Philip Pape 0:00

And as a coach, I have to get them to trust me, right? You have to get them to trust the process, collect the data, show them the feedback of how this is working over time. Hey, the scale weight's not moving, but how do you feel? And let's look at your web size. And by the way, your deadlift went up, you know, and you kind of have to shift the focus to uh performance and growth. And that usually works really well, um, except in rare cases, and then you have to get a little bit more, you know, deep into the emotional side of things. 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. Wits and weights community, welcome to another bonus episode of the Wits and Weights podcast. You never know when these are going to drop. They drop on a Monday, but you just never know when. So definitely follow or subscribe to the show to make sure you don't miss these little gems. This conversation is from my appearance on Lisa Franz's podcast, the Nutrition and Life Podcast, where we discuss the principles of strength training and nutrition for people over 40. And there's so much more in there. Just gotta listen all the way through. Lisa was also on my show back on episode 75, and that was titled How to End the Extreme Diet Cycle and Embrace Balance. So definitely check that out as well. Enjoy the episode.

SPEAKER_00 1:38

One of the things that really stood out to me as you were speaking, and also when I was doing a little bit of research beforehand was just the concept that you say self-mastery. For me, that 100% implies taking ownership of where you're at right now, but also self-improvement. I mean, we will probably never get to a point where we're like, oh, I'm a self, I'm a master of myself. I'm, you know, yeah, that's that's that just that place doesn't exist. But um, that journey towards that, that drive towards that. Um, I think if we as coaches can uh inspire that or install that thought and spark into other people, we have done a large part of our jobs. Um and uh the other thing that I saw when I was digging around a little bit was that you and I um have something in common, which is we have tried various uh diets in the past before we found our sweet spot, our place now that we are trying to um, I guess, hand over to our clients as well, or or basically teach them as well. So maybe you can talk a little bit about that time beforehand when you were going through, I don't know, Atkins or whatever it might have been, um, your struggles there and and how you're feeling now in comparison to that.

Philip Pape 3:01

Yeah, sure. I'd love to. I want to address the thing about mastery really quick that you talked about because I was listening to some other podcast and they were talking about how we always seek instant gratification. And of course, um instant gratification is easy, but uh the long term is you know, how do you how are you going to feel the day that you die? Like that is when you get the fulfillment, right? And this is a long game. And so when I think of mastery of anything, it takes time and it takes skills and it takes patience, but it pays off. It pays off in the end in anything, any pursuit, music, um, fitness, whatever. So I just wanted to touch on that um theme. And and that that segues into where I was beforehand, which is I was always looking for the quick fix or the diet or like the answer. And I never thought too far ahead. Or if I did, I said, I'll just figure it out. For example, and I'm sure the listener can relate to this. I've got to get in shape for XYZ event. Maybe it's a wedding. And so keto is the big thing right now. I'm gonna cut all carbs, and I can do it in the short term. And actually, keto is pretty good because I get to eat a lot of meat and eggs and this and that, so it'll be fine. And then you lose 20 pounds, and then now what? Right. And I could just eat like this forever, right? Or I can deprive and restrict forever, right? No, it doesn't work that way. We know that 95% of people gain all their weight back, and then some, and they gain a lot of fat in the process. So it wasn't it, it took decades for me to like say, enough, there's gotta be something that works. And with that engineering mind of mine, I said there's gotta be something that works, and started to discover resources, you know, like like what you're doing here of sharing the evidence and and and telling us how it actually works.

SPEAKER_00 4:40

That's awesome because yes, I mean, in the end, um the the principles of weight loss are actually really simple, as we know, right? Like calories in, calories out for the most part. Um, but of course, we're human, so we have emotions in there, we have certain cravings, and as you say, we're patient sometimes. For me, it wasn't always a thing of like a specific date or thing that I wanted to work towards um when I was doing various diets before landing here. Um, but it was still a little bit of a cycle, and the thing I struggled with the most was just that over-restriction and then other times feeling like I failed because I quote unquote overeat or a or ate things that I thought I wasn't allowed or whatever. And um, just finding the right approach now has given me so much mental freedom, so much more joy in life, really. Um, and I think that that is one of the beautiful things also that I can see with lots of clients when they're finally like, oh, you mean I am allowed to have a piece of cake, or I really ate a lot more yesterday. Um, should I like do an hour extra of cardio and maybe not eat at all today? I'm like, no. So yeah, it's beautiful when you can see the mindset slowly shifting into the right direction, I guess.

Philip Pape 6:04

Yeah, and you mentioned the word freedom. And if the irony is that the restrictive diets or even meal plans um that are given to you where you're not sort of learning to make those decisions yourself, the evidence has shown time and again, ever since the the early 90s, when they've conducted studies of that versus flexible dieting, that rigid control causes you eventually to lose control and to lose that power and develop eating disorders and all sorts of other things, not to mention gain a lot of weight and fail, so to speak. Whereas uh flexible dieting, right, that I know we both subscribe to and work with our clients on is you know, here's some targets, here's some things that uh you aim for in terms of energy and macros, but you've got the entire world of food to choose from, and we're gonna learn the skills to make that work. So you can still enjoy what you like. Obviously, you're not gonna have, you know, ho-hos and twinkies all day, every day, because you'll find that it won't satisfy your protein or your fiber, whatever your needs are, but it's like, how do we fuel? How do we meet the goal? Not, you know, eat this, not that.

SPEAKER_00 7:02

Yeah, absolutely. I couldn't agree more. Um, I have a different question for you. You mentioned earlier that you got into this reasonably quote unquote late. I mean, uh with 40 years of age. Um, and uh I'm I'm curious from your own perspective as well, but also with your clients, because of course some of the evidence says, oh, from the time we're 30 onwards, it's so much harder to build muscle. It's um like weight loss gets a lot harder, especially as women transition through menopause and so on. And um, I assume your clientele is kind of similar age as you are, potentially, or maybe a little bit older. What are your A experiences with that? Is it really so much harder, slower, whatever? And B, what are your main strategies to counter that?

Philip Pape 7:52

Yeah, I mean, if you ask any one of my clients who are women in their 40s or 50s, perimenopause or menopause, which is actually the majority of my clients, even though I also work with men in all ages, um, and and you ask them to tell you about how their deadlifts and squats have gone up so much than they started, how their waist has gone down, how they're feeling great, how they can eat more food than they ever eat before, um, you quickly dispel that notion. I've had a very few select number of clients who actually had an underlying hormonal imbalance that was causing a slowdown due to thyroid issues in their metabolism. So they weren't responding, or like when we take them into a diet, they would overadapt and we just had to deal with that. But the vast majority of issues are are due to a loss of muscle mass over time as we age. It's not your age, right? It's not even being a woman or a man or having certain hormones. Again, for 95% of people, it's that at our whole life we're sedentary, right? We don't load our muscles, we don't use our muscles. So we lose them. If you look like a cross-section of someone's thigh from the time they're 40 to the time they're 70, the circumference is the same, but the content becomes more and more fat and less and less muscle till there's no muscle left. So imagine what's happening to your ability to function as a human. Now you could reverse that and start building muscle and strength training very heavy weights at any age, even if you're 70, even if you're 80, and you'll you'll massively change the equation and change the trajectory of your life.

SPEAKER_00 9:19

Absolutely. I I totally agree with that. And um, I think uh not just that we're we're sedentary all of our lives, I actually think our activity decreases most of the time. Um in our 20s or 30s, perhaps people still like run after their children, they might have a busier work thing going on, and then of course, uh even more so when people retire. Um, yeah, okay, you this is like very broadly speaking, of course. Um, but it might just generally decrease. If I just think of my own grandparents, especially in my grand with my grandpa, for example. Um, uh one year it was, uh, okay, he's feeling a little bit dizzy when he's walking. Now he's he's not gonna go for his daily walks anymore. And the next uh year, because I only kind of visit home like once a year, sort of thing. The next year it was like, oh yeah, he used to play bowling every week, once a week for the last 50 years with his friends. Um, he fell once, he's not gonna go anymore. Now he like he hardly ever hardly even stands anymore. So of course, um, I mean, I'm I'm easy to speak, I'm not in his position, but he just less and less and less and less and less. And instead of trying to counter that, even more so. And I think um a lot of people have the perception as well, you become more fragile, so you shouldn't lift as heavy as you age. And that couldn't be further from the truth from what I have learned, and as you say, what the evidence is kind of showing as well. So I'm I'm curious um more specifically, like what are your main or favorite exercises that you like to incorporate into people's training programs? Uh and also um, do you have particular rep ranges that you like to keep them in, or does it really vary?

Philip Pape 11:09

Sure. If we're talking a beginner, which is the majority of people, and if you're listening and you say, no, I've been doing CrossFit for 10 years, or I've been going to the gym for 10 years, there's a good chance you're still a beginner when it comes to quote unquote proper or effective strength training, which I define as having a few factors. One is muscular tension. So this is found through heavy weights and getting close to failure. Another is progressive overload. This is the foundation of being able to actually grow, right? Every time you go to the gym, something is getting harder. It's either the weight or the reps or the sets or some combination. Um, and then being very efficient and using as much muscle as possible, which lets us select the right movements. So when you combine all of those requirements, you get the compound lifts, you get the big lifts, usually done with a barbell, but there's there's variance with dumbbells or cables. And of course, people of different um proficiencies and abilities may have to modify things. But I would say the squat, the deadlift, the overhead press, and the bench press, plus some pull-ups or chin-ups. If you had nothing else, that's going to get you 90% of the way there towards strength and muscle.

SPEAKER_00 12:19

Totally. Absolutely. I mean, the the big big compound lifts up we want to get the most bang for our buck in most cases. Um, I, from personal experience, I do have to say, I mean, I've been strength training pretty consistently for about 10 years now. And um, as silly as it sounds, uh I do feel like I am recovering more and more slowly. And I'm just I'm 33. So, you know, nonetheless, um I feel like I do need a bit more rest, or um, I need more isolation work versus compounds in some instances. So I have kind of like adapted my training program, or when people say, Oh, I'm not recovering so well, then I change it more to a little bit isolation work. Have you found uh similar things with some people that that are complaining of not recovering fast enough?

Philip Pape 13:10

Yes, it's very interesting. Um, most of my clients that come in who've worked out in some capacity, usually they're doing too much before we work together. It could be it could be the Peloton or the Orange Theory or you know, playing a lot of sports. And and I'm all for an active lifestyle. And if there's something you enjoy, it's it's great to incorporate that because that's there's a mental side of it. But you, of course, you have to balance your priorities. I find that switching to something like a three-day a week full-body program at the beginning is very easy to recover for for many of these people, actually. And it's only when the weights start getting heavier where you have to make modifications where when you're getting very strong, and that could be as early as three to six months in, where like, okay, now you can't deadlift every session or or twice a week, maybe it's once a week, and you alternate it with rows or pull-ups, or if you if you want to have some fun with Olympic lifts, you can do power cleans, it's different things like that. Um, the the isolation movements and the accessories come in, in my opinion, when you get to about six to 12 months in when you want to go to like a four-day split. And and the four-day split also helps with recovery because you're shortening the sessions, right? You're allowing for the different muscle groups to recover. Um, yeah, usually people are just doing too much other stuff, in my opinion, like cardio, or they're not sleeping enough, or they're not eating enough. People listening, you're not eating enough. Okay. Um, or they're trying, or they're not taking long enough rest periods, or they're doing too many sets. Like there's a lot of variables, as you know, uh, Lisa. And yeah, I see that with I see that with clients, but I would say a simple three day a week, big lifts, you're gonna recover from just fine for most people.

SPEAKER_00 14:48

Yeah, absolutely. Um, you you touched on something uh really good there, and that's the not eating enough. Um, another kind of uh big point or or something that we can read in much of the evidence is that protein actually becomes more and more important as we age. Um I have found it difficult enough, I guess, to get people in their 20s to eat enough protein. Um now, after a lot more years of having habits ingrained and all of that. Um how do you get people to switch their mindset around protein when when they're a little bit more resistant, or maybe they're you don't even they say they don't have enough appetite, they don't like chewing much, or like I don't know.

Philip Pape 15:34

Right. I mean, there's a combination of education and then behavior, right? And on the education side, we we learn about the benefit all the benefits of protein, the fact that it uh burns more calories when you digest it, that it fills you up, that when you have to eat a lot of protein, you tend to eat more whole foods. Um, and then most importantly, it's the only thing that you can use to build muscle, right? And we talk about fat fat loss and body composition. And hey, you want to you want to lose weight? Okay, let's change that mindset to really you're losing fat and you're changing your body composition and proteins to get there. So education is for one. And honestly, a lot of people who find me, they've like heard the podcast and it's been drawn to them from that point of view, and probably listen to on to yours, they can do the same. Uh, but then how do you do it? Right? Because I have most of my female clients come in eating like 40 grams of protein, okay? Maybe 40 to 60 grams of protein, and they might need 140, right? They may need closer to that 0.81 gram per pound. Um, we start slow, we baby step. Step one, just get protein whenever you eat, right? Step two, eat more during the day, right? Step three, let's track and and and compare that to the amount of protein you're getting, right? And then through all that, you discover where the roadblocks are, and it's usually like, well, how do I get enough protein? And then what do I eat for protein? And you know, and then you start to discover all the different wonderful ways you can get protein from plants and animals.

SPEAKER_00 16:57

Love it. Absolutely. And I assume you approach the point of doing too much and too much cardio from a similar angle in the sense of education and habits. So getting giving people the evidence of like, hey, you're you're saying you're wanting a defined body, your posture is crap, and you're not strong enough, but at the same time, you're all you're doing is um running a couple of miles a week. Is is is def is that kind of your approach?

Philip Pape 17:28

Um oh sorry, there's a connect, there's a little connection issue, Lisa. Okay, there. Um, yeah. So with when we get started right from the onboarding call, um, we talk about the importance of building and growing your body and fueling your body. And like um the goal of this is not to lose weight. That might be a thing that you want to do along the way. The goal is to feel your best and be happy and have that great feeling that that you may never have had before. Maybe you had it when you're younger, maybe not. And each of these things serves that, right? So whether it's strength training or not doing as much cardio or what have you. And as a coach, I have to get them to trust me, right? You have to get them to trust the process, collect the data, show them the feedback of how this is working over time. Hey, the scale weight's not moving, but how do you feel? And let's look at your work size, and by the way, your deadlift went up, you know, and you kind of have to shift the focus to uh performance and growth. And that usually works really well, um, except in rare cases, and then you have to get a little bit more, you know, deep into the emotional side of things.

SPEAKER_00 18:29

No, that's such a good point. Also pointing out, like, hey, you slept better, you had more energy on uh like even performance-wise at work, um, maybe like all these kinds of things, um definitely it makes makes a very big difference. Um, on top of the protein and the strength training, the two most important things when it comes to building muscle or retaining muscle, uh, do you have any particular supplements that you try to get most of your clients to take?

Philip Pape 18:58

I don't require supplements, of course, but I definitely recommend the big ones that I think the evidence supports. So I'm not going to be talking about ashwagandha or textarone or anything like that. It's a do you take a multivitamin? Do you take fish oil if you don't eat enough fatty fish? If you do eat enough fatty fish, you don't need fish oil. Uh, magnesium is a big one. I think that is um, most people on the planet don't get enough magnesium. Even from food, it's very hard in the modern supply to get it. And sometimes if you have sleep issues or migraines or you know, um issues that you think might be related to hormones, you never know how magnesium could maybe address some of those things. Uh creatine is big for performance. And then uh I feel like there's one more that I recommend uh probiotics.

SPEAKER_00 19:41

Yeah, yeah, okay, nice. And what about vitamin D? Is that something that you generally recommend, or is it more um individual based or you know, blood blood test based?

Philip Pape 19:53

Sorry, that the connection got poor again. What was the last question?

SPEAKER_00 19:56

My bad. Today I I have to admit, um here in Colombia, generally, I'm in the Capitol. So um generally in my apartment, the the connection is really good. But today I've had two power cuts and both of them, the first one was during another podcast recording, and the other one was during my group call. So I really apologize.

Philip Pape 20:17

You can edit it out or people can enjoy the back and forth. Either way.

SPEAKER_00 20:22

Um, I was uh asking about a vitamin D, if that's something, or or calcium for women or something like that, if that's something that you generally recommend.

Philip Pape 20:32

Yeah, and of course those go hand in hand using vitamin D and calcium. Uh, I mean, I'm trying to get people to walk a lot, go outside, get their vitamin D naturally and get it from food. Um, if if your blood work indicates it's low, then supplementation is is somewhat recommended. I'm a little bit equivocal on that, like ambivalent, because the evidence seems to be kind of in the middle, right? I don't want to be because you could easily overdo it with vitamin D. So I'm kind of on the fence about that one.

SPEAKER_00 20:58

Cool. No, absolutely. I um I'm on the on the same page, and I it really seems like you try to get people to do the basics, the most important things, the biggest movers, as opposed to trying to focus on the little things, as you mentioned, like the sleep, the training, the eating, especially protein, and you know, then the rest will kind of sprinkle in there. And with with with all your coaching, so from how I understand it, you mostly do training a little bit and nutrition um as well. I don't know if it's always for all clients, um, training and nutrition, but you mentioned yeah, it's I sure, sure.

Philip Pape 21:37

No, and and I I mean, I believe you can't have one without the other for optimal results. Um, I'm not a personal trainer in that I don't write custom programming, but I do offer form checks to all my clients. So I will write from day one, if they don't already have a program, which most of them don't, there's several that I I use or work with. They're either templates or other programmers' programs that I I respect. And then I do the Form checks and help them understand it and understand sets and reps and how to load their plates and all this stuff. And they can send me as many videos as they want. I will help with their form, which is really, really valuable in those first like month or two of training.

SPEAKER_00 22:12

Absolutely. I mean, it's the beauty of the internet, but at the same time that we can like work with people no matter where. But at the same time, sometimes you're like, oh, I often get the question with people starting out how much weight should I use for this exercise? I'm like, oh no, I like as much as I want to, I cannot tell you. I have literally no idea how what feels challenging to you or not. You know, we we try to work with either RPE or Reps and Reserve or like whatever percentage, or just I just try to get people to even get a feel for quote unquote challenging because sometimes they don't know all like I feel something. Yeah, but was it challenging? You know, uh I feel something. Yes, yes. Yeah, it's it's difficult to if you have never strength trained, it's difficult to understand what we really mean by oh, an RPE of eight. What the heck does that mean?

Philip Pape 23:06

Yeah, well, here's my secret to that. At least it like at least makes my job easier, but I believe it's also very effective for figuring that out for a client. Is all my initial programming that I prefer is sets of cross programming. So three sets of five. Oh, you actually asked about rep ranges earlier. And I tend to stick in the four to six rep range when you're beginner because that's just the sweet spot between um way too heavy to a level that you wouldn't quite be able to handle or understand, and way too light in that you're not using as much muscle mass. So um it might look like three sets of five squats, and then every time you squat, you're gonna increase the weight. That's it. Guess what? If you start too late on or is too light on the first session, eventually it'll be heavy if you do it that way.

SPEAKER_00 23:46

That's a really good point, just simply getting them to increase. Um, I of course, you know, at some stage there's gonna be a bit of a cap where you're not gonna be um increasing in every single exercise, every single workout at some stage. Um, but as a beginner, that's a really good way of just getting them to, oh, that was so hard. I couldn't even increase this week. And then you're like, oh, there you go. That means it was challenging.

Philip Pape 24:10

Yeah, and we and I we can have the conversation, it's more of even aspirational than that. And I say, look, you go in every week thinking I am not failing any reps. Like that is my goal to not fail a rep. So the first time a client asks me, what do I do if I fail a rep, I say, no, you're not gonna fail a rep. So what do we need to do to not fail a rep? And then we talk about things like the rest periods and not jumping too high in weight from session to session and eating enough and sleeping enough. And if you have all those dialed in, you should be able to go up some amount of weight for quite a while, you know, like three to six months before it starts the plateau. But then, like, take women, for example. Women tend to have better recoverability and volume uh ability than men on average. And so if three sets of five doesn't work, maybe five sets of three will work, and you can easily uh keep going up in weight that way. So those little tricks until you have to go to more of an intermediate uh program.

SPEAKER_00 25:01

Super cool. Yeah, I like that. I I never thought of it that way, but that's that's a really good one. Um, and then how in in all of that training, coaching, and and nutrition and so on, how do you sprinkle in those little bits of yeah, self-mastery, of mindset coaching, really? Or, you know, I don't like to use that word mindset so much because nowadays it's like, oh, what does that even mean? Everyone uses that word, but like, yeah, how do you how do you approach that with your clients?

Philip Pape 25:29

Yeah, and you're you're right about the word mindset because mindset, the technical definition is kind of what what you think about something or your perception, whereas, which is maybe distinct from emotion, right? There's like the emotional side, emotional fitness where we our emotions are what they are. Like we can't help that we are going to feel something about something. We can't like interrupt that before it happens. But what we can do is look at a situation, um, look at the consequence of the situation, and then go and figure out a strategy for the next time that happens, it's not going to occur to cause that emotion. So when we look at emotional eating, right? I'm not gonna, I'm not a therapist, I'm not gonna solve the trauma or anything that's under there necessarily. Um, I'm going to ask you, what are your what's your trigger, right? What is it a food? Um, is it a situation that's happening? Is it boredom? And we look at the trigger and then we say, okay, how do we take control of that before it becomes an issue? Is it getting food out of the house of a certain kind, you know, the trigger foods of the house? Is it talking to someone who's in your household who needs to support you in a different way? Uh is it planning ahead for that, you know, wedding, that party, that night out, that travel? Um, is it having personal food guidelines? Like I could go on, you know, and you know, you have probably a hundred strategies in your pocket that are let's stop making excuses and let's not blame the emotion, let's go work around it. And then when you work around it and you have success, magically the emotional side tends to start to heal. And that's what I love to see.

SPEAKER_00 26:58

Totally. I I love all these strategies, uh, especially the planning ahead. I will have to say, I do think for most people that makes a huge difference because then you are less inclined to let your emotions guide you. And it's not so much of like you come home and you're just ravenous and you want to grab anything that's inside, but you don't really feel like cooking. But no, no, no, you've planned ahead. There's already something in the crock pot, or you already have pre-logged your meals and you know, okay, after dinner, I'm not gonna have ice cream, but I'm just gonna have yogurt instead or whatever. Um, you just simply have to follow, well, simply quote unquote, still not that simple, but you know, you follow that as opposed to just saying, oh, what do I feel like right now? Because then we are definitely influenced by stress, by sadness, loneliness, frustration, anger, whatever it might be.

Philip Pape 27:51

Yeah, you hit it on the head when you said you it's you take the decision making away from the emotional point, right? That emotional context where all of a sudden the decision's not really a decision, it's kind of out of your control. Make the decision ahead of time. Um, one of my clients this week, you know, she had a breakthrough where we had been on an even distribution of calories, like most people, and uh occasionally we took diet, occasionally we would take a diet break. And she's like, you know, I'm really struggling. The weekends are getting harder and harder. As we get right toward the end of her fat loss phase, they said, Well, why don't we just increase the calories on the weekends or do some elsewhere? It's a very simple strategy, but we hadn't used it. And to her, it was like a huge light bulb. Oh, I can do that. Like that's that's gonna solve everything for me because my week is very routine and boring, and I'm busy and I don't think much about food. But weekends are where the trouble happens, and now we planned it with flexibility by increasing the calories there and reducing them elsewhere. I mean, there's just so many ways to slice it, but it comes down to planning and being in control, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 28:49

Yeah, I love it. And that's as you said, seemingly simple solution, but you probably gave her so much motivation back and so much like joy in the whole process, which is yeah, one of I guess one of the beauties of coaching, because you have that idea.

Philip Pape 29:04

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, when when she's like, Oh, now I have I have more flexibility. I mean, yeah, that's what this is all about. And I'm I'm sorry I didn't give you that idea like three weeks ago, but yeah, there we go.

SPEAKER_00 29:14

That's awesome.

Philip Pape 29:18

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.