When it comes to food and nutrition, there is a fine line between restriction and deprivation, and today I want to dive into how to make empowering choices that align with your goals without sacrificing the joy of eating. Welcome to the Wits and Weights podcast. I'm your host, philip Pape, and this twice a week podcast is dedicated to helping you achieve physical self-mastery by getting stronger, optimizing your nutrition and upgrading your body composition. We'll uncover science-backed strategies for movement, metabolism, muscle and mindset, with a skeptical eye on the fitness industry, so you can look and feel your absolute best. Let's dive right in. Welcome to another Quick Wits, your guide to punchier, smarter, healthier living.

I'm Philip Pape, and today we are tackling a topic that touches everyone's plate every time you eat and think about eating, and that is this balance between quote-unquote restriction and deprivation in nutrition. And I want to thank Haley Fountain, one of my recent podcast guests her episode will be coming out soon for opening my mind to this idea of the words that we use when we talk about restriction, or what we really mean, which possibly is deprivation, because it really comes down to choices. Right, how do we make choices that propel us forward toward our goals, but without leaving us feeling deprived, and I say it that way because we can just make any choice we want, willy-nilly, we can eat whatever we want. We can have no regard for what we eat and therefore not restrict or deprive ourselves, but it also doesn't help us meet our goals, just doing it without thought. So let's clarify the difference between restriction and deprivation, and in this case I'm going to use restriction as a more objective, moderate and even positive word, and that is setting boundaries, setting boundaries of restraint or whatever word we want to use, which, in this case, again, is restriction that align with your goals, your needs for your health, your lifestyle. This is a conscious choice to, for example, choose this food that has less sugar than this food, or this food that's a whole food versus this processed food. Or the big one that we do every day when we're tracking our calories and macros is to choose sufficient protein and sufficient carbs from the things that we eat so that they more or less get close and in the ballpark of those macros, and we are therefore restricting the quote, unquote calories or the macros, but not what we eat. So it's really about saying yes to what serves you and letting that crowd out the things that do not right, and we've talked about that framework before. This additive nutrition and this is within a compass that still allows pleasure, still allows satisfaction from eating, and I'll tell you what I'd have to have that in my life, because I'm a huge foodie, I love food, I love the taste of food, I love making food, I love smelling food, and so it's gotta be a fun experience for me as well as helping me meet my goals. So that's a positive spin on restriction.

Deprivation, on the other hand, is when the restrictions become punitive, they become negative, they become against you, who you are, your values, your goals, your choices. It's cutting out entire food groups, cutting out carbs, never indulging in a treat, eating in a way that's misaligned with what your body is telling you from a digestive standpoint, from a hunger standpoint, from a recovery and energy standpoint, and that this is the deprivation that a lot of people think of as restriction, but it's an extreme form that leads to the negative relationship many of us have with food, where guilt rather than guidance rules every little choice you make for your meals. Oftentimes it doesn't even feel like a choice. So that is where flexible dieting comes in. We think about restricting the amount we eat and the macros we eat consciously and positively, but not restricting what we eat to serve those guidelines. So this is where being flexible, enjoying the food you like, but doing so in moderation the classic phrase which actually does hold and have a lot of truth so that you don't feel deprived and then you don't binge because you feel like you're going against yourself.

When we choose nutrient-dense foods most of the time, but still allow in some of the less nutritious foods that you love in moderation, you are nourishing your body 95% of the time and the rest of it it's the enjoyment of the food and, from a psychological standpoint, that can be beneficial. It's tuning into your hunger and fullness cues eating when you're hungry, stopping when you're full and then giving yourself the permission to just enjoy the food without overthinking it, because you're listening to your body and instead of viewing foods as I can't have it or this is off limits, how do they fit into your diet, right? It's not about not having cake ever again. It's choosing when you're going to eat it and how much, and maybe a really good, high quality cake that you've made at home, rather than the store-bought cake, things like that. And then, finally, when you do indulge, I want you to savor it without any guilt at all, because guilt just turns these little pleasures of food into a source of stress, and that undermines your relationship with the food but also, even more importantly, with yourself.

So remember that nutrition is not just about fueling our bodies, even though I talk about that a lot. It's also about enriching our experience, whether that's social or the preparation of food, or cultural. And if we embrace that positive restriction in a healthy, balanced way, I think, then it lets us make the choices that support our goals without succumbing to the pitfalls of deprivation. Right, we nourish our bodies, but we also savor our meals, and we walk the line between discipline and pleasure, let's say, and we do it with confidence. Right, we do it with confidence and clarity. So I want you to eat well, live well and thrive. Thank you for tuning in to another episode of Wits and Weights. If you found value in today's episode and know someone else who's looking to level up their wits or weights, please take a moment to share this episode with them and make sure to hit the follow button in your podcast platform right now to catch the next episode. Until then, stay strong.