceptions about dieting, such as the belief that intentional weight loss or calorie counting is ineffective, are addressed, stressing the need for a balanced approach that considers individual needs and goals.

Finally, the episode explores the importance of self-awareness and reflective practices in achieving long-term personal growth and behavioral change. The benefits of asking clients to reflect on their actions and experiences to uncover underlying triggers and patterns are discussed, emphasizing the value of consistent reflection through journaling or logging notes. The role of language in making reflective exercises more appealing to clients is highlighted, underscoring the crucial role of a coach in guiding clients toward greater self-awareness and sustainable change.

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Transcript

Philip Pape: 0:01

Let's say you've been obsessing over every gram of food, spending hours analyzing your physique in the mirror and even saying no to social plans because they might derail your diet, and you found yourself constantly anxious about food and exercise, even feeling trapped by the number on the scale. If so, this episode's for you. Today, we're going to explore how to build an aesthetic physique without destroying your mental health. As I sit down with IFBB bikini pro and mental health advocate, Laurin Conlon, we discuss the overlooked psychological costs of pursuing the perfect body, you'll discover how to break free from food-related anxiety, avoid obsessive behaviors and build an integrated approach to fitness that puts your well-being above all else. If you've been feeling trapped by rigid dieting or struggling with body image issues even if you've made progress, this episode will show you what you might be missing for a sustainable physique that you're mentally proud of. Welcome to Wits and Weights, the podcast that blends evidence and engineering to help you build smart, efficient systems to achieve your dream physique.

Philip Pape: 1:09

I'm your host, philip Pape, and today I'm sitting down with the incredible Laurin Conlin to explore that fine line between building an aesthetic physique and maintaining mental health. Laurin is the host of the LocoFit Show podcast, owner of Redefine Healthy Brands and an IFBB bikini pro. She has a master's in exercise science and is currently pursuing another master's in clinical mental health counseling. Laurin has the practical and the academic experience where fitness and mental health overlap. Today you'll learn about the mental costs of constantly striving for an aesthetic ideal, especially in physique, sports and Instagram fitness culture. Laurin is going to help us understand challenges like food-related anxiety, disordered eating behaviors and obsessive tendencies that can develop when aesthetics are prioritized over well-being. And stick around, because toward the end of the episode, Laurin will give you some first steps to finding a mentally healthier approach to your physique development.

Philip Pape: 2:08

Now, this has been recorded after we attempted to record three times and, due to tech issues, we finally got it right. So you're going to notice a few things at the beginning One that I am looking way up at above the camera if you're watching the video, which I corrected shortly later on, and then a few times where we joke about the fact that we had to re-record a few times and Laurin was awesome. I think you're going to love this episode regardless, so bear with us with the tech issues and dive right in and enjoy the show. Laurin, it's so great to have you. Welcome to the show.

Laurin Conlin: 2:38

I'm so happy to be here. And third time's the charm. We have had two tech issues.

Philip Pape: 2:44

Exactly Two tech issues. We're practicing our acting chops here.

Laurin Conlin: 2:47

Yeah, yeah, exactly, and really wanted to get warmed up for you guys and just really dive right into it. But no, thank you so much for having me on. I really really appreciate it and I'm super excited to dive into these topics.

Philip Pape: 2:57

Yeah, I'm excited too, because mental health is sometimes overlooked, often overlooked. There's such a spectrum of in dieting whether we're talking about macros or intuitive eating or the whole spectrum disordered behaviors and people doing things for an extreme or for a look or to go on Instagram or whatever. And you've had experience across that spectrum. Right, You've been a bikini pro, dieting down and going through all of that, and you've also been a coach who advocates for mental health and now you're going for that master's in mental health. So tell us a little bit about what took you to this point where mental health is so important, and then we can kind of dive in to help people understand it a little more.

Laurin Conlin: 3:37

Yeah, for sure, and it truly is one of those things where I feel like, even just 10 years ago, right, and that's always like my reference point, I don't know why, but 10 years ago, this magical time, whatever, yeah, 2014, yeah, yeah, seven and a half years ago, no, but like 10 years ago, like you were to say, mental health it would still not as popular as it is now.

Laurin Conlin: 3:58

Right, like now, like if I were talking to someone and I could say, hey, like I'm starting to notice some patterns or I'm starting to see X, y, z, and even just talking to people that I knew personally, right, having a therapist or going to therapy was not as common as it is now. Now I work with people who have either had a coach or a therapist or both, usually, like before they even get to me, right, so, like, the space is just very different and so I don't think that it's not quite as stigmatized. There are certainly certain populations where it is still more stigmatized than others. I don't want to make a blanket statement like that, but what's also happened in my mind is that a lot of people are like mental health is important, and then the conversation stops Like, okay, yay, everybody's aware now that it's important, but we're now just saying these things that really don't really mean a lot, because there's not any action or any help. Yeah, what do we do?

Philip Pape: 4:50

about it yeah.

Laurin Conlin: 4:51

Yeah, what are we going to do? Okay, yay, we know it's important. Okay, so now, what? Now what starts? What happens, you know, and that's really where I think not only the space in general needs to kind of pick that up, and therapists on the ground are certainly doing that right. It's not like they're not, I just think in societal sense, you know, we need to also understand, like, yeah, going to therapy is actually a lot of work and it's really important and we need to give people that time to do that.

Laurin Conlin: 5:15

And really, why I started to go down this path was so, back in 2014, I started my December 2nd 2014. Kidding, do your diary. I started my master's with Dr Bill Campbell's lab at USF and I wanted to do research on how different types of diets affect weight loss and weight regain. So I started looking at Because this was of personal interest to me as a coach and also as an athlete. I was competing at the time and so I was like you know, I'm seeing these things with myself, seeing these things with the same clients what's going on. This was also when ifom was very, very popular and starting to like really kick off, like in the space. Also when instagram was really like taking off for like fitness culture. So a lot of things were happening like all at once and it was absolutely one of those like right place, right time kind of moments. And thankfully I had dr campbell who was so gracious to be like sure, you can run this whole study. This sounds crazy, but go do it.

Laurin Conlin: 6:01

And so we did this 22-week study of a diet phase, of looking at a meal plan versus macros for a diet phase and then a post-diet follow-up, which was of utmost importance to me to look at does how we diet affect not just weight loss but weight regain? Because I was seeing that most of the issues were coming not from a diet but from the post-diet period with individuals. So we ran that study, we had some good findings and then really over the next few years I would say that I was able to continue to help people like learn about things, like tracking macros and being more flexible with that and kind of moving away from that like really really rigid mindset of like the meal plans and the really bad diet plans that were so rife that time, and especially with competitors. And what was interesting was that not just competitors were being put on these plans but like people who were reaching out to these big teams, like I want to look like this person. We're being put on the like three noodles and two prunes, you know meal plan bullshit. And I'm like this person isn't competing. You know what are they eating this? So we were coming out of that field like that space.

Laurin Conlin: 7:05

But then things started to change and then I started to notice that people really started having issues Like tracking was no longer the issue. They were able to understand that and do that. They learned this new technique, but now they couldn't stop, or now they didn't know what to do when they couldn't. Interesting, like well, this is really interesting because this is kind of the inverse of what I thought. But wow, this actually looks a lot like what I thought was rigid dieting, but this is supposed to be flexible. So then the whole construct kind of fell apart again and I was like all right, I need to start to figure out what is actually going on. And that's when I really realized that how we view food has nothing to do with the actual plan. It has to do with our mindset. Right, some plans inherently do have more flexibility than others, but our mindset around said plan is really what is flexible or rigid. And so this is kind of what really kicked off a lot of what I started to share in the space.

Laurin Conlin: 7:56

And again, this was at a time where now for a while, ifom was this kind of anti-movement to like the bro space, right, right, right, and really had to fight against all of that. But then it kind of got assimilated and everybody was like, yeah, yeah, tracking macros is the answer for everybody. Oh, my gosh. And then it was like hold on, no, that's not appropriate for everybody. You know what I mean. And then I started getting pushback for talking about let's not do this, like, let's add in more flexibility. And now it's like if you want to track anything now you have a disorder problem.

Laurin Conlin: 8:27

And it's like whoa, how, in the span of my 11 plus year career, have we seen all these evolutions? And it really is truly crazy and what it ultimately is doing is that it's just really not taking into consideration where is the client and where is the individual? How do we coach to them? Because I can't sit here and say one client is better than the other. It has to do with the client and where they're at. And that's really what my study taught me and also just working with a ton of people has taught me, but I think that we really lack that nuance in the space, especially right now. Good, oh my God, and it's just like horrible right now in the you know you mentioned, like the Instagram fitness culture, right? I mean that has completely changed everything and just the way information is disseminated is so different and how people perceive things and the clickbait and what you know is being driven to do well on social media is just really making a mockery of what people actually need.

Philip Pape: 9:20

Yeah, there's a lot to unpack there that I want to touch on. First, you mentioned how the conversation has shifted and this is a really good time in history to really take it to that level you're talking about. I was thinking we just watched the Olympics a short while ago the whole Simone Biles discussion about when she left in the last Olympics for mental health reasons, and even then it was a little bit taboo. It was a little bit taboo. And you go further back than that, right, and you look at anything from the 90s, for example, and you're like, wow, anything that's at all just getting into the realm of it's up here. The issues up here is how was highly stigmatized, you know. So that has shifted.

Philip Pape: 9:56

And then, like you said, the macros approach and the intuitive eating and it's like these camps whether you get down to the obvious camps like the keto versus bioenergetic versus this, none of those things are. The problem is what you're saying, like how it's communicated might be, but let's, I guess let's help people understand why. Like, what is the root cause going on here? You said individualization. We understand that. That's almost like the, I'll say, maybe part of the solution. How do we get back to understanding where this all comes from. Maybe we could do it by looking at how someone has gone through a journey and has harmed their mental health in pursuit of like a physical or the perfect body.

Laurin Conlin: 10:35

Well, I think, first and foremost and this is not to fault any one person, because we all fall into this camp we want easy answers. We want direct answers, right Like when we are dealing or struggling with a problem. I have this issue, I want it solved. Someone explains this to me in a way that seems really, really easy. They don't maybe know that that sounds too good to be true. It just sounds great. So why would they not go for that?

Laurin Conlin: 10:59

When you hear a lot of people who are more science communicators oftentimes there's a lot of nuance they say they take 10 minutes to answer something. They say a lot of words and everybody gets kind of annoyed by that, right. And then you have people who come up and they say hey, eat this, don't eat that. Oh, my gosh, simplifies it for me. Well, that's too simple. Now I'm not going to sit here and say that certain foods are not maybe better in larger quantities or smaller quantities than others. Of course they are, but it's just not ever as simple as saying do this, don't do that, and what that ultimately does is then, you know, some person will say oh, this one thing is really bad, and that's where we get into those camp you said, like the keto camp or the vegan camp or the carnivore camp. Then we get the camps and it's like then people are more confused than ever and they feel even farther away from their solution or their goal than ever. And when people feel too far away from something, they're less likely to actually start to engage in it. If the goal is too easy, people don't wanna engage because they're like this isn't really much different than what I have or what I'm doing, not really interested. If it's too far away their goal pursuit, they just are not very interested in doing that because it feels so large and looming. And that's not to say that we can't have large goals, but we need to have something that is hey, this is a little bit of a stretch for me right now, but it's not so far away from what I have that I can't foresee myself doing this. That's the big picture. But, like, how can I actually overcome this current hurdle and barrier right now?

Laurin Conlin: 12:25

Well, I think that, like, just largely, it's that human desire to have things be concrete and direct. And I also think that it's just a byproduct currently of just like our society and our world we have so much information at all times that people are getting so overwhelmed and people are just tired. Like, life is just hard. There's a lot of things at us all the time. People are busier than ever, and I don't think this is not a fault for anyone, right? Like, I totally understand where people are coming from. Like, I think of myself in other fields, right, financial stuff. I don't love learning about that, not really my jam to understand that kind of stuff, right? So if someone paints it really clearly and really easily for me, well, okay, that sounds pretty good to me, right, but then I have to go. Okay, is that the right answer? And thankfully, I have people in my life who help with that nuance, right, but not everybody has that.

Laurin Conlin: 13:14

So, when it comes to nutrition, when someone is trying to overcome a lifetime of, maybe, poor eating habits and poor mindset around food, they hear someone say, hey, don't eat oats, they're bad for you, but make sure that you eat all of this. Oh, okay, well, I just won't eat oatmeal anymore. Now, I'm healthy. And it's not because they don't want to take the time to look into it, it's just because that's what's there and that's what seems right.

Laurin Conlin: 13:35

So that's where we get the confusion. One person says oats are good, one person says oats are bad, another person says they're going to give you cancer, another person says eat in moderation. And then you're like well, what is happening? So I think that that's really where a lot of the current confusion is. And then, in terms of like people's food and like their view and mental health, in terms of seeking kind of you know, different physiques, right, I think that there are, well to go, a lot of different ways. So I'm like is there a specific direction you want me to go with that? Do we want to talk, maybe on like competitors or lifestyle.

Philip Pape: 14:09

Yeah, you know what? Why don't we do this? Because you mentioned, people have a lifetime of eating habits and mindset around food and I'm like maybe we start there because a lot of this does start with your childhood and how you're raised and how I mean I think I've heard you talk about as young as eight years old having dieting, restricting with your food, and I have daughters that are 10 and 12. And that's like a super important thing I need to be aware of. My wife talks about when she was young, being shamed for, you know, being a little bit heavier at a certain age. I mean, do you mind sharing maybe what you remember from that age personally, but also how common it is? Is it for those behaviors to start that young and how that leads to this? That where we are today?

Laurin Conlin: 14:47

For sure, and I don't want to overstep any, I guess, boundaries in terms of research, so I'm not super familiar with like ages and all that kind of things, like I don't want to say anything in that, but I'll share my experience and also, just, you know, working with a lot of families, especially moms, so I did start to have, you know, restrictive behaviors around eating very young, and this was not due to my parents. They were not saying, oh, you're this, they were giving no supplemental messages to that. So I want to make sure that that's clear. They were not doing that, thankfully. But it was one of these just internalized things that I felt that I was bigger than other people that were around me, which was actually false, which is the hilarious part of how our minds can work sometimes. Right, I was probably an average size in comparison to my friend groups, but I only looked at the people who were smaller and said I'm bigger, so I need to be smaller, right? You know how that works and it was just one of those things where I'm someone who is have a little bit more obsessive behaviors around things. I get very hyper, fixated on things, and so it was a also kind of became a game of like, let me just eat less and oh, I got smaller. Okay, cool, you know it's not a tape measure. Oh, I got smaller. Okay, let me try this again and let me do more. And then let me add in like activity and let me just like run Cause I like running, cause I did like, let me run a lot and let me do a bunch of sit-ups. Then it becomes like I can't leave the house until I do this many sit-ups. I can't eat unless I have this many water bottles I can't like. It became these weird rituals that I developed which is very common for a lot of people who struggle with this. So it was kind of a combination of things for me and you know, at the time it was a few years that it got pretty bad.

Laurin Conlin: 16:21

But then you know, my family my family, you know went to dietitians, went to a therapist. To be honest, I don't really remember a lot of those situations. I can kind of have a vague memory of the lady's office, but I don't really remember, and just remember the one thing the dietitian was asking about, you know, fruits and vegetables that I eat and whatever. And I remember telling her there was this yogurt that I would eat that, you know, and like the yogurts have, like the old yogurts had like the little pieces of fruit, I was like, yeah, I have that in there. And she was like that doesn't count. And I just remember that being like a funny thing. But like now I like think back on but I just, I mean, I became so obsessed. I still to this day know food labels, like I can't remember what I did yesterday, but I know food labels that I haven't eaten in years, you know.

Laurin Conlin: 16:58

So it just became this very interesting thing, thing for me and thankfully I was able to get help and move past that and view food in a healthy way.

Laurin Conlin: 17:06

But it was once I decided, hey, I want to do bodybuilding. I was only a few years removed from being anorexic and also having this exercise kind of bullshit, which I wasn't necessarily diagnosed with but definitely qualified, and I was like, no, no, no, I'm not starving myself, I have to still have some muscles, I can't just not eat at all. And everybody was like, okay, kind of a little worried, but it actually, you know, it definitely, more definitely had its periods, right, it's had its up and down moments, but it never restarted those, never restarted any kind of anorexic tendencies for me, thankfully. But there are a lot of people who get into competitive physique sports who have had a history of eating disorders or disordered eating, I mean the. The prevalence of that is, and I don't know the exact stat off the top of my head, but it is a very, very high number of individuals and it makes sense who's drawn to these types of things, right?

Philip Pape: 17:54

Is it because they're already doing it and or it just aligns with what they're doing, like to some extreme?

Laurin Conlin: 18:00

It kind of a lot of people and and the thing, eating disorders are tough because they are very misunderstood by a lot of people and it's really hard to really classify everyone and say everybody here, this who falls under, like this got it, there's nuance, like so, so tough, like why is someone dealing with this? Right? And I would say that in my experience and maybe this will change but at this current moment, september 20th, I truthfully believe that most eating disorders are stemming from non-food related issues and a lot of people are using food in a way, and for some people it is control, right. You always hear oh, anorexics are, you know, they have a lot of control issues and they're perfectionists and they have all these tendencies. There's another theory that it could be well. They are also typically very conscientious and have a higher level of disgust, sensitivity and disgust towards themselves. So a lot of times it's people who are really struggling internally, who don't know how to express that. So they turn to controlling their own environment and just trying to get smaller and smaller and smaller. And then you know there's also, of course, binge eating disorder and bulimia and a lot of times that is.

Laurin Conlin: 19:10

You know, I've worked with people who they've had that and you know they're working with me now not in an active phase by any means, but you know they are struggling with just emotions in general and they're using things like food and alcohol to cope, which then you're like, okay, well, is this now co-occurring with a substance issue?

Laurin Conlin: 19:26

For some people it is, other people it's not right. So it's so complicated and right now the current strategies are some are good, but I have worked with many people who have gone to different clinics or different specialty programs and some of the stuff that I'm hearing. I'm like, yeah, I really want to change this. I'm really hoping I can actually get into that once I'm practicing to actually maybe help make some adjustments to that for sure. But I would just say in general that people who are a little bit more extreme are drawn to body building, and people who, of course, have an extreme interest in what they look like and what they're eating or not eating are also drawn to body building. I would say that it also draws on people who not all, and when people have worth issues or self-confidence issues, they decide to maybe do this and they think, oh, this would be great. I'm really putting myself out there and challenging myself.

Philip Pape: 20:15

As a goal to hit as a drive-on, right.

Laurin Conlin: 20:18

I can't think of the worst thing to do and not to say that you shouldn't do it, but I'm very, very big on we need to be aware of what is happening, right. The one thing that is really tragic about physique sports is that it often gets glamorized, especially in the bikini division and especially in the men's physique division, sometimes classic, but I would say you know, mostly those are kind of the divisions, right. Most people are not waking up and saying, oh, I'm just gonna look like mr olympia, we're a female bodybuilder.

Philip Pape: 20:51

It's not accessible.

Laurin Conlin: 20:52

Yeah not really accessible to most people. But oh, those bikini girls. They look pretty normal, normal, whatever that means. Right, try to use the language that people use. It's not, and what has happened is that what looks to be like a normal size physique, what looks really glitzy and really glam and really fun, it has a lot of hormonal and metabolic and mental side effects. And that does not mean that nobody should do it. That does not mean that it's bodybuilding's fault. I'm very big on that. There's a lot of people who like to blame the physique world and the whole. No, it's not. It's just a byproduct of it.

Laurin Conlin: 21:29

And problem is you're dealing with a subjective judging for something that you've put a lot of objective time into improving, and what people think is that, oh well, I've worked really hard, I've been really hungry and I've been dedicated to this like I should do well. There is no reason that you should do well because you don't know who else is showing up. You don't know what other physiques are there. It's not like, if I do this, I'm gonna get. You know, I'm running this race and I'm gonna get faster. Right, I got faster, I did better, yay, that's not how it works. You could literally look significantly better your next season and place worse.

Philip Pape: 22:09

Yeah, depending on the competition and the judges.

Laurin Conlin: 22:10

Yeah, so, and that is just. I grew up riding horses and showing competitively, which was all subjective, very subjective. Of course there are certain ground rules you know you have, just like bodybuilding, right, like there are certain things that they're looking for, but it's very subjective and I was accustomed to that, I think, from a young age, and so it's not that I didn't struggle with that bodybuilding, but I think I struggle a little less than other people because of that, because I knew, like this is just kind of how those sports go, but a lot of people get into it and they don't realize that. And then what happens is there's always the next thing, right, it's this very strange thing that sucks you in, and I don't know all the exact mechanisms. Obviously, dopamine isn't right here, of course. It just kind of runs our life in general. But basically you work really, really hard, you are really dieted down. You've said no to a million things in your life. You get down to it, and then you feel amazing, and then you don't play straight ball, you get overlooked, you barely even get noticed, and then you're like, oh my God, what do I do? Should I do another show? Another show seems like the answer, because there's always. Well, you're just right there. Right, there's always. You just get a little leaner, just get a little of this. There's always that.

Laurin Conlin: 23:24

So then what happens is people do another show and then becomes this much more narrow focus of like I have to compete and like do better. And it's really, really tough to see that and I've seen it happen to people and it's really hard because, like anything in life, someone has to like recognize that that's what's happening and they have to want to not be doing those things right. But you see a lot of people following that way and I would say that most of the time just becomes this kind of like hole that you almost like can't dig yourself out of, kind of like almost it's not like an addiction. I don't want to say that it's like, oh, it's like an addiction, but you know it could be likened to that. I would say it can follow along the lines of a behavioral addiction, almost right, and it's so niche that we're never, probably ever, going to get data on this, ever say, like what's actually going on, because there's way bigger fish to fry in the world and I know that, for you know, research and funding and all of that.

Laurin Conlin: 24:16

There's some people who do stuff like this. You know, dr campbell, of course, focuses on physique enhancement. You know, people like dr eric helms focus on things like that as well. So there's a lot of people who are interested in these kinds of things. But it is a very unique subset of things. That happens because it's not just the physiological stuff, it's also the psychological stuff.

Laurin Conlin: 24:34

And then you have this. There's always this like power differential, of like you're being judged by someone and you need to like improve and do better here, you know. So there's always like I'm playing catch up, almost because I have to. You know, like does that make sense? It's really insidious for a lot of people, especially if they're not prepared. And that's where it's when people who decide that they want to compete and they want to turn pro and they fully understand all this like I'm so in it, I'm going to push you as hard as you want. But people are like yeah, I just want to do a bucket list thing, maybe do a show. How about we just get pretty lean, lean and like maybe do a photo shoot, see how you feel before we like enter this like danger zone?

Philip Pape: 25:16

That's a totally different level of leanness. Yeah, so I want to pull on that string. I almost think of like three buckets of people. You have those who are ready for it mentally ready it could be a lot of fun, really no concerns from your perspective. Mental, you know, from a mental health perspective. Then you have people like you said, or a casual maybe they also don't have any issues going on, but they're also not right for it because they're doing it for the wrong reasons. And then you have people who are not ready for it.

Philip Pape: 25:37

Now, obviously, the scope of this show and the scope of my practice is not medical, dealing with eating disorders or any of that. We're not trying to diagnose or help anybody with that specifically on this show. But we do want people to be aware from a self-reflective perspective where they might fall on the spectrum. And so you talked about something like informed consent for people who want to get into bodybuilding and physique sports to understand the risks. Can we bucketize it that way and help people understand like, yes, if you're in this category, you could be ready, or if not, here's some warning or red flags.

Laurin Conlin: 26:10

Yeah, I always just like to ask. When I get a new client who wants to get on a call to work with me and they say that they're interested in competing, my first question is always right what is the reason that's?

Philip Pape: 26:21

a good first question for anything we pursue in life, isn't it yes?

Laurin Conlin: 26:26

And it's not to be judgmental, it's not to be any of those but I really need to understand what are the motivations behind you competing this year? Right, and for some people they've never competed. So that's really the main group that I'm trying to like understand, right, see if they really get a grasp of that. Someone's competed before. Generally they already, even if they've done one show, kind of have an idea, right. But when someone's never done something and they've only to your term, probably, like Instagram fitness, they've only followed people on Instagram or YouTube and they've seen show day vlog and you know all this stuff. And you see the top few Olympians, like they look great all year and that's what they're doing.

Philip Pape: 27:00

Like it's amazing, like especially bikini. It's so sparkly and like, yeah, you're right, the glitz and glam, the lighting, everything yeah.

Laurin Conlin: 27:07

Yeah, and for a handful of those top girls like that is their life and that's amazing, like I'm so happy for them, you know. But we have to put into perspective that that's not most people and I think what's hard is that you brought up Simone Biles earlier. I know there's not many adult gymnasts so maybe it's not a great example now, but most people don't watch the Olympics and are like I'm going to, I'm someone bios. Most people aren't playing recreational basketball and they're like I'm going to join the NBA. We kind of have these understandings that we're not going to do that most likely. But with bodybuilding there's no barrier to entry. Anybody can join as long as you could pay, and it's just like well, maybe I can and some people can. That's the thing. Some people can, some people.

Laurin Conlin: 27:51

I've worked with people who have literally trained weights for a few years, like lifted weights just for a few years, and you're like and you know they're older and you're like how do you have this physique? Oh, my gosh, this is amazing. You have all this potential. You have the perfect structure. You have all this. No, you can't start at any point, but to have this like overly romanticized idea about it, like right now, you know I have posing clients that I work with too, who aren't necessarily my actual clients, and you know it's so common when you know we're practicing posing, you're just so tired, just like whatever. And I was talking to my one girl and you know she's competed before so she knows what this feels like. But she also has a business to run and I'm like, hey, just a reminder. You were because I was like hey, are you gonna do another show or you're just doing this one. She's like I don't know, just really really run down, like this is a reminder that this is, you're doing this for fun. You're doing this as something as a learning experience. You wanted to beat your last season, which you already have with your current physique, but you have other responsibilities. So it's okay if you only want to do one show and remember that. You know, and it's.

Laurin Conlin: 28:50

I think it's just an important conversation that we have with ourselves of how much is this impacting my life. You know my career, my finances. You know people I work with a lot of people who have kids. You know like there's a lot of different factors that we have to like weave into this right, and how important are those? So I would say what are the motivations behind the key to, and based on what someone says, I will kind of start to gear the conversation maybe in a different way, and especially for a new person. Most new people and this is going to generalize, but majority of new clients are not going to have enough new to bodybuilding are not going to have enough muscle to compete. They're just not. That's important.

Laurin Conlin: 29:27

If you want to compete, we can get on stage, probably this time next year. How does that sound? They're like oh my God, what. And I'm like yeah, you said you really wanted to do this. How does that sound? They're like well, I was told I could do it.

Laurin Conlin: 29:40

You know, 10 week prep or 12 week prep. Okay, you could, we could diet down your current physique. 12 weeks is it's probably not long enough, but we could. And you're not going to have enough muscle and you're probably just going to get kind of thin and not really have the shape that you're looking for. And to get that lean in 12 weeks we're going to have to do some stuff that probably isn't super great for you long-term and then you're going to probably be in a worse spot three months later after the show. So if that's something that you want to do, I'm not the coach, but go ahead. And that's always kind of that litmus test and I always say, hey, it could be less than a year, that would be amazing, but we need at least a few months to build and at least a few months to diet and realistically that's going to be about a year.

Laurin Conlin: 30:20

You know, unless someone has. Maybe they've already competed and they've taken a bunch of time off and they've just kind of been like, you know, they've been on like maintenance mode, right, like I've even thought about maybe I'll compete next year. I'm so crazy. But yeah, back in school before I do my practicums, like why did I do this? Yeah, I'm like, well, I've been in maintenance mode for a long time, you know, and but I know that once I started actually training hard again, that's a different story. You know what I mean. It's not like I've not been doing this.

Heather: 30:46

Hello, my name is Heather and I am a client of Philip Pace.

Heather: 30:49

Just six days after I started this cut, my family and I were in a 7.9 magnitude earthquake here in Adana, turkey.

Heather: 30:56

As I tried to process the stress and trauma, my first instinct was to say, oh, you've been through something hard, this is not a good time. But instead I reached out to my coach and he got me under the bar that day and he helped me keep my macros that day, and not only did I realize that I was doing something fantastic for my body, but I realized that I was doing something fantastic for my mind and that it was going to help me keep the mental clarity that I was going to need to get my family through what really has been a very difficult two months. Here I am on the other side of eight weeks, got my kids through all the things that we have been through, and I weigh 12 pounds less than I did, and I got a new PR on my bench press. I have a long way to go and there are still things that I really want to accomplish, but now I know that I can and I'm really grateful. Thank you, philip no-transcript.

Philip Pape: 32:20

Listeners listen closely.

Philip Pape: 32:21

That's most people listening probably.

Laurin Conlin: 32:23

It's most people. I rarely at this point and it's probably also like at this point. Like I, you know, I'm getting older, so the people who I work with are also getting older too. I don't really usually have people who are like 18 reaching out to me to work with me. Not really like my target demo, you know anymore. So when I'm working with you know a 45 year old mom she has in that case, had kids, so possibly had kids has most likely been through multiple diets, if not years and years of dieting. May or may not have competed right.

Laurin Conlin: 32:51

So we have all of these different things coming at us in terms of we have the previous experiences and mindsets from, maybe, coaches that they've had plans that they've followed and then also just like their own perceptions too, and then everything else. So we can't just say like, yeah, you're going to be ready for 12 weeks and you would think that that kind of stuff would go away, but it hasn't, because there's still people who like prey on that and they're like, no, I can get you ready. And then again people's perceptions and they have there are a lot of coaches that prey on that. I can't stand people who just haven't, haven't really seen. I'm like actually just go to a show and also this is another part and a half people who've never competed and I'm like no-transcript. Think, if people are interested in this kind of thing, that we have to really understand their motivations and we have to understand are they willing to look at the big picture? Because I'm not interested at this point to work with people. If they're going to come out of working with me and be worse, like that is like, of course, opposite of my. It doesn't matter to me if I never work with someone again for a pro card or this. That's an added amazing bonus. Yay, but that's never my goal or my intention.

Laurin Conlin: 34:19

How can I leave someone better? And that doesn't mean that competing is ever easy. So I do want to make sure that that's clear. It doesn't matter how great the approach is, whether it's me or any of the other coaches that I know who are fantastic at this. It doesn't matter how great the approach is, whether it's me or any of the other coaches that I know who are fantastic at this. It doesn't make the process any easier. It doesn't make the physiological adaptations any easier. It doesn't make the psychological adaptations easier. It might make it a little better, but it's still just going to be really hard. You can have the best coach in the world and, as a female, if you're getting a 10% body fat, you're not going to feel okay. Things are going to get a little weird for a little while. Right, just how it's going to happen.

Laurin Conlin: 34:54

But how are we keeping someone in this for too long? Are we not paying attention to, maybe, some of the signs and symptoms that they are falling into a not so great place? Right, either mentally or physically? Like, do we need to pull out of prep? Like, there's a lot of different things here that I think some coaches are not focusing on. Thankfully, there are so many amazing coaches now who are interested in this kind of stuff, and I mean, I know so many of them. So it's like there is just a plethora of not great practices that are happening. And then, of course, add in, you know, peds, if someone wants to do that which, again, totally like, that is your choice, your perspective, but it can be very, very short sighted for some people. I think that if someone wants to do that, my personal opinion would be try to do this, naturally, at least for a season, or at least for some period of time to see what you can actually do.

Philip Pape: 35:46

Yeah, I think that's great. Put on the training wheels right and just try to get lean in general and don't worry about all the specific stuff, which is a whole extra layer. Yeah, yeah.

Laurin Conlin: 35:54

Let's not even dabble in that, because you might find that you did a show and you're like I never want to do this ever again, and this is so like just not in congruency with my life. And now you've realized that, like you've taken all of these drugs that could have long-term side effects that people don't like to talk about and I'm not an expert in that, so I'm not going to speak on it, but I do know that there are many things that people take that can affect one long-term. So it's not just like an easy thing to be like, yeah, well, I'm just going to just add that into it. It'll make it easier, yes, in the short term, but you really need to know am I doing this for the long term? If I'm working with a client who has been doing this for several years and they want to then add that in, that is their prerogative, that's their decision.

Laurin Conlin: 36:36

This is not a quick rush to do something like that, and I think that it's really important to also have that discussion with people. But it's kind of this. You know, I think we've made huge strides in the space, but there is still that mindset of like, oh, if you're doing a bodybuilding show like you just have to take drugs and diet, you know, and eat boiled chicken. It's like no, that's through the whole other world.

Philip Pape: 36:58

Yeah yeah, yeah, no, I guess people listening I don't know how many are interested in competing, but a lot of what you're talking about and the principles apply anyway universally.

Philip Pape: 37:08

I mean one thing you mentioned just kind of quickly, but it is important and we love talking about it here is spending some time building muscle first, no matter what, and the vast majority of my female clients I don't do shows or anything, I don't have that experience I gently try to nudge them toward, you know, their own realization that they might really enjoy the process of adding muscle.

Philip Pape: 37:28

And, by the way, you know, look at somebody like Laurin Collins, super strong, you know or Steph Gaudreau, or you know all these in the space you feel great, you eat a lot, right, there's so many like positives, and then it gives you a better base to go from that and then be a very informed like we talked about informed consent, but that could simply be even just lifestyle, lean kind of.

Philip Pape: 37:45

Look at the process that's involved. And, like you said, there's a dieting piece, right, there's a fat loss phase here at some point. And so, if we want to then segue into the mental side of like, where's that line between food awareness and food obsession? Because you and I, either on the first, second attempt or this attempt at recording this podcast early on, so I don't know if the listener heard this. You were kind of talking about that spectrum and the history of like. If it fits your macros to where we are today, we don't have to repeat all that, but basically like, where's that line so that we can have a healthier relationship with food, especially with the history that many people have?

Laurin Conlin: 38:20

I think it was second one, but I'm not sure I know either way, currently there is this new trend I would say it not new, but newer where, again, this is not everybody in the space, but there is a handful of people in the space who are basically saying that if you're tracking any of your food, that it's disorder. Having any kind of physique related goals is disordered in nature and essentially it seems to me like it's the intuitive eating and health at every size. Movement has degenerated, not for everybody, but for some individuals, and how they're sharing their message. They're saying you know, this is a disorder, this is bad for you. You should just be able to eat whatever you want and really just honor that and this and that. And my biggest beef with this is that Pun intended, sorry. Yeah, my biggest beef with this is that most of the people that I've seen sharing these messages the irony is not lost on me that they all have years and years and years of experience tracking their food and being aware of their food and anyone who has ever gone through a period of tracking food. I'm not even talking about weighing it out, I'm just talking about anything like any awareness of food that sticks with you. You don't lose that right. So it's not lost on me that a lot of the people who have all this knowledge are now the ones saying just don't do this at all, but that's really unfair to the person who.

Laurin Conlin: 39:44

Taking it all the way back to the beginning of this episode, these habits and behaviors start early in our life, right, I didn't grow up, I grew up with, clearly, an eating disorder, so my experience was a little different than most people. But let's take the example of someone who grows up in a family who doesn't know about the constituents of healthy eating. They're relying on fast food and convenience foods, and that is how they grew up. That is all that they know, right? So for them to try to overcome those habits and behaviors, they're going to have to learn quite a bit of knowledge around food and what's in that and portions, and so for us to just say to that person you know, just eat whatever you want, just eat what makes you feel good, is really harmful messaging, in my opinion. Do I think that everybody can get to a space where they're intuitive? I call it intuitive-ish. Yeah, I like that Intuitive-ish. I think that that is absolutely appropriate for most people.

Laurin Conlin: 40:43

I am not sitting here tracking my macros. There's no point in me doing that now right For my life, my goals? I don't do that. But, as we've discussed for the past, since I was eight years old, I've had an awareness of what's in food. I haven't lost that. I still meal prep, I still portion foods out. I still know wow, I was kind of low on this today. Maybe I should have a protein shake. Wow, I missed this meal. It's just, and it's not an obsession, it's just a it's awareness. Okay, this is awareness of what is allowing me to be a healthy, optimal, functioning person. Right and physique aside, health. Eating certain ways influences our health directly. Like there's like, no, there's quite literally zero debate on that. So I think there's a lot of principles about intuitive eating that I appreciate and that I like, but I think that a lot of people in the social media space have created this conversation around diets don't work. That's my favorite one. Intentional weight loss doesn't work, not true?

Philip Pape: 41:36

Energy balance doesn't work. Calories in, calories out doesn't work. Intentional dieting works.

Laurin Conlin: 41:43

What didn't work was how that diet was approached and what we did before that diet and what we did after that diet. So that's what we need to change. It's not that calorie deficits are really bad for us. It's that, and actually quite the contrary. But that's a whole different segment, so I'm not going to get into that.

Philip Pape: 41:57

And whether the diet's even the diet for you. Yeah, exactly.

Laurin Conlin: 42:01

So all diets are bad. Any tracking and it's so funny because at the start of my career it was okay, oh, like, were you know any kind of flexibility with diets and food choices was looked at like a monster, like, oh my gosh, like going against the bro diets and you know all of the books that you have, all the diets that everybody you know, magazines, all that kind of stuff, right, like having any kind of flexibility, you can eat whatever you want, just measure it out. That was like this whole big thing and then, like we talked about kind of in the beginning, then I started to realize, well, that actually kind of does have some of the problems, not because of the diet, but because of people's mindset around it. And then now we're at this weird space too. So I feel like it's just like it's continued to and I think that it's just a byproduct of social media and how we said.

Laurin Conlin: 42:45

You know, I think a lot of times people want quick answers, so we want things that are very concrete. This is good, this is bad. It rarely is that what is helpful. So food awareness, I think, is something that is incredibly important, and this again is irrespective of your physique goals, obviously, if you're more specific physique goals, you need more good awareness. That's pretty obvious. But I think that even just having a healthy body and focusing on our health and longevity, having food awareness is incredibly important for that as well. So all of those things Now, food obsession can certainly happen.

Laurin Conlin: 43:22

And why does that happen? Kind of alluded to and this is again not just categorized, diagnosed eating disorders, because a lot more people fall into disordered eating, which is kind of this big broad umbrella term. It's kind of like when you have stomach pain, you go to the doctor like you have IBS and you're like thanks, appreciate it. Or with women, they're like we don't really know. Hey, you're like cool, that really didn't help at all. So, and also, you're too young for it to be hormones. Sorry, yeah, oh no, you look fine. Why do you get your? Okay, yeah, that's totally how it works, right, but so with see, now I got you, I'm trying.

Philip Pape: 43:58

No, no, it's okay yeah, with disordered eating.

Laurin Conlin: 44:02

What does that mean it? Right, like I don't even know if anybody has it a perfect characterization of what that is, but let's just say food obsession, right. And the common thing that I see with clients so we'll speak on that is when people who have learned about tracking macros and have really been able to integrate that now no longer can not track, right, they feel like everything falls apart. When they can't, they're dependent on it. Yeah, everything falls apart. When they can't, they're dependent on it. Yeah, okay, they become dependent on the three numbers and not the food. And this is really where I started to see some of the issues, because I'm like, okay, this doesn't make sense. The people who have allegedly the most food experience right, because they've been weighing their foods, they've been doing all this stuff they should be able to now eyeball these things pretty easily. Why is this not happening?

Laurin Conlin: 44:52

And there is this connection for a multitude of reasons. It could be a control thing, it could be. Everything in my life is like falling apart. I just really want to be able to focus on this, or it becomes something just don't trust themselves, right, maybe they were overweight before and finally they found something that like makes them feel good and they're like I want to stick to this, like I want to clutch to this so tightly. I never want to go back to where I was before I can understand that.

Laurin Conlin: 45:07

Right, there's also just people who just like their personality, right, they're very whether it's okay or conscientious, or meticulous, like they, just that suits them. So for me to tell someone who's very, very numbers based, yeah, we'll just like, eat whatever you want. They're like meltdown ensues, like what is happening. So again, that's where we have to say what are personality traits. But then also it could just be like an emotional reaction, right, like I am trying to suppress other emotions, so I'm using you know, now I'm having these issues with food and it's not just a tracking thing. This could also now be like food obsessions could be, you know, insert x, food right. Or just always constantly having this food noise, or always wanting something new, or feeling like they have to snack, like whenever someone says I feel like I have to do this, I have to do X you know right, and maybe even it goes beyond.

Philip Pape: 45:52

Food is almost what you're implying, and it's not the food, yeah.

Laurin Conlin: 45:56

It's never really like the food. Well, once this happens, then everything kind of falls apart. Okay, well, food is the outcome, but that's not really the driving factor and you driving factor. And I will say that as coaches, it's not necessarily our goal to figure those things out. We can help highlight that for clients because that work needs to be done anyway. That needs to become conscious for people.

Laurin Conlin: 46:18

A lot of times food issues are subconscious For most individuals. They've operated with that for so long and they have no reason. They're not really thinking about why that's happening until they really really reflect on it. And then they're like wow, okay, because of this one situation, like for a whole life. This is how I've viewed things. Or you know another really common one when people go to events and they're not able to like say no to certain foods, right, it's really easy to be like, just say no. What's so hard about that? And I definitely took that stance for a really long time Like just develop the skills to like say no, and for some people that is appropriate. That is what they need, because they've never done that before and they need to learn.

Philip Pape: 46:56

Yes, a strategy to process and move forward. Yes, not even necessarily need to unravel the root cause in that context. Sometimes you do, sometimes you don't do.

Laurin Conlin: 47:08

Sometimes you don't, yep, and then other people there's a lot more there as to why that's happening, right, and then. So that's where we again have to say, okay, maybe. Hey, now I'm going into territory where this isn't necessarily like my scope any longer, right, and I often get this question because I do talk about mental health. You know quite a bit. I have for several years. A lot of coaches are like well, how do I know, or am I always going to know? You don't always know right away, right, if you are working with someone, you might not know and they might not know either, right. And then also things change. Things change people's lives, where then events happen. And then they're like oh my gosh, now this got uncovered and I didn't even know this was here and now, because of this event, then this happened and now we're dealing with this thing, right, so coaching is very dynamic and that's why I think it's so frustrating that people try to make it so straightforward. It's oversimplify, yep, yep, yeah. And it's like why are we trying to oversimplify something that is complicated and doesn't need to be complicated, because we're trying to confuse people, but it needs to be complicated so that we are taking in the entire person and what is going on in their life and really take a holistic approach. I know that word misused sometimes, so I'm like I need a better word, but I think it's coming around in a more positive light again, so I'm going to stick with it.

Laurin Conlin: 48:18

So people can develop food obsessions for a lot of different reasons and I think, as someone who you know say, if any coach is listening right, you're going to want to start to look for changes in language around some of the things that they're sharing with you. That's usually my first indicator is, and that you know that starts with you need to make sure you're asking the right questions, you know, to your clients. But then if you start to notice that they're maybe sharing some language that isn't normal, or they're just sharing, they're really carping on certain things. They're like they brought this up like three times in the past two weeks Like that's not normal for them. You know, because if someone has an off week, you don't need to jump on their throat.

Laurin Conlin: 48:55

Do you have an eating disorder? Like you know, we don't need to like over catastrophize either, right? So sometimes it's like, hey, somebody had an off week just not feeling it, or this is coming on, but I take it out of it After a few weeks kind of been seeing this trend. Just want to put that out there. How are you feeling about it? Do you notice this Right? One of my favorite things to do with clients and sometimes I like this, sometimes I don't is I need you to reflect on X, y, z and then get back to me next week with your responses, right, yeah, yeah On the head.

Philip Pape: 49:24

It resonated with that so hard.

Laurin Conlin: 49:26

And because I'm not going to put words in your mouth because I really don't know what's going on. You know yourself better than the coach does. Yeah, and this is where you know some people don't like that coaching approach. Other people do. I feel like it is the best for the long-term change, and not just the coaches, I mean, the clients don't like that. Just tell them what I will gotta do the tape. So sometimes I'll be like, hey, yeah, these are some things we gotta do. There's some things we gotta not do. This is something that I don't know currently.

Laurin Conlin: 49:56

Like I use that example of you know, like a holiday, like you know a day off and you know party or whatever and this food, and I just you know I couldn't stay on traffic. And then I'm just like, well, that could be 57 different things. I'm getting a little feedback from you as to eternally why that happened, right. And then you know, usually when people do that, they're like, oh my gosh, I didn't even realize, like what. I really sat down and thought about it. Like I really didn't even realize, like this is actually what that was. And it's not always going to be that easy, right, sometimes it's going to be like months of trying to figure that out with a client Especially if there are multiple triggers, you know that they're sensitive to.

Laurin Conlin: 50:27

Exactly. And again, people have a lot of shit going on, so it's not like everybody. It's just, like you know, we're not working with clients who generally have like ample time to be sitting around and doing this, but this is really important work and that's how we always tie it back Like listen, I don't want you to keep falling into these patterns. So we need to start to look at this and for anyone anyone listening, who's not a coach, who's just doing this on their own and they're like well, maybe I feel like I'm kind of being pulled towards that that's where just any kind of reflective exercise is so important and anytime you kind of notice something you know be like okay, well, that was maybe not characteristic of me, right?

Laurin Conlin: 51:00

I haven't done that before I didn't act like that. Just take note of it. That happens again. Okay, let me kind of reflect, you know, on this and that's why I just I'm really big on reflective practices and I don't think that even I think a lot of times people think you need to sit down and have a whole reason. You're going to journal or do a whole thing. Sometimes, if you do it consistently, the things will come up, I promise.

Philip Pape: 51:18

Yeah, and I want to interject because you continue to hit on the self-awareness piece and that's like if anybody who knows about emotional intelligence, which is something I got into 20 or so years ago I'm old now but in my career, as I was trying to manage other people and I'm like I don't really even get people because I don't get myself and one of the first exercises is figure out who you are and what you're saying is just awareness, whether it's food, your behavior, a trigger why you want to do this physique competition sit down for two minutes with a piece of paper and just write it down can be game changing.

Laurin Conlin: 51:53

So I love that.

Philip Pape: 51:54

Yeah.

Laurin Conlin: 51:55

It's so simple it seems like it wouldn't help. You know, and we touched on a little bit and I said, sometimes when goals are too similar to what you're already doing, people don't want to do them. So they think like, what is the two or five minute journal session gonna do for me? Like that doesn't seem like it's gonna highlight much promise.

Laurin Conlin: 52:11

If you do it consistently, it will really really start to like some of the hardest times in my life when I was navigating a lot of like personal growth and changes, I was journaling a lot and it was really the first time that I like dedicated to doing it and I mean it helped so much because you just start to see these patterns. And that is really where a good coach can help step in and kind of be that intermediary right, because as a coach I'm going to be able to bring those things to your awareness that you maybe wouldn't have seen. And then you know we can kind of say like, oh, okay, now I notice. I notice every Thursday we kind of have an issue what's going on either Wednesday or Thursday that maybe is causing this right when someone could just be on autopilot and not realize that every Thursday shit goes awry.

Philip Pape: 52:57

So that's where having someone in your life can really really help, as that kind of outside influence, Absolutely amplifies it and it gives you that extra support around you to kind of flex into that. It's funny that you mentioned journal and that's a trigger word for me, because I've always said that like I'm not a big journaler, right, and I've had clients that are like, don't tell me to journal, Are you telling me to journal? I'm like no, no, we're not going to journal. What I want you to do is log a note in your food log, in your workout log. I want you to write a note and it's like, oh cool, Okay, I'll do that Language is everything, because every word has a connotation.

Laurin Conlin: 53:29

You know you could tell like me journaling. I'm like, oh my God, I love journaling, yeah, I'll tell someone else journaling. And they're like, yeah, not for me. That was me with meditation a few years ago. I was like so convinced I was like I'm not a meditator, it's woo, it's clearly I'm a little over the place, right, and that's just my natural state and I accepted that about myself and it's super fine, it is a strength in some areas.

Laurin Conlin: 53:50

But I was like I'm never gonna meditate. You know, I can't sit still, I can't sit at all this stuff. And that was the reason I couldn't do. It was because I convinced myself otherwise. And then finally I got tired of my own shit and I was like you know what, I'm gonna try. This seems like a lot of people who have their shit together like to meditate and it works pretty well for them. So maybe they're onto something. So let me check it out. And I eventually started to really dedicate more to it and have been able to get a lot out of it. But it is so funny because for years I was just like no no, no, yeah, it's just.

Philip Pape: 54:20

Sometimes it's just a hard thing you've got to do, you know. You just got to choose to do it and then try it. I know we're short on time because of our three times a charm recording, but what I want to end with is you're going for this master's in clinical mental health counseling. You just gave people some actionable things to try and hopefully open people's mind to realize there is a lot of flexibility, even when we say flexible dieting. Alan Aragon was on the show and his definition was your approach is flexible. That's what I mean. He doesn't mean just if it fits your macros. Dr Eric Helms was on and he's like I don't track anymore, but I tracked for 20 years, so you adapt. How do you see in helping people in the future in a way that maybe a lot of fitness coaches like you are not doing, and that's why you're going after this degree.

Laurin Conlin: 55:04

Yeah. So I pretty much realized that I could get people up to a certain point and then I no longer have the skills to do that. I don't have the training, I don't have the licensure and I know that there's a lot of people who operate in a world where they don't care about those things, but I do. It's important to me, and especially when people are talking about very, very intensive things like currently anybody is allowed to share anything with me. That's on them. I'm not trying to extract that information right, they're just shit. But when we start to unravel and really hit the wall of like, oh okay, I have these eating behaviors because of this, you know, childhood trauma and this assault in these different situations, I don't have the tools currently to do that. And not to say that I need to do that for every client, because I don't. But I just have a very deep interest in this and I just felt like there was a way that I could really help bridge both of the worlds, because in the mental health world it's becoming more. You know, people are, of course, focusing on health behaviors, but it's not really taught to most. I mean, honestly, our coursework is very full. I don't know Like I mean just the master program alone is so intensive, like in terms of hours and like coursework and practical hours. So it's not to say that it was the fault, like we need to add in some nutrition classes, like if it's not relevant, right? But there's a lot of people in that space who aren't talking about that. Just like in health and fitness space, more people are talking about mental health, but are they actually able to help clients fully integrate in that way? Not necessarily. So I really wanted to be able to be a bridge for both, and that was because obviously physical health affects mental health and vice versa. So I really want to be able to hopefully bridge that for some people.

Laurin Conlin: 56:40

And I don't know what the current trajectory will look like. You know, because by the time I'm done, it'll be about five years. So it's one of those things where you know because by the time I'm done, it'll be about five years. So it's one of those things where Because you just started, right, you literally just started, yeah, I just started. And then the master's itself is about two and a half years. And then after, because in the master's program I'm also doing in our program, doing 900 supervised hours also within that and then when I graduate I have to then do another 1500 hours over at least, like between two to five years, and then I can sit for my licensure exam. In that period I can take on individuals, but I will still be working towards a license, so people just have to be aware of that. But then in about five years, give or take, I'll be fully licensed, so and that's the fastest process that you can do.

Laurin Conlin: 57:24

So that is one of those things where you know during my internship hours I don't know where I'm going to.

Laurin Conlin: 57:29

Necessarily, you know work and do all that Like I'm keeping my options open, and so I'm sure, like even in my first month, I've learned so much because there really is so much nuance into the field.

Laurin Conlin: 57:40

So I don't know exactly what I'll be doing, but I do envision kind of bringing both together and also being a resource for a lot of other coaches that I know in the space who want to send their clients to therapists. But maybe some of the therapists don't necessarily understand some of the coach stuff that we do deal with in a normal way, right, which I know, for some people could maybe look disordered if they are not aware of it. But we know again, there's a very big difference of food awareness versus, you know, an eating disorder but someone who hasn't necessarily been exposed to, that they might be like I'm not too sure and this sounds like this, so want to maybe be that person within the space as well for those clients, cause that is a big feedback that I get from people who have gone to therapists, especially if they are the nurse or in that kind of space it's. It is a little misunderstood, which no fault to anyone, because how would you know unless you're in that?

Philip Pape: 58:29

No, a hundred percent, I mean, I think, that's weird I think the fact that you said you're already learning a ton. I could see you bringing that you know to your social media and your podcast and stuff like that. But even to enhance coaching practice right, even without the entering into the scope of being licensed, I'm sure there's an untapped area for coaches of just more on awareness and understanding.

Laurin Conlin: 58:49

Yeah, for sure. I mean, I've already learned things in this month that I have been able to apply to clients. And then I also do run a coaching mentorship program and I've already adjusted. One of the weeks I added different stuff that I learned to the lecture. You know what I mean. So it's one of those things where I'm like I'm already, I'm super excited for that. I honestly didn't I knew I would be able to help clients like currently, like that I'm working with, with what I'm learning, but now I'm actually seeing a lot of applications also to the coaches that I help mentor as well. So I'm like, oh okay, this will be good.

Philip Pape: 59:23

So it's all going to be a big learning, eye-opening experience. Well, and if you're not too busy in a few months, maybe we get you back on. You can like share some of that I love to come back on. We had so many topics so I'm more than happy to come back on for part two anytime is there anything just to wrap up, anything you wish I had asked or anything you wanted to leave with?

Laurin Conlin: 59:39

no, I just I really appreciate the conversation. I love all the directions that it went. I love that you care about these types of topics because they are so important but they sometimes get under discussed because the very concrete, flashy things are more exciting to talk about. You know how much protein to get? It's like let's move on.

Laurin Conlin: 59:59

This new thing came out or this whatever and I'm not against those kinds of things at all but I really think that in order to help more people, we need to really kind of take a step back and look at, like, what is like the big picture of, like how we're thinking and why we're doing things. And if I can help encourage anyone as an individual or as a coach to be able to, you know, look at things from that perspective and that lens, then I feel like I've done my job.

Philip Pape: 1:00:24

Awesome. Yeah, I mean behavior change and psychology is the root of. I know me personally. When I talk to more and more clients, it's like just lay it on me. They'll be like am I telling you too much? I'm like, no, this is going to help you, so just lay it on me and I'll help where I can. It's all about the up here, all right? So where can listeners learn more about you, Laurin?

Laurin Conlin: 1:00:42

Yeah, so my Instagram, I would say, post primarily there. So, just at Laurin Conlin, l-a-u-r-i-n, c-o-n-l-i-n. I also just started documenting again on YouTube. So back in the day I used to do YouTube videos and I'm coming back just with going back to school and I'm navigating a business and relationships and all this different stuff and going to school. Here's some things I'm learning, here's how I'm doing stuff.

Laurin Conlin: 1:01:06

So that's back on my YouTube, just my full name as well, taking a little pause on the podcast because of all this, but the Logo Fit Show does have over 300 episodes, so there's plenty of information on there and I have great guests. We actually have also a mental health counselor who I typically do episodes with as well, so we have that in there as well. And then the other coaches on the team and, yeah, so it's pretty much like the main places. And then, of course, our website, redefine Healthy Brands, if anyone is interested in one-on-one coaching for their lifestyle or competition. And then, lastly, I don't know when this is coming out, but I am running my third round of my coaching mentorship the Art and Science of Coaching. So that will be starting on October 7th. So if anyone's interested in that, feel free to send a message or an email and I can shoot you more info.

Philip Pape: 1:01:53

I'm sure there are coaches that listen to the show as well, because I know, as a coach, I like other coaches shows, so we'll put all of that in the show notes. Lots of fun. This will be out in a few weeks from when we record it, so whoever, but when you're listening to it, you've just traveled in time and you've got it right now, and thank you so much for taking the time, even after repeating three times.

Laurin Conlin: 1:02:11

Of course, third time was the charm. It was great. Thank you so much, Laurin.

Ignoring THIS Energy Source Is Killing Your Strength and Stamina (Power Systems) | Ep 225

Are you neglecting a crucial energy system in your workouts?

Discover how the engineering concept of Power Systems can be applied to your training (building strength and muscle as well as cardio and endurance) and how to make the most out of the sources of energy within your own body.

This episode reveals why training all three of your body's energy pathways is necessary if you want to break through plateaus and build more strength, stamina, and overall fitness.

Learn how to design workouts (and program your week) to tap into each system efficiently for improved performance and faster results. 

To get your free "Cardio for Lifters" guide and optimize your training, join our email list at https://witsandweights.com/email (then reply to ask for the guide)

Main Takeaways:

• Your body has 3 main energy systems, each important for different aspects of fitness.

• Neglecting any system, especially THIS often-overlooked system, can hold you back and kill progress.

• Balancing your training across all energy systems leads to improvements in both strength and stamina, increasing your metabolic flexibility and overall physical prowess.

Episode summary:

This episode aims to help listeners understand the intricacies of energy systems and how a balanced training approach can significantly enhance performance, strength, and stamina.

Could your training regimen be missing a crucial component that’s holding you back from achieving peak performance? This episode unpacks the science behind energy systems and offers actionable strategies to optimize your workouts. By delving into the principles of power systems engineering, Philip dissects how your body produces and leverages energy across different exercises. Understanding the phosphagen, glycolytic, and oxidative systems is key to designing balanced workouts that build both strength and stamina.

The phosphagen system, also known as the ATP-CP system, provides immediate, explosive energy for very short durations, typically up to 15 seconds. This system is crucial for heavy lifting and sprinting. It relies on creatine phosphate to quickly regenerate ATP, the primary energy currency of the cell. Without sufficient training in this system, your explosive power and ability to lift heavy weights can be significantly compromised.

The glycolytic system, on the other hand, kicks in when the phosphagen system is depleted. It provides energy for high-intensity efforts lasting from 30 seconds to two minutes. Activities like weightlifting, high-intensity interval training (HIIT), and medium-intensity cardio predominantly use this system. It relies on glycogen, stored in muscles and the liver, to produce ATP. Neglecting this system can lead to poor performance in activities that require sustained high-intensity effort.

The oxidative system, or aerobic system, is the body's base-load power provider. It supports long-duration, low-intensity activities like steady-state cardio and endurance training. This system is crucial for overall cardiovascular health and efficient fat metabolism. Many strength-focused athletes often overlook the oxidative system, fearing it might impede their gains. However, integrating some form of aerobic training can improve recovery, work capacity, and even lifting performance by enhancing overall cardiovascular health.

Balancing these three energy systems in your training regimen can lead to comprehensive fitness improvements. For example, incorporating heavy lifts and explosive movements can efficiently train the phosphagen system. Moderate to high-intensity efforts within your lifting sessions will tap into the glycolytic system. Finally, integrating steady-state cardio or even exercise snacks like stair runs can effectively train the oxidative system.

Achieving a harmonious balance between lifting and cardio is crucial for comprehensive fitness. A well-rounded approach ensures that you’re not only building strength but also improving your work capacity, stamina, and recovery. This episode emphasizes that neglecting any one of the energy systems can hold you back from making significant progress in your fitness journey.

The benefits of training all three energy systems are manifold. First, you'll experience increased strength because of heavy lifting. Second, your work capacity will improve, allowing you to handle more volume and intensity in your workouts. Third, your stamina will be better, helping you sustain longer and more intense exercise sessions. Fourth, you'll recover faster between sets and workouts, reducing the risk of injury and allowing for more frequent training. Finally, you'll achieve better body composition by optimizing your body's ability to use different fuel sources effectively.

Incorporating the principles discussed in this episode into your routine can help you cultivate a more resilient and efficient body. This balanced approach ensures that your body is primed to meet diverse energy demands, whether you're lifting heavy, running long distances, or simply going about your daily activities.

To assist with this balanced approach, Philip introduces the "Cardio for Lifters" guide. This practical resource helps you effectively combine cardio with your strength training. By following the strategies outlined in the guide, you can optimize your training for superior results.

The episode also delves into the analogy of power systems engineering to explain how your body's energy systems work. Just like a power grid that uses immediate high-power generators, intermediate power sources, and base-load providers to meet varying energy demands, your body uses the phosphagen, glycolytic, and oxidative systems to fuel different types of activities. This analogy helps listeners grasp the importance of balancing all three systems to achieve peak performance.

The key takeaway from this episode is that neglecting any one of the energy systems can impede your overall progress. Whether you're a dedicated lifter, a cardio enthusiast, or somewhere in between, understanding and training all three energy systems can help you break through plateaus and reach new heights in your fitness journey.

In conclusion, "Unlocking Peak Performance: Mastering Energy Systems and Balancing Training" is an insightful episode that provides listeners with the knowledge and tools to optimize their workouts. By understanding and training the phosphagen, glycolytic, and oxidative systems, you can achieve a harmonious balance between lifting and cardio, leading to comprehensive fitness improvements. Don't forget to check out the "Cardio for Lifters" guide for practical tips on combining cardio with your strength training.

So, whether you're struggling with workout plateaus, looking to boost your strength and stamina, or simply aiming to improve your overall fitness, this episode has something valuable to offer.

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Philip Pape: 0:01

If you've been laser-focused solely on heavy lifting or high-intensity cardio or another specific mode of training, or if you've hit a plateau in your strength gains or endurance, or even if you're wondering why your workouts leave you exhausted, then this episode's for you, because today we're revealing why neglecting this one crucial energy source could be holding you back from optimizing your results with your training. Using principles from power systems engineering, we'll explain how your body produces and uses energy during different exercises. You'll discover why a balanced approach to training might skyrocket your performance, and how to design workouts that build strength and stamina more effectively than ever before. 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 I have a question for you. Have you ever wondered why, even though you are very strong maybe you've been lifting weights for a while, maybe you're making progress and not quite there and yet, wherever you are on that spectrum, your workouts leave you gasping for air, and some of them make your muscles burn, and some make you really sore. Or you might be excelling in one area of fitness but plateauing in the others, and the answer here lies often in understanding your body's energy systems and then how to train them effectively. So today we're going to look at these systems using principles from power systems engineering. We're going to reveal why neglecting any one of them could be holding you back, and how to design workouts that build strength and stamina more effectively and address the gap potentially in your training. So, whether you are a long-term dedicated lifter, whether you love cardio, whether you're somewhere in between, this episode should give you what you need to shape your approach to training and help break through some of the plateaus related to energy systems.

Philip Pape: 2:12

Before we dive in, I do have something special for you. I created a guide a while back. It's called Cardio for Lifters. That ties in perfectly with today's topic. It breaks down how to effectively combine cardio with your strength training and to get a copy, all you have to do is join my email list and ask for it. Go to witsandweightscom slash email or check the link in the show notes and you can join my email list Again witsandweightscom slash email and then, when you get your welcome email, just reply say hey, philip, I would love your cardio for lifters guide. Heard it on the podcast and you'll get. You know the human that I am responding like a human and we'll start up a conversation and I'll send you that guide.

Philip Pape: 2:52

All right, let's get into it. Here's what we're covering today. We're going to talk about the three main energy systems in your body and then how power systems engineering is a really good analogy to understand why they are important and how they work physically with your body's system. We're going to talk about why neglecting any one of these could be the thing holding you back, not necessarily getting better at the thing you're already good at, and then how to design your training, your week, your sessions, overall to tap into those energy systems effectively, and a little bit of a surprise near the end as to the result of doing this. All right, let's talk about power systems engineering.

Philip Pape: 3:33

So this is the world of electrical grids, power plants, where engineers have to balance different energy sources for the different demands. Right, you have a house, then you have a street, then you have a city, you have a whole region, maybe the whole country, relying on all of these energy sources. And, for example, they'll use immediate high power generators to handle these big sudden spikes these, you know, huge spikes and draws in energy. They have intermediate power sources for kind of the sustained, ongoing needs of the energy, and then they have what's called baseload, which is the constant, long-term energy provision. So you could think of these as three different systems where your body actually works in a remarkably similar way and I'll admit, sometimes I make these episodes and I'm stretching a little bit to tie the energy system or the engineering system to either your approach or your body. And in this case I think it actually works really well to imagine this. So think of three distinct energy systems in your body, just like the three power systems that a power provider would use, energy provider would use to power up a city.

Philip Pape: 4:45

The first one is called the phosphagen system, atp-cp, and that stands for adenosine triphosphate, creatine phosphate, which, honestly, you didn't need to know that, but I'm always interested in what acronyms stand for. So again, this is the phosphagen system. This is your body's equivalent of a high power electrical generator. It provides immediate, explosive energy for very short durations we're talking 10 to 15 seconds max and this is the system used for heavy lifting, for sprinting, any activity that requires a sudden burst of maximum effort. So, again, if you're a lifter, this is really important. And if you've heard of creatine as a supplement and you heard me say creatine phosphate. There you go, there is the connection. Okay, so that's the phosphagen system.

Philip Pape: 5:39

The second is the glycolytic system and this is like your body's intermediate power source, right? It kicks in when the phosphagen system is depleted, which, as we said, can happen very quickly, and then it provides energy for about 30 seconds to two minutes of high intensity effort. So think of activities like lifting weights for more than just a couple reps, you know, I mean bodybuilding ranges eight to 12, but even less than that. Even when you're doing sets of three by five, you know, getting to that second or third set, even when you have some rest, you're depleting your ATP by that point and hitting the glycolytic system. And definitely cardio, medium and high intensity cardio, especially HIIT, high intensity interval training, are definitely going to tap into these. You know people who do CrossFit bootcamps, conditioning, any of that stuff. It's glycolytic workouts. I mean, I've used the term glycolytic often in that sense and you can almost you can hear the source of the word, or the root of the word glyco is the same as glycogen or glucose, right, it's the form of activity that uses glycogen.

Philip Pape: 6:51

And then the third system is the oxidative system. This is your aerobic system. This is your body's base load power, the slow, steady energy provider that can keep you going for hours. It's the primary system used in low intensity, long duration activities like steady state cardio, walking, endurance training, right, marathons, long distance runs.

Philip Pape: 7:14

Now going back to the title of this episode about ignoring one particular system, many fitness enthusiasts like us, especially those focused on strength training like us, or even those who are very much into HIIT, often neglect the oxidative system, right, the aerobic system. They think that the long, slow cardio anything beyond walking, right, running, things like that, biking is it going to kill your gains if you do too much of it, right? Or it's not necessary. I mean, I've probably been accused of saying things like you don't need cardio to lose fat, right, or you don't need cardio to hit your goals, or you don't need cardio to hit your goals. And that is true from a body composition perspective. But it is not the entire picture, because cardio can be beneficial for many other things, including your lifting, including your level of fitness and your performance, even if your primary goal is strength or power.

Philip Pape: 8:12

And I'm coming to realize this more and more and the more experts I talk to on the show, and the more my own experience plays this out and the more of the evidence supports it, I am becoming a more advocate of this hybrid, or at least concurrent, approach to your training if you want to be well-rounded, and here's why. First of all, a well-developed aerobic system well-developed what we call work capacity helps you recover faster between sets and between workouts, so both Both not losing your breath and getting gassed while you're working out which means you could actually get all the sets and all the reps but also even between workouts, so you can recover and then you can train more effectively and even more frequently. Right, and so the better your aerobic fitness, the more work you can do in your sessions before the fatigue sets in. It's also beneficial for cardiovascular health. I think we know this, but I definitely have heard the argument made that you just don't need anything beyond walking for cardiovascular health, and there's evidence that shows that. On one hand, if you walk a lot, it's almost as healthy for longevity and heart health as doing any other form of cardio for that volume. But there is a little bit of an edge to the medium or higher intensity cardio, so it's worth knowing that it could give you a slight advantage from heart health perspective. And then, of course, when we talk about burning fat, you know losing fat. The oxidative system is pretty effective at using fat for fuel and that helps you with body composition changes. I wouldn't read too much into this, other than the fact that if you are athletic, if you are not being sedentary, if you are both walking and using some forms of cardio and you're lifting, you're going to get a. You're going to have an easier time burning fat, and there's some kind of hidden reasons for that related to our oxidative system.

Philip Pape: 9:57

Now, if you neglect any one of the systems, it's going to hold you back from the others, even if your priority is lifting. So, for example, if you, if you, obviously, if you neglect the phosphagen system and you're only doing endurance work, then you're going to lack the strength and power that comes from lifting weights, and we don't ever do that on this show. So I don't know if anybody listening is like, yeah, that's what I want to do, just cardio. Moving to the next one, which is more realistic, neglecting the glycolytic system. Now, this bridges the gap between the intermediate and the long-term energy needs. And so if you, if you neglect this like, let's say, you're only doing I don't know sets of one and you're not doing very much volume with your lifts. And then you sit around all day, you're at a desk job, you do some walking, but pretty much not anything else. Maybe you're not really tapping into that system and then you don't really have that power, endurance, right, just the ability to sustain a really strong effort, explosive or high intensity effort for a moderate duration we're not even talking a long time, just a moderate amount of time. And then, if you neglect the oxidative or aerobic system, that's going to impact the other things we mentioned the recovery, work capacity, health, you know, and your ability to. Then, you know, show up in the gym and get it all done despite the fact that, yeah, you're tapping into the phosphagen system. Get it all done despite the fact that, yeah, you're tapping into the phosphagen system. So if you want to design your training to tap into all of the system effectively, you could do it efficiently and not feel like you have to spend more time working out or do twice as much of everything.

Philip Pape: 11:27

Let's break it down. Here's one way to think about it. So, for the phosphagen system, as long as you have some heavy lifts or explosive movements you know, like power cleans, Olympic lifts, but I'm really a fan of just heavy lifts, right, straight up strength training in your training, right. One to five rep max right. For a lot of you that's going to be trending toward the three to five. Maybe one compound lift in your session is in that range. Okay, even if it gets up to like four to six or even up to eight, you're, you're close enough, you're in that range. You know. Going heavy, close to failure, um. But it could also include some sprinting, shuttle runs, right. Uh. So even some of the athletic things that are involved in various bootcamp type things and, yes, even CrossFit, right, those might be in there, but primarily it's lifting heavy.

Philip Pape: 12:13

So that's one Number two for the glycolytic system. Just having some moderate to high intensity work for a couple minutes in your lifting sessions themselves will pretty much tap into the glycolytic system. You really don't have to add anything for that. And hold that thought, because there is a way to get a two for one out of this that I'm going to talk about toward the end of the episode. Stay tuned, stay tuned for that. Really, it's super exciting. Something I recently learned, or I was recently reminded of, that's going to help you here.

Philip Pape: 12:46

So that's a glycolytic system, making sure your workouts are intense, and then the oxidative system is where you would fit in some steady state cardio. And I really like the idea from Brian Borstein of what's called exercise snacks, for example, running up the stairs for a minute and doing that three or four times a day. Or your traditional cardio, you know, 20 minutes on a bike, pushing a prowler or sled. Try to do something concentric that doesn't involve the eccentric, uh pattern of the movement, eccentric meaning the opposite of a contraction. So, for example, running does include an eccentric, whereas biking does not. Right, pushing a sled does not.

Philip Pape: 13:25

So a balanced weekly routine is probably going to look like three or four days heavy lifting, moderate to heavy lifting, and then one or two days where you fit in a little extra cardio workout and potentially you don't even have to do any hit. And the reason you don't have to do any hit and I kind of alluded to this just a bit ago is and thank you to Cody McBroom for bringing this up on our recent episode, which was episode 220 about hybrid training he was reminding me that heavy compound lifts, like squats and deadlifts, actually offer many of the same benefits as high intensity interval training because they tap into both the phosphagen and glycolytic system, like HIIT does, and so you're getting the cardiovascular benefit from your strength training anyway. And anybody who lifts heavy, myself included, will notice this. If they're wearing like a wearable and you notice, your heart rate cranks up, and for me, the heart rate gets just about as high as it did when I was doing one of those insane, hateful CrossFit workouts Hateful as in, I hated them. Same thing. So I'm like I'd rather deadlift to get the same benefit, and you can too.

Philip Pape: 14:34

So number one and two phosphagen and glycolytic are basically handled by your lifting, and then all you have to do is throw some extra cardio in there and you're probably good. You probably don't need much hit in there unless you want to, which it can be fun for some people, for sure. Now the benefits of all of this, if you haven't gotten it already from what we've talked about, is at the systematic level of combining all of these things and doing it all right. Level of combining all of these things and doing it all right, just making it all fit into your week at a reasonable level is yes, you're going to increase strength because you're lifting heavy. That's that. That should be fairly obvious. But you're also increasing your work capacity by training the other systems, thereby allowing you to do more volume over time and actually hit all your reps and sets and actually train hard, close to failure, which is crucial for progressive overload and thus long-term gains.

Philip Pape: 15:25

The second thing is, because you're training the oxidative system, you're going to have better stamina, right, and you're also going to have better ability to handle and recover from all of the work, which then translates to stamina and all other activities. Number three you're going to have better recovery between both sets and between workouts, allowing you to train more effectively and frequently and also get less injured. You're going to have better power output, the ability to produce force quickly, which helps with strength and endurance activities like sports. So, yes, even if you are a runner, strengthening your legs and having more power output and having a better strength to weight ratio is going to help. And then, last but not least, improved body composition, because different energy systems preferentially use different fuel sources, and now you're optimizing your body's ability to use carbs, fats, use everything in the best way possible as fuel. We don't have to like try to bias one or the other, go keto to become a fat burner. Any of this other weird stuff that the evidence shows isn't very effective. Anyway, it all washes out You're better off being a well-rounded athlete. So if you train all three energy systems, you're improving your fitness. But not just that, you're improving your energy production capabilities.

Philip Pape: 16:42

So, going back to our analogy, think about this A well-designed power grid can smoothly transition between the different energy sources to meet the change in demand from consumers. Similarly, in your body, by training all your energy systems, you're creating a more robust, flexible power grid in your body. That means whether you're lifting heavy, whether you're running a long distance, whether you're just going about your daily life, your body will be primed to meet the energy demands efficiently and effectively. So you're not just building a better body, you're engineering a more capable, resilient version of you, maybe like, kind of like, a cyborg. I don't know if you find that creepy or empowering, but the geeky thought that came to my head.

Philip Pape: 17:29

All right, as we wrap up, let's talk about the main points here. Your body has three main energy systems Phosphogen, glycolytic and oxidative. Each of them is suited for different types and durations of activity. If you neglect any one of these, do it at your own peril, especially the overlooked oxidative system, because it could hold back the other things, even if those things are the priority for you. So a balanced training approach is going to lead to improvement in strength and stamina. That all ties together, and now you have improved overall what we might call metabolic flexibility.

Philip Pape: 18:04

Balanced training approach is going to lead to improvement in strength and stamina. That all ties together, and now you have improved overall what we might call metabolic flexibility. I'm not a huge fan of that term, necessarily, but you get the idea. Now we're not trying to overcomplicate your training. We're just trying to make sure you don't neglect any one thing, and you can do this all within a similar amount of training, because most of it is lifting, but then a little bit of cardio sprinkled in and you should be pretty good. And of training, because most of it is lifting, but then a little bit of cardio sprinkled in and you should be pretty good. And now you're going to have some improved performance. You're going to have better results. You can have more efficient path to your goals and, honestly, that to me is more efficient when you're able to recover, rest better, use your fuel better, eat more, etc.

Philip Pape: 18:33

All right, if you found value in today's episode and want to learn more about balancing your training between lifting and cardio, don't forget about the Cardio for Lifters guide that I mentioned earlier. To get your free copy, head over to witsandweightscom slash email or click the link in the show notes to join my list. Once you're on the list, just reply and say hey, give me that guide, bro, the Cardio for Lifters guide, and I'll send it right over. Definitely tell me what the guide is, or else I'll just have to guess, but I'm pretty good about guessing too. Again, go to witsandweightscom slash email or click the link in the show notes. It will help you optimize some things that you may not be considering, and so definitely get the guide. Until next time, keep using your wits lifting those weights and remember that you are the engineer of your own fitness and your energy systems. This is Philip Pape, and you've been listening to Wits and Weights. I'll talk to you next time.

Carbs Aren't the Problem (Keto, Paleo, Bioenergetic, and Pro-Metabolic Diets) | Ep 224

Do you find yourself torn between low-carb diets and pro-carb philosophies? Are you frustrated by conflicting advice about carbs and wondering what’s right for your body? Should you follow keto, paleo, or maybe a high-carb approach?

Philip (@witsandweights) dives into the great carbohydrate debate and breaks down why carbs aren’t the enemy—or the magic cure—when it comes to your health and physique. He explores the truth behind the carb confusion, reveals why extreme approaches miss the bigger picture, and shares how you can build a sustainable, personalized nutrition strategy that fits your unique goals. Learn how to cut through the noise of diet trends, embrace the fundamentals, and take control of your eating habits without stress or anxiety.

🍽️ To learn how to use a flexible approach to dieting where food isn’t demonized and you can eat carbs (if you want)… for fat loss, muscle building, health, and longevity… Download my free Nutrition 101 for Body Composition Guide or go to witsandweights.com/free

Today, you’ll learn all about:

2:36 Overview of popular carb-related diets
4:48 The three positives and three limitations of restrictive diets
7:37 Why focusing solely on carbs misses the big picture
11:45 How to critically evaluate nutrition claims
21:07 Why moderate to high-carb intake supports muscle growth and performance
25:10 Recap: Carbs and the bigger picture of diet sustainability
27:06 Outro

Episode resources:

• Download my free Nutrition 101 for Body Composition Guide or go to witsandweights.com/free

Related Episode:

• More Carbs, More Muscle (Why Low-Carb and Keto Are Keeping You Skinny Fat) | Ep 126

Episode summary:

Welcome to a comprehensive exploration of carbohydrates, their role in nutrition, and the myths that often surround them. In this episode of Wits & Weights, we delve deep into the world of carbs, dissecting the conflicting advice from various dietary philosophies and providing you with the tools to craft a personalized eating plan that suits your unique needs. Whether you're torn between keto, paleo, or pro-metabolic diets, this blog post will help you navigate the carb wars with clarity and confidence.

Carbohydrates have long been a topic of debate in the nutrition world. From the low-carb advocates of the keto diet to the pro-carb supporters of the bioenergetic camp, the conflicting advice can be overwhelming. In this episode, we aim to clear up the confusion by breaking down the philosophies of these popular diets, highlighting their common positive aspects, and acknowledging their limitations.

One of the key takeaways from this episode is the importance of personalized nutrition. The phrase "one-size-fits-all" doesn't belong in the dietary lexicon. Your genetic makeup, gut microbiome, and lifestyle all impact your food choices and health outcomes. By understanding these factors, you can craft a diet that aligns with your health goals and tastes.

We begin by examining the keto, paleo, and pro-metabolic diets. The keto diet, known for its low-carb, high-fat approach, claims that carbs are essentially poison, causing blood sugar spikes and insulin resistance. The paleo diet focuses on foods that our ancestors supposedly ate, eliminating grains, legumes, and usually dairy. On the other hand, the pro-metabolic camp views carbs, even fruit sugars, as essential for energy and health.

Despite their differences, these diets share some common positive aspects. They all emphasize whole, unprocessed foods and generally recognize the importance of food quality. However, they also have significant limitations. These diets are highly restrictive, making them difficult to sustain long-term. They can foster unhealthy relationships with food and eating, and they lack flexibility, making them challenging to adhere to in real-life settings.

The individual variability and context-dependent nature of nutrition cannot be overstated. Your responses to different foods are influenced by your genetic makeup, gut microbiome, activity levels, and health status. This makes generalized dietary advice problematic. Specific diets like ketogenic or high-carb can be beneficial for certain individuals but are not universally optimal. The dangers of oversimplification in nutrition advice and the tendency to cherry-pick evidence to support specific viewpoints are also highlighted.

As we dive deeper into the role of carbohydrates in nutrition, we address common misconceptions. There's a universal agreement on the benefits of eating whole foods, the importance of fruits and vegetables, and the necessity of adequate protein and hydration. However, myths about carb intake for menopausal women and the realities of keto diets are debunked. Carbs are essential for energy and mood regulation, and avoiding them can lead to nutritional deficiencies.

We also discuss the importance of context in nutritional guidance. For instance, a ketogenic diet might be beneficial for someone with certain neurological conditions but not for everyone. It's crucial to consider the credibility and conflicts of interest of the source of nutritional advice and to seek nuanced, context-aware guidance.

Experimentation and listening to your body are key. Does your diet help you feel great, perform well, and achieve your health goals? Can you maintain it for the rest of your life? If not, it's time to make changes. Personalized nutrition is about finding what works for you and your unique body.

In this episode, we also explore the benefits of carbs for muscle growth, performance, recovery, hormone function, gut health, satiety, and cognitive function. Research shows that bodybuilders in a caloric surplus gain significantly more lean mass on a moderate to high-carb diet compared to a lower keto diet. Carbohydrates enhance both endurance and high-intensity exercise performance, support post-training recovery, and play a crucial role in hormone function and gut health.

The demonization of fruit is another topic we address. Whole fruits provide fiber, vitamins, and other essential nutrients. The demonization of fruit is unfounded, and whole fruits are one of the best foods we have. While fruit juice can be enjoyed in moderation, it's important to be mindful of its high sugar concentration and calorie density.

Vegetables, both above-ground and below-ground, are highly nutritional and should be included in a balanced diet. The idea of avoiding certain vegetables unless you have specific issues with them is misguided. A healthy dietary pattern should be sustainable, flexible, and enjoyable.

As we wrap up, it's important to emphasize that carbs are not inherently good or bad. They are a tool that, when used appropriately, can support your health, performance, and physique goals. The debate over carbs misses the bigger picture of diet quality and individual needs. Be wary of absolutist claims and oversimplified advice, and always consider your personal context when evaluating nutritional guidance.

Focus on the fundamentals of nutrition, such as eating whole foods, getting enough protein and fiber, and staying hydrated. Experiment with your diet to find what works for you and prioritize sustainability over short-term fixes. Nutrition should support your health, performance, and enjoyment of life.

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Transcript

Philip Pape: 0:01

Should you eat low-carb or high-carb? Keto says carbs are poison. Paleo says grains are the enemy. The bioenergetic and pro-metabolic camps insist that carbs are essential, even fruit juice. This leaves you wondering what the heck should I actually eat? Today, we are exposing why the obsession with carbs misses the bigger picture. You'll discover the nuances behind popular diets, learn how to critically evaluate those nutrition claims and find an approach that works for you and your unique body and goals. This episode will clear up any confusion regarding carbs so you can breathe a sigh of relief, enjoy your food and focus on what actually matters for your health and physique.

Philip Pape: 0:51

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 topic that has caused probably more confusion than almost any other the great carbohydrate debate, aka carb wars the phantom menace. I just had to do it, guys. I received a really good question from a long-time listener, chris H. She knows who she is and it really captures the frustration that many people feel when trying to navigate conflicting nutritional advice in general. Chris wrote in about feeling torn between opposing camps the low-carb keto approach versus the pro-metabolic bioenergetic approach. And she said and I'm paraphrasing here, quote this dichotomy has bothered me for years. I've oscillated between the two philosophies and basically gotten nowhere. In fact, it can be a dangerous place because I can end up high carb and high fat at the same time. So I think many of you can relate to Chris's struggle. I can as well, from my personal experience, and today we're going to break down why these contradictory viewpoints exist, how to critically evaluate claims and, I think, most importantly, how to find an approach that actually works for you. That's what we're here for. And, of course, if you want to get a head start on finding the exact personalized approach to nutrition that works with your body, download my free Nutrition 101 for Body Composition guide using the link in my show notes or go to witsandweightscom slash free so many of these episodes. I love to put together a guide, or use one of my existing guides and give it to you, because I think it is a great companion to the show. So, again, click the link in the show notes or go to witsandweightscom slash free to get my Nutrition 101 for Body Composition guide.

Philip Pape: 2:36

All right, let's start by setting the landscape, laying out that landscape of the philosophies that Chris specifically mentions, because we can spend three hours talking about all sorts of diets. There are a million of them. They're infinite permutations, but she mentioned a few in particular that we'll just go there and we'll evaluate them and we'll talk about the principles of evaluating them. First we have the keto low carb camp and this camp, which I'm very familiar with because I was in it for years, claims that carbs are essentially poison. I know an actual poison it's called alcohol but they claim carbs are poison, causing blood sugar spikes and insulin resistance. Instead, they promote high fat intake, moderate protein and often cases traditional keto is actually low protein and then very minimal carbs. We're talking sub 100 grams, if not much lower than that, even when you're not dieting and honestly, they don't even distinguish necessarily dieting phases. It's just eat. This way you're going to lose weight, and they often demonize fruit, starchy vegetables and grains.

Philip Pape: 3:40

Then we have the paleo approach and again raising my hand, because I did paleo for years while I was doing CrossFit and it focuses on foods that our ancestors supposedly ate. So you eliminate grains, legumes and usually dairy for the pure paleo. There's always modifications. It definitely allows for some more carbs than keto, right In the form of the whole foods that are included, but it's still relatively low carb, naturally.

Philip Pape: 4:06

Then we have the pro-metabolic and bioenergetic camp, based on the work of Ray Peet. Now, I want to give a caveat here, because I had a gentleman on who talked about the bioenergetic way of eating and it was really more of just a flexible approach that's aligned with giving you a lot of energy, and that is not what I'm talking about, and that's why I'm not mentioning his name, because I don't want to call him out and tie him to this. This is a camp that views carbs like even fruit sugars, which I love fruit and I love the sugar that's from fruit, and they call that the stuff of life, and so they promote high carb intake, including fruit juice, and then they avoid PUFAs and they avoid most, I think, above-ground vegetables. There's always these interesting idiosyncrasies.

Philip Pape: 4:51

Now, at first glance, all of these seem like completely different diets, completely at odds, but if you lay them on top of each other, you're going to find a few areas where they agree, and so I want to highlight three of the I'll call positive areas that they agree first, and then three of the drawbacks or limitations. So, as far as the positives. All of them emphasize whole unprocessed foods Great, love it. All of them generally hate anything manufactured like industrial seed oils. Okay, that's when I start to have a little bit of pushback on, because you're starting to restrict, right. And then all of them generally recognize the importance of food quality, whether they come to it from an ancestral lens or some other lens. And then there are three. Let's just be nice and call them limitations.

Philip Pape: 5:33

And the first big one, as I've always talked about from the beginning of the show very early on, is they are highly restrictive in nature. All of these diets eliminate entire food groups or entire macronutrients, and then that makes them very difficult to sustain long-term. That is the key problem. If you're using it for a quick fix, it might make sense, but we don't want to eat that way. And the other thing is you may have nutritional deficiencies if you don't very carefully plan for that and really get obsessive about combining all the foods in the right way. The second big limitation and we know this from the research is the potential for disordered eating. Any strict rules and any kind of food fears or fear-mongering promoted by these diets can and likely will foster some sort of unhealthy relationship with food and eating.

Philip Pape: 6:23

So I posted something in threads the other day that said I'm enjoying my chemically laden I think. It was like oatmeal, peanut butter, eggs and banana for breakfast. I was being sarcastic. And then I gave a list of all the chemicals in bananas because, guess what? All food is chemical. That's what it is. It's organic, we eat it and therefore it's made of compounds. These are chemicals. And so I think somebody replied and said oh don't, you know, bananas have been genetically modified for years, so even those are blah, blah, blah. And I'm like dude, you just proved my point.

Philip Pape: 6:51

Like the fear mongering out there about you know what's in food, even even what we think of as natural foods, cause people to get so neurotic and just outright scared to death about food, even like real food, like fruit. It's insane. So that's the second one. And then the third one is the lack of flexibility, which I guess you can tie to the first one about food restriction. But what I'm talking about here is that these approaches don't account for you, for your individual things that you like, your preferences, cultural foods, social situations, and so they're even more challenging to adhere to in real life settings. And then you become the weird person saying you can't eat this, can't eat this, can't eat this, can't eat this. Life is miserable. We don't want life to be miserable. I'm sorry. You don't have to be miserable to hit your goals and have the best body composition ever and be happy.

Philip Pape: 7:38

So these limitations highlight why focusing solely on a macro like carbs, or adhering strictly to a named diet with very rigid rules misses the bigger picture of overall health. A healthy dietary pattern, sustainable and flexible nutrition that you can actually stick with still meet your goals. So why is there this big divide on carbs then? Because I still want to address the carb issue for Chris, and I think this gets to the heart of why focusing solely on carbs misses the point. So breaking it down.

Philip Pape: 8:11

Number one the individual variability. I mentioned this before. Our genetic makeup, our gut, microbiome, activity levels and health status all influence how we respond to different foods, and so what works for one person just may not work for the other. And that goes for things that do sometimes get demonized, like I've heard people influencers demonizing broccoli, which on its face, is silly, until you find out there are some people that have a bad reaction to broccoli and then you're like, okay, cool, it's not good for them. But to make generalized statements is where the problem is when it comes to how individualized we are. Number two context matters always.

Philip Pape: 8:51

Ketogenic diet might be beneficial for someone with certain neurological conditions. We know it's great for people with epilepsy. It might be beneficial for someone who just really hates all carbs, which I don't know. If that person exists, but you know, if you claim to be, I would love to hear it, not claim to be. I didn't mean to gaslight you out there if you hate carbs, but I haven't met the person. I'm going to lose some followers with that, maybe, but I think they're the people that wouldn't be following the show anyway. But even though it can be beneficial for some and you can lose weight and you can XYZ, and it can give you some results, it doesn't mean it's optimal for everyone. That's it right. Any one diet or a strategy I use with a client is great for that client and may not be great for almost any other client. Same thing for you when you're evaluating an approach, coming up with a personalized approach. So, similarly, a moderate to high carb diet, which I'm a huge fan of. For people who care about performance, endurance, strength, being athletic, building muscle, right, it's great for all those people. But it could be problematic for someone with, I don't know, insulin resistance, right? Who's diabetic, for example? Not that people who are diabetic like type 1 diabetes not that they can't eat carbs. But you don't necessarily want to just slam right into a high carb diet, especially when you're not accounting for the timing of when those carbs are eaten, whether macros are in balance, whether they're active, whether they're lifting weights, et cetera, right, so, yeah, a low carb diet could be indicated for someone.

Philip Pape: 10:14

The third thing here is that these things get freaking, oversimplified, right, nutrition is nuanced, and I say that knowing that on this show, I try to simplify is nuanced, and I say that knowing that on this show, I try to simplify, but I try not to oversimplify it. I may do it, okay, I admit it, we're all humans. But I'm talking about like statements carbs are bad or carbs are essential, right, and I know I did a muscle or a muscle. I did an episode called more carbs, more muscle. And, effectively, if I had summed it up in one sentence, I would have said carbs are essential, but I didn't say that. That's the point, I didn't just say it that way. I said, let's get into all the details about why this could be helpful in this context. And so these oversimplifications ignore again the vast differences between, say, types of carbs, how they interact with other nutrients, with individual physiology, with your meal timing, with what the heck you're doing on a daily basis Are you lifting weights or not?

Philip Pape: 11:10

And then the fourth thing here is cherry picking evidence, and we're all guilty of this. I've done it myself, and I realize that if I'm trying to answer a question and then I have a hypothesis in my head, and then I go to try to find studies that support the hypothesis, ah, I've just broken the chain and gone down the cherry picking route. It's very hard as a human being, right? There are logical fallacies that come up all the time in our heads and when we interact, and any camp can point to studies supporting their views. But science is about the totality of evidence, the strength, the proportion of the evidence, the recency of it, in some cases, not any one single study. So how do we navigate this without you having to become an expert in reading studies?

Philip Pape: 11:51

And so I'm going to give you a few strategies that I learned when I did my PhD, which, by the way, is not in nutrition science. It was in organization and management, with a specialization in leadership that's a mouthful In talking to experts on the show, in talking to fellow coaches, in talking to other researchers. Here are some strategies. If I were to sum it up in this episode, the first one is be skeptical of just about everything, but especially the oversimplified, absolutist claims A nutrient is always bad or this is the key to health for everyone. That is a red flag.

Philip Pape: 12:26

Number two consider the source. Is the person giving advice qualified to do so? Not necessarily a piece of paper or credential, but some sort of verifiable expertise, time in the trenches, experience, whatever. And do they have conflicts of interest? Are they selling you something? All of us coaches are selling something. The thing is to do it in an authentic way that completely aligns, where what you're selling also provides the benefit that you're delivering on and you're not selling something else. And then bait and switch into the reality of it. And then, number three, look for the nuance we talked about things being in context to be nuanced. Any good advice and this is why I like podcasts instead of reels and short form, which I do those things, I do, those things, I do them, but that's where I get all the trolls, because they don't have the full picture, and so on this show, I can go on and on and on, and if you don't like my voice you can just stop or unfollow. And so good advice acknowledges complexity, it acknowledges individuality and differences between people.

Jenny: 13:30

Hi, my name is Jenny and I just wanted to say a big thank you to Philip Pape of Wits and Weights for offering his free 50-minute nutritional assessment. During that time he gave me really good tools on how I can further my health and fitness goals. He asked really great questions and stayed true to his offer of no sales pitch. I have since applied these things and gotten really close to my health goals and my weight goals, and now I'm able to flip over and work on my strength and my muscle conditioning using a lot of the things he offers in his podcasts, and I just am very grateful for his positive inspiration and encouragement for all of our health. Thank you, philip.

Philip Pape: 14:16

The last thing here is to focus on I'll call it, the fundamentals or the principles. You know, despite all these debates, there is broad agreement on some universal things, like eating mostly whole foods is better than eating a bunch of ultra processed foods. Like eating fruits and vegetables caveat, some people think fruits are bad still, but I think that's ridiculous. But again, maybe that's me giving an absolutist claim. So fair point. But I think people agree vegetables, at least very few. Well, maybe the carnivore people say that oh man, you see what kind of trap you can get into. On this, adequate protein, I hope, is maybe broad agreement. It definitely the science supports it. So there might be people saying that you can live a long life on low protein, based on some inadequate rat studies. I did a whole episode on that nonsense. And then you know, staying hydrated, right, like simple things like that, universal things as well as energy balance and the value of muscle mass and so on. So there's overlap, but we have to be careful on the corners. And then, of course, I want you to experiment and listen to your body, because guess what the best evidence is? Your evidence N equals one sample size of one right. Does the way you're eating. Does your diet help you feel great, perform well, get those reps in the gym, recover without feeling massively sore, getting the sleep you want right? Do you achieve your health goals eating the way you're eating, and can you do that the rest of your life? Eat that way.

Philip Pape: 15:39

Now I've gone on so many tangents, but I think it's worthwhile here to do that because I feel strongly about this. This is the philosophy of this whole show and how we work with clients, and I want to address some specific points from Chris's question. So, chris, hopefully you're still listening. The first one is carbs for menopausal women, because she gave me a lot more detail in her email that I didn't share, but she mentioned that her doctor said menopausal women don't need carbs. This is like the new carb myth that needs to die. It's not just that carbs are bad, but somehow, once you hit menopause, or even sometimes pre-menopause, carbs are bad for you in that context. So it's not, oh, we love carbs, unless you're a menopausal woman. This is another nonsense, oversimplification, because hormonal changes sure, they affect your metabolism, they affect your belly fat, they affect everything. Great, carbs still play the same role, they still do the same thing. They still give you energy. They can help regulate your mood. Sometimes they help with those hormones, they're great for gut health, they're great for energy performance, and on and on and on.

Philip Pape: 16:40

Now you're going to find that I do have a carb bias in this episode, even though I said carbs aren't the issue. The way I'm going to defend that is to suggest that I think cutting out carbs is the problem when done indiscriminately, whereas including carbs at some level and having a balanced approach seems more reasonable to me. It doesn't mean you have to be high carb, is my point. Carbs are still playing an important role. You don't have to cut them out, and so the quality might matter, adjusting the quantity based on what you actually need, like if you're in a dieting phase, if you're in a calorie deficit, you're not going to need that many carbs, nor do you want that many, because you need a lot of protein, you need enough fat and your calories are low. So, guess what? The carbs end up being 150, 100, in some cases, 50 grams. Guess what? Now we're kind of in keto territory, not because keto is so hot, but because that's what the data is telling we need right now.

Philip Pape: 17:29

The second one you mentioned was keto for weight loss. So, yes, keto can help you lose weight, because what it does is it cuts out so many foods and you're eating almost all whole foods that you can't possibly eat enough to even be at maintenance calories relative to how you were eating before, so you're going to lose weight. It's still the fundamental principle of energy balance for weight loss and that can be achieved on any diet. It can be achieved on an all-pizza diet. It's not the best way to go, just like keto is not the best way to go. How about a balanced approach that you enjoy that works for you? I think that's all I need to say on that one.

Philip Pape: 18:05

Then we have fruit and fruit juice. The demonization of fruit. That is unfounded. Okay, there is no evidence to support that. So when people talk about that, it's ridiculous. Whole fruits are one of the best foods we have, and I can't tell you how many clients that I've met who that is the thing that they haven't been eating. And as soon as I say, well, why don't we just have some fruit? They're like my God, yeah, you're right, and a lot of them. Yeah, I know you say we should eat fruit. I've just been demonizing it for years. But whole fruits provide fiber, vitamins, a bunch of compounds that you don't even see on the nutrition label. They fill you up, they hydrate you, they're sweet and delicious, so they're great for sweet cravings. You know what I'm trying to say.

Philip Pape: 18:44

Now, fruit juice specifically. This is the weird one about one of those diets that say you should drink a bunch of fruit juice. I mean, it's just a more concentrated version of the fruit in terms of the sugars and super calorie dense, and you're eliminating a whole bunch of the good stuff in the fruit, like the fiber, and in some cases you know the pectins or you know different compounds in skin. If you're getting rid of the skin, depending on what fruit we're talking about, does that mean you have to eliminate fruit juice? Of course not. If you want to enjoy it in moderation, go for it. You know what we did for our kids. They didn't have fruit juice until they were quite a bit older. When they were young, they mainly had water and milk and things like that, but we just watered it down significantly, and if you don't get used to having that high level of sugar, then it's cool. And I noticed that there are name brands of fruit juice that are sold now, especially the ones marketed at kids that actually do have much lower sugar concentration. So it's simple, things like that.

Philip Pape: 19:39

Now, if someone's claiming that you should drink fruit juice and you should drink it like pure full-on calorie dense, that's kind of what I have a problem with, because again it's saying that there's this magic thing, this thing you have to do. But if you just enjoy it and it fits in your plan and it gives you energy and it works with your carbs and calorie macros, I mean fruit juice could be a great pre and post workout, why not? Then we get to vegetables. Okay, both above ground and below ground vegetables are highly nutritional. I don't know why you have to discriminate against one or the other, unless you have specific issues with those specific digestive issues, specific allergies. There's no reason to avoid leafy greens or cruciferous veggies, I don't know.

Philip Pape: 20:17

Just, I shake my head at some of this stuff. Do you get the message, the big message here? So if you're listening to this podcast and you're like low carb all the way, intermittent fasting all the way, something like that, and I'm making you mad, I want you to lean into that anger and ask yourself why that makes you mad. What is it that you're taking personal that I'm offending in you, because the reframe, the flip on that is maybe, just maybe, I have more options at my disposal for a healthy diet than I thought and that's empowering, and maybe, just maybe, I should experiment with that and not let other people tell me what my body can handle. Let me figure that out, all right. So I do want to cap this episode off on why I love carbs for certain contexts, because it is kind of a carb episode and I agree, carbs are not the problem, right, it's all the other things that I mentioned. But for those curious, especially those looking to build muscle and improve performance, moderate to high carb intake can be incredibly beneficial, and I wanted to say that to assuage your fears of carbs, if you've been beaten down by the message that carbs are bad somehow. So I just want to break down the evidence of can carbs be beneficial for certain people, of course.

Philip Pape: 21:29

Number one muscle growth. The first one is related to muscle growth. Research shows clearly that, for example, bodybuilders in a caloric surplus will gain significantly more lean mass on a moderate to high carb diet when compared to a lower keto diet period. They've done this over and over again and it's clear as much as like five times the increase. We're talking about trained bodybuilders, not even just newbies. Okay, so that's muscle growth. Then we have performance Carbohydrate, which is tied with glycogen, glucose right Enhances your both endurance and also the available intensity in high intensity exercise, and I don't just mean cardio, I actually mean lifting weights. You can experiment this for yourself Train fasted, don't have any carbs for dinner the night before, and then work out in the morning.

Philip Pape: 22:11

Then, a couple of days later, have dinner that has carbs and then have carbs for your pre-workout, like, really load up on carbs. See if there's a difference. If you tell me, hey, I didn't notice a difference or I did better fasted, then heck, there's your data. Like train fast, that's fine, that's cool, I have no problem with it. Number three and, by the way, you know, people are going to see this video on YouTube and I'm going to get some troll comments and it will be people that didn't listen to this point.

Philip Pape: 22:35

Number three is recovery. Carbs play a crucial role in post-training recovery. So I just talked about eating beforehand as a pre-workout, but after you work out, it replenishes the muscle glycogen. It enhances muscle protein synthesis when combined with protein, because carbs are anti-catabolic, that means they prevent breakdown of muscle tissue. That is so powerful. That's such a great reason to latch on to how carbs might be helpful if you're not getting as many carbs right now.

Philip Pape: 23:01

Number four is hormone function. We don't talk about that a lot, but adequate carb intake has been shown to support, for example, thyroid function and leptin levels, which then regulates your metabolism and your appetite. Oh, are you saying that higher carbs may actually help my metabolism and make me fuller? Because I heard that carbs. You know you get so hungry when you eat carbs. Well, yeah, maybe when you eat pizza and donuts, but I don't know about you.

Philip Pape: 23:30

If I eat like vegetables and potatoes and you know brown rice, I mean they're pretty darn filling for as little calories as they have. Tastes good too, and they mix well with stuff. And then regulating your metabolism as well, I mean that's awesome. So when the menopausal woman on low carb thing comes up, question it. Then we have gut health, which I'm becoming more and more aware and a fan of discussing, because the best way to improve your gut microbiome is fiber, having a lot of fiber, have a lot diversity of fiber, and guess where fiber is? It's in carb-rich foods. So kind of opening your ability to eat fruit and vegetables and starches or not starches grains, so I mean you can tolerate them, especially whole grains. All of those have tons of fiber. There you go. Now you support your gut health as well.

Philip Pape: 24:22

Then we have things like satiety and adherence to your diet, because now fiber, which is in carb sources, also increases your feelings of fullness, potentially improving long-term adherence to your diet. Long-term, you know, happiness that I don't have to be miserable while I'm on my diet. And the last thing about carbs is cognitive function. So, interestingly, here and the keto people aren't going to like this one either. Actually, when I did paleo, I remember learning this the brain is the biggest hog for glucose, right? We know this. The brain preferentially uses glucose for fuel and that could impact your cognitive performance, your mood, and the argument goes well. But it only needs so much and your body can produce it. Therefore, because carbs are not essential, you don't need to consume them. You're good to go. I don't know about you. I don't want to be at the bare minimum Like. I want to flood my body with what it needs and then some so that I can perform. Take care of that brain and then take care of the muscles. Take care of the body. Eat the amount of carbs you need is what it comes down to. Carbs aren't inherently good or bad, right, they are a tool that, when used appropriately, can support your health, your performance, your physique goals. So, as we wrap up, let's recap, as always, the main points. Number one the debate over carbs misses the big picture of diet quality and individual needs. Number two be wary, always be wary of claims, claims, claims, absolutist claims, oversimplified claims. People that are in the grocery store fear-mongering over the ingredients on a package, because the truth is usually a lot more nuanced. Number three consider context and personal factors when you evaluate advice, and we're talking about you yourself, your own context. Number four focus on fundamentals, like whole foods, getting enough protein and fiber. You can just start there. You don't even have to track your food. Number five experiment, experiment, experiment. Find what works. Add the carbs in, take the carbs out, see what happens. And the last thing is prioritize always sustainability over anything short-term. If you think with sustainability in mind, you'll also get the short-term result probably more efficiently and quickly, and you'll be able to keep going that way for the rest of your life.

Philip Pape: 26:37

Okay, so this was a passionate one for me, because nutrition should not be a source of stress or anxiety, like if you're getting angry on social media and trolling, and like posting comments about why this diet is better than this. That's stressful, Like I feel bad for you. I think nutrition is a positive thing that should support your health, that should support your performance and the enjoyment of life, and you should enjoy food. And if your current approach isn't doing that, it's okay to make changes. And I want to thank Chris again for inspiring this episode because her question was very thoughtful, very detailed and if you're struggling with similar confusion nutrition confusion even someone like her who, by the way, listens to the show, she's very well educated, she knows what the heck she's talking about and, if anything, she is a victim, like I am, of being so curious that you can overthink things because of the massive amount of information. So if you're struggling with something like that, I hope today's episode has given you some clarity and tools to move forward. I hope it hasn't added to the confusion.

Philip Pape: 27:41

But one way to simplify it is go to get my nutrition guide, because it's very simple and it's not that long my nutrition 101 for body composition guide. Use the link in my show notes or go to witsandweightscom slash free and in that guide you're going to learn the basics of macros, how to master your macros and the calories for the different phases fat loss, muscle gain, health. How to structure your workout nutrition, your meal timing for performance and recovery, and then just the overall philosophy of sustainability and, you know, not depriving yourself or cutting out the foods you love. Again, that's it. Click the link in my show notes or go to witsandweightscom slash free to download a copy of my Nutrition 101 for Body Composition Guide. Until next time, keep using your wits lifting some weights, and remember, when it comes to nutrition, the best approach and the amount of carbs is the one that works for you. I'll talk to you next time here on the Wits and Weights Podcast.

The Crazy-Busy Parent's Guide to Training and Staying Fit with Bryan Boorstein | Ep 223

Are you a busy parent struggling to stay fit while juggling school runs, work, and family? Do you wonder if it's possible to reclaim your pre-kids fitness? How can you balance your health goals with parenthood?

Philip (https://www.instagram.com/witsandweights) chats with returning guest Bryan Boorstein, founder of Evolve Training Systems and Paragon Training Methods. Bryan,  a fitness coach with 25+ years of experience and a parent himself, shares how busy parents can maintain and surpass their fitness goals.

Bryan Boorstein, co-host of the Eat Train Prosper podcast, has helped everyone from elite athletes to everyday parents. His innovative methods focus on maximizing results, even with limited time, and provide practical advice for making fitness a sustainable and enjoyable part of 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: https://witsandweights.com/free-call

Today, you’ll learn all about:

0:00 Intro
2:35 Finding time for fitness in a busy schedule
4:26 Creative workout ideas for parents
13:18 Optimizing training with limited sleep
17:34 Morning workout tips
19:30 Staying consistent with chaotic family life
21:55 Setting realistic fitness goals
27:58 Managing mental health through fitness as a parent
33:07 Brian’s fitness journey as a parent
49:50 Where to find Brian
50:36 Outro

Episode resources:

• Instagram: @bryanboorstein

• Paragon Training Methods: paragontrainingmethods.com

• Evolve Training Systems: evolvetrainingsystems.com

• Eat Train Prosper Podcast: eattrainprosper.com

• Dumbbell Quickie Program

Episode summary:

Parenthood is a life-changing experience that often leaves little time for personal health and fitness. However, maintaining a balanced fitness routine while managing the demands of a family is not only possible but essential for long-term well-being. In this episode of the Wits and Weights Podcast, fitness expert Brian Boorstein shares his insights on how busy parents can incorporate time-efficient workouts, optimize training, and improve sleep quality. His practical advice aims to help parents achieve their fitness goals without compromising family time or mental health.

One of the key topics discussed in the episode is the challenge of balancing fitness and parenthood. Boorstein emphasizes that busy parents can adapt their fitness plans to fit their demanding lifestyles and potentially even surpass their pre-kids performance levels. The first step, according to Boorstein, is to assess how you spend your time. By performing a time audit, parents can identify pockets of time that can be dedicated to fitness. This approach involves making sacrifices and prioritizing personal health, as being in good shape enhances your ability to be an active and energetic parent.

The episode also delves into the balance between exercise and sleep, two critical pillars of health that often clash for busy parents. Boorstein explains that while traditional longer workouts may be ideal for hypertrophy, frequent short sessions can be equally effective. He highlights the importance of sleep in recovery and performance, noting that poor sleep can disrupt glucose metabolism, but intense workouts can mitigate this. Practical tips for improving sleep quality include maintaining consistent sleep schedules, avoiding large meals before bed, and using sleep aids like blue light blockers and blackout curtains.

Another significant topic covered in the episode is the mental health challenges that come with parenthood. Boorstein discusses how exercise can be a powerful tool against stress and anxiety, often more effective than medications. He shares his personal experience with incorporating breathing exercises into his daily routine to alleviate stress and improve mental clarity. Teaching these practices to children can also help them develop healthy coping mechanisms. Boorstein's story of transitioning from hypertrophy-focused training to a more rounded routine that includes cardio serves as an inspiration for parents looking to integrate fitness into their busy lives.

The conversation also explores the emotional experience of parenthood and the importance of implementing lifestyle habits that enhance longevity and health span. Boorstein reflects on the profound shifts in perspective that come with reaching one's early forties and becoming a parent. He emphasizes how the birth of a child can elevate one's sense of purpose and long-term thinking. Practical challenges, such as ensuring children eat healthily, are also discussed. Even with a strong focus on exercise and mindset, nutrition remains a complex issue, exemplified by the struggle to balance a child's need for calories with the desire to provide healthy food options.

Boorstein's journey from hypertrophy to a balanced fitness routine highlights the importance of adapting to changing life circumstances. By building a comprehensive home gym just before the COVID-19 lockdown, he was able to continue his training regimen despite external challenges. His transition to shorter, more frequent workouts during his daughter's naps demonstrates the effectiveness of flexibility and planning in maintaining a consistent fitness routine. The shift to full-body workouts every two to three days allowed Boorstein to incorporate more cardio, further enhancing his overall life balance.

The episode concludes with a reflection on the importance of exploring guest appearances on other shows for a more comprehensive understanding of fitness and training. The conversation with Boorstein offers invaluable lessons for integrating fitness into a busy family life, emphasizing the significance of consistency, planning, and setting realistic goals. By prioritizing personal health and using fitness as a way to be a positive role model, parents can enhance their family's health and happiness.

In summary, this episode of the Wits and Weights Podcast provides actionable strategies for busy parents to balance fitness and family life effectively. Boorstein's expert tips on time-efficient workouts, optimizing training despite limited sleep, and using fitness to combat stress and anxiety offer a comprehensive guide for parents striving to stay fit and healthy. Whether it's through frequent short sessions, practical sleep tips, or incorporating breathing exercises, the insights shared in this episode can help parents navigate the challenges of parenthood while maintaining their physical and mental well-being.

📲 Send me a text message!

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Transcript

Philip Pape: 0:01

If you're a busy parent who's been struggling to maintain your fitness routine amidst a chaotic schedule of school runs, work deadlines, family obligations, and you've watched your gym time disappear, replaced by an ever-growing to-do list, leaving you wondering if you'll ever reclaim your pre-kids fitness level, this episode's for you. Today, we're sitting down with fitness expert Brian Borstein to uncover how busy parents can not only maintain their fitness but potentially surpass their pre-kids performance. When you understand how to adapt your fitness routine to a hectic family life, you can approach your health goals with confidence, knowing you don't have to choose between being a great parent and staying in shape. So if you've been putting your fitness on the back burner because family life is just too demanding, what we're about to share will give you the blueprint to balance it all without sacrificing your gains or your family time. Welcome to Wits and Weights, the podcast that blends evidence and engineering to help you build smart, efficient systems to achieve your dream physique.

Philip Pape: 1:05

I'm your host, philip Pape, and today we're discussing fitness for busy parents with Brian Borstein, back on the show for a second appearance and also a busy parent, like I am, with a couple kids, but Brian has over 25 years of training experience, over 14 years of coaching. He's the founder of Evolve Training Systems and Paragon Training Methods, and he's worked with everyone from top athletes to everyday people looking to increase their vitality and they want to look great and do all the things. He's also co-host of the Eat Train Prosper podcast, so definitely go follow that one. Today, you're going to learn how to balance the demands of parenthood with your fitness goals, like time-efficient workouts, how to optimize your training despite limited sleep, especially newer parents. Learn how to stay motivated when your priorities have shifted and how to set realistic goals in the face of all those new responsibilities. We'll also discuss using fitness to become a positive role model for your kids. Brian, welcome back to the show, my man.

Bryan Boorstein: 2:04

Yeah, I'm really glad to be here. Thank you for that wonderful introduction and excited to chat with you and help these people out.

Philip Pape: 2:10

Yeah, man. So you probably see this as one of the most common challenges with clients, whether it's someone who used to lift weights, used to be fit you know, they had all that time in their twenties, Maybe they had a physique they were proud of and they're like, I've kind of let it go or those who just maybe haven't ever gotten into it and now they're saying, look, the clock is ticking. I hear all this great stuff about building muscle and eating my protein from guys like Brian on the podcast and they say, man, I just want to get back in shape, but I've got work, I've got kids. I barely have time to even breathe. How do you help them?

Bryan Boorstein: 2:50

I, I don't even breathe.

Bryan Boorstein: 2:51

How do you help them, I guess, frame their new reality before we even get to the nuts and bolts?

Bryan Boorstein: 2:53

Yeah, I think the first step is assessing your own situation in the context of the way that you spend your time, and I'm as familiar as anybody with the trials and tribulations of being time poor.

Bryan Boorstein: 3:01

I am lucky in the sense that I work from home, and so it's a lot easier to find time to go for walks and things like that when you work from home.

Bryan Boorstein: 3:05

I am lucky in the sense that I work from home, and so it's a lot easier to find time to go for walks and things like that when you work from home.

Bryan Boorstein: 3:08

I also have a home gym, so I am easily able to just start downstairs, do some quick fitness and come back up, and in that way I understand my situation can be unrelatable, but I've certainly worked with enough people and I'm familiar with the way that the situation works when you don't have those luxuries. So, like I was saying, I think the first step is really taking an assessment of how you spend your time and making some sacrifices, because in most cases, when you actually look at the 24 hours that you spend in your day, you can find 20 or 30 minutes here and there to prioritize the health and wellness of yourself, because being able to be in good shape and good health means that you bring your best to your family and you can play with your kids and have the energy to do those things, and so I think that there's actually exponential benefit in doubling down on yourself. I mean, put your life jacket on before you help others, right? That's generally the rule of thumb, and I think the same thing kind of applies here.

Philip Pape: 4:10

Yeah, yeah, no, I totally agree. That's the whole time audit and the assessments. I know you said people can't always relate, because I get it. I also work from home. I also have a home gym, although the home gym piece I think more people have control of than they think or will like. Take the action to do that, and I think it's a huge benefit if you can. But we all have other things right, like I mean, you and I have plenty of other things that we can make excuses for that take up a lot of our time as well. So from that sense it is relatable and I think you, you know, don't sell yourself short is what I'm saying when it comes to finding the time, or making the time and then deciding what gets filled into that time. Somebody who's, let's say, they haven't trained in a long time or they haven't, they're going to start now. What do they do? And then how much time do they try to find?

Bryan Boorstein: 4:52

as step one, yeah, I mean there's a number of ways you can approach this. I think it depends what your time availability actually is, because I guess when I look at the majority of people that I've worked with and communicated with about this problem, they generally find themselves in two buckets. You either have the person that's like I can commit 60 to 90 minutes, but I can only do it two or three days a week, or you have the person that's like, yeah, I can do this every day, but I only have 20 to 40 minutes, or something along those lines, and so I think there can be a legit, successful program that helps you get in and stay in shape and health in either of those circumstances. So, kind of with that in mind, I think you first have to decide which bucket do you fall into, or maybe it's like kind of somewhere in between, but those two extremes, I think, allow us to make the point effectively and then kind of divvying up how you're going to spend that time. And if you're the person that has 20 or 30 minutes, a lot of times people don't start their fitness journey because they think 20 to 30 minutes isn't enough, whereas the person that has 60 to 90, two to three times a week. They're like hey, I can go to the gym, I can get away, I can have my personal time, but I don't think one is necessarily better than the other. In fact, 20 to 30 minutes every day might be better than 60 to 90 minutes two, three times a week. And so I think, with that 20 to 30 minutes, just use it effectively At a very extreme level.

Bryan Boorstein: 6:14

There's a lot of research on what's called exercise snacks and this is literally this idea of working out for one minute.

Bryan Boorstein: 6:21

So, like every hour or two hours, you just get up and you go run some stairs as hard as you can and you get your heart rate super elevated.

Bryan Boorstein: 6:28

You go back down, you work for another hour and you just kind of repeat this throughout the day, one minute at a time. That's an extreme, obviously, but as an example of that, you can extrapolate that out to these 20 to 30 minute sessions and you can do pushups, sit ups, find a tree branch, do some jumping, pull ups or some pull up lowers. You can go to a jungle gym at a local elementary school and use the dip bars and the pull up bars there. You can do sprints back and forth in your front yard Shuttle runs are something that I do all the time when I'm traveling because I'm like look, I have a 30 foot space, I can run back and forth a ton of times really fast. Do it with like a one-to-one work to rest ratio and you have an extremely effective 20 minute workout in there. So I think, not having limiting beliefs and then trying to get creative with the time that you have available, yeah, like pandemic creative.

Philip Pape: 7:20

You know what I mean. Back then it was like go to Home Depot when they were open and try to get weights. That way, You're already giving people fewer and fewer places to hide. I guess is the goal here, because we want to give ourselves the least friction, even though there's some discomfort, there's some hard thing or some choice you have to make to get going. Be creative, think about your schedule. What time do you have Then? What do you want to do that? Divvy up within that time, the 20 to 30 minutes you said it might be better. Can you elaborate on that? Are we talking recovery? Are we talking adherence? What are we talking? You know training stimulus, cause you're fresh. What are? What are we talking about?

Bryan Boorstein: 7:56

Yeah, I'm more speaking along the lines of like, evolutionarily we were sort of meant to move and we weren't meant to sit for four days and then work really, really hard for three days.

Bryan Boorstein: 8:08

I think that you know, every day, if you look at the way we came through evolution, we would get up and we would move.

Bryan Boorstein: 8:12

In the morning we would have to go find food or whatever our role was within the community, and then we would come back and there would be some periods of relaxation sitting around, of course interspersed with more kind of getting up and moving and playing and stuff like that. And so I just think that if we can move more often, that's better. And so that's why I kind of brought up even that example of the exercise snacks is that falls more in line with our evolution, more even than 20 to 30 minutes a day, because my understanding is that we were a nomadic group that was constantly in movement, not just like we're moving from this place to this place over a five-day period, but more like we wake up, we move, we sit, we move, we sit, we move, and if we can kind of take some of those principles and apply them to our life in the current state of things, I think we can get back to health a lot faster than we can with more of that like slow plotting approach where you're still sedentary the majority of the time.

Philip Pape: 9:07

Yeah, that's powerful, because we do have a lot of people who sit around on their butt all day, myself included sometimes, and I think correct me if I'm wrong or you know the listener thinking about this we separate our movement into different buckets, right?

Philip Pape: 9:19

We think, like there's the training bucket, and I'm going to do that three or four days a week for an hour, and then there's the walking bucket, maybe the cardio bucket, and then there's everything else and what you're saying is that like it's all movement and so why don't we get creative and kind of fit it in on a frequent basis? Some of that's training, cardio, walking, whatever, some of it's all of it at the same time. And it's funny because I just recorded with Cody McBroom yesterday and he's into hybrid training and kind of same mindset of like let's stop fixating on, like, let's stop making it binary. You know, with some of these things, I think we also know the evidence says that not being sedentary is a hugely positive factor, independent of steps and independent of training. So again, there's probably a reason for that, right.

Bryan Boorstein: 10:02

Yeah, absolutely yeah, agreed.

Philip Pape: 10:04

Yeah, so that's efficiency I think we're speaking to as well. How would you recommend for the average person I hate to say this because it always depends, right, right, it always depends. But like the average dad, for example, let's take me. I'm in my forties. I started training properly maybe five years ago. And somebody like that, when it comes to a training program, who has a little bit of time, maybe like three, four days a week, to strength train let's talk hypertrophy Again where would you start? I know these are generalities.

Bryan Boorstein: 10:32

Yeah, I mean three or four days a week, call it what? An hour, three or four days a week? I think you open up a ton of possibilities. I mean that is honestly within the margins of being optimal. So you can look at like professional bodybuilders or powerlifters or anyone at the extreme of resistance training and there are some at the very top level that are training less than four hours a week or four times a week for one hour each.

Bryan Boorstein: 10:58

There's also people that are doing more. I don't think that their decision to do more is necessarily based on a broad sweeping need, but more like an individual need. So there's just a variance of genetic responses to training and some people might be under that four times a week and some people might be above it. But four times a week is truly a sweet spot, like I almost would say that if you're that person that can do four days a week you shouldn't even really consider yourself limited as far as pursuing strength and hypertrophy. That's just like a good, well-rounded training program. So yeah, I mean, do you want to dig in any more into that?

Philip Pape: 11:32

We can. But I want to sit on that because when we talk about limiting beliefs, like another way to frame, that is, it's only four hours a week you have to find and now you're optimal. It's a really powerful frame because I mean, I guess, unless you're working 12 hour days, you literally have time for nothing at all, which is probably a tiny percentage of people. I don't know. Finding that four hours or even three hours gets you pretty close, aside from the other techniques you talked about, like exercise snacks. So I guess let's talk about the what would you say is average for a busy parent in your experience. Is it more like three or four days for a half hour, you know, closer to the 20, 30 minute mark that you mentioned earlier?

Bryan Boorstein: 12:08

I think it's pretty split man. Through my experience, I have those people that are like I can do two or three days a week for 45 to 60 minutes, or I can do 20 to 30 minutes. It does seem to kind of fit into those extremes, I guess, if I were to have to. So I think an important clarification is that when I said it was four times a week is optimal for an hour, that's assuming the pursuit is purely hypertrophy. I think when you're looking at optimal health, you now have to include things like walking, higher intensity cardiovascular work and things like that. So, yeah, the four times a week can get you there.

Bryan Boorstein: 12:41

With that in mind, though, which one is more popular or do I see more often? I would probably say that maybe 60% of people are in that like two to three times a week for an hour camp, instead of the 20 to 30 minutes every day. But I think that if they were to actually take a step back and reflect on their use of time, they might actually find that 20 to 30 minutes, or 20 to 40 minutes every day, is actually a reasonable thing to do. It just is easier when you're kind of zoomed out to settle on like okay, I can move things around and I can find two days a week, versus I can find time every day. You know what I mean. Yeah, no.

Philip Pape: 13:18

I know what you mean and the reason I'm asking this is I want to get to where this discussion is focused on, the things that people can't already get from. Maybe another podcast, such as the one you and I did earlier, which was all about time intensity techniques or time efficiency techniques For people who like have the time, kind of a standard approach, probably will work For people who are a little bit trying to get creative. That's what I want to hone in on. So before we like dive down the training rabbit hole, I want to start with sleep, because that's a counterpoint to like you're awake, you're moving, you're training, but now you need to recover, and we know for parents that can be hard to come by, depending on how old your kids are, but even when they're older, right, depending on school and all the other things going on. So how does that affect? First of all, just so people know, how does sleep affect recovery and performance? And then how do we optimize it, even if time is limited and you can't find all the hours?

Bryan Boorstein: 14:12

Yeah, it's tough because we know that sleep is so important. We also know that exercise and being in good shape improves the quality of your sleep. So there's a little bit of a catch-22 there. We also know, interestingly, that if you have a poor night of sleep but you're regularly a pretty good sleeper, but if you have a poor night of sleep, your glucose response goes haywire and your body doesn't process carbohydrates very well, which you guys can probably feel. You know, when you're poorly slept you feel like you're reaching for those high carbohydrate, high palatable foods more readily. But the benefit of exercise is that if you actually do a hard, intense workout despite being poorly slept, it corrects the glucose response issues that you would have from the poor sleep. So there's this big interconnected kind of circle of exercise and sleep where they benefit each other and at the end of the day both will improve by improving.

Bryan Boorstein: 15:08

So, with that said, yeah, man, sleep can be tough, depending on the age of your kids and what they're going through mentally.

Bryan Boorstein: 15:13

I mean, I know I have parents, friends, who have kids your age and they're starting to get into the early teenage years and they're saying that now their sleep schedule is completely changed because the kids might need to have an emotional conversation with them about friendships and popularity or whatever, at 10 pm at night, as you're trying to get ready for sleep, and so the whole dynamic is affected, regardless of what age your kids are, as you kind of pointed to.

Bryan Boorstein: 15:39

But the thing with sleep is you just want to do the best you can to be consistent with it, consistent with your bedtime, consistent with your wake-up time, trying to make sure that you're not having huge meals and lots of water right before bed, because then you're going to be digesting as you sleep, you're going to be getting up to urinate and use the bathroom in the middle of the night, and that's going to affect the quality of your sleep. One thing that I learned relatively recently on a podcast with Matthew Walker, who's kind of like the sleep guy. He was saying that even if you get to bed later than you intend, you should still wake up at the same time that you usually would, instead of sleeping in, because then you get one of the two end points correct, like either the start or the end of your sleep, and then, because you woke up earlier, you'll actually be tired and you'll have easier sleep onset the following night.

Philip Pape: 16:28

Yeah, that's a good one.

Bryan Boorstein: 16:29

Yeah, so I think that's interesting. But like sleep, you can only do what you can with sleep. Like you can do all of these things you can wear your blue light blockers and not eat at night and not drink water, and try to tell your kids not to bother you past 9 pm, sleep mask, blackout curtains Don't forget those. White noise or pink noise is now the new thing.

Philip Pape: 16:47

Pink noise $3,000 mattress that cools you down, right, right and then tells you your HRV as you're sleeping.

Bryan Boorstein: 16:51

You can do all of these things and still sleep can evade you, and so it just is something that's important, and I think that, man, this isn't going to be a podcast on sleep, but you ought to do what's necessary to improve your sleep, and if that means seeking out Matthew Walker's work and that of other sleep experts in the field, then I think that that's something that's worth your time to do.

Philip Pape: 17:14

Yeah, I totally agree. I do like the consistent times. I also am using that as rule number one because if you tell people to get more sleep, I mean that can be a big stretch for some people. Just with reality, I do like that trick of at least keep your wake-up time, even if you go to bed late, and then avoiding the huge meals and drinks. I mean, trust me, you're going to pay for it when you do that. Quick question Do you recommend, if people have a choice or don't care, training in the morning?

Bryan Boorstein: 17:40

I think if you have a poor night of sleep, then training in the morning is probably your best friend because it kind of sets things and regulates things much better so that you have a better day as you get going. Beyond that, I don't think it matters. I think it's individual preference and I know for me I prefer to work out in the morning because of what I said earlier. Like it just it sets my day up correctly, it makes me feel good, I feel more cognitively prepared for what is waiting for me for the day.

Bryan Boorstein: 18:07

If I've done my workout first and if I feel like I have too much to do and I end up not getting to work out until noon or one, I just find myself having like little bouts of apprehension about the workout, thinking about how hard it's going to be or what weights I'm going to use, or this interval that I need to push on my bike or whatever it is. Those thoughts start to creep in my head. But once I do the workout, it's just great. It's like this incredible feeling of euphoria that lasts for hours throughout the rest of the day, with a sense of accomplishment that I think is hard to get. I mean, there's a number of ways you can do it, like people use ice baths and things like that, but some sort of shock to get you out of homeostasis really seems to help. Kind of just set the day up correctly.

Philip Pape: 18:47

Yeah, I wonder I ask almost everyone about that now because just my personal experience has been that as well Like it sets the day up really well. Also, if you are a busy parent, the day just gets away from you. You don't know what's going to happen. You think you know, you think your schedule's locked down, but literally the day that gets going and the schedule's changed, it's going to change. So it's easy to have an excuse when it's later in the day.

Bryan Boorstein: 19:15

If you do it first, you do it first period, even if you get up at 4 am. I'm sorry. I mean it can work if you shift things around the right way. You don't want to sacrifice sleep long-term for workouts. If you're like the only time I could work out would be 4 am, then you need to be going to bed at 8 pm for the majority of cases, or else that schedule isn't going to work for you.

Philip Pape: 19:30

For sure, man. All right, so motivation, consistency, all of that, because we know busy parents, maybe more than some, have a lot of variability in their life, kind of what I alluded to, where, because you have these extra kids in your life, there's chaos of one sort or another. How do we stay consistent, knowing a lot can change? Is there an element of planning or updating your schedule, or whatever it might be, some tricks you have in the bag to kind of step it up and say not really any excuses, because I've thought ahead for this.

Bryan Boorstein: 20:01

This is one of the reasons why I love the 20 to 40 minute period every day that you have, because then you just put it into your schedule and you're like this is my very short, brief period of time that I know is there for me every day, no matter what, and even in days where you're not feeling up for it, you're lethargic, you have a ton of stuff on your mind, whatever. Just going out and getting a 30 minute walk in during that period of time is better than nothing, and obviously you know the more intensity you can use. You know incorporating weights and different cardio modalities and stuff like that is going to likely be better than just walking. But what that does is you have that slot of time that you know is yours and that it can't be messed with. So I love that.

Bryan Boorstein: 20:45

For the people that have that two to three days a week for 45 to 60 minutes, they have a longer period of time, but less frequently.

Bryan Boorstein: 20:53

I find that those people tend to more likely put workouts off and say oh well, you know I didn't work out the last two days and now I'm on day three, like I'm supposed to work out, but I feel lethargic. I have this meeting. My son got in trouble with the principal at school and like all these things are weighing on you and you're like I just can't work out for an hour right now, so I'm not going to do it and that's. You know. The nice thing about those 20 to 30 minute chunks is you're like I don't have to work out for an hour, I just need 20 to 30 minutes of time for me, and then it seems like that hour can feel overwhelming sometimes. So I think you know setting yourself up for success in creating a model and a schedule that works with your mindset and you know the nature in which you tend to operate is probably a good first step in setting your schedule.

Philip Pape: 21:37

Yeah, yeah. I like the idea of this ritualistic approach. It is a form of discipline. When you're doing something every day, you know. Maybe once that's in place, you can then expand and experiment with different things and you'll want to go to the gym, like you know, at some point you just want to go, no matter what your schedule is. So a little bit lower level then. For people that want to train, let's say they do that approach. I know you obviously have a million training programs and talk about training all the time on your podcast. What is a reasonable type of training to maybe start with if you're a beginner or you're detrained getting back into it? And then how do you recommend logging and tracking so that you kind of get those wins and that awareness that you are making the progress you want to make early on in that process?

Bryan Boorstein: 22:17

Yeah, I think it really depends on what your equipment access is as far as like what I would prescribe somebody. I mean it could be as simple. As you know, somebody has 20 to 30 minutes seven days a week, and so three of those days are body weight resistance training. You have access to no weights. You're going to do various core movements pushups, air squats, lunges, split squats. Like I said, you can go to a playground, find a jungle gym, pull-up bar type thing. You can find a tree branch, do some dead hangs from there. So I think three days a week you do some form of resistance training in that period of time. Two days a week you probably do some sort of higher intensity cardiovascular work during that time. So that could be finding some stairs and running up and down those for 20 minutes. It could be the shuttle runs in the front yard that I mentioned. It could be jump roping or going for a jog outside, finding a hill Don't say burpees.

Bryan Boorstein: 23:19

No, I don't like programming burpees because, I feel like most people, especially starting out, aren't strong enough to actually burpee properly, and as they fatigue they start to do things that are injurious. So even with pushups, I think you know this is a great one because you can do them at no matter how strong you are. People might say, oh, but I can't do pushups and I would never tell someone to go to their knees because I think that really just messes their form up ultimately. So I'm a huge fan of taking someone and putting them on hands, elevated pushups. So maybe you find a couch or a countertop or something like that and you do your pushups that way with perfect form, and then, as you get stronger, you can find lower and lower objects for you to do your pushups on until eventually you're doing them on the ground with great form. So we have three days a week of bodyweight resistance training, or that could be weighted resistance training. If you have access to dumbbells or barbells or even a gym setup would be even better, but resistance training is fine anyway. Three days a week, two days of higher intensity cardio and then I think the other two days they could be. It really depends on you, I think, starting out just making those other two days walks is probably great, but as you get going and you begin to get in better shape and you want to put more into it, I think doing some lower intensity cardio on those other two days would be great.

Bryan Boorstein: 24:35

Maybe you're now walking hills or you're doing fast walks with a weight vest, or you're getting on a bike and going for a bike ride with your kids, and that counts. That's the beauty is you can double count things. You can get a two for one by going for a bike ride with your kids and now you're parenting, but you're also getting some low-intensity cardiovascular movement. Oftentimes when my kids were young, they would be scooting because they weren't biking yet, and I would jog alongside them as they scooted. And then, because I'm not a runner, I'd be like okay, we need a break and let's chill out for a second. And they're happy to sit, sit there and like watch me breathe for a second and then we get going again. And so a number of ways that you can incorporate activity and movement with the things that generally consume your life.

Philip Pape: 25:21

Yeah, that's a really important one because I think when people think, wow, you're telling me to do all this stuff every day and four of the seven days or some form of cardio, you know people definitely have a love-hate relationship with quote-unquote cardio, but there's a million ways to do that that can be enjoyable. I mean, if you've got kids, honestly, if you're not playing with them on a regular basis, you're missing out on their growing up. I think You're also missing out on selfishly a way for you to be active, even if it's just going to the back and tossing the ball and running around.

Max: 25:52

You know ball and running around, you know whatever it is. I love that. Shout out to Philippe. I know Philippe for a long time. I know how passionate he is about healthy eating and body strength and that's why I choose him to be my coach. I was no stranger to dieting and body training, but I always struggled to do it sustainably. Philippe helped me prioritize my goals with evidence-based recommendations while not overstressing my body and not feeling like I'm starving. In six months, I lost 45 pounds without drastically changing the foods I enjoy, but now I have a more balanced diet. I weight train consistently but, most importantly, I do it sustainably. If a scientifically sound, healthy diet and a lean, strong body is what you're looking for, philly, Pape is your guy.

Philip Pape: 26:37

Question about the activity or the equipment. Do you like gently or even strongly prod clients who don't have any equipment to like? Let's figure out, as we ramp you up body weight to get access to equipment somehow.

Bryan Boorstein: 26:49

Yeah, yeah, I would say like I haven't worked with any clients that don't have some form of equipment for a number of years now, like this was maybe a problem 10 or 15 years ago for me. At this point I work primarily with people that are already bought in, not with like brand new, like off the couch to like, okay, I need to figure this fitness thing out so I don't die. So I'm slightly detached from that person. But, to answer your question, I absolutely believe that the equipment that you have can create a higher quality training stimulants in less time. So as you get past those bodyweight workouts, get less of a tan than you did the prior time. Same response occurs within our bodies as adaptations occur, and so at some point you're going to be not getting the response that you desire from doing the body weight movements that were giving you a great response in the beginning.

Philip Pape: 27:42

Yeah, and I think today, with the prevalence of all sorts of gyms and equipment and I mean the vast majority of people probably have a little space. They can build something, hopefully where they live, but maybe not that is again less of a reason not to do that, other than it's an excuse. Okay, what about so, since we're talking about parenthood specifically, what about the kind of the stress and anxiety is also ramped up. So we talked about all the obligations people have. We talked about schedule and time and time, efficiency and sleep, but then there's also mental health. Right, because you even said like your own kids might be facing mental challenges that you have to help them with, which is draining for some folks, especially introverts, might drain them. I guess what strategies come to mind for managing your mental health, just besides just doing all the things we talked about, which definitely help mental health too?

Bryan Boorstein: 28:29

Yeah, that's what I was going to say. It's kind of like sleep. It's this perpetually tied together where the more exercise you do, the better your mental health gets. There's actually been some studies done that have shown that exercise is more effective for combating depression and anxiety than the actual medications that people get, like SSRIs and things like that. So I think that's a great first step.

Bryan Boorstein: 28:50

If you're somebody that's battling these health issues and you don't exercise, like hey, it's out there, it's free, like if you could bottle up exercise in a pill and give it to people, it would be the most popular pill ever taken, like it would exceed everything, so like it'd be better than Ozempic. So I think I mean even people that exercise obviously have mental health problems. So I mean I've certainly dealt with my fair share of days where I'm just like man, this day sucks. I just don't know how I'm going to get through this, and so for me, the way that I generally respond to that is through going for a walk, doing some exercise and doing some breathing practice, and the breathing practice is something that's new for me in the last three years.

Bryan Boorstein: 29:34

So I went through 39 years of my life and had no way of kind of self-regulating through breathing practice and, as I've gotten more into it in the last couple of years, I find myself probably daily, taking five to 10 minutes and just closing my eyes and focusing on a long inhale and an even longer exhale, generally maybe like four to five seconds on the inhale and like six to eight seconds on the exhale, and I'll do that for five to 10 minutes in succession with my eyes closed, and usually I'll do that at times where I feel things beginning to burden me. It could be like on one side, it could be man. Do you ever get that sense where on a computer and you're typing away and you're just like, you feel like you're just like in the computer, you're like you're like this crazy person with like it's hard to describe, but I get like I feel like my blood pressure must be like going through the roof as I'm typing, doing work.

Philip Pape: 30:29

I know what you mean. You're getting hotter and you're just like I got to get this done and the stress is ramping up, I get it, man, yeah yeah.

Bryan Boorstein: 30:35

So in those moments I feel like my heart is beating faster and my breathing is erratic, and so I'll just be like, no, I feel this happening, I'm going to push this computer away and I'm going to do my five to 10 minute breathing thing, and so that's one example where I might do that. Another example is like I have a conflict with somebody, a phone call that is unsettling a meeting, that's unsettling something along those lines, stressed out about something along with work, and that's another great opportunity to take five to 10 minutes and kind of sit down and breathe. I don't even need to necessarily do any reflection, I don't need to come to any conclusions in my brain about how I'm going to handle the situation. It's just separating from it for a moment and trying not to think about it is sort of the best thing that I can do, and I think that that can be extrapolated out to situations with kids and stuff like that too.

Philip Pape: 31:22

Yeah, it's super accessible. And since you just mentioned kids, do you do anything like that with your kids? Do you try to show them some of these practices, or are you not there yet? Yeah, we try. Yeah, you try to show them some of these practices or you're not there yet?

Bryan Boorstein: 31:32

Yeah, we try.

Philip Pape: 31:32

Yeah, you try, yeah, yeah.

Bryan Boorstein: 31:34

They generally wake up in the morning right as I'm doing my morning breathing. So they'll walk in and I'll be like super zen in my chair and they'll just sit there and stare at me and I'm like I can tell they're staring at me right now, but I don't really want to open my eyes and acknowledge them. They see it happening and then my daughter is like this perfect little angel. As you have two girls, you know how it must be. My son is not a perfect little angel.

Philip Pape: 31:59

There are differences, I've heard.

Bryan Boorstein: 32:01

And so my daughter, actually four and a half years old, is already able to implement some of that stuff. Like she was freaking out the other night and talking about how she was unhappy and blah, blah, blah, and then she goes, or no. My wife said remember, vivi, you love yourself. And she goes. Yes, I love myself. And she did like a series of like mantras of I love myself with a bunch of deep breaths and then she goes. I feel better.

Bryan Boorstein: 32:23

So she's like four and a half years old doing this, and my son is like the complete opposite, like if you tell him to do that, he's like no, I don't want to do that. Blah, blah, blah, and like it's this complete outrage that we would even propose the idea that he reflect and sit back.

Philip Pape: 32:36

He needs a little sledgehammer and then some stuff to destroy in the backyard. That'll be his mindfulness. You know therapy, right, right, right. Oh, that's that brings up a couple of things, right Cause? Yeah, no, I mean my, my daughters. Yeah, the definitely difference between daughters and sons are hilarious sometimes.

Philip Pape: 32:52

And talking to your kids and modeling your kids, they're like sponges. And, yeah, if you have them there while you're working out, that's another benefit of a home gym you can have your kids there and they see what it is. Or if you're able to take them to the gym, it depends on age and the setting. I think that's awesome. So, speaking of that, then, how do we leverage the fact that we're parents and have that situation Maybe a single parent, maybe you have a spouse, but you definitely have the kids to shift your focus and really have a driving reason why you do this.

Philip Pape: 33:21

So, as opposed to just, you know, getting jacked like you might've wanted to do in your twenties you know longevity function being a role model. I definitely hear these a lot when I have new clients who are parents. For some reason, man, I attract a lot of homeschool parents these days. We do that too, and I don't know what it is, but they'll say I want to be a role model for my kids. So what are your thoughts on all of that? Like shifting our focus now that we are parents?

Bryan Boorstein: 33:43

Yeah, I mean I think it's super important. Your kids are watching everything that you do, as you kind of said earlier, and so who you are is sort of who they're going to be at some level. I mean, obviously they're their own person as well, but they do follow suit, and so I think living the life for yourself, as if you want your kids to live a similar life, is probably a good approach to take when you think about setting up the things that are important to you in your life. Yeah, I think it's like you mentioned function, longevity. Was it setting an example or something?

Philip Pape: 34:19

like that. Yeah, being a role model, I'm just pulling these things out of my ass. I love that.

Bryan Boorstein: 34:22

Yeah, no, those three were great and I think all of them play a huge role. It's weird I'm in my early forties and so much of my perspective on things shifted, like when I became a parent, but then when I turned 40, because something about turning 40 put this whole life in perspective in a sense of like okay, the average age is around 80, 40 is about halfway. It's not a midlife crisis, but it is a way to reflect and put perspective on the fact that, wow, I'm over halfway done with this journey, potentially now, and if I want it to last longer and I don't want to be halfway done and I want to see my kids when they're my age. I mean that to me is like when you start thinking about the fact that, like, I'm 42, my dad is 70, my mom is 73. I don't want to be 73 and already worrying that I'm not going to see my son make it to 40 because I'm 35 years older than him. I want to see him make it to 40. I want to see him make it to 50.

Bryan Boorstein: 35:26

I want to see my grandkids be older than seven or six or whatever these things, putting them in perspective and then implementing the practices and the lifestyle habits that are necessary to give you the best chance to get there. Because, who knows, my friends see me taking omega-3 pills when we go out to eat. I'll bring omega-3s to take them, because I want to make sure I have my omega-3s in me, and my buddies are always like you're for sure going to get hit by a bus One of those things you just don't know. But you do want to set yourself up for the best opportunity to be there for the long term, and longevity is such a buzzword these days. There's positives and negatives about it, but I think the very positive part of it is that it's forcing people to sit back, reflect and be aware of what things they need to be doing to ensure that they give themselves the best health span and not just lifespan.

Philip Pape: 36:20

Yeah, I almost envision from what you said. I think of okay, we have parents and now we have kids, and there's this continuum of this longevity across generations. You know, the moment that the kid is born. I mean, I remember when my, our first child was born, our daughter we didn't know what the sex was of the baby I know that's very rare these days and so I got to see that she was a girl.

Philip Pape: 36:39

You know, when she was born and man did I like break down and I was like, okay, I'm not, I'm not even important anymore, like this is the most important thing. I'm even about to tear up talking about it, and I think every parent feels that it's like okay, now there's something even more important. I have like my purpose is elevated. It's not that I don't exist, I'm still an individual with my and desires, but now it's extended and you're like thinking across many decades. So then that raises the question are there anything? People who need a kick in the butt right now, who are parents and thinking, man, I'm not doing the things I need to be doing? Is there anything we should be concerned about Because we're not doing these things and our kids are seeing that? Or maybe we're obsessed about things, or maybe we are, I don't know things that we say, things that we do. I know we're getting so philosophical here. Does anything come to mind? Maybe you personally, that you're like, hey, maybe I could do better with that because I have kids.

Bryan Boorstein: 37:29

Yeah, I think I do really well with the exercise and the mindset and things like that. But I don't do very well with the nutrition side for my kids, which I know people might be surprised about to hear. But it is really really hard to get kids to eat healthy. And we have tried, we've tried so many different angles on it and we even, like, had an appointment with our doctor to talk about it and the doctor was like, look, your son is really skinny, Like he just needs food. And we were trying to take this approach of like, you know, if it's not at least semi-healthy, like we're going to sort of restrict it until you're hungry enough that you will eat it.

Bryan Boorstein: 38:09

And I'm not trying to say he needs to be eating like broccoli and tomatoes and things like that, but like how about anything other than a bagel or dessert? Like those are kind of like his two foods bagel and dessert. And so we're just like kind of like his two foods, bagel and dessert. And so we're just like, no, like you can't have bagels and dessert anymore, right. And then we go to the doctor and the doctor's like look, your son's really skinny, like he needs food. He just needs calories, because calories are going to be the thing that are going to power his brain and his body to continue developing and growing. And then we're stuck at this like really challenging crossroads of okay, so do we just feed him bagels for every meal, because that's what he wants and that's what he's going to eat.

Bryan Boorstein: 38:50

And man, that is a really tough cookie to crack and I still feel unprepared for that seven years later and I don't know what even the right move is. Here. It's like we're seeing small improvements here and there and at least I'm getting him enough protein. I'll hide a burger in a bun and he'll have chicken nuggets with barbecue sauce, and like we're getting enough protein and we're eating a little bit of fruit, but like 80% of his food is bagels and yeah, we're just. I'm still working through that. So I think that's the most challenging thing for me, and I know that I can't judge parents that have other issues Like they might have mindset issues or exercise issues or things like that because I'm obviously struggling with one of these components as well.

Philip Pape: 39:22

I mean, I think that's the best example you could give, in that you know, obviously you are walking the walk and know a lot about this stuff and coach people through it, and yet it's still there's challenges that are come from parenting in this realm that anybody listening could relate to. That hey, you're not perfect. I mean. I think maybe that's the messages. None of us are perfect. We're doing our best. Set an example. That's like the best thing you can do. Number one right, set the example.

Philip Pape: 39:44

And then, beyond that, of course, as a parent, we just have to kind of figure out what the heck, what the heck do we do? Because you mentioned a few things, like when kids are growing up, they need to eat calories. But then you have the side that we get a little bit obsessed with. It was just like what to eat and that it's healthy and that it's balanced, that there's protein, and sometimes it's like do we just have them eat whatever because they need to grow? We don't want them to be stunted, you know, be malnourished.

Philip Pape: 40:09

Or do we also try to kind of instill these other things, you know, sneaking stuff in their food? I mean, there's lots of tricks, man, we've done it all as well, and then there's the body image thing. Man, I have two daughters and at their age now 12 and 10, I'm telling you got to be really careful what you say, and that you don't like if they gain a little extra weight. I'm never going to comment on that. I'm like, look, they're still growing. You know what I mean? Like it doesn't matter. They're going to eventually be adults and then have their choices.

Bryan Boorstein: 40:43

I'm doing a lot of well, so that's a good one. I don't know if you want to add anything to that. I'll just say that the body image thing is one that I'm woefully unprepared for as well, and I haven't had to deal with that yet because of their age. But we are cautious of the language that we use as we discuss body size and things like that, and I think that that's a prudent move.

Philip Pape: 40:55

Yeah, the language thing affects everything. I mean, even my wife gets worried very easily about things and if she'll says it out loud, like with the kids there, and then they, they get worried about it and they come there and she's like I need to be careful, like what I say, in what context. I mean, so you're a parent, you've got young ish kids there, you know, like you said, toddler and a little bit older than that. How has your own fitness journey evolved since being a parent yourself? Good question, I love that question.

Bryan Boorstein: 41:20

Well, it's funny because when I had my first child seven years ago, what I did was I went to a three times a week full body approach. So I was that person that had three days a week, or two to three days a week, but I'm going to be in the gym for 90 minutes each time, and I was. I'm going to double down on the hard work, on the big compound movements and stuff like that. And I went to the gym to do that when we had my daughter. She was born one month before COVID started and luckily I had man.

Bryan Boorstein: 41:48

I don't even know how I got so lucky, but I was like I read an article about this disease that might be an issue. This was mid-February and I was like you know what? I'm not going to get caught in this, I'm going to order some dumbbells and a bench right now. And so mid-February, I bought four sets of dumbbells. I bought 25s, 50s, 75s and 100s and I was like, with those four sets of dumbbells and an adjustable bench, I should be able to fully train my whole body with whatever way I need to, if anything happens. Those dumbbells and that bench arrived the day before the world shut down, so that day, on March 13th or whatever it was it was March 12th everything arrived and I was like, yes, so what I did with my second child is I actually took the approach of I'm going to work out 20-ish minutes as often as I can, and this would generally be multiple times a day, like my daughter's down for a nap, boom, go down and hit quads for 20 minutes. Okay, she's sleeping. Again in the afternoon, go down and hit hamstrings or chest or just one little body part at a time for 20 minutes day a week.

Bryan Boorstein: 42:52

I was able to actually make some really good progress through the early stages of COVID, which was kind of cool, and then, once everything opened back up again, I had already built this incredible home gym, so it went from just dumbbells and an incline adjustable bench to what I have now, which is rivaling a commercial gym. I mean, obviously I only have one of everything. So that's the thing. I'm still missing a few things, like I don't have a machine chest press, which I would love. I love a machine chest press, but I'm at a point where I'm one in, one out on equipment and so I don't know what I would ditch to bring in the chest press machine.

Philip Pape: 43:35

You don't have room.

Bryan Boorstein: 43:36

You're saying Like you'd have to swap. Yeah, exactly. So I have the dual cable machine which allows me to emulate most machines. So I'll do my chest presses on the cables, but like I have a pendulum squat, a hack squat, a 45 degree hip extension, a T-bar row, a leg extension, leg curl squat, rack and dumbbells up to 110 plus the cable machine, so it's like a fully functioning gym in there.

Bryan Boorstein: 44:01

And so, as far as how my training has evolved since that point, I would say until two or about three years ago, I was super big in the evidence-based hypertrophy scene. Everything I did was to make hypertrophy the most important thing in my training. So I basically didn't do much cardio until three years ago. I would go for walks just for basic health, but I didn't want to expend any energy that I could be putting into hypertrophy training. I was training six days a week, an hour each day, like a push-pull legs, push-pull legs type split, really putting everything in on hypertrophy. And then I think, as we may have touched on in the last episode, when I turned 40, I got that shot of my future and reflecting on my longevity, and that's when I really began doing cardio. Over the last three years since I first implemented cardio, it has become just as important as weights for me at least, as important, maybe even like an A1 and put the weights as like A2, partially because I just love that I'm still seeing progress so rapidly with cardio. With weights it's like I can go six months and build up and then ramp down, and build back up and ramp down and then test and I'm like, okay, six months later and I added one rep to a movement or five pounds or something like that, and so it's a lot of work and time commitment for this reward in quotes of one additional rep, whereas with cardio, the more I do, the better it gets, and it's just like every month I'm like, wow, I didn't know I could do that. And so it's crazy, three years in, to still be at that point where I'm getting these like intermediate gains sort of. So I love that for cardio. I love the way cardio makes me feel.

Bryan Boorstein: 45:42

I kind of think that in some ways cardio is better for the mind, for the cognitive side of getting through the stresses of life. I always feel better after doing cardio and weight. Sometimes I still feel like it's just kind of like still biting at me after I finish a weight session. So now my training has shifted a lot and I'm kind of at a point where I'm going back to some of my roots with weight training. I'm actually embarking on a new training cycle, like literally just started this week.

Bryan Boorstein: 46:10

That's going to be four training sessions over 10 days, 10 to 12 days. So I'm not I'm only going to train with weights every two to three days now so that I can fit in cardio kind of in between and not be time poor. And my weight sessions are full body, which I also haven't done for many, many, many years. Everything's been split routines for hypertrophy focus, but now going back to like kind of the big compound movements and the. It's like an abbreviated training program, spending, you know, 45 to 60 minutes every two to three days, really hitting it hard and then getting out and kind of living life. And so that's been the meandering journey of kind of the way I approach things over the last seven years since my son was born.

Philip Pape: 46:48

That's cool man.

Philip Pape: 46:49

So I mean that if I were to break that down to principles for folks who, because I'm early in my training career, still relatively, even though I'm in my forties, because I started late, so I'm still making progress quite a bit more progress for myself relatively with the weight, so I kind of feel where you were back then and I would say for those again, for those listening, hear what Brian's saying in terms of like, what feels good, what allows you to progress, what allows you to fit it in, what allows you to be creative, it's not you have to do this specific thing or do this specific plan and in fact you provide programming in a variety of ways to many different clients, depending on what they need, but just make it work for you and enjoy it, man.

Philip Pape: 47:27

Enjoy it Like. This is the thing when you're a parent. There are in many cases more important things, but your health is also the most important thing to allow you to be a parent. So I guess the last question then, brian, is is there anything about parenting and training that you wished I had asked or that you hear often as a big concern or challenge that people have that we didn't address?

Bryan Boorstein: 47:48

It was pretty thorough. I would just say that to double down on the idea that little bits of exercise, like even exercise snacks, are extremely valuable. Studies show that these exercise snacks of getting up and doing one minute of stair runs every hour or two throughout the day has incredible benefits on longevity, health markers, metabolic disease all of these different things that can cause problems for us. So exercise snacks are a great, great thing to do. Doubling down on the idea of 20 to 30 minutes per day of just time for you, where you can fit in movement of some sort during that time, and then for the really A-type personality go-getters out there, just start slow. I think that I've seen enough people with that type A go-getter mentality come from this really high-paced stress, work-life, parenting thing and then jump into exercise and end up getting injured, burnout, et cetera, and so I think a gradual ascent of your training volume and training intensity is probably a prudent move to keep this journey productive for you.

Philip Pape: 49:03

Nice, great advice. The stair runs real quick because now I'm thinking selfishly I've got 17 steps first to second floor. How often and how long do you do each of these?

Bryan Boorstein: 49:12

You said one minute stair runs One minute up and down as fast as you can, as many times as you can in one minute, and I would do that every two to three hours throughout the day. So maybe you hit like three to four of those throughout the day.

Philip Pape: 49:24

Yeah, not always asking. Get a little coaching for myself here too, cause I'm like man, I should just do that, cause I got the stairs and yeah. So, man, always great advice that the time flies when we chat. I think those listening are going to find something to take with. And if you are listening, you know, don't just binge the content Like, think, right now, what is the one thing you're going to do that's different, that's going to push yourself, that's going to expand that comfort zone. You know, choose the either the hard thing or the different thing, or the thing that will help you be the role model. And where can people learn about you, brian?

Bryan Boorstein: 49:53

Yeah, you nailed it in the intro. I'm on Instagram at Brian Borstein, but my programs are Evolved Training Systems and Paragon Training Methods and then my podcast, e-train Prosper. At Paragon we have a program called Dumbbell Quickie, which is 30-minute dumbbell-only workouts four days a week. Actually, it's not dumbbell-only, it's dumbbell bands. You need to have some bands too and a bench, but if you have dumbbells, bands and a bench, which is a pretty low initial investment, you can follow our dumbbell quickie program. And then we also have dumbbell physique program if you're ready to kind of up your game from there. And then beyond that we have other like full gym and home gym, three-day, four-day, five-day programs. So a full arsenal of kind of different ways that you can work out, whether you're at home or at a gym, et cetera.

Philip Pape: 50:37

Yeah, man, you can't go wrong if If you're listening to follow one of Brian's programs he's one of the best in the industry Check out his podcast as well. Find him on other shows as well If you want to get deep dive, and then I'll link to our last episode as well. We also dived into a lot more specifics on training. So thanks again, man. It was, it was a pleasure. Thanks for coming on.

Bryan Boorstein: 50:53

I appreciate you, man. Thank you.

This Quick Change Will Help You Stick to Your Fat Loss Meal Plan (Kaizen) | Ep 222

Struggling to stick to your fat loss meal plan? Or any nutrition plan?

Learn how the engineering concept of Kaizen – continuous improvement through small changes – can revolutionize your approach to nutrition and fat loss.

To celebrate National Cooking Day (September 25), this episode challenges you to make ONE quick change this week that will set off a chain reaction of positive habits. It will gradually upgrade your "sustainability system" to give you results (rather than completely overhauling your diet overnight).

💡 To connect with others on their fat loss journey and share meal ideas, join our Facebook group at https://www.facebook.com/groups/witsandweights

Main Takeaways:

• Kaizen is a powerful engineering principle that focuses on small, continuous improvements.

• Making THIS one quick change this week will significantly impact your fat loss journey.

• You'll have more control over ingredients, portions, and macros.

• This principle can then be applied to every other area of your health and fitness.

Episode summary:

Ever wondered how small changes can lead to big results in your fitness journey? This episode of Wits &Weights delves into the transformative power of Kaizen, a Japanese philosophy that emphasizes continuous improvement through small, manageable changes. By applying this principle to your nutrition and cooking habits, you can overcome common struggles associated with sticking to a fat loss meal plan and create lasting, positive changes in your lifestyle.

The episode kicks off by addressing the core problem many face when embarking on a fat loss journey: maintaining consistency with a meal plan. Often, initial motivation wanes, leading to feelings of failure and the temptation to give up. Kaizen offers a solution by focusing on small, incremental improvements. Instead of overhauling your entire diet, start by cooking just one additional meal at home each week. This simple change can build momentum, making it easier to stick to your dietary goals.

National Cooking Day serves as the perfect backdrop for this discussion. Celebrating this day by cooking one extra meal at home can be a catalyst for better nutrition. The episode highlights the importance of simplicity and consistency in your culinary routine. By making small, manageable changes, you can gradually build better cooking habits, leading to significant improvements in your overall well-being.

Personal anecdotes from the host's family experiences underscore the effectiveness of this approach. For example, substituting fast food with homemade meals has drastically improved their health. Simple, quick meals prepared at home not only offer better control over ingredients but also save time and money. This episode emphasizes that even meals that take just 10 minutes to prepare can have a substantial impact on your nutrition and health.

The concept of Kaizen, or continuous improvement, is further explored in the context of meal planning and preparation. By focusing on just one additional home-cooked meal each week, you can start building a habit gradually. This approach is particularly beneficial during high-stress times when sticking to a meal plan becomes challenging. Small changes, such as preparing a homemade salad instead of opting for fast food, can make a big difference over time.

The episode also introduces the Wits and Weights community, a supportive group of individuals committed to creating efficient systems for better nutrition and fitness. By joining this community, you can access valuable resources like recipe sharing and meal prep swaps. This support system can help you incorporate the Kaizen approach into your daily routine, making it easier to achieve your fitness goals.

The benefits of cooking at home extend beyond better nutrition. When you prepare your own meals, you have complete control over the ingredients, portions, and cooking methods. This control allows you to avoid hidden ingredients like excessive butter, oil, or sugar, and customize your meals to better align with your dietary goals. Additionally, home-cooked meals can be more satisfying and nutritious, helping you stay on track with your fat loss journey.

As you see the positive effects of one home-cooked meal, you'll be motivated to cook more often. Over time, this can lead to significant improvements in your cooking skills and overall well-being. The episode emphasizes the importance of a growth mindset, encouraging listeners to view cooking as a skill that can be learned and improved over time.

One of the key takeaways from this episode is the importance of reducing decision fatigue. By committing to just one home-cooked meal each week, you eliminate the mental struggle of deciding whether to cook or order in. This small change can free up mental energy, making it easier to make healthier choices throughout the day.

The power of Kaizen lies in its ability to create sustainable change. By focusing on small, consistent improvements, you can build habits that stick with you for the long term. This approach is not about drastic changes or restrictive diets but about creating a system that supports your goals and lifestyle.

In conclusion, this episode of Wits and Weights offers valuable insights into how small, incremental changes can lead to big results in your fitness journey. By applying the principles of Kaizen to your meal planning and cooking habits, you can overcome common challenges and create lasting, positive changes in your life. Celebrate National Cooking Day by cooking one extra meal at home this week and see where it takes you. Join the Wits and Weights community for additional support and resources to help you on your journey.

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Transcript

Philip Pape: 0:01

If you're struggling to stick to your fat loss meal plan, constantly falling off track after a few days, if you're overwhelmed by the idea of overhauling your entire diet and your approach and cooking routine overnight, this episode's for you. Today we're diving into the world of Kaizen, an engineering concept that shows why small, consistent changes lead to big results. That shows why small, consistent changes lead to big results. You'll discover how this one quick and easy change can make a huge difference in your ability to stick to your meal plans, especially during fat loss. Welcome to Wits and Weights, the podcast that blends evidence and engineering to help you build smart, efficient systems to achieve your dream physique.

Philip Pape: 0:54

I'm your host, philip Pape, and today we are celebrating National Cooking Day, september 25th, by exploring how a simple shift in your cooking habits can supercharge your efforts during fat loss. Picture this it's the end of a long day, you're tired, you're hungry. The thought of cooking seems like it's a huge mountain to climb right. You're well past that 3 pm energy crash and you're starving, and the takeout menu is calling your name, especially the Chinese or the pizza or whatever you go for. We've all been there. But what if I told you that by making just one small change to your cooking routine, you could basically set off a chain reaction, start building momentum that transforms how you approach nutrition, especially during fat loss or when the calories are a little bit tight and you have specific goals you're trying to meet, and that's what we're diving into in today's episode. But before we do, the only thing I'm going to ask is that, if you enjoy the show, if you want more content on building muscle, on nutrition training, using intelligent frameworks and principles to do things easily and more efficiently, hit the follow button. Hit the follow button right now. It will help more people find the show according to the podcast gods, the podcast algorithm, and it will ensure also that you never miss another episode.

Philip Pape: 2:14

All right, let's get into the discussion today and we're going to just kick it off with the problem that we're trying to solve. The problem is why is sticking to a meal plan so damn hard? That's the problem, right? We all have goals. We go into fat loss whatever that calorie level is for you, you know, for me it might be around 2,200 or 2,000. For others it might be 1,200 or 1,400. And initially you have all the motivation. Initially you can pretty much bring it out, whatever it's required to make it happen, but before long it starts to become more difficult. You know, we start with the best intentions. We meal prep on Sunday and then by Wednesday we're either elbow deep in a bag of tortilla chips wondering where it all went wrong, or we're going out to eat. Or, you know, by the time the weekend comes, we're just so stressed from the week and we go out to eat all weekend.

Philip Pape: 3:05

Right Now, the issue is usually in the approach itself, the system that we have set up for ourselves. It's not your fault. It's not that you couldn't control yourself. It's not that you quote unquote did bad right. It's that we you, me, collectively as humans, we try to change lots of things all at once and then, when we inevitably slip up, we feel like failures. We then want to give up. We're like forget that, I'm done, that didn't work Right, the all or nothing mindset that sets us up. Now you might be thinking no, no, no, I'm not one of those people. I've got everything dialed in, I do it all, you know, I know, I just need to be consistent, and so on. Even so, there are always ways to improve and make the system work better for you, especially in high times of stress, when life throws us those curve balls and you know you've got a bunch of people staying at your house all of a sudden and you don't know what to do because it's throwing your whole routine out of whack. And this is where our intelligent engineering mindset comes in handy, and that's what you got me for, even if you don't think that way, it's okay.

Philip Pape: 4:08

Today's framework is called Kaizen Kaizen K-A-I-Z-E-N. It's something that I learned years ago at work. It was brought over here by Toyota back in probably the 70s or 80s. It is a Japanese term that translates to change for better, or what we like to call it continuous improvement, and it's a philosophy that focuses on making small incremental changes that compound over time to create significant results. Now, if that sounds familiar, it's because it's underpins a lot of the behavior change and habit formation approaches that are out there, like James Clear's Atomic Habits, where he talks about the compounding of small habits over time. Same idea, but in manufacturing. Kaizen is really about tweaking a single step in a production line and all you're trying to do is you improve efficiency by 1%, by 1%. But when that 1% improvement is made consistently across multiple areas, it then leads to massive gains in productivity and quality.

Philip Pape: 5:13

So how does this apply to you, especially when we're trying to eat in a way that is consistent? We are trying to hit calories and macros and nutrients and all of these things, even with your training perhaps really any system where you're trying to build consistency. It's very simple Instead of trying to overhaul the entire system, your entire diet, your entire training routine, we are going to focus on one small, manageable change cooking just one more meal at home each week. That's it. That is the change today that we are focused on Cooking just one more meal at home each week. As I mentioned earlier, it's National Cooking Day, so what better way to use that as a catalyst for making a very simple, easy, quick change than National Cooking Day?

Philip Pape: 6:02

All right, now you might be asking how is this one meal going to make a difference? I mean, you probably can imagine why. A little bit it would make a difference, but let me give you all the ways. Let me count the ways, okay, the first one is the control that it gives you over your meal. Very simple when you make your own meals, you have complete control. Complete control over the ingredients, portions, the cooking methods, right, which means no hidden ingredients, not a ton of butter or oil or sugar. You can proportion it the way you want rather than restaurant-sized portions, and then even cook it the way you want, so that it's sauteed, roasted, grilled, boiled, broiled, just the way you want. Maybe you don't want to overcook your burgers you know that's my pet peeve and that alone can lead to significant calorie reduction without even feeling like you're being restricted. It's a way to make food not only taste better, but hit the bottom line of your calorie budget even less, and then hit the other things, like protein, right. You can shift the macros the way you want, so you have a lot of control. That's huge.

Philip Pape: 7:06

The second thing is, by focusing on just this one thing one additional home-cooked meal a week we are building a habit gradually. This is exactly the approach I would take with clients for any piece of our nutrition plan. Now, if you work with me, if I'm your coach, we may do two or three of these at a time, because you've got the safety net of someone looking over your shoulder and helping you out and kind of you can lean on. But if you're doing it by yourself, one is perfectly awesome. Okay, it's much easier to commit to one meal than to suddenly decide I'm going to cook every single meal at home, I'm going to meal prep every meal for the entire week, I'm going to put them in Tupperware dishes and it's going to be perfect. That is my goal.

Philip Pape: 7:46

Don't do that. Don't do that. Just do one meal a day, or I mean, sorry, one meal, not even one meal a day, one meal for the whole week. I should have clarified Okay, one meal. Dinner is usually a good place to do that, but it could be lunch, whatever you choose, or breakfast. Number three this is a great learning opportunity, right? Because now you can try different recipes for that one meal and build a repertoire of dishes that you can enjoy, but in a nice, calm, low stress environment. Because you're just doing one meal, you're not out to get a whole you know, pinterest board of recipes or you're. You know, we've got amazing people in our Facebook group who love to post recipes, but you could easily get overwhelmed. So you could just pick one, just one that week, and if you find a winner, awesome. You can make it over and over again. Nothing wrong with that.

Philip Pape: 8:35

Number four as you see the benefits of that one home cooked meal, right, maybe you feel more satisfied from the meal or you realize it freed up some time, even though you're making the meal. You're also not driving to restaurants and spending a lot more time at the meal in a restaurant. You might be more efficient at home. Or you notice that something has improved with your biofeedback, with how you feel, with your body composition, whatever it is from starting to have more home-cooked meals. Right, just your digestion's good, you sleep better, whatever it is that will motivate you to do more often. And then the last reason to do this maybe this is the most important besides control is the reduced decision fatigue. Because you're committing to just one meal, you eliminate the mental struggle of should I cook or order in for at least one meal each week, and then imagine how that's going to compound when you start adding more later. So let's put this into practice. Here's your Kaizen challenge for the week to celebrate National Cooking Day Choose one meal that you typically eat out or order in and commit to cooking it at home instead.

Philip Pape: 9:46

It does not have to be complicated. In fact, the simpler the better when you're starting out, and some of my wife's best meals, honestly, are the really simple ones. You know she will even. She'll even apologize. She'll say, well, it only took me 10 minutes. I'm like, yeah, but that 10 minutes was the most efficient 10 minutes ever, given how awesome this meal is. I mean, that's a definition of efficiency. I love that.

Philip Pape: 10:07

So, for example, let's say you usually grab fast food for lunch on Wednesday, right? Instead, plan to pack a simple salad with chicken I mean, that's just a super simple example with some fruit on the side, right? Or if Thursday dinner is usually when you go out for pizza, make a homemade pizza. I mean, you don't even have to change the food, just make it at home. And now you have control over the crust. What goes in the crust? How many veggies? You know the different types of meat. It doesn't have to be just like like lathered in tons of oil and and have you know? Um, the pepperoni, like the standard pepperoni. You can have whatever nitrate free pepperoni, whatever you want. You know chicken? Uh, pineapple Some people would say how dare you put pineapple on a pizza.

Philip Pape: 10:52

Others are like, well, that is pizza. So, whatever, it is Okay. Um, the goal here is progress. That's it. The goal here is progress because if your homemade meal is not Instagram worthy, that's okay. And in fact I, I challenge you to go ahead and take a picture of it anyway and put it on your story and tag me. I would love to see it and say, hey, national cooking day, september 25th. Today, go post something and just encourage people to do it. In fact, be vulnerable and say, look, my food's not perfect, but it might even not even taste perfect, but you know what it's going to serve me and it's going to be my step toward greatness here when it comes to my nutrition.

Philip Pape: 11:27

The act of cooking itself is a win. So as you get comfortable with this one meal, then you could gradually increase. In a few weeks maybe you're cooking two extra meals at home, then three right, and then before you know it, you might be cooking every single meal at home, except maybe Saturday night. And I'll tell you what. We've gotten to that point, more or less partly because with four of us right, two kids who are now 10 and 12, they eat as much as we do. It gets damn expensive to go out a lot. You know what I mean. It doesn't feel worth it for the quality of food you usually get. It's got to be a more special thing and because we don't do it. Very often it is more special. We might not even go out to eat all week, except we'll go out for an ice cream on Sunday afternoon, and then that's super special. And, yeah, it's ice cream, awesome, we're enjoying it, I plan it in and it's super special, right? So that's another thing. I didn't even think about the fact that it makes going out even more special. And then, before you know it, cooking meals at home is just the thing you do. And that's the power of Kaizen Continuous improvement, change for better, small, consistent changes that compound over time.

Philip Pape: 12:33

Now I know what one of the objections is, philip I don't have time to cook or I'm a terrible cook. So let me just address these real quickly. First, remember we're just talking about one meal, remember, that's the whole point. And you can prepare many healthy meals in less time than it takes to look up order, wait for delivery, even when you're doing takeout, right, not even talking about going to a restaurant. And then, as you get more practice, you'll become more efficient. So I don't think that's an excuse. And then, as far as skills, that's what they are, they're skills. So a skill can be learned and improved over time.

Philip Pape: 13:07

If you tell yourself you're a bad cook. You are going to be a bad cook. That's called a fixed mindset, that's called a self-identity statement. Instead, be open to it. Say, ha, I can learn to cook. I just need to do it. I just need to figure it out right. Start with simple recipes built from there. I mean the internet, google, is full of quick, easy, healthy recipes for beginners. Just use the right word and you'll find exactly what you need.

Philip Pape: 13:34

Okay, the key is to start small and be consistent. Again, that's the essence of Kaizen. In fact, I'm realizing and hopefully I haven't, like, I'm not talking too quickly here I realized that Kaizen itself is one of the most powerful frameworks I've shared on this show ever, because of its ability to be applied to anything and create a foundation of totally sustainable change. And then, when you make that change, what's going to happen is you're going to start to have a sense of control, the sense of agency, the sense of empowerment that, okay, I can do this and I, I'm making it happen, me, I'm making it happen. And then you're then sending a powerful message to yourself. You're saying I'm in charge of my nutrition, I can make choices that will align with my goals. I get to make those choices, in fact.

Philip Pape: 14:17

And then it goes beyond the one meal. You find yourself making better choices throughout the day, upward spiraling. Maybe you drink an extra glass of water. You opt for some fruit for your sweet tooth during the afternoon water, you opt for some fruit for your sweet tooth during the afternoon. And that's the ripple effect of Kaizen One small change creates a wave of positive outcomes. And because the changes are small and they're manageable, they are, that's right. The S word sustainable. You're not white knuckling it through a restrictive diet where you cut carbs. No, you're just building systems, habits, whatever word you like to use. That will stick with you. That will become the essence of you and who you are Now. Imagine where you could be in a year if you commit to this approach.

Philip Pape: 14:57

Today, this week, national Cooking Day. Today, one extra home-cooked meal a week might not seem like much, but that's 52 healthier meals in a year. That's 52 opportunities to nourish your body, to learn new body, to learn new skills, to take control of your nutrition. And that's how the real, lasting change happens. Not through a one-off crash diet, a one-off extreme measure, but these small, consistent steps. So let's just wrap it up, just to really sear it into our brains together.

Philip Pape: 15:26

Number one Kaizen is a concept from engineering change for better that focuses on small, continuous improvements. Number two applying this process of Kaizen to your meal plan means focusing on one small change cooking one extra meal at home each week. This change then leads to the benefits of the change better portion control, improved cooking skills, positive mindset shift all of those things that then spur you to want to do it more often and more frequently. And then you start to be consistent and create gradual progress. It may not be perfect, it doesn't need to be, because it's better than it was before and then, over time, these small changes compound, leading to sustainable long-term results. So, as we celebrate National Cooking Day, I challenge you to embrace the Kaizen approach. Start with one meal, see where it takes you and you might surprise yourself All right.

Philip Pape: 16:25

So today, if you enjoyed this episode and want to connect with others, if you want to get some recipe ideas, if you want to share, for accountability, that you're doing this, join our Wits and Weights Facebook group. It's totally free. It's just on Facebook. You look it up. I'll include a link to the show notes.

Philip Pape: 16:39

It is a community of like-minded individuals quirky nerds, engineers, non-engineers but we all are working toward the same types of goals in the same way. We want to build systems that make our lives more efficient, easier to get the result and have more control at the end of it, all right. So if you join the group, join our Facebook group you can then share recipes, you can swap meal prep, you can find support, motivation as you implement this Kaizen approach to your meal planning, but even to anything else in your fitness journey. Just search for Wits and Weights on Facebook or click the link in your show notes and take that first step today. Until next time, keep using your wits lifting some weights and remember, in the kitchen and in life, small changes lead to big results. I'll talk to you next time here on the Wits and Weights podcast.

The Hidden Reason You're Skipping Gym Workouts (It's Not Laziness) | Ep 221

Do you skip the gym, even though you know how amazing you’ll feel afterward? Have you set fitness goals but can't seem to stay consistent with your workouts?

Philip (@witsandweights) dives into the hidden psychological reasons why motivation is elusive and why it’s not about laziness or willpower.  He covers the science of motivation, the misalignment between goals and actions, and how to form lasting habits that make showing up for your workouts easier. Philip also shares practical tips to hack your brain for success. Whether you're a seasoned lifter hitting a motivation wall or a newbie trying to build a gym habit, you'll learn to reframe your mindset, focus on immediate rewards, and build systems for effortless consistency.

💪 To learn how to optimize your nutrition to build muscle and focus on what matters (vs. the number on the scale), making getting to the gym and working out (training) just “what you do,” download my free Muscle-Building Nutrition Blueprint or go to witsandweights.com/free

Today, you’ll learn all about:

2:33 Listener question: Why is it so hard to get motivated to go to the gym?
3:48 The psychology of motivation and "temporal discounting"
6:44 Misalignment between workout goals and actions
13:00 How to form lasting workout habits
16:07 Habit stacking and temptation bundling for workout success
21:14 Developing resilience and mental toughness through training
22:24 Free muscle-building nutrition blueprint to fuel your workouts
23:30 Outro

Episode resources:

• Download the free Muscle-Building Nutrition Blueprint or go to witsandweights.com/free

Episode summary:

If you've ever struggled to find the motivation to hit the gym consistently, you're not alone. Many people grapple with the psychological barriers that prevent them from making regular exercise a habit. The latest episode of "Wits and Weights" dives deep into the hidden psychological factors that could be sabotaging your fitness goals and offers actionable strategies to overcome them.

One of the key insights from the episode is that your lack of gym motivation isn't necessarily about laziness or a lack of willpower. Instead, it often boils down to deeper psychological mechanisms like temporal discounting and the empathy gap. Temporal discounting refers to our tendency to prioritize immediate rewards over future benefits. This means that the comfort of staying on the couch often outweighs the long-term benefits of exercise. The empathy gap, on the other hand, makes it difficult for us to empathize with our future selves who will feel accomplished after a workout. Understanding these concepts can help you hack your motivation and make consistent workouts feel almost effortless.

Another major point discussed in the episode is the misalignment between fitness goals and actual progress. Many people tie their workouts to weight loss, focusing solely on the numbers on the scale. However, this approach can be misleading and demotivating. Scale weight fluctuates due to various factors like muscle gain, water retention, and metabolic changes. Instead, the episode suggests shifting your focus to performance-based metrics such as strength gains, endurance, and overall well-being. These metrics provide a more accurate reflection of your progress and can be incredibly motivating.

The episode also offers practical strategies for building sustainable fitness habits. One effective approach is habit stacking, which involves linking new habits to existing ones. For example, you could tie your workout routine to your morning coffee ritual. Another technique is temptation bundling, where you pair a less enjoyable activity (like exercising) with something you enjoy (like listening to your favorite podcast). These methods can make it easier to stick to your workout routine by reducing the mental effort required to get started.

Reducing friction is another crucial strategy discussed in the episode. This involves making it as easy as possible to start your workout. For instance, setting a specific time for your training and laying out your workout clothes the night before can significantly reduce the barriers to exercise. If you have a home gym, you can even set up your equipment in advance to make it easier to start your workout.

The episode also emphasizes the importance of immediate rewards. While long-term goals are important, focusing on the immediate benefits of exercise, such as feeling energized and clear-headed, can be more motivating. By shifting your focus to these short-term rewards, you can make the process of working out more enjoyable and sustainable.

Understanding the psychological mechanisms that drive your behavior can help you develop a more effective fitness strategy. By focusing on immediate rewards, reducing friction, and aligning your goals with your actions, you can transform your gym experience. Whether you're a seasoned athlete facing a plateau or a beginner struggling to start, these insights can help you build a sustainable fitness habit.

In summary, overcoming gym motivation struggles involves understanding and addressing the psychological barriers that prevent consistent exercise. By focusing on short-term rewards, reducing friction, and aligning your goals with your actions, you can build a more sustainable and enjoyable fitness routine. The episode provides a comprehensive toolkit for anyone looking to make consistent gym visits a reality. So, if you're ready to transform your fitness mindset and unlock your gym potential, be sure to listen to this episode!

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Transcript

Philip Pape: 0:02

If you're the type of person who has ambitious training and physique goals, but you find yourself constantly struggling to get to the gym and you're frustrated because you know how good you feel after a workout, yet still can't seem to make it a consistent habit, this episode is for you. Today, we're uncovering the hidden psychological barriers that keep you from working out consistently, even when you know how important it is for your health and physique goals. You'll discover why. It's not about laziness or lack of discipline or willpower, and how to shift your mindset to finally break free from dreading going to the gym. Whether you are a seasoned lifter and you're hitting a motivation wall, or if you're a newbie struggling to establish a routine, this episode will give you the tools to transform your relationship with going to the gym.

Philip Pape: 0:55

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 topic that plagues even the most dedicated fitness enthusiasts and lifters why it's so challenging to get yourself to the gym consistently. You've got the intention to go, you've planned your workouts, you've written them down in your log or your workout app, and then, when the time comes, you find yourself making excuses or feeling unmotivated. It's very frustrating, especially when you know how good you'll feel once you've accomplished the training session. But the truth is it is not about laziness, it is not about willpower, because there's actually a deeper psychological mechanism at play and once you can understand it which is what this episode's about you can hack your motivation and you can make consistent workouts feel almost effortless. Now, before we get into it, I have a quick favor to ask If you enjoy the show, if you get value from the podcast episodes. I would be grateful for a five-star rating in the app that you're using right now to listen to the show and if you're feeling extra generous, a brief review would go a long way towards supporting us as well. Believe it or not, only a small fraction of followers take the time to submit a review, such as Whitey0414, who said quote. I listen every chance I get and always walk away with something, if not multiple tips and techniques to maximize my time during my workouts. End quote. So go ahead, submit a rating and review and I would love to give you a shout out on a future episode.

Philip Pape: 2:33

All right, now let's get into today's topic on the hidden reason that you're skipping workouts and how to get motivated to go to the gym consistently. And I'd like to kick things off by addressing the struggle to get to the gym. What is that all about? And I want to do it in the context of a listener who inspired this episode, russ G. You know who you are. Special shout out to Russ, who inspired us with his question, and he asked quote why is it so hard to get motivated to go to the gym? Once I'm there, I don't mind doing the work and I always feel awesome when I'm done, so why is it a struggle to start? And I believe Russ followed up to say he actually has a home gym, so it's not even the getting out of his house to go there, which is an important point. And, russ, you are not alone in this at all.

Philip Pape: 3:19

This is one of the most common frustrations I hear from listeners and clients and to tackle it, we are going to break it down into three key areas. The first is the psychology of motivation. The second will be the misalignment between your goals and your actions, and then the third will be tying this together and talking about the power of habit or system formation. Right. How do we create the system for ourselves or habits, whatever word you want to use? So let's start with the first one, the psychology of motivation.

Philip Pape: 3:52

In the field of psychology, there's a concept called temporal discounting. This has nothing to do with time travel, but temporal does mean time and it refers to our tendency to place greater value on immediate rewards compared to future benefits. It's somewhat tied to instant gratification and when we think about working out, the immediate reward of staying comfortable on the couch or staying in bed often outweighs the future benefit even if it's future a few hours from now of, say, feeling great after a workout. If that's the immediate benefit we're going for and we're going to discuss soon why that's not even the ultimate benefit we're going for. But let's stick with me.

Philip Pape: 4:35

And then this temporal discounting is further complicated by something psychologists call the empathy gap. When we're comfortable, right when we're in our normal comfort zone, our comfortable state, day to day, the things we always are used to, we don't think about them. It's very challenging for us to imagine or empathize with our future self. Who is going to feel energized and feel accomplished after training, after working out, and our brain essentially says future, me is a stranger and I care more about current me's comfort, right, that is, the empathy gap. And so between temporal discounting, right, the idea that the immediate reward tends to outweigh the future reward, and the empathy gap where the current me, I want that person to be more comfortable than the future me who I don't even know. If we can understand these, then it shifts our perspective and we realize that it.

Philip Pape: 5:29

No, it's not about laziness, it's not about lack of willpower and, by the way, this applies to anything, not just working out. It's actually about how our brains are wired through, you know, years and years of evolution to prioritize our immediate comfort over future benefits, to prioritize our immediate comfort over future benefits. There's a survival mechanism behind that and the challenge is we have to overcome it and we have to be our modern human selves and try to overcome this psychologically. And so the focus I like is the immediate benefits of working out as a starting point, rather than long-term goals. And again, this can apply to anything. What's the immediate, like within hours, within minutes or like right now, depends on the timing benefits can we extract and focus on. And so, instead of thinking I need to work out to lose weight or I need to work out to lose fat or build muscle. Focus on how energized and clear-headed you'll feel immediately after your workout, and this starts to shift the reward from the future to the present, making it a little bit more motivating. Now, that's just the start. Okay, that's just the start.

Philip Pape: 6:34

It's being aware that that is what we are doing to ourselves and finding benefits that we can actually hold onto and make concrete in a shorter time horizon, which then leads me to the next piece, which is the misalignment between our goals and our actions. And this actually ties into the second part of Russ's question that he asked in email he sent me, where he said, quote how do I come to terms with the fact that the more I work out, the less likely I am to see the scale go down? When I do make it to the gym consistently and I'm hitting my nutrition goals, I am disappointed to see my weight stay the same or go up. End quote. Now my literal interpretation of this question, russ, is that you are trying to be in a calorie deficit and you've set your goal to do so, and then you're eating to your target. That intends you to be in that deficit to induce fat loss, but perhaps something's happening like your metabolism is adapting more quickly than you can adjust and therefore it looks like a plateau. That's one thing that comes to mind.

Philip Pape: 7:42

I think the deeper thing, or the deeper issue here, is that you're connecting your workouts to your scale weight, and that's a common frustration and a common thing people do and it's one of the biggest myths I would say that I deal with on a regular basis is tying workouts to calories, and that is a big misalignment between expectations and reality, with our fitness, with what we're doing, with what we're eating, because many people tie the motivation then for their workouts to their scale weight. But scale weight is actually one of the worst indicators of progress, especially if you're strength training right. So let that sink in. We have a huge misalignment. In other words, the question itself may not be the right question.

Philip Pape: 8:22

When you start a consistent training routine right, especially one that we talk about here, which is resistance training Even if you have other forms of activity walking, cardio, conditioning, whatever the strength training is the focus A few things happen when you start this. Number one is you're going to be building muscle, muscles denser than fat, so your body composition will start to change, even if the weight on the scale doesn't. Number two, your body might retain more water, more fluid, and those fluctuations go up and down. Maybe you started creatine, for example, but even the muscle repair, the inflammatory process, adaptation of building muscle especially if you just started this can cause weird changes in your scale weight. Your metabolism could go up and cause you to have a higher appetite. Maybe you're consuming more Now you said you're tracking, so I assume you are actually consuming what you think your target needs to be to be in a deficit and you've set your goal properly for that deficit, in which case that's not exactly the issue.

Philip Pape: 9:23

Anyway, anything going on when it comes to building muscle can lead to the scale changing in ways that we don't expect. It could go up, it could stay the same, even as your body composition improves, even as you are in what you think is a deficit, and now your body's compensating because you've got more muscle, like by compensating I mean weight on the scale, where it would have gone down because you lost fat, you also gain muscle at the same time, and then it doesn't budge and even the tracking app is like I don't know what's going on. I gave you what should be your deficit based on your maintenance calories. But it's not working that way and if you only care about scale weight as your measure of success, it's incredibly demotivating. And it's okay to monitor the trend in scale weight over time as one data point related to your nutrition, related to your calorie deficit. In fact, we had dedicated an entire episode about this two weeks ago, about why weight loss always fails. It's exactly about that. So go check it out two weeks ago on a Monday.

Philip Pape: 10:16

But it's not helpful. The scale weight is not helpful if you're tying it to your workouts. We don't exercise to burn calories. We train to build and preserve muscle. That is it. There's always a little side effect, a little bonus from moving more, and that is we do tend to burn more calories, but we don't do it for that reason. We do it to stay really active, to be able to eat more, to support ourselves with our nutrition and then to be able to build muscle with all those resources coming in.

Shonnetta: 10:42

Hi, my name is Shawnetta and I want to give a big shout out to Philip of Wits and Weights. I discovered his podcast just a few short months ago, but I quickly realized how valuable his content is. With all the many fitness and nutrition influencers out in the world today, I often suffer from information overload, but Philip poses careful questions to his guests that get to the meat of the subject matter, while most everyone offers free guides to this, and that what I found most unique about Philip is his live training and weekly Q&A sessions. If I can't make it live, I can always catch the replay. I am very grateful to find someone I feel is so passionate and genuine to his purpose, while also being hands-on within the Wits and Weights online community. He is truly only a click away. Thanks, philip, for all you do.

Philip Pape: 11:27

So my philosophy here is let's shift our focus to those performance-based goals. Right, russ? How much weight can you lift? How many you know push-ups can you do? How do your clothes fit? How is your energy throughout the day?

Philip Pape: 11:43

These are often much better indicators of progress and can be incredibly motivating because they directly correlate with what you are doing, with your actions tying to your goals and remember those goals. Based on the first thing we talked about temporal discounting and the empathy gap, we're trying to have as immediate rewarding goals as we can. So we get those quick wins and if that is going to the gym squat five more pounds than you did last time and you're motivated to do that, and you do it and you get it, and now you know that that ties into your strength and muscle. It all aligns. There's no dissonance there Because, remember Russ, when you're consistently working out and you're hitting your goals, you are making progress, even if the scale doesn't reflect it immediately. As long as you're tracking all these other things, and if nothing is progressing, that tells you something too, but you can't just use this one data point to tell that. Then, once you are tracking those things, then you have to trust the process. There's definitely an element of patience and time, of course, and the more signs of improvement you can find beyond the scale, especially in that immediate time horizon, the more easy it will be to motivate yourself. Action result, motivation, not motivation. Action result, action, then the result, then the motivation. But we need that result to happen pretty quickly. So this brings me to the third piece, because if you're not convinced, if you're still like, but wait a minute, this still doesn't get me out of the bed to go to the gym.

Philip Pape: 13:08

Let's talk about the classic process of habit formation, habits systems I really don't care what language we use there, because it's the same thing in practice. It's doing something that you don't have to think about fairly automatically, because it's just what you do. But there's a process to getting to that point and that is how we make anything we want to do easier. Easier in the sense that we're going to do it, not easier in the sense that the thing itself is necessarily easy, makes sense, right? Because you know, once you get to the gym and you start working out, oh man, it can be hard and it should be hard, it should push you, but you've started it and so you're going to finish it. It's very easy to finish at that point. Easy to finish, not easy to do, different concept and then it requires less mental energy and willpower. Much less, in fact. Hopefully very, very close to zero is what we're going for.

Philip Pape: 13:59

So what do we do to form that habit in the first place? Well, we have to create consistency Okay, now, that sounds like a chicken and egg problem and we have to reduce friction. So that's the one I really want to focus on. This is pretty easy to do. It just requires a little step, a little bit of effort, such as setting a specific time for your training in the morning and sticking to it. And by sticking to it, you've got it tied to your alarm, to a reminder. You've delayed anything else you need to do past that point, whether it's getting your kids ready for school, whether it's starting your first meeting in the morning. You've arranged your entire schedule around working out in the morning, even if it's going to be a short session. You've made it as easy as possible to start the workout by laying out your workout clothes and or gym bag and equipment the night before, by pre-logging your exercises, your sets and your reps in your app or your notebook the night or the week before, I like to plan out my entire week.

Philip Pape: 14:59

In fact, I use Boost Camp, an awesome app. You could download it in the show notes near the bottom. I use Boost Camp because I can create a custom program for the next seven-week block, where I have six weeks plus a deload and I can preload everything in there. And now it's super easy to go into the gym for the next seven weeks and it's all set up to go. Or if you're using someone else's program in the app, same thing, it's all set to go. Set up your equipment in advance. Russ, you have a home gym, so anybody who has a home gym. This is really easy to do. Not only can you arrange your workouts so that you can use the equipment that you have easy in order as it makes sense, right, a sequence you know, like, if you're going to do a leg press and a calf raise, we'll do them back to back or even super set them together. You can also set up your equipment in advance. So set up your inclined bench, set up your bar, set up your hooks, set up your racks, set up your plates, whatever. So that, again, it's as easy as possible. Not only is it easy for us or everybody listening. You've actually done so much work ahead of time to get ready for it that it would feel like a huge disappointment to yourself. It would feel demotivating to not go to the gym if that makes sense, right, because you've done all this already.

Philip Pape: 16:08

Another powerful technique I like is habit stacking. Now there's two techniques that get conflated from James Clear's Atomic Habits. One is called habit stacking, one is called temptation bundling. So habit stacking is tying or anchoring a habit to an existing habit, whereas temptation bundling is tying some new habit you want to form to something else that you do. That may or may not be a healthy thing, it may not be the most positive thing, like binging Netflix but you tie it to walking on your inclined treadmill, for example. Or it could be something that's neutral, like listening to a podcast and tying that to your walking outside, whatever. But the habit stacking is stacking those habits on top of each other and linking them together and saying, okay, after I have my morning coffee, I'm going to do my training, you know, and then, even if you didn't feel like it now, you're having your coffee. Oh, that triggers your brain to then want to go to the gym. It's kind of like these naturally go together, so I'm going to do that. So there's there's a lot of techniques like this.

Philip Pape: 17:08

I'm not going to spend too much time today on the how to. Again, the goal is going to be perfect and, like every single day, you're going to do it. It too, again, the goal is going to be perfect and, like every single day, you're going to do it. It takes a little bit of time to build that consistency. So, even if you're consistently inconsistent doing it, more often than not, it's going to eventually build into the momentum. And if you notice that you are not quite where you want to be, you can pull out one of these techniques and say, okay, I need to do something else to reduce friction or to increase the more immediate reward.

Philip Pape: 17:36

Now here's something to consider. The struggle to get motivated for workouts can be a positive sign, because it means that that is the thing you need to do and that is the thing that will expand your comfort zone and that is where growth happens. Apply this to anything, anything that you want to do and you're struggling to do it. Can we reframe that as a positive thing? It means that thing is the thing you need to do because your body is resisting it, and it's a change. If working out was always easy, if it was always enjoyable, everyone would do it all the time. We know that's not the case. The fact that it's challenging and the fact that strength training is something a small fraction of people on the planet do is what makes it valuable, because every time you overcome that initial resistance and you get your training session done, you're not just building physical strength, you're building mental resilience A concept I've touched on many times because those hard things in the gym, those physical things that actually transform your body, spills out, that mental toughness spills over into other areas of your life and you become someone.

Philip Pape: 18:40

You, russ, listening to this, you Susan listening to this, you, jennifer or Peter or whoever listening to this, become someone who can do hard things, who can push through discomfort for a greater goal, and that, my friends, my dear listeners, is a superpower. It is a superpower. You are in the elite once you can get to that, and it doesn't take much to get there. You're listening to this show and we're already equipping you with the mindset and the tools to do that, and you've got individuals that you can reach out to, like myself. Reach out to me. If, russ, you listen to this and you still struggle to get to the gym after all of this and you've put these into place, you still have no excuses.

Philip Pape: 19:20

Reach out to me, right, the next time you're struggling to get motivated, remind yourself that this struggle itself means that it's something that will expand your comfort zone. It will make you stronger, not just physically, but in other ways. Embrace it right, yes, even push through it. There is some pushing, there is some effort there at some point, just like when you lift heavy weights and you have to overcome resistance there is some resistance and there's friction. We're making it as easy as possible to do that, but it's got to be done. Then watch as it transforms, not just your body but everything, everything you do in your life. You will start to take that approach, and that is truly inspiring.

Philip Pape: 20:03

So, as we wrap up, let's recap the points here right. Number one the struggle to get motivated is not about laziness, willpower, discipline. It's about how our brains are wired just naturally wired to prefer short-term comfort over anything else. And therefore, why don't we take advantage of that and hack our brain and focus on immediate benefits rather than long-term goals to overcome this temporal discounting and that empathy gap. And then, tied with that is shifting your focus from a single data point like scale weight that's not even relevant for your workouts to performance-based goals that you can actually achieve day after day after day, and then motivate you even more. Then we want to reduce friction by using something like habit stacking or temptation bundling right, making it as easy as possible to get to the gym so easy it's actually hard not to and that creates consistency. And then finally remind ourselves that the fact that we have a struggle here means we're expanding our comfort zone and building mental resilience. So take some or all of that as you will, and russ and everyone else listening.

Philip Pape: 21:11

I hope this at least gives you a different angle, different perspective on workout motivation, on training motivation and I use the words workout and training kind of interchangeably. I prefer the word training because ultimately what we're doing is we're improving our strength, our performance, our function. We are building our body over time through a process of improvement. We're not just going in to get sweaty or sore, and again, that's another way to think about it is that it is a process and we can hit the weight on the bar and hit those extra reps. That itself can be the immediate reward Every time you overcome that initial resistance, mentally and physically again, you're not just changing your body. You are developing that resilience to know that you can do and choose to do hard things and become a better version of yourself, no matter what happens. No matter what happens in life, the worst things are going to happen and you can continue to be that person, because that's just who you are.

Philip Pape: 22:08

All right, if you found value in today's very motivational, mindset-focused episode and you want to optimize your muscle building nutrition so that it supports your training and that, by the way, is going to motivate you even more once you see the results of a stronger, leaner physique I've got something special for you. I've created a free muscle building nutrition blueprint to help you focus on what really matters when setting up your plan. So instead of focusing on the number, on the scale, you can focus on all the other factors. They are laid out in the guide step by step, and there is even a case study at the end where I applied all of these principles and techniques to my own bulking phase. It's going to show you how to fuel your workouts, how to optimize protein, how to optimize the rate of gain, set realistic expectations, track the right things, look for the right changes. And that is the perfect companion to help you shift your focus from scale weight to overall body composition and performance.

Philip Pape: 23:07

So to get your free copy of the Muscle Building Nutrition Blueprint it's a mouthful click the link in the show notes. Or go to witsandweightscom slash free, which, by the way, I have a lot of guides there in addition to this one. So if you go to witsandweightscom slash free, or click free stuff at the top, you can just browse and pick whatever one you want to your heart's content. Or, again, just click the link in the show notes. All right, man, I am fired up by this one. I hope you are too. I don't know when you're listening to this, but you've got no excuse not to go to your next training session Until next time. Keep using those wits and lifting some weights and remember, every time you choose to train, you're expanding your comfort zone and building a stronger, more resilient version of you, because this isn't just about physical strength, as powerful as that is. It's about developing the mental toughness to overcome challenges in all areas of your life. I'll talk to you next time here on the Wits and Weights podcast.

How to Lift Heavy, Run Fast, and Train as a Hybrid Athlete with Cody McBroom | Ep 220

Are you torn between focusing on strength or endurance? Are you wondering if you can lift heavy while building stamina? Or maybe you’re struggling to find a way to improve both without sacrificing one?

Philip (@witsandweights) brings back Cody McBroom to show you how you can excel in strength and endurance without sacrificing either! If you're ready to optimize your training for both muscle growth and cardiovascular performance while setting high standards in every area of life, this will give you the blueprint to make it happen.

Cody McBroom, founder of the Tailored Coaching Method and host of the CHOOSE HARD Podcast (formerly Tailored Life Podcast), shares his unique approach to hybrid training, revealing how to balance your workouts to achieve impressive strength and endurance goals. Learn how Cody's fitness journey can help you build mental toughness, improve your fitness, and tackle seemingly conflicting goals.

📱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. https://witsandweights.com/free-call

Today, you’ll learn all about:

2:35 Balancing strength and endurance training
8:17 Choosing hard for success
14:23 Cardio and long-term health
21:05 Mental toughness strategies
35:53 Impact of small decisions
39:12 Starting hybrid training
45:42 HIIT vs. low-intensity cardio
49:22 Programming and cardio volume
50:32 Functional fitness in daily life
54:53 Final thoughts on choosing hard
56:34 Outro

Episode resources:

• Website: tailoredcoachingmethod.com

• Podcast: tailoredcoachingmethod.com/podcast

• Instagram: @tailoredcoachingmethod

Episode summary:

Unlock the secrets of hybrid training with fitness expert Cody McBroom, founder of Tailored Coaching Method. Imagine excelling in both strength and endurance without sacrificing one for the other. This episode delves deep into Cody’s unique approach to balancing these two crucial aspects of fitness, drawing from his own journey and the experiences of renowned bodybuilders and CrossFit athletes.

Hybrid training isn't just about doing both cardio and strength exercises; it’s about finding the right balance that allows you to maximize your performance in both areas. Cody McBroom reveals the importance of optimizing nutrition and mental toughness to achieve your fitness goals. Nutrition plays a critical role in both muscle growth and cardiovascular performance, and understanding how to fuel your body properly can make all the difference.

One often-overlooked aspect of hybrid training is the benefit of cardio for muscle growth and overall recovery. Contrary to popular belief, cardio can enhance blood flow, improve energy systems, and boost cardiovascular health, all of which contribute to better muscle growth and work capacity. Cody shares fascinating studies that shed light on the evolving views of integrating more cardio into strength training routines. This episode will change the way you think about the role of cardio in your fitness regimen.

Setting realistic fitness goals while balancing life responsibilities can be challenging. Cody McBroom discusses strategies to maintain muscle and cardiovascular health, even when dealing with injuries or other setbacks. He emphasizes the importance of taking breaks for recovery and setting achievable goals that align with your personal and professional life. The conversation highlights the complexities of managing conflicting objectives, like increasing deadlift reps while training for a 5K, and offers practical advice on how to navigate these challenges.

Choosing hard tasks can significantly impact cognitive health and personal growth. Cody discusses the concept of "super agers" and how consistently challenging oneself can slow cognitive decline and enhance overall well-being. Activities like cold plunges and rigorous exercise boost neuroplasticity, dopamine, and serotonin levels, leading to increased happiness and productivity. This mindset of choosing hard extends to everyday decisions, influencing not only personal health but also how we interact with others and tackle life’s challenges.

Balancing work and personal life is another crucial aspect discussed in this episode. The story of a Netflix co-founder who reserved Tuesday afternoons for personal time serves as an inspiring example. The idea of choosing priorities wisely, even engaging in activities we may not enjoy, can have long-term benefits. Overcoming hard tasks now can prevent future regrets and foster a sense of extreme ownership and responsibility in various aspects of life.

Hybrid training offers a holistic approach to fitness and life improvement. Cody McBroom emphasizes the importance of starting small, such as increasing daily step counts, to create impactful habits. For those already active, incorporating both weightlifting and cardio into a well-structured routine can yield significant benefits. Strategies like using non-eccentric modalities, such as the sled or assault bike, are recommended for those with joint issues, highlighting the importance of thoughtful and intentional training.

Smart programming of cardio and strength training is crucial to avoid unnecessary fatigue. The modality of cardio—whether high-intensity interval training (HIIT) or another form—is less crucial than the overall volume for cardiovascular health. Recent research supports this view, showing that the key to effective training is balancing the different forms of exercise based on individual goals. Building work capacity through strength training can be as demanding as cardio, especially when performed intensely.

In summary, this episode is packed with actionable advice and inspiration to help you excel in both strength and endurance training, achieve a well-rounded fitness regimen, and lead a fulfilling life. Cody McBroom's insights into hybrid training, the benefits of cardio, and the power of choosing hard tasks provide a comprehensive guide for anyone looking to improve their fitness and overall well-being.

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Transcript

Philip Pape: 0:01

If you've been feeling stuck with your training, wondering whether you should get strong, build muscle or focus on endurance, and you've watched your gains plateau, leaving you wondering if it's possible to deadlift heavy and run fast without sacrificing one for the other, then this episode's for you. Today, we're sitting down again with Cody McBroom to uncover how you can not only balance strength and endurance, but potentially surpass your previous best in both. When you understand how to approach hybrid training, you can tackle your fitness goals with confidence, knowing that you don't have to choose between being strong and having stamina. So if you've been limiting yourself to just lifting or just cardio because you think they don't mix, what we're about to share will give you the blueprint to excel in both without sacrificing either one. 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 Cody McBroom is back on the show to talk about hybrid training and setting high standards for yourself in the process.

Philip Pape: 1:10

Cody is the founder of Tailored Coaching Method, host of the Tailored Life podcast and a man on a mission to redefine what it means to be an athlete and a high performer in all areas of life. He recently set some ambitious goals for himself, including a 405-pound deadlift for reps and a sub-45-minute 5K. Today, you'll learn how to balance strength and endurance training to achieve seemingly conflicting goals. We're going to explore time-efficient strategies for hybrid training and how to optimize your nutrition, both for muscle growth and cardiovascular performance. You'll discover some ways to build mental toughness that translates beyond the gym, and how to set high standards without falling into perfectionism. We'll also discuss using hybrid training to lean into hard and take the path of most resistance. Cody, welcome back to the show, my man.

Cody McBroom: 1:58

Thank you, brother. I'm excited to be here and I'm excited to talk about these topics. I will say, man, I think I need to hire you to do my intros on my podcast, because you crush it every time. Man, that was phenomenal.

Philip Pape: 2:11

I appreciate it, man. No, I have fun with it. It's kind of like coming up with the titles that are not too clickbaity but enough to get your attention. You know, and it's well-deserved, and people want to know, like, what they're getting into today? I think we represented it well. I, what they're getting into today. I think we represented it well. I've been listening to your show for quite a while and, for those listening who want to really deep dive into the hybrid training, cody's been talking about this a lot lately, so definitely check out his podcast. But here's the thing, cody. Here's the main question, right? A lot of listeners think that they have to choose between being strong and building muscle or developing aerobic capacity and endurance. What would you tell them?

Cody McBroom: 2:47

You don't. I think you can do both. I think that, as you know, in our profession it depends on so many factors, right? So I always hate being the guy that's like, well, it depends, and then it doesn't give somebody a concrete black and white answer like they want. But the reality is, you know, I think that I always like to look at things in two lenses scientific lens and then also the just anecdotal experience. Let's just look at things. You know I've used this even with bodybuilding. People will talk about like well, I don't know about high carb diets or like all this cardio or anything that they and I'm like just look at bodybuilders. Like, just look at bodybuilders. What about insulin, you know, and insulin sensitivity? I'm like, bodybuilders inject insulin, so if it was making you fat, they wouldn't do it.

Cody McBroom: 3:25

Now, I'm not promoting that, I don't do that, I'm not. You know what I mean. So I'm not promoting it. But I think that's a. If we're being evidence-based, it's not just science, it's anecdote as well, right Combined. So I say that to say, look at CrossFitters. There's a lot of Jack CrossFitters. I like watching CrossFit games and stuff. You know what I mean. I think it's great. Those, they're freak athletes. It's awesome.

Cody McBroom: 3:49

But they have at least proven that you know, concurrent training, which is training for two modalities that have opposing goals or effects, can work, like you can do it, you know. And so the easy answer is yes, you can do it. The long answer would be you be. It depends on how much improvement you need in one or the other. So if somebody comes to me and they're on flatline on both and they want to improve both equally, I would tell them hey, I don't think you're going to equally improve both at the same rate. I think one is likely going to improve and increase at a higher rate than the other If you put more focus into that right.

Cody McBroom: 4:27

So for me, for example, like my training is much more geared towards endurance and conditioning right now, because I have a half marathon in like just under five weeks and I'm doing high rocks February 1st of next year. So I have like five months, I think, for that one. And if I need to work on anything in this hybrid journey, it's endurance. I've never been a runner. I've competed in men's physique bodybuilding twice, I've put a lot of people on stage, I've trained for photo shoots and always just focused on hypertrophy and building muscle Like. That's what I'm, I've been good at. So cardio for me was getting my steps in and, you know, on a treadmill to burn calories during a cut, which is an easy way to do it and it's very easy to recover from. I think it's a really smart way, but it's not really hammering the endurance component home. So two thirds of my focus volume training all that is going to be leaning towards endurance, because I need the most improvement there, while one third is going to be towards hypertrophy, just to maintain the muscle I have.

Cody McBroom: 5:20

This is the other side of it. How experienced are you? For me, I'm not trying to do both. I'm not trying to build both. Maintain one, build the other and I would say that most hybrid and I think this is a really, really important key because we know newbies can probably get results from anything right, You're new to it, you're going to jump into something, you're going to get results. So if somebody is brand new to lifting entirely, running entirely, yes, do both. You're probably going to do both. And as you get to like an intermediate stage, you're probably going to have to lean towards the one you want to improve more than the other, but at a level like myself. Like and I'm just going to call this out If I get shredded in the process of doing hybrid training, I look like a crazy athlete, which would be awesome, right, and it probably will happen, to be honest, because I'm burning so many more calories than I have in a long time.

Cody McBroom: 6:04

It's not hybrid training that got the muscle on my body, and I think that's really important. So, when we look at these people who are hybrid athletes online and people are like, oh, I want to look like that. I got to do hybrid training. Like well, hold on, like let's look back, because you know, if Five to ten years before they were strictly doing bodybuilding, they have laid a foundation of muscle way before they started running. So they just maintain that muscle during all the hybrid training and that's why they look like that while being a hybrid athlete, and I think that's something a lot of people miss, and that's even the case for me.

Cody McBroom: 6:34

I'm not going to sit here and act like this is how I'm building more muscle. No, when I build muscle, I'm doing more volume in the gym, lifting and less cardio, right, but I believe, like it's really easy to maintain muscle and research has shown that. And research has also shown, if you split up your training sessions by four to six hours, as far as like running and lifting, that's the safest way to be practicing concurrent training without having a negative impact on either one of them, right? So we have four to six hours between meals, in between stuff like that I'm going to easily be able to maintain my muscle, and if I look like I'm jacked while doing it, it's just because I maintain that muscle and I got leaner from burning so many calories. That makes sense.

Philip Pape: 7:14

It makes total sense to me and I was kind of in the trap of CrossFit years ago thinking if I start CrossFit and do CrossFit, I'll look like a CrossFitter right, and in reality the best of those athletes, right when you look at their routine there's a lot of training, a lot of strength training, there's an off-season, there's periodization. They split up the nutrition and it's funny because I went full circle and eventually, you know, I would got to the point where I would trash CrossFit, which is also not necessarily the reaction we want to have. What I hear you're saying is you can kind of have it all. You may have to focus on one thing more than the other, not necessarily to the exclusion of the other. Newbies will grow no matter what and you're not going to lose a lot of muscle. You're not going to lose all your gains just because you throw in cardio. And you can throw in quite a bit of cardio. Which, cody? I talked to a guy named Ben on the show and he puts in 60 hours of running a week and he puts in 60 hours of running a week and he's still jacked. He holds onto his muscle, even went into a cut early on in that and gained a little muscle, so you never know right. So what?

Philip Pape: 8:15

I think a lot of listeners are probably going to ask besides, are you going to lose your gains which you're like? No, you're not going to do, that is all right. What do I start with If I'm a newbie? That's one scenario. And then somebody who's been lifting, which is the majority of people listening to the show. You know what direction should I take, because you know, I see Cody, he's jacked. He's been doing this for years. Maybe he's been lifting for 10 years. Should I be doing one first, almost exclusively? Should I do both, or is that going to slow me down?

Cody McBroom: 8:50

People are worried because they hear this and like, ah, give me the nuance, cody, what should I do? Yeah, I think it's a great question, man. I think you know I've gotten that a bit too similar questions. I think that it all depends on what your like if this person was to look in the future and answer the question, what does the best version of you that you're after look like you know? And not look like just physique wise, but feel like, look like, act like you know, all that kind of stuff. And I think that determines what my answer would be and how much you should do.

Cody McBroom: 9:11

Because if we just look at what builds muscle right Mechanical tension, stress and tension placed on the muscle Volume is the metric right. So a lot of people say volume is the key driver to hypertrophy. It's not. Mechanical tension is the key driver to hypertrophy. Volume is the metric we use to track how much mechanical tension you're creating on a daily, weekly, monthly basis. So if you need, this is just a hypothetical number. Not everybody needs this much more advanced. People do 20 sets per muscle group per week in order to develop more muscle tissue, to build more muscle than you have. And now you're trying to improve your running. Well, do you have enough time during the week to do that? Maybe not. And then the second question is okay, well, are there some muscles you don't care about growing and or don't need to grow? Let's do less 10 sets per week on those 20, on the ones that you want to grow, maybe now that you have time.

Cody McBroom: 9:57

And this is me also letting people know when I run, I still lift in the afternoon nine times out of 10. Like this morning, I had a tempo run and I ran early, 6 AM, and I'm going to lift today at 3 30 PM, and it's not always easy to you know. Talking about the whole mentality thing, I call it choose hard. But like I have to choose hard, I didn't want to run this morning at all. I was tired but I did it and I'm glad I did. That's part of my goal, and I have to do two days in order to get enough of both to be where I want to be. So people have to understand that.

Cody McBroom: 10:28

Now, if somebody is asking this question, I go what's your future self look like? And they're like well, I want to be jacked, I want to be strong, I want to build muscle, I want to be lean. These are all characteristics that really don't need any endurance training. But maybe they say, but I don't want to lose my health and I want to be able to keep up with my kids and their soccer scrimmage, you know, and practice basketball, whatever it is, and at that point I would go okay. So really you need to train like you're training for physique goals, because that's your primary goal, and you need enough. Obviously, we can't ignore nutrition, but we're not going to really go down that road but, like, nutrition is a big key to health, but you need enough cardio and aerobic training in order to support health, in order to support enough endurance to keep up with your kid in a soccer scrimmage, right? So let's just define what that is, cause I'm trying to go run a half marathon, which is 13 miles, and I got thrown into it at a pretty quick timeline, partially because my friend was like oh, you'll be fine, do it with me.

Cody McBroom: 11:25

And I'm like all right, whatever. But after that I want to do high rocks. Eventually, I don't know if I'll do a full marathon, maybe I will, whatever it is. But there's a difference between I want to run 13 miles straight and I want an appreciable time. I looked up what a time is and I'm like, okay, I'm going to. And I talked to my friend, he's a runner. I'm like, screw it, I'll do a half marathon, screw the 5k. And so now I'm doing the half and I was like, what is the average male time, what is good? And if you get less than two hours, you crush it as an average person. So I'm like, okay, so I just want to get two hours. I get two hours and a half marathon and so that's a high standard goal. You don't need to run a half marathon if you want to keep up with the kids. You get what I'm saying.

Cody McBroom: 12:05

So I think that people get it confused and it's like, if it's just a health component, honestly you could go on one long run per week and you're going to get the health benefits. And I'll just add this too there was a cool study that showed and I love when they do studies like this they put somebody. They do this is because it's not like me versus you in a study, it's me versus me. So genetics, dna, like responsiveness, everything is controlled because it's just me and my right leg pedals and they're developing aerobic benefits in that leg, cause there's a lot to be said about just improvement with blood flow, mitochondria, all these things that do lead to better muscle growth and muscle activation.

Cody McBroom: 12:47

And so they did that on the right leg or the left leg, I can't remember which one it was and then they did single leg leg extensions like press stuff like that, and there was a more favor for hypertrophy in the leg that actually did the cardio and they did it and they separated all that stuff and what they contribute that to is the aerobic benefits that you get when doing cardio from a blood flow perspective, energy systems perspective, the cardiovascular nature of just recovering faster between reps, sets, days of the week, allowing you to deliver more oxygen to the muscle, build more, but also do more volume because you're recovering faster right. All these things led to more muscle growth, more volume being accomplished. So there's still benefit to doing cardio when it comes to trying to build muscle Right, and so I think everybody should do a little bit. But I run five days a week and I'm varying the distances and the paces and all, so you don't need to do all that right, unless you have goals of pursuing a hybrid journey, something like that.

Philip Pape: 13:37

I just I take everything to the furthest Good, it's good Cause then we learn from you. We're like okay, that's my goal, this is the pushing the limit. Where do I want to fall on that spectrum? Right, and there is this thought with a lot of people and I've even said this in the past and my tune has changed of like okay, if you're a lifter, if you lift heavy, if you get in the volume, you're also building your work capacity. You just got to walk.

Philip Pape: 13:59

But it is true to you, brian Borstein, brandon Cruz, a whole bunch of other guys who are like yeah, I'm kind of into this idea of more cardio. Now you know a little. More cardio, not just during fat loss, not just to burn calories, but because it seems to help your lifting and helps your recovery. Like you said, it gives you just general health and even surprising benefits that we're still learning in the research. And you don't have to become an endurance athlete unless that is your goal. Would you say so? Let me ask you this. So I did CrossFit for like eight years. It definitely helped with my conditioning tremendously, to the point where I can go long stretches of being a lazy fat ass and not doing any cardio at all Okay, and still feel like I'm pretty healthy and my resting heart rate and VO2 max are like right there. What do we know about the lasting effects of kind of training versus being detrained in a cardio capacity? Does that make sense?

Cody McBroom: 14:50

Yeah, you know I have mixed feelings on this because in one sense I do and I've noticed this too like I do believe that cardio adaptations happen quicker in the beginning as well. So typically your thought might be that, hey, well, if you improve quickly, you might have the opposite effect. If we look at dieting and metabolic adaptation, it kind of leads that you know a lot of people can. If we cut your calories and you easily lose weight and there's no problem because your metabolism slowly adapts, well, it's going to bite you in the ass on the way back up in the reverse diet, maybe right. And vice versa, you might struggle because I got to really cut calories to drop body fat. But if we increase calories in the reverse, your body adapts, your metabolism works with you, and then you might be a quote unquote hyper responder, which is really just you moving more as you consume more calories and not realizing it typically. But I say that to say I don't know if it works the same with cardio. I do believe that I mean I've adapted very quickly just from a standpoint of, like, my ability to improve my running has happened very, very quickly. I started getting plantar fasciitis and this is not the first time I've got. I actually got that in my physique prep my last bodybuilding show as well just from so much walking towards the end of an inclined treadmill. And I took a week off last week actually to just you got to just lay off. It's the best way to do it Ice and lay off. And I went back into it this week and I felt great. I felt just as good, if not better, and so I was assuming like I'm going to have to play catch up a little bit. It's only a week so it shouldn't do too much. But I figured, you know, I've never done much conditioning Like it's never been my thing. I've had to program a lot of it just because of clients and stuff. So I've learned a lot about it but I've just never enjoyed it because I suck at it and I don't think it's fun.

Cody McBroom: 16:33

But I do think that, to your point, I think the health benefits that you get can be easily maintained and it would be. You know, I think it's the same thing with muscle. We all know those guys who, like those old guys, that they might have a gut but they're just kind of jacked. Still. They got big shoulders, big chest, big back. You know, all that stuff is clearly like still there, their muscle doesn't disappear like that. You know, it's just one of those things I would imagine.

Cody McBroom: 16:56

Cardio is very similar. I think once you get those benefits, I think it's really good. Now there's also a lot that can counteract that. So great, you're doing a lot of cardio, but when you stop, maybe your cardiovascular adaptations don't just go away, but if you get actual fat, you're going to have negative health benefits from the fat you're carrying. And now if you go try to run, you're also going to have to run with 20 extra pounds. So you know, did your cardiovascular health diminish or did you just get fat? Good point, but I agree with you.

Cody McBroom: 17:23

I think in general I do think it's going to be easy to maintain. It's the same thing with muscle Muscle is very hard to build. It's easy to maintain for the most part. Fat loss is not easy to maintain. You got to like I would say it's easier to maintain than it is to do.

Cody McBroom: 17:36

But I say all this to say I think they're all kind of in their own box. I think they're all slightly different. I think it depends on how you're running and how you're programming it too, and I also think it depends on how long. If you did CrossFit for five years straight, that's an adaptation that's going to stick. You know, it's the same thing with muscle, like I just I like to tell people it's very unscientific, but if you build a lot of muscle and you're able to maintain it for quite a while because you're lifting, you're doing stuff, you've kind of solidified that mass on your body, it's going to be really hard to get rid of it. Like you're going to have to like literally starve for it, to like atrophy right or have a disease. So I'm not familiar with any scientific research that has actually studied this exact topic, but I would imagine, just based on everything else, that if you stick with it for long enough, it's probably going to stick around pretty long as well.

Philip Pape: 18:19

Yeah, it makes sense. I mean, muscle-wise, I think we're still coming to learn what the mechanisms are, you know, satellite cells and creating new muscle fibers and so on, which is pretty amazing, right? They're effectively there, You've created them and now they're there and they come back. Cardio I definitely have heard that the adaptation comes and goes or it comes quickly. So therefore, I imagine you factor that in to your strategy with you're trying to go after deadlift for reps, You're trying to go after 5k at the same time. We call these seemingly conflicting goals, but I think the way you've talked about it is they're not conflicting. You just have to fit them in and you have to balance them against your constraints, Like your time. You have time for two days, Maybe. Maybe the busy dad or the parent has 45 minutes a day, yeah, so yeah.

Cody McBroom: 19:07

That's kind of why I mentioned that too. I want people to know I say that stuff because I think there's a lot of people online who don't, and I want people to know that, like, behind this wall is a gym, it's like a literal 2000 square foot gym that I film content and do that stuff. So for me to not be able to do it two a day, it would be kind of ridiculous. I would have to be, you know, like so busy that it would be, you know it would be impossible. And I'm blessed my wife is a stay-at-home mom, so that helps me a ton. I don't have to pick up my daughter from school because my wife does. So it's like I wake up at 5 am. So don't get me wrong, I get up early and I start early, but I'm home at 5. And that includes my due session. So I point that out because I have expectations for myself that are a lot of times greater than the expectations of my clients, cause I'm realistic with those things.

Cody McBroom: 19:43

And the other thing is I've done a 405 pound deadlift for multiple reps, and I say that to say not because it's like super impressive, but because my goal isn't to like it would be different if I was like the most I've ever done is three, 15, but I'm going to run a half marathon and I'm going to increase my deadlift by 95 pounds or 85 pounds, whatever it is, and like that's unrealistic, right. And so I say that because I'm trying to get back to be able to do that without hurting my back. Because what got me into the hybrid journey was I hurt my back and it was like I'm not deadlifting right now because my back hurts and I messed up my lower back. I have to go through some, you know, recovery, some mobility. I got to start shifting my training volume a bit to not do so much on my body and if I do all this right, I can pursue this hybrid journey but also I can recover my back and be able to deadlift heavy again for a few reps.

Philip Pape: 20:34

That's really the goal. Yeah, I feel you on the back too. Same thing If I go too heavy and too much volume. At my age, the back feels it, but that doesn't preclude having a 405, 425 plus deadlift if you do it right. Shout out to all stay-at-home moms. By the way, my wife's also a stay-at-home mom. We homeschool our kids and I'm blessed and I know you are too.

Philip Pape: 20:48

I'm so grateful that that leaves me. It frees me from a lot of things that a lot of other guys have to do. So we get it. But again, if you're listening to this, you have your life. That is a constraint that someone else doesn't have, and vice versa. So you've got to work with what you have and personalize it, which I know you're a big fan of. So let's talk about the mental strategies, then, for I'll call it an extreme physical goal, right? Because at the end of the day, a small push in a direction takes a lot less of that mental effort than going to the extremes. You're talking about pushing through barriers, leaning into hard. Let's talk about your phrase the path of most resistance. What does that mean? What are we trying to accomplish? And are we talking about friction? Are we talking about something very controlled and deliberate to get there.

Cody McBroom: 21:34

Yeah. So I think there's a lot of things that we can unpack with this and even to just directly tie it to what we just got done talking about. You know, I actually posted about this today. It's a really interesting thought. As life goes on, you get more busy, you get more responsibility. So you go from having really no bills as a young to having bills to having to work, to not just working and putting in hours but actually developing a career. Then you have a marriage and then you have kids and you eventually have a mortgage. Your time gets limited, right. So when I think of it like this too is like hey, if you're like man, I just don't have time right now, maybe we'll calm down this Like you're never gonna have the time, Just make time now because you make time for what you value most, right, I'll be honest, there's a lot of things I don't do nearly as much of as other people do, and that's because I chose these things instead of those things.

Cody McBroom: 22:24

I chose to build a company. I chose to like be in touch with my clients. I chose to hang with my daughter and my wife really every moment that I'm not working, instead of going and drinking with the boys and going on trips and doing these things because I knew I can't build the company I want to build and go have fun with all my friends and be a great dad. We're limited to how much great things we can do. I chose these great things and so every once in a while I do, and I have a lot of friends that I try to stay in touch with and they know that they respect it now, but that's the path I chose. So I say that to say we all have time. We just have to make time for the things that we prioritize and want most. What I prioritize most is my girls, my wife and daughter, my fitness and my business, and those come before everything else. And some people will listen and think that that's not balance. That's fine. Balance isn't about time. Balance is about spending your time on earth doing what you love and what you get value from and what you can give value back with, and those are the things that I get value from. So, anyway, I think that this whole idea of making time is really important for people to understand, because you're not going to get more as you age, you're just going to get less until you retire and then by the time you retire, you're not going to care about your deadlift or your abs, you're just going to be retired and chilling.

Cody McBroom: 23:36

But with regards to leaning into resistance and all this stuff, I kind of honestly, it was a really cool kind of inception. I started just saying choose hard when, like, I had to make a hard decision and I didn't want to, but I knew I had to, and then I would do it. And then it's like choosing hard makes me better. And then I started like kind of saying it to clients when I would notice they did it. And then I started getting some people that picked up on it and actually like DM me and they would just, hey, I just want to share, I did this after your podcast and blah, blah, blah, blah. And then it would be like hashtag choose hard in the DM. I was like that's really dope. And then so I changed my broadcast channel on Instagram to choose hard daily drip. And then I went and trademarked it, cause I was like this is like let me see if anybody has this. Nobody had it. So I'm like dope.

Cody McBroom: 24:18

So I look at it. Is there's Nike, just do it. There's Taylor coach method choose hard, right, and because and this is the part with resistance, right I think that every decision has a hard component. It's really about choosing hard today so that you can have easy tomorrow. But if you choose easy today, which is less resistance, it's comfort. It's being complacent, right, like that's the easy path. Now it's going to lead to difficult things later. Right, like that's the easy path Now. It's going to lead to difficult things later, right? If you choose the non-active route, cause it's easier to be lazy, it's easier to eat packaged foods, easier to eat whatever, it's easier to not meal prep, whatever it is that's going to lead to difficulty in your life. You are going to gain weight, you are going to be unhealthy, you are going to be less confident, like we. The list goes on. We know this.

Cody McBroom: 24:59

The hard thing is doing the assault bike. The hard thing is going to the gym in the morning. The hard thing for me was running at six in the morning this morning. And it's in Washington state, so it's cold here. I hate it, but I got to do it. You know, and it's literally September 4th, I think it should not be this cold already, but it is so.

Cody McBroom: 25:15

But I went and did it because it was hard, and so those things make everything easier, because now, every hard decision that I don't have a choice with because there's things in life that come up that are hard decisions to make, hard conversations to have and you don't get a choice this is your only option, right? Those are going to be easier for me to handle and I'm going to handle them with confidence and with poise, because I consistently chose hard and there's a difference between doing hard and choosing hard, and I want people to understand that when you choose hard, something happens in your brain. There's actually a part of your brain that literally develops and you will literally. They call them super agers. I was listening to, actually Andrew Huberman was talking about and I just started going on this rabbit hole. I actually just listened to this I think it was on Joe Jones Parks like a week ago and can't remember the part of the brain, but there's a lot of research that I was already digging into on this. But one of the fascinating things that he said that I liked was they call them super agers and it's basically a reversal of these cognitive declines.

Cody McBroom: 26:10

Right, it doesn't mean like, oh, you're in reverse time and age differently, but you slow down the likelihood of decreasing productivity, decreasing memory, decreasing your chances of getting Alzheimer's and all these things, just from challenging yourself as crazy as that sounds. So if you're doing a cold punch, you're challenging yourself. You're going to live longer, like as crazy as that sounds. So if you're doing a cold punch, you're challenging yourself, you're going to live longer. As crazy as that sounds, you're developing things in your brain. There's also a component of neuroplasticity. It helps with dopamine, serotonin, all these things. You're going to be happier, you're going to be in a better mood. You're also going to accomplish more in life because things are going to come up and you're going to easily make the right decision without even thinking twice because you've been consistently choosing hard, and choosing hard today makes choosing hard in other realms way easier to do. And so I think that my goal with it and it started with again with our clients and then people who are following me, and I'm just really trying to just spread as much as I can now is if you can get more people to choose hard in their day-to-day. I just think that, one, everybody's going to be healthier. Two, everybody's gonna accomplish their goals more. And three, I do think everybody's gonna generally be more fulfilled in life, because the hard thing could be.

Cody McBroom: 27:12

Me running this morning was three and a half miles and it was a tempo run, so that middle I think it was 1.9 miles in the middle was a really hard pace. It was a seven-minute mile, which which is I'm like pushing it after already running a mile warm up I was dying but like that was hard, you know, and easy was coming up soon, and then I know I have a seven mile run on Friday. That's going to be a little easier because I did these other ones first, and it doesn't just have to be this extreme goal though. So, for example, when I this sounds funny, but this is if you can program whoever's listening, if you can program whoever's listening to this, if you can program your brain this way and gamify it, this is how things really start to shift and this is what I've noticed my dog is like.

Cody McBroom: 27:53

So when we got my dog, when he was a puppy English bulldog Bubba, we got him and my wife wanted him and my daughter was four, I think, and we didn't experience terrible twos, it was terrible fours, and so she was just wild at that age and so, like I remember the, it was like literally day one. We got them on Sunday. I went to work on Monday and my wife texted me and was like I can't do it. We got to bring the dog back. I'm freaking out Like this is nuts. I was just like, hey, I'll bring him to work, I'll figure it out, he'll be fine. So he Just row with me, he's my guy. Then we got a new facility and I was like I don't want his drool everywhere so I left him at home. But when I get home he is ready to play like a little kid. And there's days where he brings his chew toy and he's strong, he's a big boy, he's an 80-pound bulldog.

Cody McBroom: 28:39

I'm like I want to play tug of war. I don't want to, would go away because he's a good dog, he listens, I say stop and he'll go. That would be easier for me to do and I can just relax. Or I could do the thing for the dog that I bought and I'm here to take care of. That's a hard decision.

Cody McBroom: 28:50

When my daughter wants to play Barbies, there's a lot of times I don't want to be Ken. But I could do the hard thing and I could say yes and I could be Ken and be enthusiastic about being the Ken doll when I don't want to. That's a hard decision that I make and that's a very simple one. You know what I mean. Like I could have been tired coming to this podcast, I'm like it would be hard for me to be fired up, but I'm going to choose to be fired up because I'm going to fake it a little bit and then I'll get fired up, which wasn't the case. I was fired up to be here, know it's kind of like in the matrix, the red pill and blue pill.

Cody McBroom: 29:24

In the matrix, Neil gets the opportunity. Do you want to take the red pill or the blue pill Right? So to me, choose hard is one of those pills, and every single day there's countless times where you run into a situation, you run into a conversation, you run into a decision you got to make, and there's the blue pill and the red pill. Choose hard. You just might change the outcome of what's going to happen. You just might shift how your brain works. It just might have a trickle effect that not only impacts your life, but it's going to impact somebody else's life, depending on what that decision is.

Tony: 29:52

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

Philip Pape: 30:37

Yeah, I just want to rip off the headset and just like go do all these things right now. Man, it's so motivational. But seriously, it sounds like not choosing hard is where the regrets are made in life. That's what I'm getting from that. Like people who you know, when you regret things, you look back and you're like it's probably because I didn't choose heart in many cases, yeah, and you really hit me there with the daughter or with, you know, with kids, because I feel the same way. It's like I could be really busy, focused in my work, working from home, and my daughter comes up and is like look, I made this thing for you, or I want to show you something, or do you have time for a game, and it's like that's what it takes to choose. It seems like such a simple thing, but it's. She's going to remember it the rest of her life, especially if it accumulates with multiple decisions like that through your life. So when it's so valuable to take even the small things that to some people are harder than others, like we're not judging you as a listener of what's hard to you. So, for example, if you've never meal prepped and you decide to take that you know hard step on Sundays of like carving out an hour for meal prep and now all of a sudden realize that the rest of the week gets easier and the stress goes away. You're bearing the fruit of that hard, you know hard morning walk when you don't currently get off your seat all day could be the hard thing for you. So it's like expanding that comfort zone and so on.

Philip Pape: 31:50

There was a story one of my other business coaches talked about the co-founder of Netflix, how he would reserve his Tuesday afternoons. I don't know if you've heard this story. Every day at Tuesday he would leave at 4 p, 4 PM or to hang out with his friend at the bar or whatever. When he was single and then when he was married, it was like time to go home to see his kids and for his whole career he left at 4 PM, whereas you know, the classic line from entrepreneurs is you know work a hundred hours a week, right, like your great thing is your career, so forget everything else. And you're saying that even though you're limited to an amount of great things, you do choose them wisely, like choose family, purpose, whatever it is. Yeah.

Cody McBroom: 32:28

Yeah, and there's no judgment for those things being hard, like you said. Like I kind of sound like a dick by saying like I don't want to play barbies. Like what dude, you have a daughter. What do you mean? It's like okay. So any normal dude in their head in the moment doesn't want to enthusiastically be kin, but of course I do it.

Cody McBroom: 32:41

But there's a lot of times and I'm guilty of this too Like not right now, sweetie, like let's not, I've a hundred percent done it Right, and then I've felt bad about it later or I've like shifted the moment, like actually you know what? Okay, right, but to your point, that regret thing is so true, man. Like how many times have we heard like the stories of regret? Or Gary V went to the nursing home and talk to these people and they all regret Like I wish I would have asked out that girl. Well, why didn't you? Because I was lacking confidence and it felt hard to ask her out. I didn't know what to say. It felt hard to come up with something to say Okay, that's your hard thing. You know. It applies to so many different aspects of life and that's why I love it so much, because it really is hard, but now that person lives with the hard of regret. So again, it's hard now for easy later versus easy now for hard later and just not falling in to that comfort zone and a quick story to share about it bleeding into kids and all that stuff.

Cody McBroom: 33:34

But one of the things that I've always done and I actually look at this kind of like it's extreme ownership is what I looked at it as and I'm like I'm going to start doing this is picking up trash. And it's not like I walk around with one of those like things and poking picking up trash. But if I walk by a piece of trash that I can physically grab and like it's not like a tire on the side of the road, right, like it's just trash, I'm going to pick it up, because if I walk by it like if and it's the idea that if I do this, I'll be able to practice this extreme ownership in anything so if I'm walking by the dishes and it would be easy for me to get them done, but I don't feel like it, but it would make my wife happy, I'm going to do it real quick, Right, it's because if I have the power to do so and change something, I do it. That's what extreme ownership is. It's not my responsibility, I'm just taking ownership of it because I can do something right. So my thing was like picking up garbage, so like, even like to the point where I've uh, I got caught on one of the cameras with my neighbors, like I walked by and it was like a slurpy lid in their driveway and I walked but looked at, I walked by and I got like 10 feet away and just stopped and was like turned around and I went and grabbed it, cause I just I didn't feel like it, but I I was like in my head I'm like, oh, dude, you just walked by. You could have grabbed it. Dude, what are you doing? What are you doing?

Cody McBroom: 34:41

And then I had to turn around and get it and my daughter started picking up on this and we were driving by during Christmas last year and this couple has this nativity set, you know, with like Jesus baby and the stuff, and it kept blowing down in the wind and I would drive by and I'd stop, get out of my truck, walk out, push it into the grass, because the wind would blow it over, get in my truck and drive away. They're not out there, they don't see me do anything. My daughter kept seeing it and so she saw me going out of my way. She saw me stop in the middle of the road and drag somebody's garbage can in because I saw it and I was like, well, we're not going to be late to school, let me do it.

Cody McBroom: 35:20

And one day I was pulling out, stop, screamed. And it freaked me out. So I slammed on my brakes in the cul-de-sac. I'm like what? And she was like, oh, they're garbage, you gotta go get it. And I'm thinking I was like, sweet, we're going to be late. And she was like you can leave, it's on the ground. And I'm just like, okay, stop. And I went. That's my point with saying like you might choose hard and it has a trickle effect that somebody might see you do that and you never see them again, but you don't know the impact that that could leave on them and what they end up doing with it.

Philip Pape: 35:50

I think anytime you make that choice the red versus the blue pill, like you said it doesn't only change your neuroplasticity. I think it has a ripple effect. It has an effect on people watching you and it also has effect on the things you will then do that then have an effect on people. It's almost like an exponential, internal, exponential flywheel, if you will. In one realm. You start to build a skill, you start to do something hard, you get better and better at it. Now you want to tell people. Now people see you doing it, now you're talking more about it and before you know it it's just like bled out in a positive way just to the world. Really, and we're getting kind of philosophical here. But I think this does come down to why we do these things physically, because there's also mental translation.

Philip Pape: 36:36

And then I love the whole kid analogy because my mom used to do that with the trash. She used to do that and I've always had that gut reaction. When I see trash I'm like I can't have that. There. To the point, cody, where I was hiking and this group was ahead of me and this guy like tosses a can into the uh, into the woods. And I actually called him I said are you going to leave that there? And he's like, oh no, I'm going to come back and get that. And I'm like I'm just thinking, okay, I'm just going to hold my cool, I'm going to grab it and throw it away myself, but uh, it's a funny story, but it did, it's it's.

Cody McBroom: 37:00

That's awesome and it does trickle down like that. And I think that one thing that I will point out with the research on some of that't know if this is because it literally causes a greater effect when it's physical or if it's just that the studies done on this were primarily physical Cause it's also a lot easier in a study. I'm sure to be like, okay, we got to make these people do the hard thing and see what happens Probably going to be physical, you know, getting a cold plunge, like conditioning something, but they do see a great effect when we challenge ourselves physically. So you know, pushing yourself on the gym, pushing yourself on cardio, even pushing yourself with a diet. They even had research with these super agers and these people that they were showing people are more likely to be successful during a diet. People are more likely to lose the weight in a weight loss journey. People are more likely to accomplish the strength goal and in these different journeys and sustain those things when they actually did so in a way that challenged them.

Cody McBroom: 37:56

So it's not enough to lose weight, it's not enough to diet and make it so easy and this is my problem with like flexible dieting can go too far where it's like one. It's creating false belief. It's never that easy, you know. But also you should challenge yourself. It's okay. You know what. You should eat clean, you should meal prep, you should do some cardio, maybe just for the fact that it's going to create some discipline and that discipline is going to carry over and do something greater for you in your other areas of life. But you learned it from dieting and I do believe that fitness and nutrition are the catalyst for changing everything else in your life, because it's the easiest and safest way to get somebody to really push themselves and challenge themselves.

Philip Pape: 38:38

And it creates these positive effects everywhere else. Yep for sure. Yeah, and the thing about dieting is there are a lot of counterintuitive things like that. People who start diets more aggressively tend to maintain the results better, right, according to evidence. Little things like that, and so I've also tried to incorporate that. But I've also been accused, like you said, of saying well, we're going to make this a lot easier with flexible dieting. That's not really the framing we necessarily want for it. It's more of we're going to take a different approach. You know, that actually gets you the results effectively and efficiently. It may be hard, it may require effort, but the effort is going to pay off. Like the goal is the effort pays off. We don't want to spin our wheels and like do a lot of effort for nothing. However, even when something fails, you still learn from it, which is important. Yeah, so tell us about. Let's get back to hybrid training a little bit.

Philip Pape: 39:18

If someone's listening and saying, okay, I want to incorporate some of this. I want to be a badass like Cody and get mental toughness through the physical side. Maybe I'm already lifting weights, which most people are listening, are doing that. Maybe they're working out four days a week. They've got a little bit of time. They want to do some more cardio. Where should they start?

Cody McBroom: 39:34

Yeah, I think that I mean, let's start from ground zero, step count. I would literally approach it this way. If somebody came to me and they said that and I'm like cool, like let's look at your steps, and their steps were 2000 a day, I'm going to say, hey, you're like, you're sedentary, you know you're, you're going to be wrecked, like it's going to. Really, you're going to have so much soreness You're going to be. You know, and this is the big thing, right, this is a moment where we go screw it, choose hard, start with two miles every day, you know. Okay, then they're going to be so sore that they're going to be like screw this guy and screw choosing hard. So we want to leave a good impression. So I'm going to go hey, what's the lowest barrier to entry? That's going to One. It is going to challenge them, it's going to be harder, but it's also going to have an adaptation. You're stepping 2,000 steps? Cool, we're going to do 5,000. That's more than double what you're doing right now. I promise you, they're going to have to schedule time to either go on mini walks, they're going to have to first not hit 5,000 multiple days in a row to realize, holy shit, I got to figure this out and plan it and schedule it ahead. They might even have to schedule in some treadmill time and walk on the treadmill, but that's what I want. I want them to have to go out of their way and do something, because right now they're not doing it. So we start there.

Cody McBroom: 40:46

Let's say, somebody's like and this is very common in our industry already stepping 10,000 steps a day, already stepping 10,000 steps a day. They're intentional about it. They listen to podcasts like ours. They know what to do. They're doing some of that stuff. Well, this person I'm going to ask do you have any running experience? I have some clients that they want the cardiovascular benefits, they want the hybrid benefits.

Cody McBroom: 41:04

But you know and this isn't always an issue I've had multiple knee surgeries, but maybe their knee surgeries were worse, maybe they. You know, I luckily didn't have to do this, but, for example, I tore my meniscus multiple times and one of the times they told me we might just have to take it out. It's like it's just ripped shreds. We're probably gonna take it out. You'll have bone on bone Five years later. You'll get a knee replacement. Thankfully they salvaged it. But there are people where they just have to remove the meniscus is like a pad between two. It's just going to be bone on bone. That's going to hurt. Maybe they can't run.

Cody McBroom: 41:33

Okay, what can we do? Well, we can do the assault bike, we can do the sled, we can do these modalities that are non-eccentric, right. So non-load bearing on the joint, it's just a concentric contraction. So for people listening who don't know what that is, if you're doing a squat and you're going down that negative, that's eccentric. Concentric is the way up. Well, the eccentric is what's overloading the joints. More. So if we remove that, because every time you run, every step is eccentric loading on the joints, right. So we can remove that by doing-.

Philip Pape: 42:02

And it causes a lot of soreness too, is a good indication. Bingo.

Cody McBroom: 42:04

Yeah, yep, more muscle damage. It's going to be more tension on the joint, the tendon ligament, all that. So we can remove that and do a sled, do a bike, do the road, do a bike, do the road, do stuff like that. That's just purely concentric. There is an eccentric movement but there's no load on that eccentric movement. You pull the sled by pushing your feet into the ground and stepping back and then it's no load. You reset your step right. So we do that.

Cody McBroom: 42:25

But we target the heart rate, we target the duration, we target the distance in meters, we target, whatever it is calories burned. That's still going to have the same exact benefits from an aerobic building perspective. And I want to make that clear because a lot of people don't get into this stuff because they hate running. I always hated running, but I own a sled and I have turf and I still made a point once a week still going to do some sled work. I did the very minimal because I don't enjoy conditioning. But I would still jump on the assault bike, I would still jump, even if it's high intensity, whatever. So doing something like that, one, two days a week, going from the step count to let's add one or two days. You're going to adapt quick, so maybe we add one day, then we add a second day. Then we either decide okay, you're lifting this is very common Four days a week, upper lower split. So we added one cardio. Now we add two, so you're doing six days a week of activity. Do you want to do two days? Or are you happy with this? And if they're happy with that, honestly we can A progress those two sessions by changing the tempo. So it's like hey, right now, this is a really easy way to do it.

Cody McBroom: 43:23

For running, let's say you're going to run 30 minutes, max distance in 30 minutes, but control your pace. You shouldn't be. This is aerobic. I want minute one to be the same pace and speed as minute 30, right, we're trying to sustain it. Most likely that's not going to happen because it's hard to pace it perfectly, but we're sustaining that pace, staying in, you know, let's say, 70% of max heart rate, kind of in that aerobic zone. Do that next week.

Cody McBroom: 43:45

We're going to say, hey, what was your like, how many miles did you get? Now we want to try to increase that. We either go 40 minutes, we get further distance, or we go, hey, increase your pace so you accomplish 2.5 miles instead of 2.2, whatever it is, and we can just progress to just like a linear periodization. We can't do that forever without adding more days of running, but we can progress it a little bit in that regard. Then maybe we do some tempo running.

Cody McBroom: 44:07

Hey, warm up with one mile, then you're going to increase your. This is exactly what I did today Warm up with a mile and then for 1.9 miles for me, but it could be a mile for somebody else increase your pace. So my half marathon pace is maybe a minute slower than what I'm running right now, but I'm only doing it for 1.9, right, and then we do a cool down, right. So there's ways to vary it. But truthfully, I think somebody could build up to two days a week and be totally fine there. If they desire doing more or running a half marathon or something, you should probably be running three to four days a week. But if you're just looking for hybrid benefits conditioning benefits that we've been talking about I see nothing wrong with doing these other models and a lot of times I recommend it because it's so much easier on joints that we're not going to worry about injuries or overuse injuries and just like really just breaking down tissue, tendons, ligaments, joints and causing pain, because we're doing these in safer modalities, if that makes sense.

Philip Pape: 44:59

Yeah, it makes total sense. I like the application of form of progressive overload or understanding. There's stress, recovery, adaptation there, even when it comes to cardio. And so, wherever you are now, what can you do, both from a time perspective, but also from an ability perspective or any physical limitations you have? There's no excuses, right, you can find something among all of those. They even have, you know, for folks that have certain limb issues or disabilities, they have special, you know, different equipment for that. Start with a step count, make a decent jump, that's, I'll call it, hard but achievable and then, if you're already doing that, add in one to two days of concentric, primarily tight movements. You don't even have to run at all, which is great, cause a lot of people are like I don't want to do that. Where does hit fit into this?

Cody McBroom: 45:45

Yeah, and I would definitely start by saying don't turn your weight sessions into a hit session. You know, I think there's probably people who I mean, I got this at the first one. I did like a hybrid Q and a and it was like what's the difference in hybrid training and CrossFit? It's like, well, crossfit's a sport, so there's one thing, but two, hybrid training is also not a circuit training class, so like that's not what we're talking about here. And hybrid is concurrent, which means we have one session that we are trying to accomplish a goal. Strength means we have one session that we are trying to accomplish a goal.

Cody McBroom: 46:16

Strength muscle, whatever it is, train for that. So do your leg press, do your squat, do your bench press, whatever. Take a long rest. There's times where you can superset things. I have a program I'm running right now and I do what's called strength circuits. I go from a trap bar deadlift to a barbell, bench press, to a row. Those are less fatiguing exercises, less demanding exercises metabolically, neurologically, mentally, everything. So it works Like if I was to do the bench press, the row and then try to do a tri-bar deadlift, probably hurt myself. There's an order and there is a very fast pace, but then I take a long rest afterwards and I'm actually what I'm trying to do is express strength while under fatigue, and I'm doing that intentionally because I'm training for high rocks and I got to be able to do these exercises while I'm metabolically fatigued. But for most people, like we're training like a bodybuilder and then at another time of day you're going and running right, so we separate them completely.

Cody McBroom: 47:03

As far as HIIT goes, I think that personally, I'm just not a huge fan of HIIT. To be honest with you. I think that it was great. When it first came out, it seemed like it was this thing that was better than low intensity cardio. I would disagree. I think that low intensity cardio is I shouldn't say much better. They both are going to give you cardiovascular benefits, so they're obviously great. But I think that you're going to get more health and aerobic benefits, I would imagine, from low intensity cardio. Most research shows how beneficial staying in that sustained aerobic zone is. The nice thing about HIIT is that you can get some of those benefits still, obviously, and it's way shorter.

Cody McBroom: 47:38

So if somebody, I would say the best time to use that is for somebody who wants to lose fat and they're not experiencing diet fatigue. So, for example, somebody is we're starting the diet this week, we can add in a day or two of HIIT cardio and it's 10 to 20 minutes total. It is very high intensity but it's short enough, it's not overly fatiguing and you haven't been in the diet long enough that you're really having trouble recovering because your lack of calories coming in. Which, if somebody is on week eight of consistent dieting and we're like now, we should add HIIT cardio, maybe not, because they're already fatigued and they're probably already a little bit tired. Let's just increase their step count or program low-intensity cardio and just walk on an inclined treadmill. You know, I think that's probably going to be your better bet.

Cody McBroom: 48:19

And if we really like get into the science of it too, I would venture out to say high-intensity intervals are so similar to strength training If you're training with hard intensity, that you're not getting the variability of training different energy systems.

Cody McBroom: 48:32

So when I go in the gym, if I do a heavy back squat for five reps, I'm probably squatting for 10 to 20 seconds, I don't know, and then I'm going to take a few minute rest. So my heart rate goes through the roof. Heavy load, a lot of tension, a lot of focus and then I'm going to chill and I'm going to bring my heart rate down, all those things down, and then I do it again for four sets. Well, technically, you know, and so I would rather do a cardio modality that is going to produce a different benefit rather than just doing the same one, especially because anaerobic training, which is this high intensity model and what the energy system you're going to train during strength training, it is more fatiguing, especially on the nervous system right. And so to me, I'm like, if we're trying to optimize recovery, manage stress, strictly, burn calories, while also just trying to do enough variety with our training, that we're training different systems in the body. I would say that the best that is going to be low intensity.

Philip Pape: 49:23

As always, I have like 20 takeaways from everything you say, so I'm going to break it down to just like three that really stick out for the listener. The first is even though you're adding in cardio, there's a smart way to program it. We have to think of it as programming still, and I know you have some programs in your app for that. Cody didn't ask me to promote that, I just know he does, because it's true. You have to say do I want to be fatigued and then lift? Or, most likely, do I want to lift fresh and then do my cardio later? For example, also, I don't know if you saw, literally this week, mass reviewed a study from this year that compared the different forms of cardio and found that volume was the most important indicator of cardiovascular health. It wasn't the modality which supports what you're saying.

Philip Pape: 50:04

You don't have to do HIIT. You don't have to do any particular one, you can choose the one that makes sense. And then the idea of HIIT as kind of like strength training in terms of the energy system. I like that one a lot. I don't think we've heard that often. It checks out right, like when you do a heavy deadlift, my heart rate goes up 160, you know, and I'm only doing it for a few seconds, but it reminds me of box jump, burpee days, which I will never do again from CrossFit.

Cody McBroom: 50:29

Those are pretty cool. Yeah, I want to add man, because it is funny that not that many people talk about that, and I'll give credit where credit's due. I remember this might've been so long ago that I was literally talking to him because he coached me before he became a YouTuber. Jeff Nippert said it to me and I was like, oh, that makes sense. That really clicked with me. But even if you look at like and, by the way, I haven't, I actually have the email marked on red for mass, I'm excited about that. I'm going to read it now. I mean, I always read it, but when I see it I'm like, ah, I'm saving that for this weekend. But that's how nerdy I am with my time.

Cody McBroom: 50:59

But the cardio thing, it's like, well, when we think of people who are arguing about like that's not real hit cardio and all that stuff, what do they talk about? They talk about sprint. Okay, well, what does everybody else talk about? Sprinting? Is your anaerobic threshold right? Your anaerobic energy system, they argue, these high intensity models that are going beyond, like, the 10 to 15 second mark. Why? Because you stop being able to rely on that anaerobic energy system.

Cody McBroom: 51:24

The creatine phosphate out about, you know? I think it literally is like eight to 12 seconds, but let's say 10 to 15, just for easy numbers. Well, if we're looking at it like that, that's I mean that sprint is explosive, it's powerful. Get your heart rate up, then you take a long break. If that's true high intensity, that is very, very similar to strength training, very, very similar to lifting. And if it's not similar to lifting to you, then you're probably not training hard enough. Honestly, because you can get that way. You're just doing dumbbell bench press. If you're really pushing it, you should be like kind of gassed, you know, yeah, I mean that's hard training.

Philip Pape: 51:55

It's true, it does build work capacity. I mean, you know, if I start working with a client who's got a lot of weight to lose and we're training and walking at the same time, the lifting sessions are often harder than you know, than the cardio for the heart health, and so there's a reason for that, we have to acknowledge. And you look at, like Westside, they have the dynamic days in there, man just doing sets of you know doing 10 sets in a row a 30 second rest of a bench press, You'll see that that is also a form of cardio when you do it, man.

Philip Pape: 52:23

So it's kind of fun, because then you know you, you have this spectrum of okay, how much of this versus that do I want in there? And, like Cody you were saying, it really depends on your goals. And if you want to go to an extreme, like I want to be a power lifter or I want to do high rocks, you're going to have to, like, make those trade-offs. But you can kind of have it all at some level.

Cody McBroom: 52:40

That's it. You know and I think this will really speak to listeners too I haven't said this way, but this makes a lot of sense because I've noticed this too. But there's a difference between, like, if you go out on a run by yourself and you're like really gassed like halfway through, Okay, you do a workout by yourself and it really gets you. Okay. If you go golfing and you're the guy at the 18th hole that calves are killing them, You're tired, You're sweating, whatever. That's different. That doesn't feel good. You go on a hike and you're that person that doesn't feel good. You want to run with multiple people. That doesn't feel good. I mean, name anything. You never want to be the person who is tired first. Right, and it's not to like shit on people who get to that place. Like I get it. In fact, I've been there. I grew up the chubby kid that's. I was that guy in my group of friends my entire life. So I get it. But I have golfed multiple times since I started running. I have gone in like this sounds crazy, but like mowing the lawn for me. I live on a half acre and I push that thing because I am stubborn, I want to and I'm like I'm doing it, it's easier. Golfing it's easier. I've gone on a couple of runs with friends and we'll go consistently and I've watched myself just get better. And then this last time we ran together and I was talking the whole time they didn't say a word. Why? Because I was feeling good. I was feeling good, I was here to chat, and so I started picking up on that and so for people listening, like there's an aspect of doing some cardio and some of this fitness stuff where you don't have to do a ton, right, but if you do just a little bit of this style of training, you push yourself, it will make all the other things way easier. And then you're the person in the group that is just like crushing it and feeling good and then afterwards it doesn't need Advil and her nap, You're good. I noticed that too.

Cody McBroom: 54:12

We went to Disneyland and I never forget because we had all of us were in the cul-de-sac, all the parents, and they were like we got back and they were like, oh, I remember last year when I went to Disneyland, I was taking like six or seven Advil a day, Like I did. We went back and rested in the middle of the day. I was like I didn moving. I paid for Disneyland. We're going, we're doing the whole thing Like we're walking, you know. But it made me reflect on it. I'm like that's why we're fit Right. It's not just about the half marathon 100%, man, 100%.

Philip Pape: 54:42

I always joke. I want to be deadlifting when I'm 95. And like that's how I go out. You know what I mean? Just functional to the end. You never want to be the person who gets tired first, awesome. So I will leave it at that, but I did want to give you a chance to bring up anything else that I didn't ask you, that you wanted to cover.

Cody McBroom: 55:05

Yeah, man, no, really, just honestly, for everybody listening, just choose hard. Like it can be the simplest things, you know. I actually just talked to a client about this yesterday because he was, I think, applying pressure to himself to do more and I said, hey, doing more isn't always choosing hard. Sometimes you know you're down a lot of weight and we're still pushing, like you're already choosing hard, you're already doing more. But like, choosing hard is the little things, it's the dog and playing with them, it's the kid, it's the friends, it's, you know, he's a trainer. So it's like it's your clients who you need to be enthusiastic with during the session, where you're kind of tired because you're dieting and you're down 30 pounds, so like you're fatigued.

Cody McBroom: 55:32

I get it, choose hard, you know. And so, for everybody listening, just think about the. I think the best analogy if you've watched the matrix and if you haven't start there, go watch the matrix. But the red pill and blue pill, like just start kind of gamifying and think of that Cause. I just think that, you know, as cheesy as it own lives, everybody would be happier.

Philip Pape: 55:54

Cool man. So three takeaways First, definitely watch the Matrix if you haven't yet. Guys, if you're listening to this, I grew up the night. I'm a child of the 80s, so Matrix in the 90s was awesome. And then, second thing, make sure to use the safety on your lawnmower if you're going to book it, like Cody's doing. And then, number three, choose hard, and hard is sometimes the little thing. So that is awesome, cody, I think people know where to find you. But just in case, where can they find you? Where can they look you up?

Cody McBroom: 56:18

Yeah, Cody McBroom on Instagram podcast is tailored life podcast, which hitting episode a thousand and we're making some big changes. So we're going to be rebranding and doing some cool things soon. And then Taylor coaching method is my company. So if you Google my name or Taylor Coaching Method, all that stuff pops up. I'm rolling one.

Philip Pape: 56:35

And congrats on a thousand episodes coming up. That's huge. I know what it takes, speaking of putting in the reps, and I'm sure you've chosen a lot of hard things along the way to make that happen. Yeah, absolutely All right, man. Thanks for coming on. It was a pleasure, as always.

How to Avoid Losing Muscle, Especially On Ozempic and Weight Loss Drugs (Sensor Damping) | Ep 219

Weight loss drugs like Ozempic can be incredibly effective, but they risk muscle loss due to appetite suppression, which leads to a much larger calorie deficit.

And even if you're NOT on GLP-1 drugs, your hunger signals can still be misleading at times, especially when they are psychological and not always physical.

You'll learn about the engineering concept of Sensor Damping to understand why relying solely on hunger cues can sabotage your muscle-building efforts, whether you're on medication or not. 

Learn how to create redundant feedback systems to maintain muscle mass during weight loss, and discover how this approach can be applied to achieve any goal in life. Find out why becoming your own "system controller" is key to long-term success in fitness and beyond. 

🤩 Take just 1 minute to give us a 5-star ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ rating or review with Apple or Spotify and get a shout-out on the show! 🙏

Main Takeaways: 

• Sensor Damping explains why we can't always trust our hunger cues, especially during weight loss

• Ozempic and weight loss drugs amplify this dampening effect (they reduce appetite significantly)

• Creating intentional redundancy in feedback mechanisms is crucial for maintaining muscle mass

• Becoming your own "system controller" leads to more consistent progress and better decision-making.

Episode summary:

Philip Pape delves into the intriguing concept of sensor damping, an engineering principle that has profound implications for fitness and nutrition, particularly for those on appetite-suppressing medications like Ozempic. This episode aims to provide listeners with practical strategies to maintain muscle mass and navigate unreliable hunger signals, ensuring a balanced approach to health and fitness.

The episode begins with an introduction to sensor damping, an engineering concept that explains the reduction of a sensor's sensitivity. In the context of weight loss medications, sensor damping refers to the dulling of hunger signals, making it challenging to gauge appropriate food intake. Philip emphasizes that understanding this concept is crucial for those looking to preserve lean mass while shedding fat, as unreliable hunger cues can sabotage muscle-building efforts.

The first chapter, "Preserving Muscle With Dampened Hunger Signals," focuses on strategies to maintain muscle mass during weight loss, particularly when hunger signals are unreliable. Philip shares practical tips such as ensuring sufficient protein intake, avoiding rapid dieting, and staying consistent with training regimens. He highlights the importance of tracking multiple data points, such as performance metrics, photos, and how clothes fit, to make informed decisions about health and fitness.

Philip also addresses the psychological aspects of maintaining fitness during low motivation and high-stress periods. He underscores the importance of consistency over perfection and advises listeners to develop a robust, data-driven approach to personal health. By relying on multiple indicators rather than just hunger cues, individuals can achieve a more comprehensive understanding of their body's needs and make more informed decisions.

In the second chapter, "Enhancing Fitness Through Sensor Damping," Philip explores how sensor damping affects workout intensity and nutrition. He advises against dieting too quickly and emphasizes the importance of maintaining sufficient protein intake to preserve muscle mass. Philip also discusses the value of planning meals in advance and setting reminders to eat, particularly for those who forget to eat due to dampened hunger signals.

Throughout the episode, Philip shares listener reviews that highlight the transformative power of personalized, evidence-based advice. These reviews underscore the impact of the strategies discussed in the episode and emphasize the importance of building smart, efficient systems for consistent fitness and nutrition.

In summary, this episode of "Wits and Weights" offers valuable insights into navigating the challenges of dampened hunger signals due to weight loss medications. By understanding the concept of sensor damping and implementing practical strategies, listeners can maintain muscle mass, achieve their desired body composition goals, and build a more resilient approach to health and fitness.

Whether you're on appetite-suppressing medications or simply looking to fine-tune your fitness regimen, this episode provides a wealth of information to help you navigate your health journey. Tune in to discover how to preserve muscle mass, maintain workout intensity, and develop a data-driven approach to fitness and nutrition, even when your internal sensors are off balance.

As always, Philip encourages listeners to rate and review the podcast on their platform of choice, emphasizing the importance of feedback in shaping future episodes. By sharing your thoughts and experiences, you can help others discover the transformative power of personalized, evidence-based fitness and nutrition advice.

So, if you're ready to outsmart your body's dampened signals and achieve your dream physique, don't miss this episode of "Wits and Weights." Join Philip Pape as he blends evidence and engineering to help you build smart, efficient systems for consistent fitness and nutrition.

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Transcript

Philip Pape: 0:01

If you're struggling to maintain muscle while losing fat, especially on appetite-suppressing medications like Ozempic, or if you're worried about losing hard-earned gains during a cut, with or without weight loss drugs, this episode's for you. Today, we're diving into the world of sensor damping, an engineering concept that explains why relying solely on hunger cues can actually sabotage your muscle building efforts. You'll discover how to outsmart your body's dampened signals and preserve lean mass, whether you're on weight loss medication or not. Get ready to fine-tune your body's performance and achieve the physique you want, even when your internal sensors are off kilter. 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 are hitting on a very critical topic when it comes to body composition one of the most asked about topics and that is how to avoid losing muscle when your hunger signals are dampened. Maybe when your hunger signals can't be trusted, whether from weight loss drugs like Ozempic or Manjaro or one of the many other GLP-1 agonists, or just being in a calorie deficit we're going to use an engineering concept called sensor damping to understand what's happening in your body and then, more importantly, how to work around it. This episode will give you some practical strategies, as always, to maintain muscle while losing fat, even when you can't rely on your usual hunger cues. Now, before we dive in, if you're enjoying the show, I'd always appreciate and be grateful if you could take a moment to rate and review Wits and Weights on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, because, yes, it helps others discover the show and see what they call social proof, but, more importantly, it lets me know what content resonates with you. I also love reading your feedback and I love giving a shout out if you want it on the show. It only takes a minute and it makes a huge difference it really does for small indie podcasters like me to get more of the message out in the world. So thank you, advance, for your support, and I just wanted to give a shout out, speaking of to a recent reviewer.

Philip Pape: 2:30

Clay Yeager titled the Best Health Podcast by Far. That is incredible to hear somebody say that. He said Philip is the best. He's so knowledgeable, vulnerable and personal. He's changed the way I view nutrition and health completely. He puts such time and effort into his content and has such a variety. I love the way that he gives different situations for different people and gives plans on what he would do if they were his client. That is so informative on applying it to your daily life. I'm super thankful for all the knowledge I've gained from him and looking forward to what this life change will do for me in the future.

Philip Pape: 3:01

Well, clay, that is, I love the high standards you've set for me. You know no pressure whatsoever, but I do strive to live up to those and make sure that people get as much valuable from this as possible and not just what you can get on any other podcast. For example, today's episode and every Wednesday episode is something I think is unique out there, and that is taking an engineering framework or principle because that is my background and applying it with my quirky, nerdy little brain over to fitness, but in a way that's very accessible and understandable. And that's what we're going to do today and we're going to keep building that mental muscle, which is our brain, one of the important muscles, at least metaphorically, with our body, along with our physical muscles. And we're going to start today by defining the context of why I put together this episode, and it's because these weight loss drugs, glp-1 drugs like Ozempic, manjaro and Wegovi and all of those, some of which are diabetes medications in fact, and then they created weight loss medications from them and there's a whole spectrum of them and their efficacy across a whole spectrum, but the essence of it is that they will allow people to dampen their hunger signals.

Philip Pape: 4:17

It takes away your appetite right, effectively, takes away your appetite and allows you to go into a calorie deficit, really almost, I'll say, effortlessly. I've seen it both in clients who've been on Ozempic for diabetes as well as clients who are overweight or, in some cases, massively overweight, and their doctors prescribed it to them, saying, hey, look, you've got to get your health in order. And this seems to be the only thing we can do right now. And then they find me and we work together on the lifestyle changes that support what they're trying to do so that eventually they can come off the drug. I never would say, hey, let's just stop taking the drug. First of all, it's outside my scope of practice, but secondly, I do think it's a helpful tool for a small set of people when used in conjunction with the things we're going to talk about today the challenges there's a couple of challenges really is one it makes your natural hunger cues unreliable. In that context. I've seen it.

Philip Pape: 5:12

I have had clients deep into a deficit and they check in with me and on a scale of one to 10, 10 mean meaning least hungry, how do you feel? And they score a 10 every time. It's like no hunger whatsoever, almost to the point where I have to tell them to eat enough not to be in too big of a deficit. Right? And this effect, this sensor damping effect, right? If the sensor is your body's appetite detection mechanism and now it is dampened, which means it just has less sensitivity, it takes away a key source of data by which you usually make decisions. Some would argue that's a good thing, because now it's taking away what has caused you to overconsume all these years. But it also interferes with the process of doing it via lifestyle change, like we're trying to do. And then what happens is you end up losing weight very quickly, almost too quickly, and because you're losing it so fast, you go well beyond that point at which you start to lose muscle mass. So let me be clear it's not that these drugs cause you to to lose muscle mass. So let me be clear it's not that these drugs cause you to lose more muscle mass. It's that these drugs cause you to lose weight faster in some cases much faster and you therefore lose more muscle weight, yeah, yeah, muscle. So let's tie this to engineering again.

Philip Pape: 6:29

In engineering, sensor damping refers to the reduction of a sensor's sensitivity. That's it. That's all it is. And in many cases you do it on purpose when you make a product, because you don't want that sensor to override other information. Right? You don't want it to override to the point where it's beyond noise and it becomes signal, right? You ever heard signal in the noise? Well, in this case, we like to have an appetite sensor usually, but in some cases, where it's just gone overboard and causing us to eat a lot, these drugs will reduce that, but they reduce it to the other extreme.

Philip Pape: 7:03

So when we apply this concept to our bodies, we can understand why we can't always trust our hunger cues, especially during weight loss. And even if you're not on a weight loss drug, you may find that certain cues at certain times are not totally reliable. This is also why I'm not a huge fan of intuitive eating at all costs, because I think there is a lot of skill development and self-awareness that has to be developed over time to become intuitive. Your body is a complex control system and hunger is just one of its key sensors. And then, when that sensor is damped by drugs, by dieting itself sometimes, or other factors, we have to rely on other feedback mechanisms to maintain optimal performance. And just for another quick tangent, my recent episode on why weight loss always fails applied that to scale weight, we can't just rely on one data point on scale. We have to rely on lots of other things to understand the true picture.

Philip Pape: 8:03

So the core philosophy here is about creating intentional redundancy in our approach to body composition. Intentional redundancy Instead of relying solely on one thing like hunger, we need to develop a multifaceted system of feedback and control. Again, this is why I love this stuff so much. Coming from a software and electronic control systems background, I see the body that way, and it gives me more clarity and control, especially when talking with and helping clients. So what does this look like? It just looks like other metrics, like your workout performance, the measurements of your body circumference, your energy level, tracking your biofeedback, having planned nutrition strategies that align with your seasons, that align with your goals, and so this concept of compensating for dampened signals will then go beyond just muscle preservation, even though I use that as the setup for today.

Philip Pape: 9:06

It can be applied to other aspects of fitness in life, like maintaining the intensity of your workouts when motivation is low. So, for example, motivation is dampened. Well, we rely on other things. We rely on the fact that our squat just went up right, or the fact that we've got our training scheduled at 6 am three days a week to override it, the fact that our bicep size is going up as we're doing those workouts right. It also applies to sticking to your nutrition during high stress periods, where the stress signal is dampened. I mean, it's kind of the opposite, but same idea, right. Or, you know, continuing your professional development to have personal growth, even when external rewards are not necessarily there. It can apply to anything. That's why I love these episodes and these concepts, because these can be applied to anything.

Philip Pape: 9:59

But let's focus on key principles, okay, and let's talk about hunger. Let's bring it back to body composition, hunger during fat loss, because what we want to do is not lose muscle. We don't want to lose muscle. What happens when we lose muscle? We become skinny fat. Our body fat percentage actually goes up, even though the weight on the scale goes down. We don't want that to happen, and if you're on one of these drugs, it requires extra awareness of these other data points.

Philip Pape: 10:24

Okay, Not just how hungry you feel or what the scale says. Requires tracking your performance, your photos, how your clothes fit. You know, having systems that don't rely on a single input, like planning your meals in advance, meal prepping on the weekend, setting reminders to eat For those of you who forget to eat, right, oh, I just get too busy, I forget to eat, and then I have to catch up on my calories later, and blah, blah, blah Set reminders. It might sound slightly neurotic, but guess what? If you're not doing it and you're failing to do the thing you want to do, there's got to be something in place to change your behavior right, rather than waiting until the emotions take over, the cravings take over, the hunger or lack thereof takes over, and then you're going to regularly calibrate your approach based on all of these data points.

Philip Pape: 11:11

So if your strength in the gym is declining or you're feeling unusually fatigued, it's probably time to adjust your nutrition or your meal timing, even if you don't feel hungry. Right, even if you don't feel hungry. That's where someone on Ozempic they're not that hungry, so they might not be eating enough, or they're not that hungry, and yeah, so they're not. So they're not eating enough, not only to not be in the appropriate deficit, they might not be eating enough to support even their performance and their training in the gym. And then it's a vicious cycle of well, now they don't go to the gym or they don't push as hard, right. And then the last thing with all of this, of course, is prioritizing the consistency of it rather than trying to be perfect. Because prioritizing the consistency of it rather than trying to be perfect? Because if you can hit 80% of your targets consistently, you're going to be in the top 5% of people, or even higher than that. There's no track, there's no track. Just remember that. There's no track to fall off of. There's simply do your best, hit the target. If you fail to hit the target, you start again the next day.

Philip Pape: 12:11

So the power and understanding that sensor damping can occur with us across a variety of variables, including hunger during fat loss, is that, instead of being at the mercy of unreliable internal cues, you become the controller of your system. Right, you're not beating it into submission, but you kind of. You're up there in your control room and you're looking at all. You're looking at the big mission control board of your body and you're saying, okay, this, this little sensor over here, this hunger signal, is not quite giving me the best information right now, so I need to take these other three or four displays over here and make the best decisions based on that. Of course, working with a coach can be super helpful in this regard, um, or working with someone else who, who's your partner, who can help give you a fresh pair of eyes, and then you're empowered to make informed decisions instead of just do it based on how you quote-unquote feel.

Philip Pape: 13:03

Okay, if you can learn to navigate fitness or health or nutrition with dampened signals, you're actually developing a more robust and reliable approach in general. Right, it's a skill that really goes beyond the context I'm talking about today of preserving muscle during weight loss. It's becoming more intentional, more data-driven decision maker in all areas of your life, and that builds mental resilience, that improves decision-making skills, that leads to more consistent progress in any endeavor you pursue. And then you're thinking, okay, philip, well, are you gonna get to the answer of how do I preserve muscle during fat loss? It's yeah. I just gave you the philosophy, I gave you the first principles. It's track all the things that matter during fat loss to preserve muscle and then adjust accordingly.

Philip Pape: 13:56

Now, practically, what does that look like? That looks like not dieting too quickly, which means don't go past around 1% of your body weight per week loss. So, for those of you who might be on Ozempic or considering it, just think about that, do the math and say, hey, am I going faster than the 1%? That's probably too fast. To maintain muscle, I need to dial it back, which means I need to eat more. It means continuing to train and it means continuing to eat sufficient protein. But honestly, I didn't wanna break down those specifics today because they're much less important than the idea that all of those things need to be considered. And if you need specifics, I've got so many episodes on the specifics that I can send you. Definitely, reach out to me on Instagram at Wits and Weights, or send me a text message using the show notes. So, as we wrap up, let's just recap the main points.

Philip Pape: 14:45

We've looked at how sensor damping applies to our bodies, especially when it comes to the sensor of hunger and appetite. When it comes to the sensor of hunger and appetite, when we're trying to maintain muscle mass during weight loss, especially when you might be on one of these drugs that dampen your appetite. And when that happens, relying solely on that cue can be misleading, and so creating a system of multiple feedback mechanisms is required. The goal is not to just lose weight. The goal is not to just lose weight. It's to improve your body composition, your health and your quality of life. Even if you are at a morbidly obese level of weight right now, and your doctor said you have to do this to lose weight quickly.

Philip Pape: 15:25

I have clients that are far north of 300 pounds on the scale and they are doing all the right things. They're going to the gym three, four days a week, eating their protein, they're sticking within a reasonable range of their calories so they don't go too quickly, and they're prioritizing sleep and their stress and all the other things, knowing that hunger itself isn't going to tell them much at the moment. And guess what that does? That gives them the confidence to eventually go off those drugs more likely than not. Right Again, unless we're talking about specific situations outside my scope of practice I'm not a medical doctor. I don't dispense advice like that, but I do help clients with their nutrition, and those clients then often choose to and, often with their doctors, decide hey, I don't need these medications, along with many, many other potential medications and treatments, potentially. So. By having these redundant systems relying on multiple data points, you make more informed decisions and you achieve more consistent progress, even when one or more of those internal signals may not be as reliable.

Philip Pape: 16:27

All right again, if you found value in today's episode, if you like this idea of hmm, here's a concept from an engineering, from engineering, that I can apply to fitness, but even other things in my life. I have a small favor to ask, and it's the same thing I mentioned earlier Take a moment to rate and review the show on your podcast platform of choice. I really would be grateful if you took the extra minute to do a full written review in Apple, but however you do it, it will help others discover the show and also let me know what kind of shows I should create. Only takes a minute, it just takes a minute. It doesn't take long at all, but it would mean the world to me and, as always, I am so thankful for your support, for you listening to this show, for being part of the Wits and Weights community. Until next time, keep using your wits lifting those weights, and remember when your body signals get dampened, it's time to turn up your intentionality. I'll talk to you next time here on the Wits and Weights podcast.

What Causes Stubborn Midlife Belly Fat (It's Not What You Think) | Ep 218

Do you ever wonder why that stubborn belly fat won’t budge, even with a solid diet and workout routine? Are you in your 40s, 50s, or beyond and noticing changes in your midsection that weren't there before?

Philip (@witsandweights) reveals the real reasons behind midlife belly fat—and it’s more than just calories in versus calories out. Get ready to dive deep into the science of belly fat, and walk away with actionable strategies to take control of your health and physique without the typical advice that doesn’t work.

📱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. https://witsandweights.com/free-call

Today, you’ll learn all about:

1:49 Why belly fat matters beyond aesthetics
3:01 Visceral fat and its health risks
5:26 The seven causes of midlife belly fat
15:40 Why eat less move more doesn’t work and what you can do
19:57 Reducing belly fat with core strength
25:35 Recap and final takeaways for belly fat reduction
28:18 Outro

Related episodes:

• Why Weight Loss Always Fails (But Don't Ditch the Scale Yet)

• 4 Surprising Ways to Lose That Midlife Belly Fat with Megan Dahlman

Episode summary:

Midlife belly fat is a persistent issue that can have significant health implications. As we age, particularly in our 40s, 50s, and beyond, many of us find that stubborn belly fat becomes a growing concern. Conventional wisdom often advises us to "just lose weight" or "work out your abs," but these tips usually fall short of addressing the root causes. This episode of Wits and Weights delves into the complexities of midlife belly fat, revealing why it's so difficult to get rid of and what we can do to manage it effectively.

One of the primary reasons why midlife belly fat is such a challenge is because it is often driven by hormonal changes. As we age, both men and women experience a decline in hormone levels, which can lead to increased fat storage around the abdomen. For women, the decline in estrogen levels during perimenopause and menopause is a significant factor. Estrogen helps regulate fat distribution, and as its levels drop, fat storage tends to shift towards the midsection. Men also experience a decline in testosterone levels, which can similarly lead to increased belly fat. Testosterone plays a role in muscle maintenance and fat storage, and lower levels can contribute to an accumulation of fat in the abdominal area.

Chronic stress is another major contributor to midlife belly fat. As we get older, our responsibilities often increase, leading to higher levels of stress. This can result in elevated cortisol levels, which are associated with increased abdominal fat storage. Cortisol is a hormone released in response to stress, and it has been shown to promote the storage of fat in the visceral area, which surrounds the internal organs and is particularly dangerous due to its inflammatory properties.

Insulin resistance is a condition that becomes more common as we age and can also contribute to midlife belly fat. Insulin resistance occurs when the body's cells become less responsive to insulin, a hormone that helps regulate blood sugar levels. This can lead to higher levels of insulin in the blood, which promotes fat storage, particularly around the abdomen. Lifestyle factors such as a poor diet, lack of physical activity, and muscle loss can exacerbate insulin resistance, making it even more challenging to manage belly fat.

Sleep deprivation is another factor that can significantly impact belly fat accumulation. Studies have shown that individuals who get less than five hours of sleep per night are more likely to store fat around their abdomen compared to those who get six to seven hours of sleep. Poor sleep disrupts the balance of hunger and fullness hormones, leading to increased appetite and cravings for high-calorie foods. This can result in overeating and weight gain, particularly in the abdominal area.

Alcohol consumption is another factor that can contribute to midlife belly fat. Alcohol is metabolized differently than other nutrients, and its presence in the body can halt fat-burning processes. This means that while the body is busy breaking down alcohol, it is not able to effectively burn fat for energy. This can lead to increased fat storage, particularly around the abdomen. Even moderate alcohol consumption has been linked to increased visceral fat, making it important to monitor and potentially reduce alcohol intake as part of a strategy to manage belly fat.

Age-related muscle loss, or sarcopenia, is another factor that can contribute to midlife belly fat. As we age, we naturally lose muscle mass, which can lead to a decrease in metabolic rate and an increase in fat storage. Maintaining and building muscle through strength training is essential for combating this natural decline. Strength training helps preserve muscle mass, which in turn helps maintain a higher metabolic rate and reduces the likelihood of fat being stored around the abdomen.

A sedentary lifestyle is another significant contributor to midlife belly fat. Many of us spend long hours sitting at a desk or in front of a screen, leading to decreased physical activity. This lack of movement can lead to an increase in fat storage, particularly around the abdomen. Incorporating regular physical activity into our daily routine is essential for managing belly fat. This can include activities such as walking, cardio, and strength training exercises.

Building core strength is not only important for aesthetics but also for overall health. A strong core can improve posture, reduce joint pain, and support belly fat reduction. Incorporating exercises that target the core muscles, such as squats, deadlifts, and targeted ab and glute work, can help improve core strength and overall fitness. Strength training, in particular, is crucial for maintaining muscle mass and metabolic rate, which can help reduce belly fat.

Creating a personalized fitness plan that emphasizes strength training, adequate protein intake, and overall movement throughout the day is essential for managing midlife belly fat. By addressing the root causes of belly fat, such as hormonal changes, stress, insulin resistance, sleep deprivation, and alcohol consumption, we can develop a comprehensive approach to managing belly fat and improving overall health.

In summary, midlife belly fat is a complex issue that requires a multifaceted approach to manage effectively. By understanding the root causes and implementing practical strategies, we can improve our overall health and vitality. This episode of Wits and Weights provides valuable insights into the causes and risks of midlife belly fat and offers effective solutions for tackling this common issue. By focusing on building core strength, maintaining muscle mass, and making sustainable lifestyle changes, we can achieve a healthier, stronger, and more vibrant midlife.

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Transcript

Philip Pape: 0:01

Ah, that extra bit of fat around your midsection. It shows up uninvited, it seems to keep getting bigger and it refuses to leave, no matter how well you eat or how often you exercise. If you're in your 40s, 50s or beyond and feel like your body's working against you, especially in this area, this episode's for you. Today, we are uncovering the real factors behind midlife belly fat. You'll learn why conventional wisdom usually doesn't work and what to do instead, because when you understand the root causes of belly fat gain and, more importantly, why we care about it far beyond aesthetics, you can create an effective strategy to deal with it.

Philip Pape: 0:38

So if you're frustrated with your belly fat, both for your health and physique, today you'll learn just what to do. 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 tackling stubborn midlife belly fat. Now, standard advice, like you just need to lose weight or you need to work out your abs, are not going to cut it. The real causes are more complex and they are frequently misunderstood, and so by the end of this episode, you will understand what's really behind that stubborn belly fat and, more importantly, how to effectively address it. Let's just get right into it. All right, we're going to break this down into three areas. The first is why this even matters. The second is the causes, all the real causes. I have seven causes of belly fat to share with you today. And then, finally, how do we fight back? How do we deal with it, if you need to or want to. And then, stick around, because later in the episode, I'm going to share the one thing that will dramatically change your approach to losing belly fat and improve your overall fitness, potentially without needing to lose weight at all. All right. So let's start with talking about why belly fat matters. Because in midlife and by midlife I mean starting as early as your 30s, but generally in your 40s, 50s and beyond it's kind of one of these unique issues because aesthetically, we start to notice that extra pudge, that extra what is it called? Muffin top right, the fluff, the love handles, whatever around this age, and there are a bunch of reasons for that we are going to talk about in a second. But besides the aesthetic piece of it, there's the underlying health implications, because we are not talking about subcutaneous fat, that's the kind of fat that you can pinch. We are talking about visceral fat, the fat that wraps around your organs. Visceral fat is metabolically active, so it's almost like its own organ. If you think of it that way, it's like this little alien creature growing inside. I don't know if that creeps you out or not, but that's where my geeky mind goes. And maybe, if you think of it that way, it's like something you want to keep at bay, right? Visceral fat? It releases inflammatory substances, it releases hormones that negatively impact your health, and this is why even a modest increase in belly fat can lead to some health risks, some very serious health risks and is associated very strongly in the evidence with a higher risk of heart disease and stroke, increased likelihood of developing type 2 diabetes, greater risk of certain cancers, potential cognitive decline and dementia.

Philip Pape: 3:19

And it gets kind of complicated when you get into the research because on one hand you find that there might be, it might simply have to do with having extra body fat. In general there is that, but there seems to be some independent factors, even in people that are a lower body weight, that are in normal quote unquote BMI range, where the belly fat itself seems to be an independent factor. And so it is more about than appearance, right, it's maintaining your health, maintaining your vitality. And then, yes, if you have aesthetic goals, if that bothers you a bit, then that'll be the outcome or the side effect of the lagging indicator Once you address these things. Having said that, I just one little caveat here is you know the belly area is a very loaded topic because you'll get some people saying that, no, it's okay to carry a little extra belly, that's totally normal.

Philip Pape: 4:09

If you're a lifter, if you lift weights, you know having that power belly, having that extra weight, is a sign that you know you're carrying a decent amount of muscle and fat to kind of push those lifts. And even having said all that, there is still a risk factor with having too much of it. But too much is a little bit subjective and it's going to depend on you. And what I don't want you to come out of this episode is that you have to be shredded or you have to have a six pack or you have to be like completely devoid of fat visually in the abdomen area, because there is again still subcutaneous fat. We are all genetically different in terms of where we store fat and how it looks when the fat is distributed. When you get leaner, for example, you still might have some fat in that area and it might look a little more pronounced because the rest of your body is leaner. Kind of an irony there. That's like damn what the heck.

Philip Pape: 4:58

And so it's going to really be very specific to everyone, and I just wanted to put that caveat out there, because even even I, when I get lean, like when I start to see a six pack, I still have this little pudge down there. I'm like, okay, that's just me, that's how I am. You know, maybe I've made some choices that have caused me to have more of that. Maybe I can clean some things up with what I'm doing, but in general, I probably just need to lose a little more body fat if I really want that to go away. And how important is that to me? So you got to ask yourself that question like how important is that piece of it?

Philip Pape: 5:26

But we're going to focus more on the health side, all right, and that's why I want to dig into with this second segment here, what is really happening and causing midlife belly fat. Right, based on the evidence, okay, not based on conventional wisdom or the assumptions people make, even though there are some truths in some of those things, as we'll find out. So I think I've got seven things here that I came up with. The first one is the hormonal changes, and actually this probably is the biggest reason. We see a step change in the amount of belly fat we store as individuals. So for you as an individual, you're kind of used to something up until your 30s and then all of a sudden your 40s and 50s, it starts to shift more to the belly fat, even if you have roughly the same fat, even if you lift weights, you know, you just see it shift more to the belly fat, especially in women, but even for men as well, and it has to do with hormones. So for women, that decline in estrogen, primarily during perimenopause and menopause or postmenopause, it plays a significant role because estrogen regulates fat distribution and so as the levels drop, the fat storage shifts more toward the midsection. Again, this is not a thing that we just throw up our hands and give up. It just means we have to be aware this is happening.

Philip Pape: 6:42

Now, obviously, if you are seeking hormone replacement, hormone treatment, that can help, if that's something that's indicated for you. For some of you you may not be able to be on treatment. Maybe you had cancer or something like that. So everyone's going to have a different situation. For men, decreasing testosterone is the primary factor and keep in mind, women also have a decrease because lower testosterone correlates not because I'm not giving you the mechanistic factor, but in the evidence we see that lower testosterone correlates with increased belly fat, independent of muscle loss, because testosterone influences fat storage as well. So hormones are the biggest change. It's not much you can do about other than therapy, hormone treatment, asterisk caveat, with the exception that the things we're going to talk about later with strategies that can improve hormones can then also improve some of these a bit.

Philip Pape: 7:31

Okay, the second cause of midlife belly fat is stress, chronic stress and chronic stress is prevalent as we get older. Right, because you've got more obligations, we've got kids, you might be the care, the sole caretaker or homemaker or what am I trying to say? Head of household whatever, that's a tax term. Head of household, you have a lot of obligations, you have a lot of stuff to deal with and people to take care of, and it's wonderful because you've got a family and you're becoming that person who you know is surrounded by loving people, hopefully, but it's stressful. You know work obligations, financial obligations and chronic stress elevate your cortisol levels, and we know there's a link between high cortisol and so many things.

Philip Pape: 8:15

I mean, I don't want to go overboard on the cortisol being the root of everything, but there is an association with, you know, higher cortisol on a chronic basis and increased abdominal fat storage, and so, being aware of that, how the fat storage in the visceral area seems to be a protective mechanism. We're going to see this pattern throughout this. It seems to be a protective mechanism, very much like how your metabolism adapts to save energy when you're dieting, and so we don't want to be in a situation where we cause our body to be fighting and away from homeostasis, which it's always fighting to get there. We want to give it the best shot of kind of relaxing and being in a normal state with our hormones and our cortisol. So just keep in mind hormones, stress and stress is something we could do about it. We can't change our situation precisely. We can change how we cope with it, how we mitigate it, and that'll be part, you know, one of the strategies we talk about.

Philip Pape: 9:09

The third cause of belly fat is insulin resistance, and this is a tricky one because there's a lot of misinformation about insulin resistance. We know that as we age, as we lose muscle mass and with a fairly poor or low quality diet and we're becoming less active as well, our bodies become less sensitive to insulin, right, and then that affects how your body processes and stores energy more likely as fat, more likely around the abdomen, and research clearly shows that connection as well. But what we're going to find is insulin resistance is something we have a lot of control over with our lifestyle. Number four is sleep deprivation. Okay, I know I talk a lot about sleep. That's because sleep is super important and the connection between poor sleep and belly fat is actually one of the strongest connections. I don't have it in my notes, but I believe there's a study that showed, over a five-year period, a 32% increase in belly fat storage with sleep deprived individuals, people less than five hours of sleep a day, versus people getting not much more, but like six to seven. It's not like you have to get eight or nine hours, like Tom Brady getting 11 hours or something. I don't know what he gets these days being retired, maybe it's less, maybe it's more. But the point is, lack of sleep disrupts your bunch of hormones because again it's your body fighting to get back to some state of energy that you're depriving it of with this lack of sleep, and so it cranks up the hormones the hunger and fullness hormone. Ghrelin is the hunger hormone, leptin is the fullness hormone. So it goes the opposite directions on both, making you more hungry. You crave sweets, you crave foods that have a lot of energy. You tend to overconsume. If you are in a calorie surplus, you're going to gain more fat around the abdomen with less sleep than someone else who's in a surplus, that has enough sleep. That alone should be a wake-up call to you saying, oh interesting, like okay, I'm stressed, I don't get enough sleep. That, combined with the hormones, is just a perfect storm.

Philip Pape: 11:04

Then we get to number five, which is alcohol. Okay now, on one hand, I think this factor goes a little bit unnoticed in terms of how important it is for visceral fat storage. On the other hand, I think it gets too much play when we talk about things like the beer gut. When somebody's like, well, you just drink too much beer, that is why you have visceral fat, chances are somebody that's over-consuming. Alcohol is probably over-consuming in other areas, probably not as active, probably not lifting weights, probably probably right, I mean definitely people that consume alcohol can have other healthy things in their lifestyle. But there are correlations.

Philip Pape: 11:34

The evidence is pretty clear. Okay, alcohol effectively halts I'll say halts your body's fat burning process because your body is prioritizing breaking down the alcohol before it gets to the other nutrients. This is a known phenomenon and that includes pulling energy from fat. Now, if you're in a calorie deficit and still drinking alcohol, you're still going to lose fat in that case in terms of net energy, because you're in energy deficit. But it could affect your muscle mass. It could affect how your body processes protein for preserving that muscle. So something's going to get affected because you're drinking alcohol and then, as a result, it's shown to be linked to increased visceral fat. Again, we know we call it a beer gut for guys. There's a reason we call it that, because just intuitively, people have seen this for decades or centuries that this happens, and that's even when controlling for calorie intake. I want to be clear that these are independent indicators, even though they also get exacerbated based on chronic dieting or overconsumption.

Philip Pape: 12:34

All right, number six out of the seven true hidden causes here of belly fat that you may not be aware of is age-related muscle loss. And I say age-related because a lot of people, the vast majority of people, are not strength training and we lose muscle mass with age. It's called sarcopenia and it accelerates after the age of 30, something like three to 8% of your muscle mass per decade after 30. And so you just really start to see it. At that point your bodies can no longer coast from its post-puberty 20s, early 30s. Now you start to lose muscle mass because you're doing nothing to maintain it, you're doing nothing to build it, you're not lifting weights, and so it's not because you're getting older, it's simply because the body doesn't need the muscle.

Philip Pape: 13:17

You're telling it it's not important. It loses the muscle mass and along with that muscle loss actually comes more visceral fat storage. That was my point here. Okay, so along with the muscle loss, your body is now storing fat, and it's storing more of it in the belly area. So, in other words, if you were training to maintain muscle and you were over-consuming, you wouldn't store as much belly fat. It's very amazing how these things happen, how the body knows what to do almost intuitively to help protect you, but it's going overboard because you are not acting in a way that is natural to being a human. You're not lifting weights, you're not putting load on your skeletal system, skeletal muscular system.

Jenny V.: 13:58

Hi, my name is Jenny and I just wanted to say a big thank you to Philip Pape of Wits and Weights for the 15-minute rapid nutrition assessment he offers for free. During that session, I found he asked really good personal questions that helped him be able to give me excellent advice and tangible tools which I've applied, and since then I have lost 12 pounds where I was otherwise stuck. Now that I'm closer to my weight goals, I'm focusing more on my fitness and muscle and strength. So I just really want to say thanks, philip, for all of your encouragement and the free tools you offer, as well as the positive podcast message. It's really helped me.

Philip Pape: 14:41

And then number seven is no surprise, but a sedentary lifestyle, right, our modern lifestyle. We're less active, we are older, we have desk jobs, we sit around all day. If you're not in a habit of moving, of walking, of doing a little cardio you know a little cardio. I'm just saying you know something fun that you throw in there, even if it's just running upstairs a couple times a day, but primarily it's just getting off your butt on a regular basis. That has contributed to more belly fat storage as well.

Philip Pape: 15:11

Prolonged sitting, in particular, is directly linked to increased visceral fat, even in people who exercise or train regularly. That is why I constantly say that I think of movement as like three buckets. In general, you want to be active all day somehow right, not necessarily moving quickly or intensely or sweating, but you don't want to be sitting all day. So we have our training sessions, we might have our walking or cardio sessions, but we should also have our not sitting time, okay, throughout the day. So if we understand that these are the causes right and we see that midlife belly fat is it's not just about overeating or not exercising enough, it's hormonal, it's metabolic, it's overall lifestyle, then our approach to it is just the inverse. It's a comprehensive way to combat these things, and so, given what we know, then you know simple advice is oversimplifying thing. The conventional advice in the industry is just always like eat less, move more, and that's not going to cut it right. What we have to do is focus on sustainable lifestyle changes, creating a system for ourselves that improve our body composition, and so something that I've talked about many times on this show is fat loss versus weight loss. In fact, last week's Monday episode if you go look in the feed, I'll drop a link to the show notes in there it was called why Weight Loss Always Fails, and in that episode I give you the rundown of why we care about body composition. And if you do the things that support body composition, you'll do the things that support reduced belly fat accumulation. So that's things like prioritizing strength training, number one right Always to build and preserve muscle mass, to maintain that metabolic fire, that efficiency in your body, all of which tells your body that I need the resources to go toward muscle and toward an active lifestyle, not get stored, especially not get stored in the belly. Increased movement beyond those workouts which you just talked about, finding ways to be active throughout the day.

Philip Pape: 17:08

Nutrition is the big lever, not the big lever, but in addition to training and movement, nutrition is the other big lever that we can kind of I'm going to say easily control right, and that's the thing that affects insulin sensitivity, that affects our inflammation, it's the quality of food, it's the timing of food relative to when you need those resources like around your training, like allowing you to sleep by not eating too late and balancing your macros out, which helps with blood sugar control and overall controlling your energy balance based on your goal. So, yeah, you will have periods of fat loss, but generally most of the year you know, three quarters of the year you should probably be at maintenance or in a surplus to feed yourself and also feed your training, right? We're not just eating to get fat, we are eating to build muscle, which is so metabolically helpful throughout this whole process. And then stress management and sleep are, of course, essential. They are not optional, they are essential. They actually influence where your body stores fat, as kind of a compliment to your nutrition and training.

Philip Pape: 18:08

And then alcohol has special mention. As always, my philosophy is always whatever you're doing now, if you can shift and nudge yourself toward less alcohol consumption, that will always be better all the way to zero. It is the one kind of exception I make when I talk about nutrition, where, when it comes to nutrition, I want you to add things in. I want you to add in in. I want you to add in protein, I want you to add in fiber, whole grains, fruits, vegetables, delicious, real foods that have the nutrients and macronutrients to support what you're doing. That will naturally crowd things out. We call that additive nutrition. I've talked about many times on the show. If you need a specific episode on that, I'm happy to send it to you.

Philip Pape: 18:47

But alcohol itself is kind of an outlier. It's not really nutrition, is it? Alcohol is a toxin, it's a poison. There are zero benefits to alcohol. But I understand why, culturally and historically and socially, we do it and I still. I don't abstain entirely. I still have a beer every now and then, a special occasion, or a glass of wine, or I might take a shot with friends. I honestly do. I'm just being totally honest. But I'll tell you what I keep no beer or wine in the house, and so where I used to have a glass of wine every day, it then became a glass of beer every Saturday and now it's zero alcohol most weeks and I might drink once a month. So that's what I'm asking you to consider is can you shift your alcohol consumption just in a positive direction by adding other things in, including experiences that would take the place of what alcohol gives you? So that's all I'm going to say about alcohol.

Philip Pape: 19:39

I do think it has a huge impact, though, on visceral fat storage, whether you're gaining weight or not. Even if you're in fat loss, I think it's holding you back from properly using all the nutrients for the other things we care about. So, whereas other nutrition, you're trying to add this in alcohol is kind of preventing it, and so we're trying to limit it and reduce it. Now your journey is unique, like your goals are unique. Your body fat and your body type is unique. It's going to be very personalized for you. All right, and you know to do that is more than what I can explain in an episode, but I do just let you know I do do free calls with people that are not sales pitches. It's called a rapid nutrition assessment and I'm going to throw the link in the show notes If you want to schedule one just to talk about. Hey, I heard your episode about belly fat. I've got that and I just want to understand why, what causes important to me and what is one or two steps I can take away to get immediate results on this in the next 90 days. So I'll include the link in the show notes. But I want to get to the last thing here that I think could be a takeaway today that you can act on right now and it's going to make all of this other stuff easier and you might not even have to lose weight and that is the importance of actually training your abs but, more importantly than your abs, all of the core, slash, trunk, slash, posterior chain muscles.

Philip Pape: 21:04

Now Megan Dalleman she was on the show a couple of times. She's the host of Self-Care Simplified. So shout out to her. And this episode is dropping right after my most recent interview episode with her. So the last episode was with Megan about joint pain and back pain inflammation, but the last time she was on I think it was episode 149, she talked about belly fat and a lot of the same things we covered today. I think today's went into a longer and a lot of the same things we covered today. I think today's went into a longer detailed explanation of all the causes, but definitely check that out. Anyway, she is a big fan of having a strong core, defined as the deep core muscles as well as the visual core muscles and your glutes right and your lower back kind of the whole mid-trunk and how that can help with a lot of these things with your posture, with joint pain, but also with belly fat.

Philip Pape: 21:55

And what I want to focus specifically on is training your abs, because, no, you cannot spot reduce. That is not a thing. You can't just like do a bunch of crunches and lose a bunch of fat and do nothing else and you're good to go. But we can build strength and muscle in a way that supports the midsection and and it will help with the visceral fat and it will also help with the aesthetics, since I know some of you probably clicked on this episode because you're like, yeah, how do I get a six pack? And it's cool, like it all works together. That's the nice thing about it. You don't have to do two separate things.

Philip Pape: 22:25

These goals work together, and so when you focus on strengthening your core and I'll tell you how you can do this in a second but you're then going to have a foundation for overall strength and better performance in all of your lifts. You're going to be able to push harder in the gym. You're going to stand with better posture, you're going to be more functional and then it's also going to be easier to reveal definition in your abs because you have that extra muscle. Also, extra muscle stretches things out to where the fat on top of that muscle, which is mainly the subcutaneous fat I'm referring to, kind of gets stretched out as well. So if some of your belly fat is really just subcutaneous, it will help that right. So a stronger core means you can push harder on your big lifts like squats and deadlifts, but also everything. You're creating a base that gives you power, that gives you stability in everything that you do right, and then, as you lose body fat, you're going to reveal you know, yeah, a flatter stomach and muscle definition, and then you can achieve the tone look that you're looking for at a higher overall body weight, which means you may not even have to lose fat, depending on where you're starting from, if you're just quote unquote a little overweight.

Philip Pape: 23:39

I've had so many clients in that position where we start them on a pre-diet maintenance phase. Okay, we put them at maintenance, we're eating our protein. We're training for strength. Yeah, we've got some core work in there, maybe, but it's mostly through big lifts. It's not like a ton of crunches, but we may have a little bit of ab and glute work in there.

Philip Pape: 23:54

And then, after about say six weeks, we're doing our check-ins, and sometimes they'll say, okay, are we ready for fat loss? Sometimes, though, they say you know what? I'm not sure I want to even go into calorie deficit. This is way too much fun. I'm eating all this food, I'm lifting weights. I'm not really gaining weight, but I'm getting more definition. That's what we're going for.

Philip Pape: 24:13

Like that is kind of the win-win-win of all of this is you get to do the process. That's fun, you get to have the results, you don't have to diet, and you get improved aesthetics. Like it's a pretty cool place to be, and so I've seen this play out, where you build the core of strength right, and then, yeah, you could do fat loss if you want, but you don't have to, and you're going to now be less prone to injury. For example, you're going to have less pain in your back and you're going to have less pain joint pain in your knees and your elbows. So you probably didn't think that an episode about belly fat would lead to overall fitness and health. But your trunk, your core right, your glutes are all part of this deep system that stabilizes your spine and your pelvis right. Even when you're doing things like an overhead press, it will help you with better form, which means less injury. And now you're investing in the future you, your long-term health, your functionality not just, but in addition to your appearance. So don't just think about losing belly fat, think about building everything that's underneath, because belly fat reduction is good for your health and your aesthetics, but this also supports everything else. With your aesthetics and your performance and your strength and your capability, and then your confidence, you're going to be a super confident person. So that's how we do it.

Philip Pape: 25:36

Let's just recap it here. Number one midlife belly fat is not just aesthetic, it's not just cosmetic, it is a significant health concern. Number two the causes are complex Hormones, stress, sleep, muscle loss, lifestyle. And then, number three, you can address many of these through your lifestyle choices, taking the right approach with training, nutrition, sleep, stress management and so on. Number four if you build core strength core strength and not just ab muscles right Core strength, doing your squats and deadlifts, and then adding in accessory work that supports your core, your glutes yes, your abs, all of it. It improves your overall fitness. It can also reveal muscle definition as you lose fat, or even without having to lose much weight, and then everything improves your health, strength, quality of life, everything Okay.

Philip Pape: 26:23

Your body is capable of remarkable change at any age. In fact, when you're in your 40s and 50s, if you thought life has passed you by, if you've thought that you haven't been doing the right things, what better time to start than right now and, in fact, get a crazy amount of positive change in your body at this age? Because it will happen. It will happen. I've had clients that are 60, that have started and they get just incredible improvements in their health and physique. And then everybody looks around and is like what are you doing? Just incredible improvements in their health and physique. And then everybody looks around and is like what are you doing? I didn't know that was possible. I thought you were getting old, aren't you getting old? Hormones Can't do anything about it. Hands thrown up, emoji, no, it's not like that.

Philip Pape: 27:00

Okay, now again, I can't tell you all the step-by-step-by-step in this episode. So if you want to act on this. Schedule a call with me. I've got these free 15-minute rapid nutrition assessments which I mentioned once before. It's your chance to just sit with me on a Zoom chat for 15 minutes. Hey, what's going on? Hey, where do you live? What's happening, how's the weather, and then we'll get into.

Philip Pape: 27:21

Okay, what's the thing holding you back? What are you trying to do here? Let me help you out. Maybe there's a little misconception, maybe there's something that unlock your perspective or thinking. Maybe I could just give you a nice laugh and some motivation and, you know, send you on your way. More likely, what happens is you come away with one, two or three steps okay, that I like to max it at three that will tell you like do this, do this, do this.

Philip Pape: 27:42

This is what we're going to start with to get you some results, and I will send you a follow-up email with those, with some resources if needed. I'll be available if you have questions. All of this is totally free, because I want you to know that the change is possible, okay, and that there are things you can start doing, and that I'm happy to tell you the process and how those things work. I'm not going to hide anything behind a paywall or anything silly like that, like these, you know, hyped up marketing coaches. I don't do that, so schedule a call with me. It's not a sales pitch.

Philip Pape: 28:11

Go to witsandweightscom, click the button at the top or click the link in my show notes and let's just create a plan for you. Okay, let's get you going. That's it for belly fat. I hope you found something insightful today, something different, something unique, something you hadn't thought of before. Until next time, keep using your wits, keep lifting those weights and remember that your midlife can be your best years yet. This is Philip Pape. You've been listening to Wits and Weights and, as always, I will talk to you next time.

How to Reduce Midlife Back Pain and Joint Inflammation Over 40 with Megan Dahlman | Ep 217

Are you struggling with midlife back pain or joint inflammation that just won’t go away? Have you tried everything from painkillers to chiropractors but still find yourself in pain? Do you want to regain control of your body and stay active well into your later years?

Philip (@witsandweights) brings back fitness expert Megan Dahlman to discuss the root causes of persistent back pain, why it’s not an inevitable part of aging, and how to live pain-free at any age. Megan shares actionable strategies to address back pain and joint inflammation to help you set the foundation for a stronger, pain-free body. If you’re tired of feeling limited by back pain, this conversation will empower you with practical steps to live an active, fulfilling life.

Megan Dahlman, host of the Self-Care Simplified podcast, has helped hundreds of women feel strong and confident through her coaching and content. She has been featured in The Washington Post and Muscle & Fitness, and she brings 15+ years of experience to today’s discussion. Don’t miss this chance to learn from one of the top voices in 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.

Today, you’ll learn all about:

2:10 How ignoring pain leads to bigger problems
4:05 The staggering prevalence of back pain
6:43 The link between hormones, inflammation, and back pain
8:40 Managing hormones without HRT
12:01 Three essential core exercises to start
20:57 Understanding anti-inflammatory nutrition
25:53 Collagen myths and facts
29:54 How mechanical fixes can quickly relieve pain
32:01 Building pre-bed routines to reduce pain and improve sleep
34:04 Traditional strength training movements for back pain
38:16 The mental aspect of back pain
41:53 Ergonomics for those working from home
46:43 Tips to start reducing back pain today
50:10 Where to find Megan
51:14 Outro

Episode resources:

• Self Care Simplified Podcast

• 5-Day Core Tuneup

• Weekly Jumpstart newsletter

Episode summary:

Midlife can often bring unexpected challenges, and back pain is a common complaint among many women in their 40s and beyond. On this enlightening episode of Wits and Weights, fitness expert Megan Dahlman dives deep into understanding and managing midlife back pain, offering a comprehensive approach that blends fitness, nutrition, and lifestyle adjustments. With practical tips and actionable strategies, this episode aims to empower women to reclaim a pain-free life.

Back pain in midlife is often perceived as an inevitable part of aging, but Megan Dahlman challenges this notion by exploring the root causes and providing effective solutions. She emphasizes that chronic back pain isn't something one has to accept as a natural consequence of getting older. Instead, with the right knowledge and proactive measures, it's possible to manage and even eliminate this pain. The discussion begins by debunking common misconceptions and highlighting the true causes of back pain, which can be both chemical and mechanical in nature.

One significant aspect discussed is the impact of hormonal changes on back health. As women enter peri-postmenopause, declining estrogen levels can affect muscle integrity and inflammation, leading to increased back pain. Megan explains the role of estrogen receptors throughout the body and how their reduction can exacerbate these issues. This insight is crucial for understanding why midlife women are particularly susceptible to back pain and what can be done to mitigate it.

Targeted exercise is a cornerstone of Megan's approach to back pain relief. She emphasizes the importance of a three-dimensional approach to core training, which includes strengthening the pelvic floor, diaphragm, and various core muscles. Foundational exercises such as pelvic tilts, glute bridges, and bird dogs are highlighted, with detailed instructions on how to perform them correctly. These exercises not only strengthen the core but also improve overall posture and reduce tension in the back.

Creating intra-abdominal pressure during heavy lifts is another key topic covered in the episode. Megan explains the importance of engaging the pelvic floor muscles and using a firm exhale to safely manage this pressure, rather than relying solely on the Valsalva maneuver. This technique helps protect the lower back during activities like overhead presses and other heavy lifting exercises. Proper form and technique are essential to avoid exacerbating back pain and ensuring long-term back health.

Nutrition also plays a vital role in managing back pain, particularly in terms of reducing inflammation. Megan discusses the negative impact of processed foods and added sugars on inflammation and highlights the benefits of polyphenols and omega-3 fatty acids. These nutrients can significantly improve joint health and reduce chronic inflammation, contributing to overall back pain relief. Additionally, maintaining a healthy diet supports muscle recovery and overall physical well-being.

Sleep and stress management are often overlooked aspects of back pain relief, but Megan underscores their importance. Poor sleep can exacerbate inflammation and hinder recovery, while high stress levels can lead to muscle tension and pain. Practical tips for improving sleep quality, such as creating a pre-bed ritual that includes hip stretches and pelvic tucks, are provided. These practices not only help alleviate back pain but also promote better overall health and well-being.

Incorporating "exercise snacks" throughout the day is another innovative strategy Megan recommends. Short bursts of physical activity, such as stair runs or quick stretches, can help maintain good posture and keep the joints lubricated. This approach is particularly beneficial for those who work from home or have sedentary jobs, as it encourages regular movement and prevents stiffness.

Maintaining proper posture is crucial for back health, whether sitting or standing. Megan advises starting with pelvic alignment and ensuring that the pelvis is level to support the spine. Alternating between sitting and standing, using ergonomic furniture, and incorporating regular movement can all contribute to better posture and reduced back pain.

In the final chapter of the episode, Megan introduces her new free weekly newsletter, "Weekly Jumpstart," which provides valuable information on exercises, recipes, and tips for managing joint pain and inflammation. This resource is designed to help listeners continue their journey towards a pain-free, healthy lifestyle.

Overall, this episode of Wits and Weights with Megan Dahlman is a treasure trove of information for anyone struggling with midlife back pain. By addressing the root causes and offering practical solutions, Megan empowers listeners to take control of their back health and live a more active, fulfilling life. Whether through targeted exercises, nutrition, sleep, or stress management, there are numerous ways to combat back pain and reclaim a pain-free existence.

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Transcript

Philip Pape: 0:01

If you're over 40 and you've been struggling with persistent back pain or joint inflammation that's keeping you from enjoying your favorite activities, and you've tried everything without lasting relief, this episode's for you. Join me and fitness expert Megan Dahlman as we reveal how to manage and potentially eliminate midlife back pain for good. Learn the true causes and the difference between chemical and mechanical solutions, discover why back pain isn't an inevitable part of aging, and get the blueprint to reclaim your active lifestyle. Stop limiting yourself. It's time to live pain-free, no matter your age.

Philip Pape: 0:40

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 diving into the epidemic of back pain and joint inflammation, especially for those of us over 40, with the fierce, the fun fitness expert, megan Dahlman. Megan is a certified strength and conditioning specialist who has been featured in the Washington Post and Muscle and Fitness, her magazine. She's host of the popular podcast Self-Care Simplified. We've been on each other's shows, so definitely go follow her show, and she's coached hundreds of women over the past 15 years, helping them feel strong, healthy and confident in their bodies. Megan and I had a lot of fun talking to each other about menopause, belly fat last time. We've talked about training, we've talked about protein, we've talked about building muscle, and I'm stoked to collaborate again so that you can learn about the hidden causes of midlife back pain, the surprising solutions that do and don't work, and how to tailor your approach for lasting relief. Megan, it's good to see you again.

Megan Dahlman: 1:42

So good to see you again, Philip. This is great. I'm excited for this conversation. I love talking about back pain, of all things.

Philip Pape: 1:49

And it's such a popular topic, isn't it? You would almost think like, okay, I've been there, done that. But wow, I mean I know the few episodes I've done on it solo and guests have been pretty popular and you and I seem to have a hit when we get together and people love to hear all the things they can do to improve their health. So when it comes to women in their mid-40s or older and they're struggling with chronic back pain, let's say someone has come to you who's tried everything painkillers, the chiropractors, maybe surgery. They've considered surgery and nothing is giving them that relief and they're just, they feel almost hopeless, like I'm just going to have to live with it, right, I mean, what's the first thing you tell her?

Megan Dahlman: 2:24

Well, the first thing I say is no, you do not have to live with this, and I think that's what we've been told. I we have this impression that, oh, once you reach midlife, it's inevitable, you're going to have back pain. It's just a natural part of aging. And oh well, we were watching my husband and I were watching a standup comedy a little bit ago and it was a huge joke and everybody in the audience was laughing about it because they could all resonate with like, oh, you reach 40, you're going to have back pain. Ha ha ha.

Megan Dahlman: 2:56

And I'm like no, no, no, no, this is not an inevitable part of aging and there are absolutely things that you can do to significantly improve the way that your back feels.

Megan Dahlman: 3:09

And so I don't want people to just say this is how it is and then continue to live their life just sweeping it under the rug, because if they don't do something about it, like if you continue to push through the pain, it will impact your body on so many levels, probably levels that you don't anticipate. You'll probably start moving less in general, which we all know that contributes to lower metabolism, less muscle mass on your body. The rest of your joints will start to hurt, you'll start to lose motivation and pretty soon you'll wake up like five, 10 years later and realize, wow, I am in incredibly terrible shape and most people can trace it all the way back to back pain and that was kind of like the beginning of this downward spiral just this low grade, chronic back pain. So if we can take care of this, this opens the door to you living a full, fulfilling life for many years to come.

Philip Pape: 4:06

Awesome. That's why we're talking today, because people want to know what do I do. But before we get there, I do want to frame the context because I know you've mentioned that some staggering high number of adults like 540 million, something like that suffer from back pain. So we know it's common. I've dealt with it in the past. Almost every client I've had has some level of that or had had. Because they don't anymore, because Megan and I know it, I don't know how to help you out. Can you just break down why it is so prevalent, especially for women in midlife, but even in general?

Megan Dahlman: 4:37

Yeah, I mean the stats are staggering. You're right, it's 540 million adults right now are suffering from some form of back pain, and I think we can clump a bunch of different things into that. There's just general lumbar spine pain, but there's also things like sciatica, SI, joint dysfunction, so things like that that are kind of all around this low back hip pelvis issue. So it's kind of all in there. And the stats show that women actually are more likely to suffer from back pain than men. So in women, 45 and older, approximately 35% of women have suffered from back pain in the last three months which is pretty wild.

Megan Dahlman: 5:18

That's a third of women, and then that stat increases with age, so it goes up to nearly half of all women will have back pain around 75 years old if you don't do something about it.

Megan Dahlman: 5:32

So I think a lot of that is potentially especially with women.

Megan Dahlman: 5:36

A lot of that is potentially due to just the shape of the pelvis and, for many women that have been pregnant, the stresses of going through pregnancy and childbirth and some of the changes that occur to your pelvis during that time and the integrity of your pelvic floor muscles, the integrity of your core all of those things can change during that time and if you're not careful to go back in and heal those muscles and re-strengthen them over time, it can slowly degenerate and just slowly get worse and worse as far as like having that really important core stability in there. And then the biggest thing for women in midlife is those hormonal changes and I know we're going to talk a lot about that, but that is, you have that double whammy of maybe you were pregnant years ago where you dealt with sciatica when you were pregnant and diastasis, recti, separated abdominals, pelvic floor issues never really dealt with it. And now we get to 45 years old, and now we throw these hormonal issues into the mix and we just have this storm for back pain of some form.

Philip Pape: 6:43

So let's go there and talk about the hormones, because you know, I hadn't even thought about the fact that, yeah, your spine and your general anatomy basically shifts from pregnancy and potentially quite a bit, and then now you add in the storm of hormones peri-postmenopause. I know we want to talk about joint inflammation as well. So if they're connected, I would love to hear that connection. But regardless, what is the link between hormones and some of these challenges?

Megan Dahlman: 7:10

Absolutely. It's huge. Women have estrogen receptor all over their body, essentially in every system of their body. So your muscle tissues have estrogen receptors. Pelvic floor muscles, those are muscle tissues, those have estrogen receptors. Pelvic floor muscles, those are muscle tissues, those have estrogen receptors. Even your joint fluid, that synovial fluid in the joint, has estrogen receptors.

Megan Dahlman: 7:33

And what estrogen does? It's one of the things like magic hormones. It really helps to maintain the integrity of your muscle cells. It helps to keep inflammation at bay, especially in your joint spaces. It's kind of this magical hormone that keeps all your cells working properly. But when we slowly turn off that estrogen hose, like when your body slowly starts to produce less and less estrogen, all of those issues now can float to the surface. So no longer do your muscles have just this natural integrity. Now you have to work at it to keep your muscle tissues maintaining their strength and function. No longer do you have just natural joint fluid that is naturally anti-inflammatory. Now you have to work a little harder, because the moment we've removed that estrogen from the picture, that inflammation especially has a heyday in your body.

Philip Pape: 8:32

Yeah, that visual of these receptors everywhere. That's very powerful, because sometimes hormones are a little bit of black magic for people to understand. Right, they're these signalers and you're like okay, so what's the distinction for a specific hormone and also for women, and why is this all happening? And we know it's a natural process with aging, but, aside from hormone replacement therapy, is there anything we can do about? It is the question that people want to know. Yeah, and we can get into specifics now about solutions for back pain and whatnot, but just starting with hormones, where would you take that discussion?

Megan Dahlman: 9:04

solutions- for back pain and whatnot, but just starting with hormones, where would you take that discussion? Yeah, I mean, what's interesting is when you talk to and listen to, doctors that specifically specialize in menopause hormone therapies they'll always say in conjunction with good, healthy habits.

Philip Pape: 9:20

Yeah. Nutrition and lifestyle yeah.

Megan Dahlman: 9:21

This is going to work best in conjunction with good, healthy habits. So I always like to remind people we always need to start there, no matter what. So your fitness, absolutely. We need to make sure that you are exercising regularly and in very intentional ways that are advantageous to those core muscles, specifically, since we're talking about back pain, especially the pelvic floor, knowing that oh, now that I don't have estrogen in my system as much, my pelvic floor muscles. They're a massive part of my core and when those lose their integrity, my back will probably hurt. I can't tell you how many women have back pain because they have weak pelvic floor. They just go hand in hand. Same with sciatica or SI joint issues. So we can work on strengthening your pelvic floor.

Megan Dahlman: 10:12

And then, of course, on the nutrition side of things, there's a lot that we can do for improving muscle mass. So fueling your body in a way that stimulates or just is helpful to maintain and build the integrity of your muscles. We want to be doing that and eating in a way that's anti-inflammatory. Now that we know that that's, inflammation can have a heyday in your body right now. So let's eat in a way that keeps that at bay.

Megan Dahlman: 10:40

And then the two other things that are that should be part of the equation is your sleep. When you don't get adequate sleep, inflammation increases again and it also impacts your body's ability to. It impacts your insulin sensitivity and your body's ability to manage glucose properly, and so that can increase your body's inflammation as well. And then stress is kind of the cousin to lacking sleep. They kind of go hand in hand. When you don't have adequate or just good stress management skills, once again inflammation has a heyday that cortisol rises, your insulin sensitivity goes down, and so it's just this perfect storm. So all of those things are within your control, apart from going down the road of hormone therapy and I would recommend everybody to explore that option with your doctor. But to know that, okay, stress, sleep, fitness, nutrition, all of those things are within my control. So let's see what I can do about all those things.

Philip Pape: 11:42

Yeah, it's empowering, and those four pillars are the same ones we always come back to, isn't?

Carol: 11:47

it.

Philip Pape: 11:47

You and I just recorded yesterday on your show.

Philip Pape: 11:50

Same thing. It's like it's okay, which is good, right, because it's not this confusing, obtuse, complicated thing. Necessarily, not to say it's easy, quote unquote, but we know what to do. Let's break down a few of those, starting with the fitness. You mentioned pelvic floor strengthening. I think you recently did a I think it was an episode and spoiler alert you talked about glutes, supporting the glutes for your back, which all sounds to me like strength training, and so the question is what is the most, I guess, accessible approach for most women listening, who may be not training yet, or maybe they just got started, but they're not entirely sure what to do?

Megan Dahlman: 12:30

Core, absolutely Like we got to start with your core, but it does help to have an understanding of what your core actually is. I think sometimes we hear core like you need to do core work, and we immediately equate that to abs. You know, and I always say it's kind of like mirror muscle training. We all have a tendency to walk in front of a mirror and want to just train the muscles that we can see in the mirror. And your abs, those six pack muscles. Maybe your obliques kind of fall into that category.

Megan Dahlman: 12:59

But when it comes to good quality core training, the type of core training that's going to eliminate back and hip pain and improve your function for many years to come, it has to be three-dimensional. And your core is made up of your pelvic floor on the bottom, your diaphragm on the top. Believe it or not, your diaphragm is one of the largest muscles of your core and then it's also comprised of those deep inner layers of core muscles that connect directly to your pelvis and your spine. Those include some hip flexors and those absolutely include your glutes on the backside. And then we get to the big abdominal muscles that you can see in some of those low back muscles that you can see. So a good core training program is going to impact all of those muscles. It's going to include training for all of those muscles and it sounds like oh my goodness. Then if there's like 25 core muscles, do I need 25 different exercises?

Philip Pape: 13:57

That's how people think sometimes.

Megan Dahlman: 13:58

I know and I usually say let's just start with three. So the best three core exercises to begin with, first of all, is learning how to do a pelvic tilt with an exhale. So what that's going to do is it's going to combine some of those deeper, the deepest layers of core muscles, the ones that attach directly into your lumbar spine, your pelvic floor muscles, and then, when we add an exhale to it, that connects your diaphragm with it too. So the way you do this a good way is just laying on your back, tucking your pelvis under or tucking your tailbone under, so you feel your low back pressing into the floor. Once you get that position like, exhale and push all of the air out and then release everything and do it again and you're going to instantly feel like, oh wow, there was a good bracing sensation that I felt there.

Megan Dahlman: 14:52

The second exercise is a good glute bridge. So just in that same position, you're on your back, you've got your feet planted, you got to press through your heels. Mind you, it's got to be the heels. If you press through your toes to lift your hips up off the floor, you'll be working your quads a little bit more and we really wanna get those glutes working. So, pressing through the heels, squeezing your buns and pushing your hips up, not overarching at the top, but just getting those glutes working. So that's another really great core exercise.

Megan Dahlman: 15:18

And then, if you do have the ability to get on your hands and knees some people just can't. They don't like that pressure on the hands and knees. But if you can, most people listening probably can flip over onto your hands and knees and do the bird dogs. So this is a classic exercise where you have your opposites lifting, so your right arm extended, your left leg extended out behind you.

Megan Dahlman: 15:42

Big mistake that people make with this exercise is that they don't achieve a neutral spine first. They just kind of get in position and lift and think about let me lift as high as I can, I'm working the muscles across my back. It's like actually you're working your anti-rotators and your stabilizers. So the purpose of that exercise is not to just lift as high as you can and feel your back muscles, it's really to lock in on neutral spine. So I always find that doing that exhale gets all of your pelvic floor, your diaphragm, all of those deep core muscles engaged and locked in. And then extend your opposites and think about reaching them straight forward and straight back. So those are kind of a big three exercises that are a great place for anybody to start with good quality core training.

Philip Pape: 16:32

The pelvic tilt with exhale, the glute bridge and the bird dogs. And I've definitely experienced bird dogs back in my CrossFit days as part of the warmup we actually did those a lot dead bugs and all sorts of things. Oh yeah, so so a couple of follow-ups on these. Then you mentioned bracing. What are your thoughts on bracing in general, like the Valsalva maneuver, when you start to, I guess, upgrade or graduate into bigger lifts or full-on strength training with free weights and things like that? What are your thoughts?

Megan Dahlman: 17:00

Yeah, I think the. So the Valsalva Nuva is very advanced actually and a lot of people can achieve the same level of success. What we're trying to do is create a lot of intra-abdominal pressure is what's going on there, so creating a lot of pressure inside the abdominal cavity to stabilize the lumbar spine. So I would not recommend experimenting with the Valsalva maneuver if you don't already know how to perform a good Kegel and I don't care if you are a man or a woman understanding how to engage your pelvic floor muscles. That alone, combined with a powerful exhale and it doesn't need to be holding your breath but exhaling during the movement, especially exhaling during the pushing phase of a movement those two things combined can create a lot of that intra-abdominal pressure without the risk of sending your blood pressure through the roof. So that is sometimes a risk with amateurs doing the Valsalva maneuver is that they'll hold their breath, creating a lot of this intra-abdominal pressure. They'll bust out four, five reps of something super heavy and then they'll pass out.

Philip Pape: 18:17

Yeah, because they shouldn't be holding their breath the whole time. Yeah, yes.

Megan Dahlman: 18:21

So I would say, explore learning how to create that intra-abdominal pressure by understanding, engaging the pelvic floor in combination with a slow, firm exhale that can create enough bracing and core stability when you do heavy lifting that you probably don't need. You might not need the Valsalva, you might not even need a belt, you might not A lot of people do. If you're going super heavy, it could be helpful. But knowing how to almost create your own internal internal belt, like with a really firm, hard exhale combined with a pelvic floor engagement, it's almost like you're putting on this like internal belt.

Philip Pape: 19:04

Yeah, and I'm kind of TMI squeezing as we do this just thinking about it. It's good, you know, it's funny. One lift that surprisingly engages all of that is the overhead press with a barbell, if you do it right, because then you have to squeeze your quads and engage your glutes.

Megan Dahlman: 19:20

Yes, and I will mention, since you brought that up, a big mistake that a lot of people make with overhead pressing is, as they push their arms up, their rib cage will float up and in turn, cause their low back to arch. So if you think about what happens if you squeeze your shoulder blades back really far and it causes your rib cage to kind of lift and flare up, most likely what will also happen at the same time is that your low back, your lumbar spine, will arch a little bit extra and in that moment your abdominal muscles are disengaged. And so whenever I teach people how to do an overhead press, I always say let's tuck your rib cage down first, just a little bit. Let's connect it to the top of your hip bone and feel a little bit of that core engagement, and then extend your arms overhead and try to get all of the action just from your shoulder blades and your shoulder joint, and we don't want to see any of that rib cage flare because that could put your low back at risk.

Megan Dahlman: 20:23

So even though the rib cage flare is happening on the front side. It can, in turn, make your low back hurt when you're lifting.

Philip Pape: 20:28

It's so true, and that personal experience from back in the day too. And don't forget the shrug at the top when you get to the top, really shrug all the way through to avoid that impingement. Yeah, all good lessons we've had experience with. So, all right, I mean we can go down a rabbit hole with lifting. But there's other things I want to cover for folks, because you mentioned nutrition. Yes, and I reached out to my community this week. I'm like Megan's back on. They're super excited. I said what do you guys want to know? And all of a sudden there were all these questions about collagen. Of course, it always gets to some like one specific thing. But you mentioned anti-inflammatory, and that is the loaded trigger phrase for the fitness industry, because there's so much misinformation about I'll call them inflammatory foods, which I think is way too much of an oversimplification. So how does it play a role in back pain? What do you mean by anti-inflammatory? What do you mean by fueling your body, just to not overcomplicate it?

Megan Dahlman: 21:19

There are certain foods that have a tendency if you do have a propensity to be more inflammatory maybe you don't exercise regularly because exercise is an anti-inflammatory that keeps your body's just chronic inflammation levels at bay. If you don't sleep well, if your stress is out of control, like if you already have this inflammatory environment, then certain foods can add to it, can like put fuel on the fire. So those foods tend to be packaged, processed foods, especially foods that are high in processed carbohydrates and high in added sugars. I always like to say added sugars. You and I talked about this yesterday together, about fruit, and yes, fruit has natural sugars, but we don't want to worry about natural sugars in food. Dairy foods have natural. Lactose is a sugar. It's a naturally occurring sugar, so it's not going to have the same inflammatory effect in your body as having a package of Skittles Like it's very different. So added sugars are the things that you just want to kind of be more aware of. Foods that are high, like high amounts of saturated fats that are not being balanced with the other forms of good healthy fats and I have to always be careful when I say healthy fats, because saturated fat is a healthy fat too. It starts to get bonkers in your body when you have too much of that in relation to the other forms of fats, and then alcohol can be inflammatory as well. Now what's cool, though, is that there are foods that have shown to ratchet down inflammation levels, and the two big powerhouses are foods that are high in polyphenols and omega-3 fatty acids. These are kind of like your super team of eating more foods with polyphenols and omega-3s. This can actually help to pull down your body's inflammation levels, and you can actually see an improvement in the way your joints feel because of this.

Megan Dahlman: 23:28

So polyphenols these are just compounds that are found in certain fruits and vegetables. Actually, berries are really high in them. Leafy greens are really high in them. Leafy greens are really high in polyphenols. Cruciferous vegetables those are like the broccoli, cauliflower, brussels sprouts, cabbage those are really high in polyphenols. So I always say if you can have a salad every day, if you can have berries every day, you're doing pretty great. If you can have those cruciferous vegetables a couple times a week, that's going to be great. Omega-3 fatty acids those, of course, are found in flax seeds, flax seed oil, chia, walnuts, fish. All of these things are pretty high in omega-3 fatty acids, so those can help too. So those are kind of the big powerhouses of anti-inflammatories. You got the polyphenols and the omega-3s.

Carol: 24:16

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. 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 Philip Pape.

Philip Pape: 24:56

Yeah, I think it's always nice when we have yet another reason to eat fruits and vegetables, because, you know, when I grew up it was like just eat them, they're good for you. You know, it was like Popeye's spinach, you know like. But you mentioned. You know we talk about fiber, we talk about fullness, we talk about nutrients, but you mentioned compounds like polyphenols and those are not on the nutrition label. Generally, we sometimes miss information, miss space information when just looking at the label, not realizing, wow, berries have so many other hidden things in there. You know what I mean and that's important to understand. And then omega-3s you mentioned. A lot of people go to fish, but you're saying you've also got the ALA. What?

Philip Pape: 25:39

is that Alpha-leonide acid, which is in flaxseed chia walnuts. So a good diversity of those is super helpful, which is why a lot of people take fish oil pills when they don't need enough and that kind of gives them a little bit of the anti-inflammatory.

Megan Dahlman: 25:51

Absolutely yeah, yeah.

Philip Pape: 25:53

Now collagen. So, going back to collagen, right, there's the different types of collagen, there's collagen peptides, there's like a curcuminoid and collagen blends and like joint pill supplements. What are your thoughts on the whole topic of collagen?

Megan Dahlman: 26:07

You know, research is just not clear, like we don't have enough data that shows that it actually is helpful. Um, there definitely is not enough data to show that it actually is helpful. There definitely is not enough data to show that it's helpful for hair, skin and nails. That's, I think, a big reason why people take it is the hair, skin and nails. What we do know is that being protein deficient in general is not good for any of your connective tissues. So collagen, peptides these are just the specific amino acids that your connective tissues are made up of. But if you were to just make sure that you're getting adequate protein period, we're going to be covering a lot of those bases.

Megan Dahlman: 26:51

I would say taking a collagen powder would be really helpful for someone who is not getting their protein enough protein on a regular basis. I would probably recommend that they would start with a whey protein first. It covers a lot of those bases and in fact, the same amino acids, those same peptides and collagen powder are found in a whey protein isolate, so you don't need to have the super expensive collagen one. The data is just kind of shaky on it. There's been a little bit of data that it can help with connective tissue, like with joint tissue, tendons, ligaments. But in the grand scheme of things the amount that it actually is beneficial is really marginal. So I don't think it's the wonder supplement that people are saying it is.

Philip Pape: 27:40

So I agree a hundred percent. And for the listeners, just so you know, I did not prep Megan with this at all. What's funny is I have an episode coming out next week called Collagen Does Not Build Muscle.

Philip Pape: 27:50

And it's because there is a study this year that was reviewed that compared collagen to whey and pea and rice and found that whey and pea and rice stimulate muscle protein synthesis. Collagen doesn't at all Right Right and, like you said, it's kind of like EAAs and BCAAs when they were popular. If I have a client comes in, it's like I take EAAs. I'm like waste of money. Stop taking it, go eat food, go get protein. You don't need it.

Megan Dahlman: 28:13

Yeah, yeah. And what's funny is that collagen is actually an incomplete protein, like a collagen peptide.

Philip Pape: 28:19

It's like two acids, right it's two of the acids.

Megan Dahlman: 28:22

And if you take away protein powder like it's, it's all nine, like you get all all the essentials and more, including the ones that are found in the collagen. So yeah, I'm glad we agree on that.

Philip Pape: 28:37

No for sure. I'm glad you're up on the evidence and people need to understand, because it is funny how often when I ask these things, like give me your questions, they always go right to like supplements, and definitely not. I'm not talking bad about any of my community listening. You guys know who you are. I love you all. I love the listeners. I think the same thing because I'm like well, I understand the basics. Now I need to get down to the nitty gritty. And it's good to ask these questions because sometimes you'd be surprised at things that are helpful you know that might otherwise get dismissed.

Megan Dahlman: 29:05

Well, and I find too, with people that have a whole lineup of supplements on their counter, it helps them feel like I'm doing some wonderful things for my health, where there's some really big things that are getting overlooked, like just staying active all day long, like increasing your neat you know, increasing your non-exercise activity, sleeping better, like all of those things would give you a much bigger health benefit than having $500 worth of supplements on your counter. So I always say let's start with the big picture stuff first and make sure those things are in place. Then you might never need $500 a month worth of supplements. Yeah, I love that. Go save your money.

Philip Pape: 29:49

Yeah, and you come to it from a holistic or a whole body perspective. When you mentioned things like sleep and people are rolling their eyes, oh, here we go again with sleep. But there's a reason for that because, like you said, it is an anti-inflammatory, it improves insulin sensitivity, it reduces belly fat I think we've talked about that before reduces belly fat. And so when you say sleep, stress management and strength training, all of those do the same thing they're an anti-inflammatory. Well, now tie that to back pain. Does that mean that if you're just doing them in general, for most people will show significant improvement pretty quickly? What's your experience there?

Megan Dahlman: 30:25

It can take a while because this is it is. So we mentioned briefly the difference between, like, chemical and mechanical causes of back pain. Chemical and mechanical causes of back pain. So the chemical side of things reducing overall inflammation, seeing improvements in those inflammatory markers inside of your body that can take a little bit of a while, a little bit of time to float to the surface and really reap those benefits. So stick with it because it's worth it. Stay consistent at it. But it might be two months, three months before you're really noticing like, wow, I'm not feeling as lethargic or achy or not. I don't have as much of this like hot, achy joint feel as I go about my day. It could take a little while.

Megan Dahlman: 31:13

The mechanical side of things can be really quickly, can feel improvements really quickly if we're improving those mechanical things. So that's the core strength that I was talking about. It's also just improving your alignment and posture as you go about the day. If your spine is out of good alignment, if you walk around with a constant anterior pelvic tilt or posterior pelvic tilt where your pelvis is just like out of whack all day long, that hurts, it, puts your joints out of alignment and puts a lot of stress on them puts a lot of stress on your discs and on all the surrounding tissues. If we can improve your alignment and help it stay there, you might get immediate relief from that, which is pretty cool. So for someone that might be struggling to sleep at night, maybe because their back hurts, you know, it's kind of like the chicken and the egg thing, it's like well you're telling me I need to sleep better, but I can't sleep better because my back hurts all night long.

Megan Dahlman: 32:10

It's like, okay, I totally get that. So let me give you a few tools that potentially you could do right before bed to ease some of the joint pain, ease some of that muscle tension and perhaps help you sleep a little bit better. So doing some good hip stretches right before bed, like a figure four stretch, a hamstring stretch, doing those pelvic tucks with the exhale it decompresses your spine, it helps engage your core muscles. Doing a glute bridge right before bed helps activate your hip muscles so that all that pressure is not right on your lumbar spine. All of those things could potentially help you get into a more comfortable position when you're sleeping and help you sleep all night long. And so that's the mechanical side that ends up having an impact on the chemical thing, because you end up sleeping better. You know what I mean.

Philip Pape: 33:02

Yes, yes, and to take that even further, because the concept I like to use for this is upward, spiraling from positive psychology where one thing leads to another to another. It's also could be called habit stacking, whatever, right, but you just mentioned how those things can help your back feel better so you can sleep. It also gives you a chance to create this pre-bed ritual which I'm always telling people, like if you can get off your screen, you know that's one of the best things you can do right before bed. But you need to replace it with something because nobody can just jump into bed. So you know, whether that's reading a book, breath work, meditation or guess what, you're strengthening of your core before bed because you have back pain and then you'll also sleep better. Two for one, megan, I love it. This is good stuff.

Philip Pape: 33:44

Yeah, yeah, we're checking a lot of boxes off with that one, checking all the boxes yeah, it's just like when someone has a whole host of metabolic issues and it's like it's just excess body fat will probably fix most of them. You know, I don't want to be simplistic, but really is. Let's not try to solve all these things, let's just solve the main thing See what's left and then we'll attack those For sure, for sure Core strength. So we come from slightly different camps, even though I agree with everything you're saying. We come from slightly different camps from a strength training perspective and From a strength training perspective and I'll explain what I mean in a second but I like how you define core as like the trunk, the posterior chain, the glutes.

Philip Pape: 34:21

It's like this massive chain and set of stuff around the middle that supports everything. And I know just you know the other day doing heavy Romanian deadlifts, I'm always thinking like brace neutrality, core tightness, it's like so important or something's gonna get injured. And it also helps your back because you can do some movement you don't think is back related like a bench press and then feel back pain from that because you're not tight with your core.

Philip Pape: 34:49

So where I'm going with that is. What are your thoughts on, then? Traditional strength training, movements for back pain, like deadlifts, squats and the like.

Megan Dahlman: 34:57

I think that they can be really helpful for the exact reason that you just said. When I'm going through that movement, I am having to engage my core and pay attention to the neutrality and really brace and create that integrity around my spine. It can be some of the best core training. My spine, it can be some of the best core training. However, if you do those movements and load them up with pretty heavy loads, if you don't already have the coordination of knowing how to engage those muscles properly, if you don't have the awareness of what good technique and posture is, if you don't already have a certain base level of core strength, it could put you at risk. So they could either be excellent core exercises and really really great for your back, or it could be sabotaging your back and actually really hurt your back if you do them incorrectly and don't have good core engagement as you do them. You could go either way really.

Philip Pape: 35:56

No, no, it makes sense because when I think of the person so some people are what's the word another guy used. He'd be called like not athletically clumsy, but just, oh man, I don't know what the word is. It's somewhat derogatory, but it's people who aren't necessarily naturally athletic when they try to lift weights right. And so if you say, okay, start this whole body strength training program and just go and do it, they can really hurt themselves, even at a lightweight, even if you say start light, even if they watch videos, even if they post form checks other than having a personal trainer who knows what they're doing, which is few and far between, I'm sorry to say, and you're one of the ones who do. It takes a lot of that to be doing in concert with learning those lifts to get it right, whereas what you're suggesting is maybe there's a pre-phase. That's really intelligent, to take time doing and get mind-body connection right, mind-body connection with what's going on, and then you can apply it to other things. Yeah, absolutely.

Megan Dahlman: 36:48

And whenever I start with any of my clients, we spend a lot of time training the core, no matter what, whether you have back pain or not, like we're, we're just going to do it, because anytime you lift or push or just ambulate through your day, all of those forces go through your core. So if you don't have back pain now, if we don't train your core, you will get it. It will happen. And that's when it is inevitable, Like that's. If you don't train your core muscles, like then. Yeah, I could. I could say you will most likely get back pain at some point in the future, especially if you continue to strength train and continue to just lift heavy weights without having a good foundation of core control and knowing how to activate and engage your core when you're going through those heavier lifting exercises.

Philip Pape: 37:44

Yeah, one of the first things you said was you know, also, don't push through pain. So even if you are one of those men or women who are already lifting maybe you're already doing that and you start to get that fatigue. It often starts as just a little bit of throbbing, a little bit of pain, that soreness that persists longer than it should. It's very localized. It can kind of ramp up and up and if you can't tell again, I have personal experience that's what happens and if you push too hard, something's going to give, and that's where you need to listen to yourself. What about? Okay? So a couple other things, a couple other topics before we wrap up the mental side and maybe even the ergonomics of working from home.

Philip Pape: 38:17

So, mentally, a while back, I there's this guy, maybe you know him, this doctor who was big into all back pain is mental, like all of it's psychological, which I know is not the case, but it was very compelling argument. He had worked with like thousands of people who had persistent sciatica and back pain and they just had to come to terms and resolve the emotions around it. I don't know precisely what it was that. Are you aware of this school of thought?

Megan Dahlman: 38:43

I am and I. So here's the thing like pain is all perceived in your brain. So pain is just some sort of signal that your body is sending to your brain and sometimes your brain can do funny things and perceive pain that isn't actually damage. So I've had this a lot with individuals where maybe years ago they had an incident where they hurt their back and now they have this really strong memory of this happened. And now whenever I get into this position, I'm scared, I tense up and my brain starts to perceive that that there's some sort of damage occurring in the area. This happens a lot with cramping. Muscles cramp a lot, they cramp constantly and especially weak, underdeveloped muscles and a cramp can sometimes feel like damage is happening, because it can be very painful of having constant tension and cramping in a muscle and guarding and this happens a lot in your, especially your low back muscles and your brain will start to perceive that like something has been damaged.

Megan Dahlman: 39:55

And for a lot of people, especially with a history of back pain, frequently I'll say did you do anything Like? I'll ask them was there an acute injury that happened here? Did you feel a pop? Did you experience, like whoa, just suddenly a ripping or a tearing feeling or something like that. Most of them are like no, it just kind of came on over time.

Megan Dahlman: 40:19

Most of the time, I have discovered that it is a guarding sensation. Like those lumbar spine muscles, a lot of those deep core muscles, like those lumbar spine muscles, a lot of those deep core muscles felt like they were being put under a stressor that it wasn't ready for, and so they guard and clamp down. That is a very powerful feeling and your brain will sometimes perceive that as damage. Something happened and we got to guard even more and we got to guard even more. So quite often, just getting that person in a comfortable position and telling them to do deep breath work to get those muscles to release and to stop cramping and guarding is one of the most powerful things. Now, is that mind over matter? No, there is actually something mechanical going on that's creating the pain. There was muscle tension, guarding, clamping, so it's not all in your head.

Philip Pape: 41:17

I find that that might be a really discouraging thing to hear like oh, it's all in your head Right Like gaslighting almost yeah, yeah.

Megan Dahlman: 41:21

Yeah, and I don't find that that's very helpful. But there can be a really powerful mind-body connection and sometimes learning how to override those cramping and guarding mechanisms that your body naturally will want to do when it feels stressed out can be a really powerful thing for pain connections associated with that for something positive, but it helps to know what that positive thing is, and that's where the information you're sharing is so powerful and helpful.

Philip Pape: 41:53

So for those of us who are working from home right and sitting down all day, I think of the ergonomic aspects of back pain like just sitting. What are your thoughts on what people can do differently as far as their day-to-day pattern when they are working from home for long stretches?

Megan Dahlman: 42:10

Movement first and foremost. So even if you have a perfect ergonomic setup, your joints will get cranky if they stay in one spot for too long, even if they're perfectly aligned. So what happens when you don't continue to move and lubricate your joints? Like that? Synovial fluid actually can start to seep out of the joint space a little bit and then once you move, that joint kind of vacuums it back up and it lubricates the joint. So if you are in one spot for very long, really try to train your body like every 20, 30 minutes. No matter where I am, even if I have a perfect ergonomic setup, I need to still move, no matter what. If possible, I do recommend people getting a standing desk. I have an up, a high-low desk, a standing desk. I love it because I know you're standing. Now I'm actually sitting right now.

Philip Pape: 43:02

It's hard to tell sometimes, right.

Megan Dahlman: 43:03

Yeah, I go back and forth between standing and sitting all day long. It's not that sitting is bad, because sometimes when people are standing they'll actually stand with poor posture too. So just staying moving is the most important thing. A couple of things to think about as you are.

Megan Dahlman: 43:20

Whether standing or sitting, is thinking of good posture, starting with your pelvis. Often we think of posture beginning with our shoulders and like just our shoulder blades and not slouching. But if you think of posture, it really begins at the pelvis. And if you can keep your pelvis really well aligned we don't want it tipping one direction, like cocked out to the side, we don't want it dumping forward or slumped under If we can keep your pelvis as level as possible, then we can work up and down the chain from there to have good alignment.

Megan Dahlman: 43:51

So a neutral pelvis. So if you're sitting in your chair, a lot of people will sit to the side, lean, tip their hips over to the side, arch too much or slump too far under. So whatever you need to do or they'll cross their legs. So having your feet planted perfectly level so that your pelvis is sitting level, same with when you're standing. Having your feet planted level so that your pelvis is level, so good ergonomic posture starts there, starts with your pelvis, and then just stay moving as much as you can throughout the day.

Philip Pape: 44:28

Yeah, you kind of called me out on the standing right Because I have a standing desk. I have a couple of standing desks and sometimes you can just get stuck there for too long and you're like I got to move, or I got to at least fidget, and then kind of walk around or sit for a while. It's crazy. Just this week I recorded with was yeah, Brian Borstein, and he's a big fan of exercise snacks right, oh, I love that idea yeah.

Philip Pape: 44:54

And I know he didn't make up the term, but yeah, and the one he likes. And I can do this because I have stairs. So anybody who has stairs is just three or four times an hour run up and down the stairs for a minute and you get not only the movement, you get the blood flow, you get the exercise, you get the kind of cardio, you get it all you know and it kind of breaks that cycle of constantly sitting or standing. So that's just one thought.

Megan Dahlman: 45:12

I love that. That's so great.

Philip Pape: 45:14

Yeah.

Megan Dahlman: 45:14

No, I love the exercise snack idea and really that comes back to you know, motion is lotion and and this is the power that you have with the mechanical side of things is just continuing to keep your joints, every joint on your body, moving in an optimal range of motion. Some joints, by the way, are not designed to move a lot, so, like your lumbar spine joints, they're not designed to be super flexible. That's one thing we didn't really touch on. But a lot of people, when they feel like, oh, my low back is hurting, I need to do this really big back stretch, I got a round way over or twist or arch, usually the tension is actually coming from tight hips. Your hips are supposed to be really flexible, not your lumbar spine. So doing some good stretches, targeted stretches for areas that really do carry that tension, lubricating joints through a range of motion that they need to stay lubricated through, all of those things can really help accomplish creating a body that just feels great and doesn't have those joint aches and pains.

Philip Pape: 46:22

Yeah, and for those who like to do yoga or something like that, I think Megan's routine and she's got a lot of them and I know you have plenty of content on this, so we could share something in the show notes but it could be your yoga routine almost. If back pain is an issue for you, make that your stretching and movement. Some people are time crunched. Obviously, if you have hours and hours, you want to do yoga too. That's fine. It's a lot of information. So if you had to give the listeners one actionable tip that they can implement today and just start reducing their back pain and inflammation, what would it be?

Megan Dahlman: 46:53

You know, I would say that probably the most powerful tool at your disposal is that simple pelvic tilt with the exhale, because in that moment most people go through their day with an anterior pelvic tilt and that creates a lot of that lumbar spine compression. So learning how to just change and shift the angle of your pelvis, having that control and coordination, is so powerful that can really reduce, instantly reduce, that feeling of pressure on your low back. And then when you add the exhale to it, that's also engaging those deep core muscles. So if there's anything you do that will help your back feel better, at least start moving in that direction. Learn how to do that specific movement.

Philip Pape: 47:41

Yeah, I love that. It'll help with this. It'll also prime you for more advanced movements later on, cause again, that's super important for certain lifts as well. Okay, I love it. I hope we can put a good resource in there for that specific thing. Megan, I'm sure you have something we can point people to.

Megan Dahlman: 47:57

Yeah, absolutely. My free five-day core tune-up program. So five days I lead you through the very best core exercises. And what's funny is I created this as a great way to on-ramp people into my full back and hip fix program. So it's a 30-day program where I help you eliminate all your back and hip pain. But what has happened is that this free five-day core tune-up usually in the first five days we get rid of the back pain completely and most people are like I don't feel like I need it. I know I'm like shoot, maybe I made it too good.

Philip Pape: 48:29

That will pay off in other ways. Trust me, it'll pay off in other ways. You know, with people you know.

Megan Dahlman: 48:33

It's a good little program so I would recommend starting there. It's a great. It's easy to follow, beginner friendly, less than 10 minutes a day. It builds. It's so great. So 5daycorecom. So it's so great, so five day corecom.

Philip Pape: 48:46

So I will throw that in there from from a woman of integrity for you to get a back of integrity. We will throw that in there, that's awesome.

Megan Dahlman: 48:57

I love it. Is there anything else you wish I had asked related to this? You know I feel like we covered so much and I know in the beginning we talked about a little bit. You know, is back pain inevitable and it's not. It's not inevitable and it's not. It's not inevitable.

Megan Dahlman: 49:11

And I just want to reiterate that there's so much within your control and it might be that you have to continue to revisit these things because you always need to be eating healthy. It's not like you eat a salad once and one and done, like okay, good, now I'm healthy. This is training. Like making sure that your back stays healthy, means that you have to continue to revisit this stuff. Like I'm going to be training my core until the day that I die. Same with I'm going to be eating salads until the day that I die and moving and walk, like as much as with the is within my control. So it's not necessarily a one and done thing, but you do have so much in your power to ensure that you do have a healthy back. It's not inevitable. Back pain is not inevitable.

Philip Pape: 49:59

It's not inevitable and if you make it something that gives you that freedom and that movement, it should be enjoyable. That's something you want to keep doing because it just feeds back on itself and, again, mind-body connection. All right, so we talked about the core course that we'll throw in there, but where can listeners learn more about you, megan?

Megan Dahlman: 50:17

Definitely come check out my podcast, philip. You've been a great guest on my show that self-care simplified. And then we have I'm not sure when this episode is going live but we have a brand new weekly newsletter that's coming out called weekly jumpstart free newsletter. Full of incredible information exercises, recipes, tips, um, I think the first edition is all about joint pain and inflammation actually. So every week we're sending out this newsletter, so it's just weekly. Jumpstartcom is where you can sign up for the free newsletter, so we're trying to get as many people just this really good quality information each week in a good, digestible way. So definitely check that stuff out.

Philip Pape: 51:01

Perfect, I will throw that in the show notes and for the listener you know, check out Megan's podcast Self-Care Simplified. Our episode is going to be on there as well. We talked what did we talk about? Fat loss, right? Personalized fat loss.

Megan Dahlman: 51:13

Yeah, it was good, it was really good.

Philip Pape: 51:15

So check that out and keep coming back. And Megan, again, let's keep in touch because it's always awesome to talk to you. You're so full of energy and light and wisdom, which is a great combination.

Collagen Protein Does NOT Build Muscle (Bayesian Inference) | Ep 216

Collagen protein has been hyped as a muscle-building supplement, especially for older adults, but does it really deliver?

In this episode, we use Bayesian Inference – a powerful statistical tool – to evaluate the latest research on collagen's effectiveness for muscle growth.

Learn how to apply Bayesian thinking to fitness claims and make smarter decisions about your nutrition and training. Discover why you might need to rethink your protein supplement strategy and how to optimize your protein intake for real muscle gains.

To learn more about building muscle efficiently (and hear me bust other wild claims of the fitness industry), join my FREE mailing list at https://witsandweights.com/email

Main Takeaways:

• Bayesian Inference is a method of updating beliefs based on new evidence, crucial for evaluating fitness claims.

• Recent research examines whether collagen protein actually increases muscle protein synthesis.

• Protein quality, not just quantity, is important for muscle growth... at least to an extent.

• The Bayesian approach can be applied to all areas of fitness and nutrition to make more informed decisions.

Study Mentioned:

• McKendry, J., Lowisz, C. V., Nanthakumar, A., MacDonald, M., Lim, C., Currier, B. S., & Phillips, S. M. (2024). The effects of whey, pea, and collagen protein supplementation beyond the recommended dietary allowance on integrated myofibrillar protein synthetic rates in older males: a randomized controlled trial. The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. - ScienceDirect

Episode summary:

In the latest episode, Philip takes a deep dive into the world of protein supplements, specifically targeting the popular yet controversial collagen protein. The episode challenges the efficacy of collagen protein for muscle growth, offering listeners a robust framework for evaluating fitness claims through Bayesian Inference. The episode is a treasure trove of critical thinking, scientific insights, and practical advice aimed at empowering fitness enthusiasts to make more informed nutrition and training decisions.

The podcast opens with an introduction to Bayesian Inference, a statistical method that allows for updating beliefs based on new evidence. This approach is crucial in the ever-evolving world of fitness and nutrition, where new studies and claims surface almost daily. Philip emphasizes the importance of this method in critically assessing the validity of fitness claims, particularly those surrounding collagen protein. He notes that many people, including some of his clients, rely on collagen peptides for their protein intake, often under the assumption that it is beneficial for muscle growth.

As the episode progresses, Philip discusses groundbreaking research conducted by James McKendry and Stuart Phillips. Their study compared the effects of whey, pea, and collagen proteins on muscle protein synthesis in older males. The findings were striking: while whey and pea proteins increased muscle protein synthesis by about 9% compared to a control diet, collagen protein showed no such benefit. This evidence strongly suggests that not all protein sources are equal when it comes to muscle growth, challenging the common belief that any protein will suffice.

Philip dives deeper into the implications of these findings. He suggests that whey or pea/rice protein might be better options for those aiming to build muscle. He also questions the necessity of collagen supplements for muscle growth when a balanced diet might offer similar benefits for skin, hair, and joint health. The discussion underscores the importance of protein quality, not just quantity, in achieving fitness goals. This point is particularly relevant for those who may be consuming a significant portion of their daily protein intake from collagen peptides.

The episode doesn't just stop at debunking myths; it also provides actionable advice for listeners. Philip encourages his audience to stay updated with the latest evidence-based information in nutrition, training, and fitness. He invites them to join his email list at witsandweights.com/email for exclusive content, articles, early access to new materials, and personalized advice. This call to action aims to create a community of informed and critical thinkers who can navigate the deluge of fitness information with confidence and clarity.

One of the standout moments of the episode is Philip's application of Bayesian Inference to the topic at hand. He explains that Bayesian Inference is essentially a method of updating our beliefs as we get new information. He uses this framework to evaluate the claim that collagen protein is effective for muscle growth. By starting with the initial belief that all protein sources are equally beneficial, and then adjusting this belief based on new evidence, Philip demonstrates a powerful tool for critical thinking that listeners can apply to any fitness claim.

The episode also addresses the broader benefits often attributed to collagen protein, such as improved skin, hair, and joint health. Philip notes that while there is some evidence supporting these claims, the benefits are often marginal and can likely be achieved through a well-balanced diet. He argues that the amino acids found in collagen are also present in other high-quality protein sources, making specific collagen supplementation unnecessary for most people. This perspective encourages listeners to focus on a diverse and nutrient-rich diet rather than relying on single supplements.

In summary, "Debunking the Collagen Protein Myth: Using Bayesian Inference to Inform Your Fitness Choices" is an episode that goes beyond merely debunking a popular fitness myth. It equips listeners with the tools and knowledge to critically assess any fitness claim, fostering a mindset of evidence-based decision-making. By the end of the episode, listeners are not only better informed about the limitations of collagen protein but also more adept at navigating the complex world of fitness and nutrition.

The episode is a must-listen for anyone serious about their fitness journey. Whether you're a seasoned athlete or just starting, the insights shared in this episode will help you make smarter, more informed choices about your nutrition and training. So, if you're tired of falling for fitness myths and want to stay ahead of the curve with evidence-based insights, this episode of "Wits and Weights" is for you. Keep your wits sharp, your weights heavy, and your mind open to new knowledge!

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Transcript

Philip Pape: 0:01

If you've been spending money on collagen protein for muscle building or wondering whether it's worth the investment, this episode's for you. Today, we're breaking down the truth about collagen protein and muscle growth using a framework called Bayesian Inference. This is a powerful tool from statistics and engineering, and we'll use it to explore what the latest research says about collagen's effectiveness specifically, and why you might need to rethink your overall strategy, but, more generally, how to apply Bayesian thinking to any fitness claim so that you can make smarter decisions about your nutrition and training. So get ready not only to challenge your assumptions, but to learn how to challenge them and any claim out there, so that you can build muscle and train and eat more effectively. Welcome to Wits and Weights, the show that blends evidence and engineering to help you build smart, efficient systems to achieve your dream physique.

Philip Pape: 1:00

I'm your host, philip Pape, and today we're diving into a topic that might upend your protein supplement routine, because many of you are using collagen protein or you're wondering about it, and I often talk to potential clients and clients who say, yeah, I get 20 or 40 grams of my 120 grams of protein from collagen peptides. Is that effective? Or sometimes they just assume it is, and so today we are going to explore why collagen protein might not be the muscle building powerhouse or even helpful at all for muscle building that it's usually marketed at, especially to older individuals, who definitely are a market for anything talking about maintaining skeletal muscle mass. We're going to evaluate this claim using a powerful tool from statistics engineering called Bayesian inference. So if you're new to the podcast, the Wednesday episodes we take a framework or a concept from engineering and apply it to fitness, because it's a different perspective and a helpful way to apply our critical thinking skills to this topic, and then by the end of the episode, you'll have a new framework for evaluating any fitness claim. You see whether it's on Instagram, on a podcast, on my own show and then make smarter decisions for you about your nutrition Before we get into it. If you enjoy the show and you want more content on building muscle and losing fat efficiently, hit the follow button. That's all I ask that you do. Just hit the follow button in your podcast app so you'll get notified of the next episode, help more people find the show and also allow me to understand whether you like the show or a specific topic so that I can create more content like that.

Philip Pape: 2:37

So first let's talk about what Bayesian inference is In simple terms, it is a method of updating our beliefs as we get new information. That's all it is. It's named after Thomas Bayes, an 18th century statistician, and we're not going to get into any formulas or too much of that history. I want you to think of Bayesian inference like this you start with an initial belief about something, then you get some new evidence and, based on that evidence, you adjust your belief. It's just a simple mental workout for your critical thinking skills and something that we basically want to do to everything that comes our way, everything, every source of information that comes into our ears, our eyes, our brains. And you know who does this really well is my daughter both my daughters. So we homeschool our kids and they take logic something I never took as a kid, and I wish every human being had to take logic in grade school, especially politicians, but even fitness influencers, because the ability to identify logical fallacies and take evidence and adjust our beliefs is super important. But in the fitness world, you know, we are constantly bombarded with new information, with new studies, with new claims, and Bayesian thinking gives us a structured way to process all of this and then come to more accurate conclusions without necessarily having to dive deeply into all of the studies and all of the details at that level. And we're not saying that we're going to abandon all our prior beliefs every time. It's kind of like a scientific hypothesis. You know we have the hypothesis and the evidence comes in and supports the hypothesis over and over and over again and so it becomes a stronger and stronger belief. But eventually something might upend that that has never been studied before and it either rejects part or all of the hypothesis with the new information. And so, same thing in our brain we have these beliefs and we want to update the beliefs in proportion to the strength of the new evidence. So even it's not abandoning everything, it's just updating our beliefs proportionally.

Philip Pape: 4:37

So let's apply this to today's topic, which is collagen protein and muscle growth. Our prior belief, our starting point, might be that all protein sources are equally effective for building muscle. In fact I and many other people will say just get your total protein for the day from any source, whether it's animal, plant sources, and you're good. And generally I still stand by that statement because many people who are consuming collagen protein, it's probably a small percentage of their protein anyway, it's probably not a big deal. However, if you're trying to make choices and maybe even save some money in your supplements and not have to try to game the system with something that doesn't work, we want to dig in and say, well, what about collagen protein specifically? After all, protein's protein, right. And then this belief is reinforced by the supplement companies who market collagen as a muscle building aid, along with all these wonderful benefits for hair, skin, nails, right Kind of the beauty side of it, which you see prevalent in the beauty industry as well. Yeah, so here's where things get interesting.

Philip Pape: 5:46

There's a new study that came out. It was reviewed in mass the monthly application of strength sport a very well-respected research review from Stronger Byte Science, right, dr Eric Helms and those guys and it challenges the belief and this is where we can apply the Bayesian thinking. The study conducted by researchers like James McKendry and Stuart Phillips. It looked at the effects of different protein supplements on muscle protein synthesis in older males. So we've got they're isolating to the specific supplement, they're looking at how it affects muscle growth and they're looking at older population all the things we generally care about here. They compared whey protein, pea protein and collagen protein, and what they found is that both whey and pea protein increased muscle protein synthesis by about 9% compared to a control diet, but collagen protein didn't increase it at all Zero. So let's put on our Bayesian thinking caps.

Philip Pape: 6:43

We started with the belief that all proteins are equal for muscle growth. This evidence suggests strongly that that is not the case, and so we have to update our belief. So, in Bayesian terms, we are calculating the likelihood of collagen being effective for muscle growth. Given this new data and based on this study, that likelihood has dropped quite a bit. So what's our new, updated belief?

Philip Pape: 7:04

That not all proteins are equal when it comes to muscle growth, and we have evidence saying that whey and pea protein are, collagen isn't, and so this has some important implications. First, it suggests that when you choose a supplement for muscle growth whey or pea protein in fact, I prefer pea slash rice blend protein if you're vegan, vegetarian or you cannot tolerate dairy or whey products, so whey or pea and rice might be better choices than collagen. And second, it highlights the importance of protein quality, not just quantity, which sometimes gets dismissed because we say look, if you eat enough protein from multiple sources, you will not have to worry so much about quality, but I would argue that if you are heavily leaning toward one source that is low quality, that could have a negative impact on the overall quality. Now, this is just one study. This is just one study. So, in the spirit of Bayesian thinking, we should be open to updating our beliefs further as more evidence comes in. Maybe future studies will show a benefit to collagen for muscle growth in certain contexts, or maybe they'll just confirm what we just read.

Philip Pape: 8:08

So, practically, if your goal is to build muscle, I would just say there's no need to use collagen. Like most people, when they consume collagen, they're having to go out of their way to buy it as a specific source of protein, and I would say just don't worry about it. Just focus on high quality protein sources from food, mostly predominantly animal products if you're an omnivore, and then plant sources as well, but vegans, vegetarians, can get plenty of high quality protein just from a diverse diet. And as far as supplements, many of us who need a decent amount of protein, yeah, we've got to have a whey protein shake or pea slash rice protein shake in there. There's no issues with that. There's no problem with that. So we got whole food sources lean meats, fish, eggs, legumes, soybean type products, and then we have, of course, our supplements whey or pea slash rice.

Philip Pape: 8:57

Now you might say, well, what about all the other benefits of collagen? Right? Should I just stop taking it and then I avoid or I miss out on those benefits? So let's again Bayesian hat on here. Look at some of the other claimed benefits. The first one is skin health, and there is some evidence that collagen supplementation might improve skin elasticity and hydration. But and what I'm going to say here when I say, but for that? And the hair? Claim? So hair and nail strength, right? Sometimes evidence shows benefits of that. I think if you look at the confounding or moderating factors and somebody has just a generally good diet and are well hydrated, we see mixed to anecdotal or no implications whatsoever here, and I've found that people who start to eat more protein and eat more nutrient dense foods and a variety of foods actually have improved skin, hair and nail health anyway. And so then you wonder is it the collagen or not? Now, collagen has a couple of amino acids, so if you're getting protein from higher quality sources, you're still getting the amino acids that are also in collagen generally. So maybe that's where the benefit comes from, and then why isolate the protein to just collagen in that case if you're not also getting other benefits for the muscle side of the equation? That's my logic.

Philip Pape: 10:21

Joint health some studies indicate it might help reduce joint pain, for example in athletes and in people with osteoarthritis. It is not super strong evidence, but where there is evidence is for type 2 collagen, which is usually not the collagen that's contained in these peptides. You'd have to go out of your way to get a special supplement for that. Like I know, legion makes one called Fortify. That I personally take. It seems to be slightly helpful for me. I have a what do you call it, I can't think of the word with my hip when you're missing a little bit of the material in the cartilage. Uh, the, the the word escapes me, but, um, I do take it personally. I know others who found it quite helpful, uh, when they have joint pain or joint issues. Once they've addressed the other things like are you strength training, for example, are you squatting and deadlifting? Cause those are much more helpful for most people with joint health.

Philip Pape: 11:11

And then gut health there's a little bit of research suggesting collagen might support gut health, but again, I think it's confounded by the fact that a lot of people don't have great diets, a lot of people don't have diverse diets, and once you do have that, a lot of these issues get resolved right. So, yeah, these potential benefits are slightly interesting. But a well-balanced diet, rich in a variety of protein sources, should already provide the amino acids that your body needs for these functions, and you don't have to go out of your way and have bone broth and very specific things like that, necessarily. But if you have a variety of fruits, vegetables, lean meats the things we talked about they will support the skin health, joint health, gut health, without having a supplement.

Philip Pape: 11:55

So the goal here isn't to demonize collagen, it's just to understand its role and limitations. If you enjoy using it, if you feel you're benefiting from it that's another important factor is your individual response, and I've seen this. People are like well, I started taking it and all these things improved Great. Now I don't know if they also changed other things in their diet or they started changing the way they move or train, but you always want to isolate these variables one at a time and see, based on your biofeedback and results over, say, a several week period. Is it giving you anything meaningful as a result? If not, maybe that's telling you something. It definitely should not be your primary protein source for muscle building. So if you're trying to add more protein into your diet for that purpose, I would not recommend collagen.

Philip Pape: 12:36

So the real takeaway here isn't really about the collagen. It's about how we approach information in general with this Bayesian inference, this Bayesian thinking. When we do that, we first start with what we currently believe, based on the available evidence. Then we look at new studies or information with an open but critical mind. Then we update our beliefs based on the quality and strength, right, the proportion of that evidence, and then we've got to be willing to change our approach if that's what it suggests.

Philip Pape: 13:02

And I'm going through this on a constant basis as I research for this podcast, as I talk to all of you. You know, dear listeners, and you might hear my approach shift over the years slightly it's because new evidence is coming in. It's not because I'm a flip-flopper. Maybe I was ignorant as well. That's always a possibility as human beings, and I try to be as informed as possible. But being informed also means being open to change, and so this helps us navigate what seems like a very confusing world of fitness and nutrition advice with the diet trends, with the workouts, with the supplement claims. There's so much out there and a tool like this is very powerful, so remember that applying Bayesian thinking to your fitness is a way to evaluate a claim or trend. Start with your beliefs, consider new evidence, update your understanding and then you're equipped to make more informed decisions.

Philip Pape: 13:54

All right if you found value in today's episode. If you want to stay up to date with the latest evidence-based information for nutrition, training, fitness mindset, join my email list. Just go to witsandweightscom slash email or click the link in the show notes Again witsandweightscom slash email or click the link in the show notes and then you will get exclusive content, articles, early access to content, or maybe exclusive content and personalized advice to help you on your journey. Until next time, keep using your wits, lifting those weights and remember, in the world of nutrition, training, fitness, being open to new evidence is just as important as being consistent, taking action. This is Philip Pape and you've been listening to Wits and Weights. I'll talk to you next time.

Why Weight Loss Always Fails (But Don't Ditch the Scale Yet) | Ep 215

What if weight loss is NOT the answer? Or even “maintaining” your weight loss?

If you’re tired of obsessing over the number on the scale, you feel stuck in a cycle of yo-yo dieting and frustration, or have ever been told that weight loss is the key to health and happiness…

And yet it’s just not working… this episode is for you.

Philip (@witsandweights)  exposes the weight loss myth that has plagued the fitness industry for years. He reveals why focusing on the scale sets you up for failure and how to shift your mindset toward body composition for lasting success. Learn how to use the scale as just one of many tools to track progress, and discover the freedom that comes with focusing on getting stronger, healthier, and more confident—without obsessing over weight.

⏬ Download my free Body Composition Nutrition Guide to help you set up your nutrition for losing fat (not just weight!), building muscle, and looking and feeling your best at: https://www.witsandweights.com/free

Today, you’ll learn all about:

2:14 Why the scale obsession is harmful
4:56 Muscle loss and weight loss drugs
7:53 Using the scale as an objective tool
9:24 Tracking progress with multiple metrics
12:08 The liberating shift to focusing on body composition
14:00 What you should be doing for lasting success
16:20 Client story: Body recomposition without weight loss
20:47 The dangers of focusing solely on weight loss
21:07 Outro

Episode resources:

• Fat Loss vs. Weight Loss

• How Fast Should You Lose Weight for Fat Loss?

• How to Lose 1,000 Pounds

👊 Shout out to Carl Berryman of the MENtal Muscle-Up Podcast for the question that inspired this episode

Episode summary:

What if the relentless pursuit of a lower number on the scale is actually sabotaging your fitness journey? In this episode of the podcast, we delve into why focusing solely on weight loss can be detrimental to your overall health and wellness. Inspired by Carl Berryman, host of the Mental Muscle Up podcast, we dismantle the myth that weight loss should be the ultimate goal in fitness. Instead, we emphasize the importance of body composition and overall wellness, offering a more sustainable and healthier approach to fitness.

The episode begins by tackling the pervasive myth of weight loss obsession. Many of us have been conditioned to equate success, health, and attractiveness with losing weight. However, this mindset often leads to frustration, yo-yo dieting, and even weight gain. The scale, despite its bad reputation, is not the enemy. It can be a valuable tool if used correctly, focusing on improving how you look, feel, and perform rather than merely losing weight. We explore why weight loss as a goal is not just ineffective but harmful and provide insights into a more holistic and sustainable approach to fitness.

One of the key points discussed is the science behind weight fluctuations. Your weight can swing by several pounds within a single day due to factors like diet, hydration, and hormonal changes. This makes the scale an unreliable indicator of health. Instead of fixating on scale weight, we should prioritize body composition, focusing on the ratio of fat mass to lean mass. This approach provides a more accurate picture of health and helps avoid the pitfalls of an unhealthy obsession with weight, such as yo-yo dieting and improper exercise habits.

Transforming how you view the scale is crucial. Treat it as one data point among many. We advocate for daily weigh-ins to capture trends over time, smoothing out daily fluctuations through an exponential moving average over three weeks. This method, combined with other metrics like progress photos, body circumference measurements, strength gains, and biofeedback, offers a comprehensive picture of progress. Understanding the impact of factors like a new training program on scale weight can help interpret data more accurately.

Shifting the focus from weight loss to body composition involves understanding that gaining weight rapidly is often due to factors like water retention, not fat gain. By treating the scale as just one data point among many, such as waist measurements and strength progress, you avoid letting it dictate your mood or self-worth. Emphasizing resistance training, adequate protein intake, and a nutrient-dense diet supports muscle building and fat loss. This holistic approach requires patience but offers sustainable results.

The episode also discusses the importance of breaking free from the traditional weight loss mentality. Instead of focusing on losing weight, prioritize improving body composition. Download the free Body Composition Nutrition Guide to support you in making meaningful, lasting changes to your fitness journey. Remember, you are much more than a number on a scale. Use wisdom and strength in your fitness journey.

A real-life testimonial from Shawnetta highlights the value of this holistic approach. She shares how focusing on body composition rather than weight loss has been transformative. This mindset shift allows you to build healthier habits and achieve lasting results without the emotional rollercoaster associated with weight fluctuations.

In summary, this episode challenges the weight loss obsession that has plagued the fitness industry for decades. It offers a more effective approach to health and fitness by prioritizing body composition over mere weight loss. By using the scale as a tool for tracking progress rather than an emotional trigger, you can achieve a more sustainable and healthier transformation. This episode provides valuable insights and practical tips for anyone looking to revolutionize their fitness journey.

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Transcript

Philip Pape: 0:01

If you've been trying to lose weight for what feels like forever, constantly jumping from one diet to the next, and you find yourself obsessing over the number on the scale, feeling elated when it drops and devastated when it doesn't, this episode is for you. Today, I'm going to expose why weight loss as a goal is setting you up for failure and why the scale, despite its bad rap, isn't the real enemy. We'll explore why focusing solely on weight loss leads to frustration, yo-yo dieting and often ending up heavier than when you started, and you'll learn how to use the scale effectively as just one tool in your arsenal and what you should really be focusing on for a lasting body transformation. 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 are tearing down one of the most pervasive and damaging myths in the fitness industry, and that is the obsession with weight loss. Now, this episode was inspired by a question from my friend and brother, Carl Berryman, host of the Mental Muscle Up podcast, and Carl asked, quote why do fitness professionals insist on talking about losing weight and weight loss when, according to the evidence, this approach has been proven to fail over and over again for the vast majority of people and, Carl, as always, you've gone straight for the jugular. I couldn't agree more. I wanted to address this topic today, and we are going to expose why focusing on weight loss is not just ineffective, it's worse than that it is harmful. And what you should be doing instead. Now, before we dive in, I do have something special for you. I've created a free guide. It's called the Body Composition Nutrition Guide and it's going to help you set up your nutrition for what we talk about in this episode Losing fat, building muscle, looking and feeling great, not focusing or obsessing over scale weight and if you want your free copy, just click the link in the show notes or go to witsandweightscom slash free. This guide will give you the exact blueprint you need to start focusing on. What really matters which will be clear from this episode is not losing weight, but improving how you look, feel and perform. So again, go to witsandweightscom slash free, or click the link in my show notes.

Philip Pape: 2:14

All right, let's get into it and talk about this weight loss obsession that has plagued the fitness industry for probably decades at this point, and it still does. You've seen it everywhere Promises of rapid fat loss, the miracle diets, the detoxes, the quick fix programs, even the bigger programs, the Weight Watchers and Optiveas of the world, are still in that realm of you know, you need to lose weight fast and we're going to help you get there. And there's this constant push to make the number on the scale go down. That's what it's all about. The reality is that this obsession isn't helping anyone. It probably hasn't helped you. It's not just ineffective, that's the thing. It's actually harmful. It's harmful. And the core issue is that we've been conditioned. We've been conditioned through society, through our upbringing, through just everything in our environment, the Western world in particular, to equate weight loss with success, with health, with attractiveness right, we even know that being too heavy on the scale does correlate with negative health outcomes. So then, that would lead you to believe okay, all I need to do is lose weight. But the equation is fundamentally flawed. Like many things, it misses context and nuance, it misses the whole picture and it's going to make it hard on yourself if you stop there, Because your weight, yes, it's just a number, All right.

Philip Pape: 3:33

It's a number that fluctuates wildly, All right, and it's based on factors that have nothing to do, oftentimes, with your actual health or fitness level and it doesn't necessarily speak to all the factors that affect your health or fitness. Just think about this right, Very simple example. Everyone will understand your weight can swing by several pounds in a single day. A single day. If you got up in the morning and you stepped on the scale, and then an hour later, four hours later, at night, you know, take six scale measurements during the day, day, and you will see how much your weight swings in one day. Now, it's based on what you've eaten, it's based on what's in your gut, it's based on your hormonal cycle, it's based on your training so many things.

Philip Pape: 4:15

And just the logic of that, the fact that your weight can be six different numbers in a single day, should kind of tell you that it's not super helpful in many respects, and yet we still put so much stock in it. So I mean it's bad enough when we go from day to day and we're way ourself, or week to week, and then we freak out over you know it going up two pounds, and I could say, hey, it's just due to water weight or this or that. But when you look at it in a single day and notice that that's happening. That should kind of give you a wake-up call that, hmm, there's something more to this, right, there's something about our body mass that gets measured on the scale. That in and of itself isn't really that helpful, but it does go deeper than that.

Philip Pape: 4:54

I think it really does, because even if you then, let's say, you focus on the scale weight, you manage to lose weight, that doesn't mean you're fitter, it doesn't mean you're healthier. You could and most likely are losing muscle mass, and that is the opposite of what you want for long-term health and an improved physique. And we see this in very short order for those taking the new class of weight loss drugs and I'm not judging the drugs here at all. What I'm mentioning is that those who are on it, we see a rapid loss of muscle, and it's not that they cause you to lose more muscle than weight loss alone. It's just that they're causing you to lose weight very fast, which then leads to more muscle loss, which is just scaling up the negative outcome that happens with most of us when we diet or crash diet and we're not doing the right things. You know we're not strength training and all the other things that we do to hold onto that muscle. So I'm going off on little tangents.

Philip Pape: 5:48

But back to the weight loss fixation. It leads to just all negative issues. It leads to an unhealthy relationship not only with the skill itself, but also with food, with exercise, because you're starting to create a connection that is not a real connection. It's not a healthy connection, but you think it is, and therefore it promotes you to do things that are not sustainable or can harm you. Crash diets, doing way too much cardio than you really need, maybe not lifting weights, I mean Optivia, I think, encourages people not to exercise, which is insane, and it sets you up for the cycle that many of us have experienced through our lives is yo-yo dieting, whatever you want to call it going on a diet, coming off a diet, regaining the weight.

Philip Pape: 6:30

Going on a diet, coming off a diet, regaining the weight and feeling like it's getting harder and harder the older we get. So what's the alternative then? The alternative is changing how we think about fitness and body transformation and then reverse, engineering that back to the things that we really want to track and measure and seeing where scale weight maybe fits into that context in a more objective way. So, instead of obsessing over weight loss, which is a term I almost always try to avoid, unless I'm specifically talking about literal, just losing scale weight as part of the overall picture of fat loss. Instead of obsessing over it, we want to focus on body composition. Right, that is, the ratio of fat mass to lean mass in your body, which is? It sounds like a subtle difference, but it's a massive difference because weight is one variable, body mass requires multiple variables, and then that gives you the true picture of what's going on and it changes everything. It changes everything because when you prioritize body composition, you're not a slave to the scale and you can start appreciating the complexity of your body, the beauty of your body, instead of reducing it to a single number, and you can start learning about it and changing your behavior with real data that tells you what's going on in a healthy way, in a positive way of improvement and self-growth.

Philip Pape: 7:53

Now I'm not telling you to ditch the scale. That is another kind of overreaction in the industry. The ditch the scale movement right, I see it all the time in podcast episodes. Ditch the scale. I might've even had it in one or two of my episodes with guests. And when you think about it.

Philip Pape: 8:09

The scale weight itself is just a tool, right, Like a scale is just a tool that gives you a number of how much gravity is pulling you down to the earth. That's it right. There should be nothing emotional about that and in fact, I prefer daily weigh-ins. I prefer daily weigh-ins for myself and my clients and anybody listening as a useful tool when used correctly and when you interpret it and use that data the right way.

Philip Pape: 8:33

So instead of reacting to each individual weigh-in especially when you're not weighing yourself frequently and it's just random we look at the trend over time, and that's where having the daily weigh-ins can be helpful. In my coaching program, we use an exponential moving average over about three weeks okay, and that comes straight from what other experts and apps use to calculate trend weight over time. The app Macrofactor uses it that way as well, and by using a moving average over three weeks, it smooths out the daily fluctuations that are inevitable and it gives us a clear picture of the overall direction that our body mass is moving, which is a better indicator of change in body mass and then, hopefully, change in fat mass. But again, it's not the only thing that tells us to change in fat mass. It is one piece. Right, it is just one piece. So once you've resolved the okay I hear what you're saying, Philip weigh myself daily and don't care about the daily number, just care about the trend over time. And by weighing yourself daily you have enough resolution, enough, you know detail to get that smoothed out number. Then we add that in to other metrics like progress photos, like body circumference measurements, like your strength gains in the gym, like your biofeedback, energy levels, recovery, mood, sex drive, all of it, how your clothes fit right. It's this combination of data points that's going to give us a true picture of progress. And when you have that approach, it just liberates you. It frees you from the emotional rollercoaster of weighing yourself, even if you are doing it daily, and in fact when you're doing it daily, it almost becomes a non-issue. Okay, I weigh myself every day. I see the number. Not only that, here's the cool thing. The scale itself is just a data point and can now become a useful data point in certain ways, Because I was just talking to a client on our group coaching calls the other day and she was struggling with this a little bit.

Philip Pape: 10:29

She said okay, I understand all the reasons that scale weight changes. I'm taking my weight daily and yet still I sometimes have a little bit of a reaction when the scale pops in a given day and I said, well, you just switched to a new training program three weeks ago, right? I said yeah, I went from a three-day full body to a four-day split. I said can we look at the pattern with those bumps in your scale weight? Is that happening the day after your heavy leg training day? Because using large muscle groups in your training tears more of the muscle. It causes more recovery and inflammation and that actually causes more fluid retention overnight. That causes the scale weight potentially to go up or not go down as much. If you're in a fat loss phase. Ah, that's pretty cool. Now you can take that data point and use it as an indicator of what you're doing right and you can correlate it with reality rather than assume that it's because you're just getting a bunch of fat.

Shonnetta: 11:23

Hi, my name is Shawnetta and I want to give a big shout out to Philip of Wits and Weights. I discovered his podcast just a few short months ago, but I quickly realized how valuable his content is. With all the many fitness and nutrition influencers out in the world today, I often suffer from information overload, but Philip poses careful questions to his guests that get to the meat of the subject matter, while most everyone offers free guides to this, and that what I found most unique about Philip is his live training and weekly Q&A sessions. If I can't make it live, I can always catch the replay. I am very grateful to find someone I feel is so passionate and genuine to his purpose, while also being hands-on within the Wits and Weights online community. He is truly only a click away, thanks.

Philip Pape: 12:08

Philip, for all you do. Another way to think of it is this way you would have to over-consume by 3,500 calories in a day, over-consume beyond your maintenance calories, to gain a pound of fat. So if you go from one day to the next and you gain three pounds on the scale and you ate pretty much the same you normally do, well, then it's not fat. It's a very liberating thing when you realize that. And so then the scale becomes one data point in a sea of data points, no more important than your squat PR, your waist measurements. You're not letting a number dictate your mood anymore, dictate your self-worth, dictate your actions for the day. It's just hey, cool, look, that happened. Let me understand why. Great, move on, because I'm doing all the other things that I know are going to, in the long term, produce the thing I'm going for, which is improved body composition, and that allows you to focus, then, on building those healthy, sustainable habits that improve that right Becoming stronger, becoming healthier, becoming more confident, not just lighter on the scale. And, of course, there's always a time and place especially if you're carrying excess weight from a metabolic health perspective where it's a negative thing to be heavier on the scale and you want to drop some of that, great, it's fine, but do it again in the context of improving your body composition. No one says you just have to drop a bunch of weight to get healthy and don't focus on body composition. No, no, you can do both at the same time and in fact, when you focus on body composition, it's even easier to drop that weight because you're building muscle along the way and you're becoming fitter, becoming more athletic. It's fantastic, it's an amazing place to be. And then when you shift your focus, you find that you know, losing fat and then reaching your ideal weight just happens right. It happens like as a side effect of a more holistic, sustainable approach. And again, I'm not saying that weight loss is the goal, but the weight on the scale will come as a lagging indicator of all the other things you're doing. We are not going after weight loss. So what do you actually do? This is not going to be a how-to episode. I've got plenty of other episodes. Maybe I can drop a few in the show notes with.

Philip Pape: 14:07

Like you know, here's how we set all this up, but it's very simple. Number one straight train. You've always got to be training to build and maintain muscle mass. If you're listening to this show, or if you just came across this show and you're not lifting weights and you're like, no, I just care about weight loss, or I just care about weight loss, or I just care about fat loss, or I just care about nutrition. Sorry, that's not going to cut it. You have to be resistance training for it all to work.

Philip Pape: 14:29

That's how body composition gets improved is by building and maintaining muscle mass. Period. It is the most important thing, right? Yes, nutrition is the lever to modify your fat loss, but training has to be there for the muscle side of the equation. And then to support that, you have to eat enough protein and enough nutrient-dense whole foods as part of your diet, a flexible diet, to get there to support your training. Then, if and when you need to lose fat in a meaningful sense and, yes, part of that is dropping scale weight well then you're going to go into that calorie deficit while you're training and getting the protein.

Philip Pape: 15:03

And then, along the way, you're going to track and measure a bunch of things. You're going to track scale weight, but also all the other things we talked about progress photos, body metrics and so on, and then you're, of course, going to be patient, because none of this is quick. Real change takes time, but it will actually, in an ironic twist, happen faster than if you just forced it because of scale weight. It'll actually happen faster and in the right way. You're going to feel and look better, even if the scale weight isn't dropping as fast, and ultimately, isn't that what we're going for? Like, you're happy with your physique and how you feel, how you perform, how you function. So the bottom line is weight loss as a primary goal is a dead end and it is outdated, it is ineffective, it doesn't work. We instead shift our focus to body composition, we use the objective tool of the scale in a smarter way and then we achieve the lasting, meaningful changes that we're looking for in our bodies, in our lives. Right, and it's not just about looking better. Okay, I know that's a nice side effect we're all going for. It's building a healthier relationship with your body, with your food, with your movement, your training, so that you can do this the rest of your life. You can become the strongest, most capable version of yourself, and that is just who you are. And it doesn't feel like you're always dieting for weight loss.

Philip Pape: 16:20

And I want to end here with a quick story that I think will drive the point home from one of my clients I'm going to call her Lauren I like to protect my client's privacy unless they've given me permission to share their name or their info. And she came to me frustrated, like so many do, because she had been trying to lose weight for years without success. And now she's a little bit older, as the kid, the stressful job, perimenopause in her late 40s and she was always on and off diets usually a low carb diet or intermittent fasting was pretty common. She had done both and I can feel you there Very common People try these. She was doing hours of cardio and boot camps, spin classes. She was weighing herself obsessively, I'll call it. In other words, she was weighing herself for the sole purpose of getting that dopamine hit, to see if it went down. But then she'd get frustrated because she would use that as her only measure of progress.

Philip Pape: 17:12

And so when we started working together, we shifted her focus. We had her still weigh daily, and this is where a lot of people get shocked. They're like wait a minute, if you have an unhealthy relationship with a scale, do you want to keep weighing yourself? And the answer is. Yes, it's almost like I don't want to like the face, your fears, mentality, where, now that you're working with someone who gives you a different perspective on it, the thing no longer carries power over you and therefore you can use it for you instead of it using you. Ooh, that's, that's not bad, is it? So we still had our way every day, but I helped her put that data in the context right, focusing not on the daily fluctuations but the trend. And then that was one single objective data point. And then, more importantly, I put her on a structured strength training program where she would progressively overload and actually get stronger and build muscle. And then, of course, we optimized her nutrition and lifestyle to support that for muscle growth and then, eventually, fat loss.

Philip Pape: 18:05

And after two months, that's usually about when it starts to make some significant, meaningful progress she was having. She was making progress, but not necessarily happy with everything happening, because she was looking at the scale and the scale hadn't changed very much. So some of that lingering emotion with the scale was there. And then I, we sat down, we did a check-in. I showed her okay, let's look at your measurements. Your waist came down right, your progress photos, more muscle definition how much fricking stronger she had gotten. Like you know, some of her lifts doubling in just a few months, and that's not uncommon when you're doing it the right way.

Philip Pape: 18:39

And so the difference was stark. She had lost significant fat around her midsection. She had gained visible muscle mass in her arms, in her legs, she had dropped about 3% body fat, which you know again, that's the way I calculate it with measurements. You're in the ballpark of measuring that accurately. And yet the scale had hardly even budged, and we weren't trying to make it budge. And that's part of the issue is that she was, you know, kind of stuck in the mindset of of am I actually making progress? Because the scale's not moving. And once we put into the context, well, actually you're energy for her training and recovery, not to mention her hormones, not to mention better sleep. Her body weight stayed almost exactly the same, but her body composition had improved dramatically and she looked and felt stronger and sexier. Right, and that's what a lot of us are going for Now.

Philip Pape: 19:40

If Lauren had been focused solely on weight loss, she might've given up, she might have missed out on the incredible transformation that she was experiencing in just those first two months and, yes, it's sometimes hard to notice this without a second pair of eyes, like a coach, helping you examine the evidence about your own physique changes Very hard sometimes. And that is the power of focusing on body composition instead of skill, and that is the power of focusing on body composition instead of scale. So, as we wrap up, I want to leave you with this your worth, your health, your progress are not defined by that number on the scale. They're defined by how you feel, how you perform, the habits you build day in and day out, the systems that you build, if you will. So I'm going to challenge you on this Don't ditch the scale, but put it in its place right, use it as the objective tool.

Philip Pape: 20:27

It is just like macro tracking, just like measurements, just like your lifting progress. Why not weigh yourself consistently rather than haphazardly, but focus on the long-term trend and not the daily fluctuations, and then view that as one of many indicators of progress and then track with all the other things we talked about, because the goal here is not to be lighter. As Carl mentioned, weight loss is an insidious goal to go after. It does not help, it is ineffective and it is dangerous. The goal is to be healthier, stronger, more confident right, and that comes from improving your body composition, not losing weight, and then, when you have the whole context, you'll have a much clearer picture of your true progress.

Philip Pape: 21:08

So I hope that helped everyone today. I hope that you are ready to break free from the weight loss mentality and start focusing on what matters. And if you want to do that, don't forget to grab your free body composition nutrition guide, which is linked in the show notes. Or go to witsandweightscom slash free, and that'll give you the blueprint you need to start focusing on what really matters here, which is your body composition. All right, until next time, keep using your wits lifting some weights, and remember you are so much more than a number on a scale. I'll talk to you next time here on the Wits and Weights podcast.

Your Genetics ARE to Blame for Weight Gain and Body Fat with Dr. Stephan Guyenet | Ep 214

Are you frustrated by the stubborn body fat that won't come off despite all your efforts? Do you ever wonder if it's all due to lack of discipline, or could there be a deeper reason? And how much do your genetics actually play a role in your fat loss journey?

Philip (@witsandweights) dives into the fascinating world of neuroscience and body composition with special guest Dr. Stephan Guyenet, a neuroscientist, obesity researcher, and author of The Hungry Brain. They explore the science behind why some people struggle more than others to lose weight and how genetics might be the hidden force shaping your body fat levels. Dr. Guyenet also breaks down how the brain’s reward system influences your cravings and reveals how minor tweaks to your environment and habits can make a huge difference in your fat loss efforts.

Dr. Stephan Guyenet has spent over a decade studying the neuroscience of obesity. With a PhD in neuroscience, his work focuses on the brain's role in regulating body fat and how our modern environment contributes to weight gain. He is also the founder of Red Pen Reviews, which provides scientific accuracy scores for popular health and nutrition books.

📱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:

2:07 Genetics vs. environment: What really causes differences in body fat?
3:48 When do genetic predispositions for body fat develop?
7:56 Why we care about body fat: Individual health and misinformation
11:58 Muscle mass and body fat: How energy overload impacts health
17:24 How your brain regulates hunger and satiety
29:53 Metabolic adaptation during fat loss
32:42 The carbohydrate-insulin model of obesity debunked
44:05 Making body composition changes easier and frictionless
51:54 Insights from studying naturally lean people
54:33 Where to find Stephan
54:49 Outro

Episode resources:

• Dr. Stephan Guyenet’s Website: stephanguyenet.org 

• Twitter: @sguyenet 

• Red Pen Reviews: redpenreviews.org

Episode summary:

Ever wondered why some people seem to struggle more with their weight despite being in similar environments? This intriguing question forms the crux of a recent podcast episode featuring Dr. Stephan Guyenet, a leading neuroscientist and obesity researcher. Dr. Guyenet sheds light on the complex interplay between genetics and body fatness, offering insights that go beyond mere willpower and delve into the biology that governs our eating behaviors and calorie intake.

From the very beginning, the episode challenges listeners to reconsider their preconceptions about weight management. By comparing two individuals in identical environments who exhibit different levels of body fat over time, Dr. Guyenet emphasizes the significant role that genetics play in body composition. Genetic predispositions, he explains, primarily influence brain functions related to eating behavior and calorie intake, leading to variations in body fat accumulation. Understanding these genetic factors is crucial for achieving health and physique goals, as it allows us to work with our biology rather than against it.

The conversation takes a deeper dive into the genetic factors that influence body weight from as early as the embryonic phase, continuing to have varying effects throughout different life stages. One of the key genes discussed is the melanocortin-4 receptor, whose mutations can significantly impact body fatness by disrupting the brain's ability to gauge energy status. This understanding is vital for both personal and public health outcomes, as it highlights the importance of accurate, science-based knowledge in the field of nutrition and health.

Dr. Guyenet also explores the concept of energy overload, emphasizing the critical balance between calorie consumption and physical activity. Overconsumption of energy leads to excess fat storage and eventually causes metabolic issues like insulin resistance and beta cell failure. Here, the importance of muscle activity as an energy sink is highlighted. Physical activity, rather than mere muscle mass, is key to mitigating energy excess. This is because active muscles have a high metabolic rate, pulling energy out of circulation and reducing exposure to other tissues.

The episode delves into how non-conscious brain circuits regulate appetite, cravings, and satiety. These circuits evolved in environments vastly different from today's, influencing our current struggles with weight gain and body fatness. For example, the hypothalamus, a part of the brain, regulates body fatness by measuring the level of body fat using the hormone leptin. When leptin levels drop, the brain increases appetite and lowers metabolic rate to regain lost fat, making it challenging to lose fat and keep it off.

Food properties and their impact on satiety are another crucial topic discussed. Less calorie-dense foods like oatmeal provide greater fullness compared to calorie-dense foods like crackers. This understanding is essential for those looking to manage their weight effectively. Dr. Guyenet also touches on the concept of metabolic adaptation during fat loss, noting that decreased tissue mass and other factors can lower energy needs as one loses weight.

The episode critiques the carbohydrate-insulin model of obesity, which posits dietary carbohydrates as the main driver of obesity due to their effect on insulin secretion and fat accumulation. Dr. Guyenet cites evidence from various cultures, rodent studies, and human intervention trials to challenge this model. Genetic studies link higher body fatness to brain activity rather than insulin or fat cells, suggesting that multiple factors, particularly those related to brain function, play a significant role in obesity.

Macronutrient restriction, such as low-carb or low-fat diets, is also explored as a strategy for controlling calorie intake and promoting weight loss. Dr. Guyenet emphasizes the importance of understanding and leveraging the brain's non-conscious systems to make dietary changes more sustainable. By choosing foods that enhance satiety per calorie and managing food cues in one's environment, it's possible to work with the brain's natural responses rather than against them.

The modern food environment is highlighted as a significant factor in the obesity epidemic. The episode stresses the importance of making strategic food choices to align with our brain's regulatory mechanisms. For example, controlling food cues in your personal environment can help manage cravings and reduce overeating. This approach is similar to strategies used to quit smoking, where avoiding cues that trigger the desire to smoke can be effective.

In conclusion, this podcast episode with Dr. Stephan Guyenet offers a comprehensive look at the genetic and brain-related factors influencing body fatness. It provides actionable strategies for managing weight and body fatness by balancing calorie consumption and physical activity. By understanding and working with our biology, we can achieve our health and physique goals more effectively. The episode challenges common obesity theories and offers new perspectives on achieving sustainable fat loss in a modern food environment.

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Transcript

Philip Pape: 0:01

Maybe you're putting in the work, tracking your meals, training four days a week, eating more whole foods but no matter what you do, the body fat isn't coming off. It's frustrating and you can't help but wonder is it all my fault? Am I not working hard enough? Is there something more at play? You might be tempted to blame your lack of discipline, but what if I told you the real culprit is hiding in your jeans, pulling strings in your brain that make fat loss feel like an uphill battle. Today we're getting into the cutting edge neuroscience of body fatness, with a leading obesity researcher who spent over a decade studying why some of us struggle more than others to maintain a healthy weight and body composition. You'll discover why willpower alone often isn't enough, how your brain's reward system might be sabotaging your efforts and, most importantly, what you can actually do about it if you have health and physique goals. Get ready to learn why your genetics play a bigger role than you thought and how to work with your biology, not against it, to finally achieve the results you've been after. To finally achieve the results you've been after.

Philip Pape: 1:11

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 bridging the fascinating worlds of neuroscience and body composition with Dr Stephan Guyenet. Now, stephan is a neuroscientist and obesity researcher. He's also a proficient science communicator who has spent well over a decade studying the connections between our brains and our waistlines. He has a PhD in neuroscience and his work has been cited, let's just say, thousands of times. Dr Guyenet is also the author of the Hungry Brain and the founder of Red Pen Reviews, which scores nutrition and health books based on their scientific accuracy. Today, you'll learn how our genes and brain pathways influence our weight and body fat levels and what strategies we can use to manage them, despite our genetic predispositions. We'll also explore where muscle mass fits into all of this and address other theories of obesity and body fatness you may have heard about Stefan.

Philip Pape: 2:05

Welcome to the show. Thanks for having me, philip. So I want to start with a thought experiment, because you've probably been asked every question I could have thought of here with the circuit that you're on with podcasts. But imagine we have two people that are, let's say, 20 years old and they have just about everything is the same gender, weight, height, muscle mass, even their environment and you fast forward 30 years or 50 years old, and one has significantly more body fat than the other. Where would you start to speculate as to the primary cause or causes that got them to that point?

Dr. Stephan Guyenet: 2:37

So you're describing two people who have very similar, if not identical, environment, right? Yes, am I getting okay? Okay, so if you're holding environment relatively constant, then the thing that's really going to be determining differences in body fatness is genetics. So, really, what we are is a gene by environment interaction. So either it's genes are differing to cause us to be different or environment is differing, and if you're holding environment constant, then it's going to be genes, and so what I would expect is that those two people differ in the genetics that predispose them to gain body fat and that those genetics are primarily expressed in how their brains developed and operate. So, primarily, genetics related to brain function, and the brain functions that are impacted are primarily, but not exclusively, brain functions related to eating behavior that result in differences in calorie intake, particularly relative to calorie needs.

Philip Pape: 3:41

Okay, yeah, perfect. So you set it up nicely. There was no surprise there, fortunately, that we're talking about genetics being a determinant and we'll get into why that matters and what people can do about it. But you mentioned when the brain develops, how early in one's life, maybe to the embryo phase and maybe like it's just predetermined, so to speak. Does that matter and is it influenced? And maybe environment comes into play there with epigenetics. But you help us understand when you say develops. What are the key factors there?

Dr. Stephan Guyenet: 4:12

Yeah. So I will start off by saying that there is a lot left to learn about how genetics impacts brain activity in a way that determines differences in body fatness. So we've identified a lot of the genetic locations that differ between people who are leaner and people who are fatter and we've been able to trace most of those differences, to necessarily trace those differences in brain activity back to exactly you know how those are causing people to become fatter. So in many cases the genes that are causing differences in body fatness are like some neurotransmitter, that is, you know some neurotransmitter receptor that's expressed in many parts of the brain and it's not really clear exactly what it's doing to make people fatter or leaner, probably having you know a thousand different effects on the brain, and the net result of all that is somebody's slightly you know slightly more likely to put the fork to their mouth again at a meal. And you know most of these genetic differences are only having very small effects on body fatness individually. It's only when you aggregate them, aggregate probably thousands of different genetic differences that it results in differences in body fatness.

Dr. Stephan Guyenet: 5:34

But let me try to answer your question in a different way. So I'm getting that. What you're asking is something about like when do these things start to be expressed in the developmental cycle? Is that kind of what you're asking? Is something about like when did these things start to be expressed at in the developmental cycle? Is that? Is that kind of what you're asking?

Philip Pape: 5:49

Yeah, I'm so curious about all this stuff. It's not like we're going to design designer babies here or anything. People ultimately want to know what they can do about this. But yeah, I'm just understanding. Is it like when you're born and how you're born? Is it how you're raised? Do you have pets and you play outside? A lot of the things, like when we talk about gut health and epigenetics, for example. You almost change the genes trajectory as you grow up. That's what I was curious about.

Dr. Stephan Guyenet: 6:14

Yeah, I mean. So we don't have a complete picture, but we do know that there are some genes that will have a lifelong effect and there are some genes that seem to only cause differences in body fatness in adulthood or even in infancy, in specific parts of your life. So we know, for example, that there are mutations in melanocortin-4 receptor, which is part of the appetite and body fatness regulating system in the brain, that cause early onset obesity. So you can identify if you look specifically for children with unusual children who have an unusually large amount of body fat, and you screen them for this mutations, you're going to find that a pretty significant percentage of them have these melanocortin for receptor mutations.

Dr. Stephan Guyenet: 7:08

Yeah, those basically cut a line of communication between your body's energy status and your brain, so your brain can't really hear about all the energy that you have in your body and your brain tends to think you're starving all the time. So those people, throughout their entire lives, will have a higher level of body fatness. But there are other genes that will make a fat baby but not a fat adult. And then there are other genes that will make a fat adult but not a fat baby, and so there's really like almost everything you can imagine is present there in that picture of the relationship between genetics and body fatness.

Philip Pape: 7:45

Yeah, I think it's fascinating that we're even more unique than we think. Like we say, we're unique individuals, but when you combine the thousands or millions of interactions going on, it's incredible. So I guess I want to take a step back now before we go forward. And that is why do we have these conversations? Why do you go out and communicate about body fatness in general? Why do we care? You know, it might sound, might seem obvious, but like what's the big deal, and I know there's a lot of factors there, like obesity and whatnot. But kind of at the individual level, why do, why do we care about this?

Dr. Stephan Guyenet: 8:15

So wait, you're asking why do I personally care, or why should we all care?

Philip Pape: 8:19

Sure, why do you care? Why should we care? Why should an individual care?

Dr. Stephan Guyenet: 8:29

Well, for me, I care simply because, yeah, I mean it's a great question to ask me why I care, because I don't get paid for this. This has, you know, all the science communication I do has nothing. You know, very little money is flowing into my coffers from these activities. So I mean, I just think it's important for people to have accurate information from these activities. So I mean, I just think it's important for people to have accurate information, and I think that the diet, nutrition, health, weight loss space is one where there's a ton of misinformation. We've been documenting that thoroughly in our reviews at Red Pen Reviews and quantifying it, and what we can see is that the information that the nutrition information environment that the public is bathing in is low to moderate quality. So any particular claim that you hear in your nutrition information environment is likely to be a low to moderate quality claim. There's a lot of variability, so some of the information is excellent, some of it is absolute garbage and everything in between, but on average it's not very good, and so, for me, I just think people deserve to have accurate information and particularly working as a scientist and also a communicator a science communicator I see the gap between what's happening in the scientific community and what's happening in the scientific community and what's happening in the popular nutrition and health and weight loss sphere, and not to say that scientists always have the right answers. There's a lot of bad information in the scientific community too, but the information tends to be higher quality than what you see in the public sphere. And so, yeah, I just think it's important for people to have information that's as accurate as possible so they can make the best decisions they can make. So that's what motivates me to be in this space.

Dr. Stephan Guyenet: 10:16

As far as why anyone should care, I mean, I think body fatness is important, right, like that's an important variable that you can modify to achieve whatever your goals are for your own health and well-being in your life, and I would say it's one of the more important levers there is for modifying your health.

Dr. Stephan Guyenet: 10:38

And, furthermore, I think that it's interesting, right? We just like to learn about ourselves, and particularly, you know, the links between brain and body fatness. To me, that's very, very interesting because it links the brain, which is the organ, more than anything else, that makes us who we are, right, like, more than anything else about us, the brain is what makes us who we are, and it's a little bit counterintuitive, like most people don't intuitively understand that the brain has a lot to do with body fatness, even though the brain is what generates all of our behaviors, including our eating behavior. It's just like, for some reason, the you know two and two doesn't come together necessarily without a little bit of education. And yeah, I think it's just a really interesting connection. Yeah, I do as well. That's why I wanted to talk to you and yeah, I think it's just a really interesting connection.

Philip Pape: 11:26

Yeah, I do as well. That's why I wanted to talk to you and I love hearing the history behind this and how, even since you wrote your book the Hungry Brain, even some of your thoughts have evolved with, for example, the additive versus the constrained model and other things that interact with our metabolism and our energy system and the accurate information piece. I'm glad you started there, because I was technically just asking about body fat as a mechanism and what you pointed out is that let's even go at a higher level. Are we even trusting the right sources for information before we even go there? You said it's one of the most important levers there is for modifying your health. I totally agree. What I'm curious about now is where does it rank when compared to muscle mass? And maybe part of the answer is that they're actually kind of go hand in hand, Because when we talk about body fat, we're also talking about percentage of body fat in your body which is relative to muscle mass. So what are your thoughts on that?

Dr. Stephan Guyenet: 12:21

Yeah. So let me just start off by saying that I'm not as much of an expert on muscle mass, so just want to caveat with that. I think being physically fit is really important. I think definitely using your body and staying strong and fit is a very important determinant of physical function and health as we age physical function and health as we age.

Dr. Stephan Guyenet: 12:48

So my kind of high level concept of the problem with our health in the modern world. The main problem is that we are suffering from energy overload. So there's our cells and tissues are bathed in too much energy and essentially the way that happens is we eat too much. Our fat tissue can absorb the excess for a certain amount of time but, depending on your own genetic makeup, eventually your fat tissue runs out of room and it's no longer that's the professional energy storage site in your body right, the primary one and once that runs out of room, that energy spills over onto your other tissues that are not equipped to handle it and that's when you start getting things like insulin resistance, beta cell failure, all the other problems that arise as a result of energy excess and insulin dysregulation. So how do you get there? How do you get to an energy overload state.

Dr. Stephan Guyenet: 13:44

I just said one thing which I think is the most important thing, which is overconsumption of energy. But the other one is your muscles are not enough of an energy sink. So your muscles are the biggest energy sink in your body, right? So if you're doing physical activity, that's a huge amount of energy need that you're generating, that is pulling energy out of the circulation and reducing exposure to your other tissues, and so to a large extent, physical activity can mitigate that energy excess and even in the face of higher body fat, if you're highly physically active, you can mitigate that excess energy exposure. And in the face of excess energy intake you can mitigate that energy exposure. So it's kind of a way being physically active is a way of kind of cutting down on, or it's a way of like balancing that seesaw, right, balancing that energy exposure seesaw. And so to me really the not over consuming calories and the physical activity really go hand in hand and preventing modern non-communicable disease like diabetes, cardiovascular disease and all the things related to that.

Philip Pape: 15:02

The way you explain that with the spillover. It's probably the listeners haven't heard to explain that way. We talk about muscle as a sink for glucose and energy, but the visual you just gave us is like you know, you're over consuming, you're just going to increase your body fat. Worse than that, you're going to go past your capacity of your fat cells and start causing damage in other areas. But if you have more muscle mass or you have more activity, it mitigates that. I mean that is a nice visual.

Philip Pape: 15:29

I could see that on a nice PowerPoint slide really getting the message across as to why all of those things are important, despite the fact that there's some energy compensation and all these little things that happen when you move more. There's another phrase I've used Stevan energy flux, and I know certain circles use that to talk about moving more and eating more. But you're kind of doing them hand in hand, not to over-consume, but really to give yourself all the energy and nutrients and macros you need, plus mitigating it at the same time. So it's really a nice kind of way to get there. Let's go back to the brain pathways, because that's really your expertise, right?

Dr. Stephan Guyenet: 16:05

I just wanted to say that I think the physical activity is probably more important than the higher muscle mass per se, because if you have just genetically high muscle mass and you're not using it, that might protect you to some degree, but that muscle is not acting as a very powerful energy sink if you're not using it, because muscle actually has a pretty low resting metabolic rate.

Dr. Stephan Guyenet: 16:30

It's only when you're using it that it has a high metabolic rate, and you know. Another point I'll make along these lines is that people with obesity on average, have higher muscle mass than people who are lean. Yet that muscle mass is not, that excess muscle mass is not protecting them. So I mean, you know they're not necessarily like bodybuilders or anything, but they have more muscle mass. So I think what's most important is actually using your muscles rather than having high muscle mass, although you know, in terms of metabolic health, obviously there are benefits to having higher muscle mass in terms of being stronger and, you know, more physically capable, but just in terms of the metabolic benefits, I think it's more about using it than having it.

Philip Pape: 17:15

Yeah, fair point Using it, building it and also mitigating the loss of it as we age, which inevitably happens. So, yeah, great point, fully on board with you there. So, talking about the brain and the brain-related genes and pathways, we can get a little technical, but we don't want to have to go all the way. How are they associated with weight gain and body fatness? What are the ones we really care about? That's written into our genes.

Dr. Stephan Guyenet: 17:36

When we talk about our genes being to blame to some extent, so you're asking me to get into the kind of brain functions that are related to body fatness?

Philip Pape: 17:48

Yes, thank you for helping me clarify the way I ask questions. That's science communication 101. So thank you, Stephan.

Dr. Stephan Guyenet: 17:54

Yeah, so I mean this is essentially the thesis of my book, the Hungry Brain that we have these non-conscious brain circuits that evolved in an environment that's very different than the one that we're in today. They evolved to regulate things like appetite, things like cravings, which directs us towards certain types of nutrients or foods, and other things like satiety at a meal, how full we eat, based on how much food we eat, and then some other related functions and those brain regions just kind of operate. They're designed to operate kind of in the background. So you know, you don't have to think, oh, today at noon I want to start feeling hungry. You know that's not something you have to worry about consciously. It's this automated process in your brain that does all this processing measures, your body's energy status measures, takes cues from what's around in your environment and generates an appropriate response, in this case hunger. At least it would have been appropriate if we were living in the environment that it evolved for right, the environment that it calibrated for, because these more basic non-conscious brain functions they're to a large extent they're hardwired, so not to say they're completely hardwired, so they can learn, they are flexible, but to a larger extent than our higher brain functions. They have a lot of hardwiring and that means that no matter whether you're born on a spaceship headed for Alpha Centauri or in the time of our distant ancestors, they're going to be functioning approximately the same way. And that's tough because our food environment has changed a lot, right, and so we have these non-conscious brain regions that are calibrated for an ancestral environment when food was a lot less appealing and a lot harder to come by. And I don't think most people quite grasp the degree to which our ancestors' diet was not very appealing compared to what we eat today.

Dr. Stephan Guyenet: 20:03

So if you really look at what hunter-gatherers are eating, so what our distant ancestors would have eaten even before agriculture, 10, know 10,000 years ago Most of the time they're not doing much except cooking Like they're not putting salt on it, they're not putting flavors on it, they're just taking a piece of meat or a fish, putting it in the fire or next to the fire until it's mostly cooked, maybe part of it's burned, maybe there's some sand on it, maybe part of it's burned, maybe there's some sand on it. Eating it just like that, eating raw, fresh fruit, digging up tubers, roasting them and eating them plain. So you can imagine eating plain sweet potatoes, plain potatoes, except often a lot more fibrous than that right and maybe with some bitter flavors. Climbing up trees, getting honey, eating roasted nuts, roasted unsalted nuts. So not necessarily all foods that are unappealing, not necessarily terrible, but very simple, very, very simple foods that have not been cooked to the standards of a modern kitchen and don't have the flavorings and accoutrements of modern kitchen. That's kind of what our brains are calibrated for. They're calibrated to generate a motivational response to get food that is strong enough that you're going to do it, even though the food you're going after is not very appealing and even though it takes a lot of work to get there. So that's kind of what our brain regions are calibrated for, and so I think there are a few regions that I'll talk about that are particularly important in this context.

Dr. Stephan Guyenet: 21:37

One of them is the hypothalamus, which is the primary brain region that regulates body fatness. So the hypothalamus parts of the hypothalamus specialize in what's called homeostatic regulation. So that means they're taking some variable in the body and trying to hold it constant, or either constant or trying to regulate it in an adaptive way. So one of the things they regulate, for example, is body temperature. So there's a part of your hypothalamus that's essentially a thermostat for your body. There's another part of your hypothalamus that regulates your body fat and you can kind of compare it to a thermostat. It doesn't work exactly like a thermostat, but it measures the level of body fat in your body using the hormone leptin, and it tries to keep it relatively constant. And particularly when that leptin starts to drop, when you're losing fat, when your calorie intake is going down, your leptin drops.

Dr. Stephan Guyenet: 22:33

Your brain detects that and initiates an orchestrated behavioral and physiological response to regain the lost fat. And that is probably the main reason why it's so hard for people to lose fat and keep it off is because you're fighting against that physiological response. And the main arm of that response, the main lever the brain is using, is appetite. So when your body fat starts to drop, your brain will increase your appetite. It will also lower your metabolic rate to some degree, but primarily it will increase your appetite until that fat comes back. And it'll do that by increasing your hunger, by increasing your attention toward food, by increasing your cravings toward certain types of calorie-dense foods. So that's one system. You can call that the lipostat.

Dr. Stephan Guyenet: 23:26

And then there's another system in your brainstem that's also regulating your body's energy status, but it's instead of doing it on a long-term basis by regulating your body fat, it's doing it on a meal-to-meal basis by regulating your meal size.

Dr. Stephan Guyenet: 23:42

That's in the brainstem, primarily in the NTS, nucleus tractus solitarius, and that's collecting information from your digestive tract, proletariat, and that's collecting information from your digestive tract. So information from your mouth, from your stomach, from your small intestine, is converging in your NTS and that's kind of as you're eating your meal, that information is building up, building up, building up, until finally it says, okay, you've had enough. And you know. A lot of people imagine that you know I eat until my stomach's full and that's when I know to stop. But really your stomach has a lot bigger capacity than you're usually tapping into at any particular meal. I mean, I'm sure, philip, you can think back to a meal where you were super hungry, maybe you did like lots of physical activity or couldn't eat for a while, and all of a sudden it felt like your stomach was just bottomless right.

Philip Pape: 24:36

Oh yeah.

Dr. Stephan Guyenet: 24:37

Yeah, but that wouldn't happen at a normal meal, like you wouldn't. You would feel like your stomach's full before that at a normal meal, right, yeah? And so that goes to show you, I mean, human stomach capacity is not even close to maxed out at a typical meal. Our stomachs are big. What makes it feel like it's maxed out is this neurobiological processing that's happening in the brainstem. So when your brainstem decides that you've had enough at a meal, that's when it's like okay, I feel really stuffed. If I eat anymore, I'm going to start feeling nauseous. I have lost interest in food. It doesn't taste as good anymore. I don't want to. You know, I'm not staring at it anymore, I'm not feeling that motivational response and I just feel physically stuffed.

Dr. Stephan Guyenet: 25:27

That is regulated, all that is regulated by your brainstem, based on when your brainstem has decided that you've had enough.

Dr. Stephan Guyenet: 25:35

And so, interestingly, you know, on a practical level, I think that's one of the main things that we can target if we're trying to regulate our total energy intake, because the perception of fullness that you feel isn't actually very closely linked to the number of calories that you've eaten. So there's certain food properties that will cause you to feel more or less full per calorie that you've eaten. So, for example, the calorie density, how many calories per gram or per volume of food that you've eaten the more calorie dense it is, the less fullness per calorie that you will feel. And it's kind of counterintuitive to people because they think of eating rich foods and feeling very full. And you do feel full after eating rich foods, but you've also eaten a lot more calories to get there. And so I like to compare crackers versus oatmeal, for example. The macronutrient composition is very similar crackers versus oatmeal, but oatmeal has a lot of water and crackers don't. To get to the same level of fullness, you'd have to eat a lot more crackers than you would oatmeal.

Philip Pape: 26:45

It's like the sweet potato versus the Pop-Tart same macros, but I could eat 10 Pop-Tarts easy.

Dr. Stephan Guyenet: 26:51

Yeah, hi, my name is Lisa, but I could eat 10 pop-tarts easy.

Lisa: 26:53

Yeah, Hi, my name is Lisa and I'd like to give a big shout out to my nutrition coach, Philip P. 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 app called 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 he really helped me with that. The other thing he helped me with was knowing that I need to get a lot of steps in. So the more steps you have, the higher your expenditure is and the easier it is to lose weight. When it's presented to you like he presents it, 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.

Dr. Stephan Guyenet: 27:35

So thank you. And so the calorie density is part of that. There's also the palatability, so the better something tastes, the less filling it is per calorie. It's like your brain recognizes that that's a highly desirable food on some level and tries to take the brakes off a little bit so you can eat more of it. And then fiber increases satiety per calorie and protein increases satiety per calorie.

Dr. Stephan Guyenet: 28:06

So if you're eating foods that you know how this kind of breaks down at a high level is, I think it breaks down to common sense, which is that if you're talking about unrefined, simple foods more similar to what our distant ancestors would have eaten, like fresh meats, fish, eggs, fresh fruit, whole grains, vegetables, those are going to be the kinds of foods that have higher satiety per calorie. And if you're talking about kinds of foods that have higher satiety per calorie and if you're talking about highly processed foods that most of us would recognize as junk food or play food, like bakery items, especially like dessert items, like brownies, cookies, cakes, candy, pizza, fried foods, those are the foods that have the lower satiety per calorie. So I think when you add it up, it kind of adds up to to common sense, which a lot of people would recognize that some of those foods are more fattening and some are less, but they might not necessarily know that a big part of the reason is that some of those are generating a lot more satiety per calorie than others.

Philip Pape: 29:13

Yeah, there's a lot there. And I totally agree with the satiety thing, because my wife she's a great cook. She'll cook really delicious whole food meals. She'll give me this giant plate of, you know, two fillets of fish and a huge thing of cauliflower and a giant scoop of uh, quinoa and I'm stuffed and and I'm like and I logged my macros and it's like 400 calories. You know, you're like, wait a minute, I actually need more calories. There's not enough there.

Philip Pape: 29:38

You know, and it's, and it's so true, and it's one of the tricks, tricks of the trade right Is when you're in fat loss, to really load up on the veggies and you get a two for one or three or four for one. When you talk about, like you said, um, the satiety, the nutrient density and, uh, the, the brain relationship. And this is one of the first times, I guess, in this episode where we're, I guess, empowering people to know that it's not a lost cause that your genes are this way. It's just the awareness of it now can inform some behaviors and some choices. What else did you say?

Philip Pape: 30:08

And then breaking it down into both the homeostasis piece, the lipostat, that part is really interesting, especially when we're losing weight, because people think in terms of statically, as if maintenance and losing weight are the same thing and there are some very different mechanisms happening. I want to touch on that for a bit, because we talk about metabolic adaptation quite a bit. You said that there's a little bit of that going on. Is that driven by multiple factors besides the hypothalamus and the leptin? In other words, are there, are there two or three factors that cause your metabolism to decline during fat loss?

Dr. Stephan Guyenet: 30:44

Yes, there are. So you know, the simplest thing is simply that you have less tissue on your body, and if you have less tissue, your energy needs typically go down. So you know, if we're talking about the average person who is going on a diet and not starting a bodybuilding program, at the same time, their lean mass is going to go down as they diet, and that's not necessarily a bad thing, because as you gain fat, your lean mass goes up. So you're really just losing. This is the way I see it. You're just losing the excess that you had accumulated. I mean, better to do strength training than not to, but I don't think it's a concern to be losing that excess lean mass.

Dr. Stephan Guyenet: 31:28

And so, yeah, your metabolic rate is going to go down just from losing mass. Then, when you are below your set point, that is to say, the level of body fat that your hypothalamus is accustomed to, it's going to kick in that kind of starvation response which is going to reduce your metabolic rate, in addition to increasing your hunger. So that's another component. So that means that even for the lean mass that you have, your metabolic rate is going to be a little bit lower. And then the third thing is, if you're eating less food, metabolic rate's going to be a little bit lower. And then the third thing is if you're eating less food, you're going to have less thermal effect of eating. Yeah, and that's going to be a very small amount, but that's the third component.

Philip Pape: 32:15

Yeah, no, it's a good point. It all adds up and I mean I'm still surprised because I take it for granted. When someone says is it okay or does it make sense that my metabolism has dropped a hundred calories over the last month, I'm like yeah, it's totally normal. Don't freak out, you know, because there's a lot of misconceptions in the industry about that. You mentioned a spaceship to Alpha Centauri. I was just thinking. That came back to me and I'm like I don't know if I'd rather eat that food. I think I'd rather eat the food our ancestors ate.

Lisa: 32:41

But, anyway.

Philip Pape: 32:42

So when we talk about the theories about body fat and weight loss, it does seem it's common sense, even if there's some counterintuitive aspects to it. But when you describe the brain and the more, we learn about the brain and also the gut and just these major systems that are complex. But there are other theories that still float around, like the carbohydrate-insulin model, that's the big one. And you had a big debate with he who shall not be named, mr GT, on the Joe Rogan podcast. Just address that for folks so that they understand what we're talking about and why that may not be the right mechanism here causing obesity. And then I don't know if there are any others that still get a lot of attention.

Dr. Stephan Guyenet: 33:23

Yeah, I want to start off by defining what I'm arguing against here, because there are many different versions of the carb insulin model at this point, and so I think it's really important to define what we're talking about. So this is the version that states that the primary cause of obesity so not just a minority contributor primary cause of obesity is dietary carbohydrate, increasing insulin secretion and leading to the accumulation of body fat. And so this is an idea that Gary Taubes has championed and some others have picked up, and the most notable researcher in the scientific community that has been associated with this idea is David Ludwig, although I think my understanding is at this point he's not defending the more extreme version of the idea anymore. He's not defending the idea that this is the cause of common obesity. That's my understanding, but I also don't want to put words in his mouth because I'm not 100% sure. But yeah, but Gary Taubes is definitely like 100% died in the wool. This is the cause of obesity. You know, that's what his books have revolved around, and anybody who disagrees with diets you know.

Dr. Stephan Guyenet: 34:43

And they're not all low. You know, they're not all low-glycemic index carbohydrate diets. Some of them are high in high-glycemic carbs, like potatoes, other types of root vegetables, white rice, and people just aren't getting fat. They're not getting any fatter than people in cultures that eat higher fat diets. In fact, if you look at most historical trends leading up to obesity in countries around the world, what you're going to see is that in most of those cases, cultures were transitioning from lower fat, higher carbohydrate diets to more carb and fat balanced diets, and this is part of why I think it's really in that middle zone, where you have abundant fat and carbohydrate, that's really the most fattening zone, and you see this really clearly in rodent studies. It's very, very clear in rodent studies, john Speakman has done the best studies on this, most rigorous, largest studies. It's very, very clear in rodent studies, john Speakman has done the best studies on this, most rigorous, largest studies.

Dr. Stephan Guyenet: 36:06

Essentially, if you take mice on a low-fat diet and you start adding fat to it, they'll get fatter and fatter and fatter, fatter, fatter the more fat you add and then at a certain point, they'll start getting leaner. So once it gets so high fat that you're crowding out the carbs and it's turned into a low-carb diet where there's not a lot of carbs anymore, then they start getting leaner again and so there's this peak fatness level. It may not be exactly the same for humans and mice, but I think it's a similar concept, where you bring those together abundantly, both of those, the carbs and the fat, and that's what's going to generate the highest level of body fat. And you might say, well, we're not mice, I'll give you that. But mice have insulin right and they have fat cells, and those systems work in very similar ways to how they work in humans. They're very conserved. When mice eat carbs, it increases their insulin and so why does the carb-insulin hypothesis not apply to them? Why wouldn't it apply to them?

Dr. Stephan Guyenet: 37:11

But it's not just in mice. We have human intervention studies that show the same thing. You put people on a low-carb diet, low-carb, higher-fat diet they lose weight. You put people on a low-fat, high-carb diet, they lose weight. You put people on a low fat, high carb diet, they lose weight. It's in the middle where people gain weight, and just in terms of the macronutrients, which is not, of course, the only variable. So that's one thing. The other thing I would say I mean there's just so much evidence from just like basic common sense all the way to really advanced experimental evidence refuting this idea.

Dr. Stephan Guyenet: 37:43

The other thing I would point to and I kept hammering on this in my debate with Gary on the Joe Rogan show, because it's just such a key point is the genetic studies, the genome-wide association studies. So these are studies that look in an unbiased way across the entire genome to see what genes are associated with a particular trait, and so, in this case, higher body mass index, a measure of body fatness, and what you see is, when you look at the genetic locations that are associated with higher body fatness, you see that those are primarily related to brain activity, not to insulin, not to fat cells, which is what you would expect if the biology of obesity revolved around insulin and fat cells, like the carb-insulin model says it does. Now, when you do these studies, these genome-wide association studies on other traits, like you do it on intelligence, you get brain genes. You do it on schizophrenia, you get brain genes. Do it on diabetes, you get pancreas genes. You do it on height, you get bone and connective tissue genes. Like you do it on autoimmune disease, you get immune genes, like these studies are really really good at honing in on what the underlying biology of a condition is. So, in cases where we already know really clearly what the underlying biology is. These studies are really effectively identifying that. So we know that these kinds of studies work really well at identifying underlying biology. And in obesity, they're saying the underlying biology revolves around the brain, not insulin or fat cells.

Dr. Stephan Guyenet: 39:28

And furthermore, I want to say, like you know, we're having this replicability crisis in science where a lot of studies aren't replicating right Like and we're saying what's going on?

Dr. Stephan Guyenet: 39:39

Or, you know, is this information rigorous? Well, these types of studies genome-wide association studies are some of the most rigorous replicable studies in all of biomedical science. This is not just another type of study design. These are highly reliable studies and they've done these over and over again and the same thing keeps coming out over and over again. And, furthermore, these are unbiased, because researchers aren't going into it with the hypothesis and saying we think obesity is all about the brain, so we're looking for brain genes. That's not how this works. It picks up whatever genetics is associated with body fatness and then after that they see what is showing up more often than by random chance. So they're not looking for brain genes, they're not looking for insulin genes, they're just seeing what pops up, and what pops up is the brain. In my view, anyone who has a hypothesis about what causes obesity that is inconsistent with what these genome-wide association studies are finding needs to find a new hypothesis, because this is the most rigorous evidence we currently have.

Philip Pape: 40:57

Excellent, excellent, yeah, and I wanted to bring that up just so that people know you're one of the experts in this area especially contrasting the genetics and the brain research with some of these hypotheses. So folks want to go find you out in the whole low carb claim. When you ask somebody, hey, what did you cut out to cut out your carbs? It's often things like pizza and ice cream and donuts and you're like, well, that's actually highly balanced fats and carbs. So is it the palatability that led to that peak fatness? Because they're just eating more calories? Is it as simple as that?

Dr. Stephan Guyenet: 41:40

That's a really good question. I would say that that is my leading hypothesis for it. I'll say that I don't think we really know, but I think that's the most compelling possibility. It is true that the reward value of food in other words, what kind of eating drive it stimulates, kind of pleasure response it generates is higher when you're mixing fats and carbs than when you're keeping those separate. So this has been shown in a variety of different ways and I mean we understand it right.

Dr. Stephan Guyenet: 42:12

Like what are the foods that get people going the most? They're usually combinations of fat and carbohydrate. You know whether we're talking about pizza, ice cream, chocolate and depending on what kind of a, you know whether we're talking about pizza, ice cream, chocolate and depending on what kind of a. You know cultural period we're in, we'll call those things like back in the 90s pizza was a fatty food and today we call it a carby food. So but if you look at the actual macros it's got lots of both, but we just interpret that through the, you know, current cultural lens, whatever macronutrient we're demonizing at the time.

Dr. Stephan Guyenet: 42:46

But I do want to say that I think low-carb and low-fat diets, I think there is something restricting carbs per se and restricting fat per se. So I do think that macronutrient restriction itself is kind of a time-tested strategy that can help people control their calorie intake independent of other things. So even if you were like keeping your food pretty simple, keeping it low, low calorie density, I still think if you cut back on the carbs or you cut back on the fat, it would give even on top of that, it would give it probably a boost.

Philip Pape: 43:31

And I think you're right, because when we let's say, take it from the other direction. If you, let's say, you are tracking calories and macros which, like my clients might do and we talk about a lot on the show just as a way to learn about what you're eating and how much you're eating, if you follow the palatability and the nutrient density kind of guidelines we talked about, you're going to eat leaner meats, you're going to eat lower fat forms of, say, dairy, you're going to eat more fruits and vegetables Guess what it's going to look like Fairly lower fat and carbs, high protein, and now your calories are where they need to be without being miserable Like you're. You're cutting things to be on a diet. So, yeah, it all makes sense, stefan.

Philip Pape: 44:07

Okay, so I mean we talked a little bit about the environment, and I don't know if the environment and epigenetics can can be combined here, but assuming we have the environment we have, which is very different than our ancestors, who just didn't have a choice, really, they couldn't go to the grocery store, and we can't really change it, at least not at the individual level when does lifestyle come into this? Where does choice come into this, and is there a way to do it. That feels more frictionless, especially for people who are predispositioned to just be at a higher body fat.

Dr. Stephan Guyenet: 44:37

Yeah, I think the frictionlessness aspect is really the key to zero in on right, Because anyone is physically capable of eating less and losing fat. If you had a gun to your head, you could do it, but the problem is, are you going to do it when you're fighting these non-conscious brain regions that are telling you to eat more day in and day out, and day in and day out? That's a struggle that most people are just not going to win on an ongoing basis, and so I think the question is how do you make it more frictionless, how do you make it easier to maintain those changes? And so I'll start off by saying that I think environment is really important. So, obviously, genetics is very important, but genetics is not what created the obesity epidemic, right, Because the obesity epidemic has been happening around the world and people of all different genetic backgrounds, so you can't really explain it by changes in genetics. What's changed is the environment. So the environment is obviously very powerful, and I think the most powerful part of it is our food environment Not necessarily the only part, but that's probably the biggest part.

Dr. Stephan Guyenet: 45:55

If you want to make an animal or a human fat, modifying what they're eating is the fastest and easiest way, and vice versa. If you want to get them to lose weight, modifying their food is also the most powerful lever. So I'm going to put a little brain spin on this, because that's what I do, and so I think a good way to make body composition control easier and more frictionless is to work with the non-conscious parts of your brain that regulate your body, fat and synaptic, rather than struggling against them. And so, you know, I think the typical weight loss scenario that might come to mind for someone is one in which they're pitted against these systems. So you're experiencing hunger and you're choosing not to eat. In the face of that, that might be, you know, an image that comes to mind for someone who's considering dieting In that way. You know, you can think about that. There's a brain region that is automatically and intuitively generating that hunger response. And then there's the you part of your brain that is the rational, conscious part, that is inhibiting that behavior that wants to happen. And that's an internal conflict, right, and that's a struggle. It doesn't feel good to be struggling against yourself like that, especially in the long run.

Dr. Stephan Guyenet: 47:20

You can do it for a day, you can do it for a few days. It's going to be hard to do it for a month, a year, 10 years, and for people who haven't experienced that, just consider, think about it like you're feeling thirsty. Let's say you're feeling thirsty all the time and you're not letting yourself drink. You could probably do that for a day. You could do it for a week. Could you do that for a year? I doubt it, and so I think what we want to do is we want to recruit those systems so they're not generating those responses that we have to struggle against, and I'll talk about two ways to do that.

Dr. Stephan Guyenet: 47:58

One of them we already talked about a little bit, which is working with the brainstem to create more satiety per calorie. So satiety is technically. Satiation is that feeling that you get that causes you to terminate a meal, that causes you to feel like you've had enough, you're satisfied and you push away from the table. You can reach that feeling with 700 calories. You could reach it with 1500 calories and get to the same place in terms of satisfaction, but having eaten more than twice as many calories. That's why selecting food for higher satiety, I think, is one of the most important things you can do to control your body composition. So, as I said before higher protein, lower calorie density, not going really high in palatability and tending toward higher fiber. Those are some important variables.

Dr. Stephan Guyenet: 48:56

The other thing I often focus on is controlling food cues in your personal food environment. So the reward regions of your brain that generate cravings, generate motivational response towards specific foods and to some extent generate hunger, those are taking cues from your surroundings. So cravings are activated when your brain gets a signal that a desired food is available in your environment. So you smell brownies in the oven or you walk by that bakery and you smell that baking bread, or you're hanging out with the friends that you always have a beer with or there's cookies on the counter and you see those cookies. That visual cue. Those are the things that get your dopamine spiking, that trigger the motivational response for you to engage. They energize, they behaviorally energize you to engage in that eating behavior.

Dr. Stephan Guyenet: 49:55

And so you know I'm going to use a little analogy here for cigarette smoking.

Dr. Stephan Guyenet: 50:02

It's a similar process, even though food is not a drug.

Dr. Stephan Guyenet: 50:05

It's a similar type of reward association. If you want to stop smoking, the main thing you need to do is stop exposing yourself to those cues that remind your brain to generate that motivational response to smoke. So you don't leave cigarettes on the counter, you don't go to the bar where you usually smoke, you don't go to the convenience store where you usually buy cigarettes, etc. You cut those cues totally out and then you're not going to have as much of that reward getting triggered in your brain, triggering that motivational response, dopamine spiking, and then that will make it easier and then over time you lose that association and you don't even want to smoke anymore, even if you see those cues. And so controlling your personal food environment in terms of not having foods readily visible that you can readily smell, putting in little effort barriers so that you might have to unscrew a jar or peel an orange or do something like just a small effort barrier those are little things you can do to kind of shut down those motivational responses that can arise.

Philip Pape: 51:18

Yeah, those are two really good strategies. And the whole controlling food cues thing reminds me of a question I got from a listener recently, which was what if my family isn't quite on board with my goals for food? And that's another kind of area of friction for you, because now you have to add in the social element of having conversations with people and seeing that other people are engaged with you for that support, even if they don't buy into what you're doing a hundred percent. So I just wanted to add that in there because it came to mind. So those are really good stuff and I know, in the interest of time, I do have one more question, if you can hang out for a couple of minutes, and that is have there been any studies on specifically on naturally lean people, like as an independent population? Uh, when we look at body fatness and body fat percentage, yeah, there have.

Dr. Stephan Guyenet: 52:07

Yeah, there have been genetic studies on lean people and what they've shown is that a lot of the genes are actually the same as the ones that have been identified in obesity, and they're just acting in the opposite direction. So, whatever the variant, the gene variant is that causes some people to be fatter well, the opposite variant causes them to be leaner in many cases.

Philip Pape: 52:38

Do you see genetic like CRISPR or some genetic manipulation down the road with some of these genes, or is that you know far off?

Dr. Stephan Guyenet: 52:45

I mean, it's not far off at all. I mean, technically it's already possible and in fact, the easiest way to do it wouldn't be by CRISPR, it would just be by selection, so you could create a bunch of embryos and then select the ones that have the best profile of whatever genetics you're looking for. And yeah, it's already technically possible and we do it already. Actually, we do it in a limited way in prenatal genetic diagnosis. So if you have parents who have propensity for some really bad genetic disease, they can create embryos from those parents and then they screen them and make sure that the one that gets implanted is one that doesn't carry that disease Through IVF.

Dr. Stephan Guyenet: 53:32

And so yeah, yeah, through IVF. So we're already doing it for genetic diseases. You could, in theory, do it for complex traits like the ones that have been studied, like BMI, and I think the only thing that's limiting us right now from doing that is potentially thorny ethics. I think a lot of people have ethical questions about that, about whether it's a good idea, and then also just kind of like financial and technical capacity. Like do we have, even though we have the knowledge and the technical capacity to do that? Do we have, you know, enough lab capacity to meet the demand that would be there for for parents actually wanting to do this.

Philip Pape: 54:15

Yeah. Yeah, it's very interesting. I was just curious about that. All right, so I guess, within the scope of what we've discussed, is there anything you wish I had asked or touched upon?

Dr. Stephan Guyenet: 54:24

No, nothing I can think of off the top of my head.

Philip Pape: 54:27

I only have about 20 other questions I could have asked you. That's why I phrased it that way. Well, Stefan, it's a pleasure talking to you today. I do want people to be able to find you and your work at the best place you want to send them to. So where would that be?

Dr. Stephan Guyenet: 54:44

Yeah, to send them to. So where would that be? Yeah, I'm most active on Twitter, sgna. I also have a website, stephangeanaorg. I don't update that much these days though.

Philip Pape: 54:49

No problem. Yeah, I mean your picture still looks the same, so it's all good. You kept in shape all these years, all right? Well, thank you so much, stephan, for being here. It was a lot of fun, and I know the listeners are going to take away a lot from this today, so appreciate it.

Dr. Stephan Guyenet: 55:01

Great my pleasure Phillip.

The Proven Formula for an Amazing Physique Transformation (Iterative Design) | Ep 213

Ask yourself a very honest question: is what I'm doing working?

Is my training, my nutrition, all the things actually giving me the physique that I want, whether that's being lean and muscular or big and strong?

If you're like most people, you start with initial excitement and motivation, followed by hitting one roadblock after another, not quite getting what you want, eventually giving up and then hopping to the next thing.

Learn about the engineering concept of iterative design and how it can help you constantly improve and overcome the plateaus and roadblocks common to physique development.

Learn how to apply this systematic, data-driven method to your fitness journey over a two-year period to:

• Set realistic, measurable goals for your physique

• Create and refine your training and nutrition plans

• Use data to make informed decisions about your progress

• Overcome plateaus and setbacks

We walk through a real-world example of how to apply iterative design to lose fat and gain muscle.

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. 

Main Takeaways:

• Iterative design is a powerful tool for long-term physique transformation that transforms setbacks into valuable data points for continuous improvement

• The six phases: design, implement, test, evaluate, refine, and repeat

• This approach leads to sustainable results by adapting to your body's changing needs

Episode summary:

Are you ready to revolutionize your fitness journey and achieve your dream physique? In the latest episode of Wits & Weights, we delve into the powerful concept of iterative design and how it can be applied to your training and nutrition strategies. Imagine treating your body like an engineering project, meticulously designed for optimal results. This approach can help you overcome common roadblocks and achieve consistent, measurable progress.

Iterative design is a principle-based methodology that involves six phases: design, execute, gather data, test, improve, and repeat. By following these phases, you can create a clear, adaptable framework to achieve your fitness goals, whether it be fat loss, muscle building, or body recomposition. The process is systematic and data-driven, allowing you to continuously evaluate and adjust your strategies based on your body's responses.

The episode begins by addressing a critical question: is your current approach to training and nutrition working for you? Many people start their fitness journey with initial excitement and motivation, only to face roadblocks that lead to frustration and eventually giving up. By applying a data-driven, systematic approach borrowed from engineering, you can avoid these pitfalls. The host, Philip Pape, introduces the six phases of iterative design and provides a detailed example using a hypothetical person, John Doe, who aims to lose 20 pounds over two years.

Phase one is the design phase, where you set a goal and create a plan. It's essential to understand that the plan will change as you go along, but you need to start somewhere and give yourself direction. For John, the initial plan involves a six-month iteration focused on fat loss. He tracks his food, steps, biofeedback, and measurements, and focuses on progressive overload in the gym.

Phase two is the implementation phase, where you execute the plan. John tracks his food intake, steps, biofeedback, and measurements daily. He focuses on progressive overload in the gym and ensures he gets enough sleep. It's important to note that John isn't trying to hit his targets perfectly; he's aiming to be in the ballpark and adjust as needed.

Phase three involves testing. By tracking various data points, John can measure the outcomes of his efforts. This includes body measurements, progress photos, strength progression, food intake, energy levels, mood, appetite, and more. This data allows him to evaluate whether his actions are producing the desired results.

Phase four is the evaluation phase, where you analyze the data collected. It's crucial to evaluate the data continuously, rather than waiting until the end of a set period. For example, John might look at his scale weight trend over three weeks to determine if he's losing weight at the desired rate. If not, he can adjust his calorie deficit or make other changes based on the data.

Phase five involves refining the plan based on the data. This might include adjusting calorie intake, modifying workout routines, or addressing other factors like sleep or hydration. The goal is to make incremental adjustments to optimize the plan continuously.

The final phase is to repeat the process. Iterative design is about continuous improvement, so you repeat the cycle of design, implementation, testing, evaluation, and refinement. Over time, this approach leads to sustainable results and a deep understanding of your body's responses to different strategies.

Throughout the episode, the importance of becoming the scientist of your own physique is emphasized. By understanding how your body responds to different strategies, you develop the skills to adapt and overcome obstacles. This mindset transforms how you view progress and setbacks, seeing them not as failures but as opportunities for improvement.

The episode also offers a free 15-minute rapid nutrition assessment call to help kickstart your journey with personalized steps and resources. This call is an excellent opportunity to map out your design, tailor it to your needs, and get the support you need to start implementing the iterative design process.

In summary, the iterative design approach to fitness is a powerful tool for long-term transformation. By following the six phases of design, implement, test, evaluate, refine, and repeat, you can create a clear, adaptable framework to achieve your fitness goals. This data-driven, systematic approach allows for continuous optimization, helping you overcome roadblocks and stay motivated on your fitness journey. Tune in to Wits and Weights and start engineering your dream physique today!

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Transcript

Philip Pape: 0:01

I want you to ask yourself a very honest question Is what I'm doing working? Is my training, my nutrition, all the things actually giving me the physique that I want, whether that's lean and muscular or big and strong, whatever it is? Because, if you're like most people, you have this typical trajectory. It starts with initial excitement and motivation, followed by hitting one roadblock after another, not quite getting what you want, eventually giving up and then hopping to the next thing. So today we wanna talk about a method that engineers use to create products that can be applied to your body transformation. To avoid these roadblocks along the way and get through them. The idea is to take a data-driven, systemic approach that evolves with you, so that you know exactly what to do and you have the clarity and confidence to get whatever result you're going for.

Philip Pape: 0:59

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 are talking about the bread and butter of engineering design. It's called iterative design and it can apply directly to your physique transformation. It is why I came up with the term physique engineering and exactly what most people are missing in terms of the process that they use. A lot of people just jump into a diet or jump into a training program. They follow a template, they try to execute something that is not necessarily right for them and, whether it is or isn't, they then fail to gather the data about whether it's working. They get frustrated because of a lack of results or because the results are taking too long to achieve, they give up and then they go to the next thing. That will result in the exact same failed outcome. And today I wanna give you this more results-driven, practical method that will prevent the stagnation, prevent you from spinning those wheels like you have been, and instead give you consistency, measurable progress, and we're going to take this over a two-year period. We're going to assume you're just starting with this.

Philip Pape: 2:12

I'm going to give you an example and I'm going to walk you through the six phases of what we call iterative design, and it's a very simple concept. It's just the idea that to create a complex system or complex product, like engineers do, we have to have a plan, we have to execute, we have to gather data and we have to test it, and then we repeat. But I'm going to break it down for you again with an example so that we can understand how you can apply it. You can apply it Now before I do just understand that there are a million different ways to apply this. That is the point.

Philip Pape: 2:48

This is a principle-based method, not a specific template or program, because everyone is different. Everyone has different hormones, you're at a different age, you have different training response, there are different foods that you like, you have a different schedule. I can go on and on about the ways that we are unique, even though we're human and biology still applies. So the principles will still work. And so if you want to take this data and apply it directly to you, the easiest, fastest way to do that is to schedule a 15 minute rapid nutrition assessment with me, totally free call. It is not a sales pitch. We're just going to jump on a call and say, hey, what is the thing that's stopping you from results right now and what are three steps you can take immediately to start getting results over the next 90 days?

Philip Pape: 3:33

So let's talk about the framework today iterative design. Iterative as in to iterate, to repeat over and over until you achieve close to perfection, or at least you continue to optimize. It's just a methodology for designing, testing, evaluating and refining a system through multiple iterations, and the core idea is that you start with some idea of where you want to go. You then do it, you then see with whether what you did produce the outcome you wanted, and then you improve and you repeat and it sounds simple, right? It's like, oh okay, that's all I have to do, but let's break it down and we'll see why most people don't necessarily do this. And what is the slight difference? We're not slight, a profound difference we're talking about today. So let's just create a person John Doe, right?

Philip Pape: 4:21

The classic, anonymous individual who is 200 pounds and, yes, this is a male. But again, this is just an example. It can apply to any level of scale, weight, any level of body fat, any goal whatsoever, but we're focused on body composition on this podcast. So assume he's 200 pounds, 25% body fat, so a bit overweight, a little bit of weight to lose, probably not as strong, yet probably wants to lean out a bit, and his goal is to reach 180 pounds, right? So he wants to lose 20 pounds of fat to get to something around 12% body fat over two years. Here's how we're going to apply iterative design. Okay, the six phases. Phase one is the design. This is where you set a goal, you create a plan. Just know that it's going to change as you go along. But you've got to start somewhere and give yourself direction. So for John, he sets up a six-month iteration at the beginning where he is going to lose fat, and so within that six months he figures okay to lose fat.

Philip Pape: 5:23

I first need to figure out what my maintenance calories are, so I'm going to track my food and then at some point I'm going to go in a calorie deficit. Not sure exactly how much yet. Maybe it's 500 calories. So I can lose a pound a week. But we'll see. It depends on how I'm feeling, it depends on where my starting point is right, depends, depends, depends once we get there. But we come out with a rough plan a calorie deficit, a certain duration, let's say 16 weeks. For that first one, we're going to go for a 16 pound drop and I'm going to keep training with my current four day upper lower split right, very simple. But there are a lot of details under that we're not going to go to on this podcast. The point is you have a plan, a direction, a single goal, and you're not going to deviate from that. You're going to make that work, but you are going to adjust as you go along so that you can adhere to it.

Philip Pape: 6:13

Phase two implement. So don't spend too long in phase one designing the plan. It's literally on a piece of paper, scratching it out in a half hour, right, and if you've done this many times before, it might take five minutes. If you've never done it before, this is where please reach out to me so I can help you put this together, cause this is the piece that people often get stuck with is phase one, the design. So phase two is implement. You execute the plan.

Philip Pape: 6:37

John goes ahead and he does the thing. He tracks his food, he tracks his steps, he tracks his biofeedback and his measurements, and he's focused on progressive overload in the gym. He's tracking his food meticulously. I say meticulously but I mean he's doing it daily. He's not trying to hit the targets perfectly. He's trying to be in the ballpark, trying to get enough sleep, and he's just doing the things. He's not sure whether the things are going to get him the result he wants, yet he's not even sure whether he's in the right deficit, yet right. He's just doing what he thinks he needs to do.

Philip Pape: 7:08

Then that brings us to phase three, which is testing. Because you're tracking all the things, because you're tracking enough data body measurements, progress photos, strength progression, food energy levels, mood, appetite, all your biofeedback, anything. You need to measure the outcome. Because he's doing that, oh, scale weight as well, right, because he's doing that, he is going to be able to look back after two months, four months, six months and know whether the choices that he made and the behaviors that he took produced the outcomes he wanted. Even if he's not perfect, even if he doesn't adhere all the time, he knows that that level of adherence, that level of imperfection, that level of consistency or lack thereof, is what led to the outcome. And that is just data. It is not failure, it is not anything other than information.

Philip Pape: 7:58

Step four is the evaluation phase. Well, now you get to analyze the data. Now, of course, you could wait till six months later and say, oh, did I lose the 16 pounds of fat? Or? What I would recommend is, as you go along every day, every week, every month, depends on the data you're talking about. You continue to look at it. You just look at the data and say where is this trending Right, from a scale weight perspective, for example, a good time period is roughly three weeks and if you're using an app like macro factor, that is the timeframe that it uses to say Hmm, are you actually trending downward or not?

Philip Pape: 8:30

And if you're not, do we need to adjust your calorie deficit? And along the way, you would say okay, I am, I'm losing weight at the clip that I want. I'm getting enough of my fiber, but I'm feeling fatigued. What is going on? Maybe I'm not getting enough sleep, maybe I'm missing some other nutrient in my diet. Maybe I'm not hydrated enough. Maybe I'm working out too frequently?

Philip Pape: 8:53

Right, you're able to take all the data and correlate it and identify the thing that potentially is causing friction or roadblocks along the way. Right, and usually the more data you have, the easier it is to identify. When I work with clients and they check in, they are providing me a ton of data. Now, a lot of that data is automatically collected with wearables and stuff like that, uh, but some of it is manually entered, like their food log, and if, for example, they hit a plateau if you hit a weight loss plateau I can pretty quickly see what the issue might be.

Philip Pape: 9:27

It might just be something as simple as well. You're not in the deficit we wanted to be in and therefore you're not losing as quickly. But it could be something else. It could be a reduction in activity, it could be higher stress. There's so many little things. But once you have all the data, you can correlate it.

Philip Pape: 9:40

And again, here's where, the more you do this, the more you learn about yourself. And also this is where you could always reach out to someone like me or join our Facebook group and ask a question along the way. Here's my data, here are my screenshots, here's my context. I am stuck. Help me out. And guess what? Because you have all that data, people are going to be able to jump in and say, oh, I see this, this and this, and they can start asking you questions How's your, you know, how's your sleep, how's your training, how's your this, how's your that? Right, and they can then figure out with you together, like a, like a detective, what could be causing the inability to get the result you want, if it is not already obvious from the data. So that's step four is evaluating the data.

Philip Pape: 10:25

Step five is now. You just refine, right the plan. You refine the plan based on the data, and so what that looks like is after four weeks. If you hit a weight loss plateau, you might simply drop calories. It might be as simple as that. Or if your fatigue is climbing, maybe you have an extra recovery day. So you make refinements as you go. You don't just throw the whole thing out the baby with the bathwater, as they say and hop to a completely different program or a completely different plan, because you have the information and the clarity and the data. Wtf, what is going on? You know, okay, there's this one thing over here that could be the issue. I'm going to focus on that. I'm going to tweak that. I'm going to collect data. I'm going to go through this again. Okay, that's fine. Now I'm going to go to this thing over here and repeat. And so that's. The last phase is to repeat, to repeat everything you're doing in iterations and think of them as like micro iterations, macro iterations, long-term iterations, it doesn't matter. Basically, all the things you're doing on a daily, weekly, monthly basis are iterating. Now, over the big term, over the long term.

Philip Pape: 11:32

This two-year period for John, who wants to go from 200 to 180, his first six months might be a fat loss phase to lose 16 pounds, which gets him close to his goal weight, but not necessarily his body fat goal, because you can't just lose weight and you're done so. Then he says, okay, the next nine months now I'm going to plan a muscle building phase. Right Now he's going to pack on some weight back to his body, but a lot of it is going to be lean tissue, lean muscle mass. And then he's like okay, now I'm 15 months in, I've got five months left in my two year plan. The last five months I've given me one more, say mini cut, and then going back to maintenance, and now I've hit my 20 pounds loss and I'm at my body fat goal.

Philip Pape: 12:11

Now, whether going from 25 to 12 is reasonable or not, this was just an example and at the end of the day it doesn't really matter, because these are just numbers to drive behaviors. The goal isn't necessarily hit the exact number all the time. It's to make significant progress toward it, and that is kind of the way to think about. This is personal growth, self-improvement, always iterating, growing, learning and becoming becoming that athlete that you were always meant to be, and that's it. That's how I work with clients. All the time it's we, you know, um.

Philip Pape: 12:42

One of my clients asked recently so what exactly do I get for the investment? And I said you know, what you get for the investment is not just a result. Yes, you will get a result, which a lot of people are just struggling to get. The result at all Like if you're struggling to lose that last 10 pounds of fat and you work with me, we will lose the 10 pounds of fat. So if that's what you're looking for and that's enough, that 10 pounds of fat so if that's what you're looking for and that's enough, that's worth the investment. But beyond that, at least for me and my coaching practices, you will learn so much education, both uh, both in the sphere of nutrition and training, but more importantly, about you, about yourself and how to do this. So you can fire me and do it yourself forever. And I had lots of clients that went on to become nutrition coaches because they're like Holy crap, I just learned so much that I never knew before and that you know. Basically, you would learn through a nutrition certification program or even a college level program, and now I can take that forward, not just for myself but to help others, and I love to see when that happens. So my point with all of this is the goal isn't to hit a number, the goal isn't to lose weight. The goal is to learn about yourself and have a process for getting to any goal whenever you want.

Philip Pape: 13:54

So iterative design is a methodology that's powerful. It's simple, but it's powerful. It's not necessarily easy to implement. It takes effort, right, it takes effort, you have to be committed to it, um, but it allows for continual optimization and you'll never get to optimal. Optimal is like some perfect, um, impossible point out there in infinity. But you'll always get toward optimization for you, for your goal, instead of stubbornly sticking to one approach. You consistently evaluate your progress, you make data-driven adjustments and then you turn potential plateaus into opportunities for improvement. And that is the essence of sustained progress, sustainability over the long term. And it makes this whole thing lots of fun, at least in my opinion. And if you take anything away from this episode is the power of this approach lies in its adaptability, in how it evolves with you Over the two years of John's plan.

Philip Pape: 14:52

He didn't just blindly follow the plan from day one. He continuously assessed, adjusted, improved his approach, and then everything that other people think of as a failure is actually just a data point, so it doesn't just transform your body, does it. It reshapes your relationship with the ideas of fitness and nutrition and training Things that you relish, that you look forward to, that are part of your life, that are ingrained. You become a scientist of your own physique. You gain a deep understanding of how your body responds to different strategies. And then you develop skills skills to adapt and overcome any obstacle in your journey. So let's just recap, just in case I overwhelmed you a bit with all the phases here.

Philip Pape: 15:37

Number one iterative design is a principle based, powerful tool for long-term physique transformation long-term transformation of anything, but in this case we're talking about your physique. Number two we. There are six phases that provide a framework for continuous improvement in your training and nutrition over months, over years, over the rest of your life, and they are design, implement, test, evaluate, refine and repeat. Number three this approach leads to sustainable results because you adapt to your body's changing needs, whatever it needs at any moment in time. And then, finally, this mindset transforms how you view progress and setbacks not as failures but as opportunities.

Philip Pape: 16:24

If anything is worthy of careful engineering, of careful attention, it is your body. It's a complex system. Approach it with the same patience and persistence that you would if you were to get involved in a very intricate project, maybe something you've done for work in the past, or a hobby or something that you are meticulous craftsman at, or a craftswoman right? Maybe you are a woodworker, maybe you build things. Think about the amount of discipline and patience not discipline, but the patience and persistence. It actually becomes something that is what you do and you get better and better at it, right? You systematically engineer your way to something very impressive and it doesn't take that long when you do it that way.

Philip Pape: 17:07

So, again, if you're ready to apply this iterative design process to your own fitness journey, I'm offering free 15 minute rapid nutrition assessment calls. During this call, we map out your design and we tailor it to you and we give you some steps to take to start implementing. So, those first few phases of this process, I will give you the kick in the butt you need and get you going. No sales pitch, none of that, it's just. Here's the information, here are some resources. Usually I send you a helpful video or guide or resource out of the call by email and then you're good to go and you feel free to ask me questions and have at it and do it all on your own, or some people end up coming back and saying, hey, help me implement this specific to me so that I can get that result much more efficiently and, in many cases, much more quickly than just trying to randomly go at it.

Philip Pape: 17:53

Sometimes the difference between spinning your wheels and making progress is just having that strategy in place. And so let's connect, let's make sure you're on the right path for whatever your transformation is Maybe it's a fat loss phase, building muscle, body recomp, whatever it is. Until next time, keep using your wits, lifting those weights, and remember that your dream physique is not built overnight. It is engineered one iteration at a time. This is Philip Pape, and you've been listening to Wits and Weights. Talk to you next time.