Optimizing Nutrition for Powerlifting Meets

Philip Pape 0:00

Today we are answering two questions from the community . One from a powerlifter who has the dilemma of trying to maintain strength for some upcoming meats , but without gaining too much fat and a long time . Food tracker's concerns about taking a break from logging and worried about regaining all the weight Tune in today for advice on optimizing nutrition , both for performance and for long term sustainability . 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 . Hello and welcome to the special weekend Q&A edition of the Wits and Weights podcast , where we supercharge your Saturdays and Sundays with an answer to one burning question so you can put it into action this weekend . These questions are taken from the weekly Ask Philip thread in our free Wits and Waits Facebook community . If you're feeling overwhelmed by the endless amount of information and , let's be honest , misinformation online , and just want a straight up answer without the jargon , that's what this free service is for . With the weekly Ask Philip thread . You can post a specific question relevant to your unique individual situation that week and have it answered live by me on Friday . If you'd like to experience it yourself , I invite you to use the link in the show notes to join the Wits and Waits Facebook group . It's totally free and you'll quickly find out what a positive and supportive community it is .

Philip Pape 1:50

With that , let's get to today's Q&A . Let's jump in . So the first question is from John Roy , who recently joined the group and his question is pretty cool , right . So , following up from my question last week about body recomposition , with more context , I have a powerlifting meet in six weeks , then another nine weeks after , so two powerlifting meets in close proximity . Currently I'm 200 pounds , 38 inch waist , body fat 22 to 26% . I would like to avoid a cut to keep my strength up . However , being in a gaining phase , I feel the percent of weight I'm adding is more fat than muscle , given my pants slash lifting belts are getting tighter . Let me address that really quickly so I don't forget Just the way you worded that . I want to just make sure we're framing it the best way here . So I feel the percent of weight I'm adding is more fat than muscle , given my pants are getting tighter .

Philip Pape 2:44

So one thing is when you are gaining to gain muscle , no matter what , you're going to gain some fat and for most people it's like 50% . For a more advanced trainer it might be two thirds . So it's almost like stating the obvious , not not , I'm not trying to , it's not trying to insult you in any way , but going forward , it's like stating the obvious . To say you're gaining more fat than muscle , cause that is what's happening . Um , to burst your bubble , mainly if you think it's going to be a lot more muscle , but I think you know that's not the case . So your waist size is going to go up even while you're also gaining muscle . So my point is if you're gaining at the optimal rate and if , for you , that optimal rate gets you like two thirds fat , one third muscle , like that's great because you're still gaining muscle , but you're going to gain all that fat in the process . So I just want to be clear for people watching or listening that just because your pants are getting tighter doesn't mean you're gaining more fat than you should be . It's just an indication that you are gaining fat , which is expected . Okay Now , in the training that I'm doing today , or if you're listening to this , if I have this on the podcast , we already had it .

Philip Pape 3:52

But the muscle building training , I'm talking about rates of gain , and so you can compare that to what you're actually doing to see if that's the case . Okay , I just wanted to address that . Continuing with your question , this is why I'm interested in a re-comp , right , so that's building muscle , losing fat at the same time , rather than a cut or bulk phase . At the moment , though I'm not scared of adding body fat , I did spend most of 2022 and three to four months of 2023 losing weight and personally , would like to avoid another cut until possibly the summer . Man , I hear you . I would love to avoid cuts altogether . Avoid cuts altogether . I'm in a cut right now . I'm in my fourth week and it's fine . You know I've done these before , but you know it's so much more fun to be well-fed , isn't it ? Especially if you're a strength athlete .

Philip Pape 4:39

I track my food Maintenance . Calories are 2940 . Macros are 215 protein , 337 carbs , 82 fat . Okay , sounds about right . In fact , I would say that that is at 200 pounds . That's maybe even slightly more protein than you technically need . Given this snapshot , what would your recommendation be for what kind of nutrition phase I should be in for my two meats . Okay , so in six weeks and nine weeks , a big thing you left out of here is your weight class , right . So I don't know what weight class you are .

Philip Pape 5:03

My opinion when it comes to powerlifting meets and I'm not a competitor myself , but I've coached people and definitely understand the mechanics of it is you want to be as well fed and recovered as possible going into the meet , right ? The challenge is there's a weight class . So if you're already pushing the limit of the weight class , you can't gain anymore . So worst , best case , you would maintain maintenance . You're already in the weight class . If you need to cut to get in the weight class , I would do it sooner than later , unless you want to play the game of the water cut and all of that . I mean the , the , the power lifting um associations are effectively set up to incentivize that . Unfortunately , right , other than the um starting strength , they do their strength meets right , because there they have the . It's like a same day weigh-in , but when you have a 24-hour weigh-in you could definitely do a quick cut . That's not really going to affect your performance , but that's like playing games with the system If you're just doing this for lifestyle and you want to have the best , most enjoyable approach to it all , I would want to be well-fed as much as possible , and that includes even potentially gaining weight into the meat , if it keeps you in the weight class right when you compete and doesn't affect your leverages too much .

Philip Pape 6:15

If you're the type of person whose deadlift is actually higher when you're a little bit lighter , you would know that about yourself , but for some people it pushes the squat a lot , it doesn't affect the deadlift a lot , so then you get well fed for that . Also , having the bigger belly , bigger chest can help with the leverages on the bench press when you have an excessive arch and you play those games . Anyway , again , I'm not a powerlifting expert , but your question is what nutrition phase you'd be in . It's going to depend on your weight class . If you want to maintain let's say you're right at the limit and you just want to maintain I would do that . I wouldn't go into a deficit . That's what you're getting at , unless you need to cut . So I would stay at maintenance .

Philip Pape 6:56

I would do it precisely so , since you're tracking , you'll know exactly what your macros are . I would prioritize the protein and carbs , which protein is not an issue for you . You are . You weigh 200 pounds and you're getting 215 because you're at at least maintenance . You could cut the protein down to like 200 or even like 180 and give more of that to carbs or even fats .

Philip Pape 7:16

Right , because of all the glycogen and energy you're going to get for um , for the training . You know we're talking about the , the lactic , uh , what's it called ? The lactic pathway of energy or the glycolytic pathway , where that burst of energy you get when you're just trying to push that one RM ? Um , the more carbs you have , the better . That . That's my opinion on that . So you could experiment with that a little bit .

Philip Pape 7:38

Um , body composition and all that I mean you mentioned you don't want to get fatter , right , at this point you already know that your waist size has been getting bigger . So if you go back to maintenance , everything should just hold . You can take measurements if you want , but what's going to happen is at maintenance . Are you going to experience some body recomp ? If you're an advanced lifter who's been building muscle for a while ? Not much at all . I'm just going to be honest . Not much at all . It's great for newbies , or if you haven't been training for very long , but it seems like you have been right . So you're not going to get much at all . And I wouldn't go to maintenance for body recomp . I would just do it because you don't want to gain more weight and or to keep you in the weight class .

Philip Pape 8:17

Make sense Recovery like just get a lot of sleep right , keep that stress down , don't take on new things in your life as you get to the meats . Just keep it easy , right , eat . Now . The only other thing that comes to mind is if you want to do any calorie cycling , for , like 90% of people , I don't recommend it . I'd rather just the simplicity of distributed calories . Your body gets used to the predictability of it all . You don't take away from your recovery days when you do that . However , if you find that as you lead up to the meets and you're testing your triples , doubles and one RMs and you can stack a whole bunch more carbs to either the night before a morning training session or right before the training session , like an hour or two before , and see if that helps your performance , I'm cool doing that as well , in which case your other days would come down a little to keep everything in maintenance All right . And then there's hydration , there's supplements creatine like you should be doing all the stuff you need to do there , okay . So I think that answers your question . I definitely like maintenance . If the weight class is not an issue , all right .

Philip Pape 9:26

Our second question is from Valerie . She says I'm thinking of pausing on tracking food intake . I've been using Macrofactor for the past six months and lost about seven pounds . So really good job there . Six months , seven pounds is a nice , reasonable rate of loss , which implies you've been in a pretty conservative deficit . In fact , if I were to do the math , what does that come out to be ? We're going to say roughly a pound a month , so roughly a quarter pound a week , which is about 100 something calories a day right , 125 calories a day deficit , which has been a slight deficit . So that's good . That's what I would do for that kind of drawn out fat loss phase .

Philip Pape 10:09

I was hoping for more , but I can feel my adherence slipping , so I think I need a break . Before that , I used MyFitnessPal for 10 years to track food intake . It worked for a while , but I had issues with tracking accurately after a while . I haven't been completely free of tracking in a long time and I'm afraid I'll put on weight if I stop Do long time and I'm afraid I'll put on weight if I stop . Do you have any advice on how to approach this new phase ? I'm going to maintain my protein intake now that I have a better idea of what I need daily and how to attain it , and obviously continue my regular workouts . What's going to happen to me ? Sweaty emoji , okay , so a few things here . When you say your adherence , you feel your adherence slipping . That right there , the red flag to me , right

Diet Break and Tracking Strategies

Philip Pape 10:44

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Philip Pape 10:44

If you're a client , I would very quickly consider going into a diet break , which would be stop dieting and go to maintenance . Now , is it the tracking that's stressing you out , or is it the fact that you're dieting ? I would want to kind of remove each variable from the stress on your body and see what happens . So , for example , step one would be stop dieting , go to maintenance , keep tracking while at maintenance so you know your maintenance . Which macro factor lets you do that easily ? My fitness pal wouldn't have a clue , right ? Macro factor knows your expenditure so you can come up to immediately recover to your current maintenance . Set it to maintain and allow that recovery to happen . Allow your metabolism to recover your hormones , to recover right , you might have a couple of pounds that you gain initially from water weight .

Philip Pape 11:29

It's not fat . I did a whole training , a whole podcast , about maintaining your results , maintaining your lean physique , so if you need me to throw that to you , I can . It wasn't that long ago . So just kind of look for like how to maintain your lean physique . We can find it together , and you might find that the energy , the mood , the recovery that you get from having the extra calories is just what you needed for the psychological relief that you were interpreting as an adherence problem , because adherence really comes down to is it sustainable ? And fat loss is not sustainable for the long term . It can be sustainable in the short term , though , and the way you've done it is very sustainable because you've done it for six months , right , you've been tracking , you've done it at a reasonable pace and now you're ready for a break , and , honestly , six months is a long time to die . Most of my clients will die at most for four months before they take a break , and those breaks can be months long . So , yeah , that's step one . I would take a break to maintenance while tracking to see how you feel , because you might find that when you're in maintenance , like , hey , this is cool , I actually want to keep tracking because it helps me understand how to dial in my maintenance as my metabolism recovers this way , so your metabolism should recover .

Philip Pape 12:40

Now . If , of course , you find that tracking yourself is making you neurotic , obsessive or whatever , my second step would be again , if I were your coach , I would say , like , how are you tracking ? Are you making it harder on yourself than it needs to be ? For example , are you logging every little ingredient in your salad , every little ingredient in your stir fry , as opposed to just logging the main ingredients or logging a common food , right ? Are you trying to get super precise with restaurant food as opposed to just estimating ? Are you trying to track when you go on trips and stuff , when maybe you should just not track during those periods ? There's a lot of things that make oh geez , okay , I hope I didn't lose my mic . There's a lot of things that make tracking Okay , it looks like my Pardon me . It looks like my audio changed Microphone . No , it looks like it's still working . Okay , there's a lot of things that make tracking itself sustainable or not . Does that make sense ? So I would want to see if the way you're tracking can be more sustainable , because I'm a huge advocate of tracking , you know if it helps you get to your goals .

Philip Pape 13:42

Option three so once you've gone to maintenance , once you've addressed your actual methods of tracking would be if you still feel like no , this is just too stressful , I just need a break from tracking . Altogether Awesome , like the fact that you've been tracking has given you knowledge of where you need to be intuitively with your hunger signals , with the foods you pick , with your protein , like you said here . You said I'm going to maintain my protein now that I have a better idea of what I need daily . Like if you just repeat how you've been eating most of the time and you don't go completely in a different direction , yeah , you should be able to maintain your weight for months and years and you know if it drifts , it's going to drift very slowly and you're going to notice it right , and you'll easily be able to just change a behavior or two and you could always go back to tracking . So don't stress , I would go to maintenance while tracking . I would recover . Then I would look at your tracking methods , make them more sustainable and then , if you still don't want to track . I think you could do it intuitively because you've been tracking , but do it after you go to maintenance so that you know generally what to eat to stay in maintenance , all right , so I hope that helps . Everything else you're doing . It's awesome , the workouts , all that good stuff .

Philip Pape 14:48

That's it for today's weekend Q&A bonus episode . Remember this is just a small part of the weekly Ask Philip live Q&A in the Wits and Weights Facebook group , which you can join totally free using the link in the show notes . I invite you to join us as we improve our health and physique together . 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 .