I continue to be inspired and encouraged by the compassion, the curiosity, the positive human energy, by the 1000s that are out there who just want to improve themselves. They just want to improve, so they can show up for their families, for their careers for their friends, for their loved ones, and of course themselves. Welcome to the Wits & 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 will 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 & Weights community Welcome to a very special solo episode of the Wits & Weights podcast. Why is it so special because this is episode 100. And it's going to be epic. Today you're in for a special treat, because I will be covering not just one topic, but five topics taken from lessons that I've learned since publishing the very first episode of Wits & Weights on November 2 2021, almost two years ago. Before we get into all of that excitement, I have an important announcement. To celebrate 100 episodes of the podcast, I am doing a one on one coaching giveaway for my very popular six month coaching program exclusive to listeners of the podcast. So here's what you get, you get an extra month of coaching. So that's seven months for the price of six, you get a free tub of protein powder of your choice from first form, and a full year subscription to macro factor. To apply just use the link in my show notes to apply for coaching. And enter the code episode 100. All one word, that's episode 100. Everyone who mentions the code is guaranteed to qualify for this promotion. So if you're ready to invest in yourself, and you've just been waiting for the right time, this is as good as it gets. Because I only run promotions maybe twice a year maybe. And I've never given away supplements before. So now is the time to go all in on your health and physique so you can finally look like you lift. Okay, today for episode 100. The top five lessons from 100 episodes of the Wits &. Weights podcast, we're going to uncover five of the most important and recurring themes related to evidence based nutrition training and mindset that come up on the show. And you as the listener are always asking to learn more about I will also mention three episodes related to each lesson. So if you want to check out past episodes from our catalogue of, of 99 before this one, and I'll give you my current thoughts and strategies on each of these topics, with of course some takeaways as always, because it is the big 100 I did want to share before we get into those topics, some recent five star reviews, five star reviews from listeners that listen to the show that follow that reached out that took the time. And he's really stuck out at me because they demonstrate why this show even exists, and why I keep making new episodes for all of the incredible listeners like you who are out there. And the first review is from love before 100 information I didn't know I needed super helpful. Philip is informative and very easy to listen to. As someone working with a trainer and coach. I just do what they tell me but it's nice to understand exactly what and why I'm doing it helps to stay motivated to keep going. Thank you. Well thank you love before 100 Because I do strive to explain why we do certain things and I'm glad that it helped you with your training. The next review is from let's see T JAL Britton just what I needed no nonsense, practical real life advice for anyone who struggles with creating a lifestyle that fosters healthy eating and exercise habits. Phillip is the real deal. Really appreciate that one. Thank you. The next one is from moms overcoming overwhelm, a sustainable approach to fitness and nutrition. Philips passion for his work shines through in every episode, his explanation of periodized your nutrition to focus on your goals, rather than restriction was eye opening for me. He's knowledgeable, personable and wants his community to succeed. I can't wait to learn more from him sincerely, Emily. This really means a lot to me because you pulled out very specific things that I'm trying to get across with periodization and avoiding restriction and how important it is to have our community and so love that you are getting that from the show Emily and the last one is new work are nowhere educational, straightforward eye opening. All right, this one's a long one. But I really it really meant a lot to me because of the detail and thoughtfulness of it. Philip delivers health and wellness material in an organized unintimidating direct approach. His advice is simple to understand, and he has a way of hitting all the points for everyone, both men and women, overweight and athletic, beginner and novice. My biggest takeaways are switching to compound lifting progressive overload, eat more protein than you can imagine and find ways to move 10,000 steps each day, including not under estimating the power of walks. I especially love his solo episodes with basic concepts, because he's a very good teacher and lays it out. Well. I've binged mostly all of his episodes and have such a better outlook on getting in shape, which I thought was hit style boot camps and calorie restricting. Phillip clears up the misconceptions and inspires you to be smarter and happier while trying to be healthier. Side note, a for podcast sound quality, and for getting straight to the point without political current events, fluff in between. Thanks for such a quality podcast. I will just leave that there because I thought that was beautiful. I really am glad that all of the listeners are taking something from the show. It's what podcasting has done for me as a listener, and why I created the show, and why I'm just so grateful to get to this 100th episode, and it's just the first 100 of many, many to come. So without further ado, let's dive into the top five lessons from 100 episodes of the Wits &. Weights, podcast. Here we go. When I started this podcast back in November 2021, I had no idea whatsoever how far I could take it, how it would evolve, or even if anyone would listen to it. And then as the emails and messages started pouring in about how the show would help someone learn about their body, finally improve their health or their physique, or understand why their coach or trainer was telling them to do something, or just having the knowledge, the knowledge, the confidence to optimize their lifting in their nutrition. I continue to be inspired and encouraged by the compassion, the curiosity, the positive human energy, by the 1000s that are out there who just want to improve themselves, they just want to improve. So they can show up for their families, for their careers for their friends for their loved ones, and of course themselves. And it was very difficult to pick five lessons from the first 100 episodes. So I did my best to draw out the big but highly relevant themes that will both motivate you, but also give you a practical place to start learning and growing. Whether you just found the podcast for the first time with this episode, or if you've been a longtime listener. And then for each lesson, I'll share what I've learned that I also use with myself with clients. I'll give you three episodes to check out that touch on different areas of the lesson, and the actionable takeaway. So let's jump into lesson one. First lesson, energy availability is even more important than you think. Alright, so there's a concept called energy flux. energy flux is this state where both your intake and your expenditure are high, both of them are high. And this is beneficial for muscle growth, fat loss, overall metabolic health. And more of my focus on this podcast lately, you've probably noticed, and also with clients is on increasing energy availability and energy flux. Rather than restricting even when we're in a fat loss phase, I want fallows to be as easy as quick as possible as painless as possible. I don't want us to have to take breaks or use refeeds or anything like that. And so keeping your energy high, your metabolic stack your stress load low, keeping that up is a good way to do that. And it becomes even more critical for men and women over 40 Because of hormonal changes, the gradual loss of of muscle and bone density that might have occurred because of your lifestyle over the years, let's be honest, I'm in that camp as well, because I didn't really get lifting until I was almost 40 The change in your connective tissue, your ability to recover all of those things. So the the lesson is that rather than focus on cutting calories, or what kind of deficit you need to be in, let's focus on increasing energy on having more energy. And for many people, this means living most of the year, not in a deficit. My goal for you and my goal with clients is we're going to get through that fat loss phase pretty quickly and we're going to get you where you need to be leanness wise. And unless you're a competitor and you're trying to be staged, lean, for example, you know, you're gonna get to a point where you've probably never been before you're gonna be happy with your physique or at least much happier than when you started right. And we want to then go back into a well fed a high energy state and live there for six 912 months before we do another cut and get into this cycle where over an entire year you may be in a diet at most for six to eight weeks. That's kind of The goal, right, and there are several episodes that we've done that touch on this topic and I wanted to actually share. Let's say I'm going to, there's three I said I would share three episodes. So the three I'm going to select for you are as follows. Going back to Episode 58 was the first time Brandon Cruz was on the show. So episode 58 is titled, using high energy flux to eat more burn more fat and build more muscle with Brandon to cruise. And that's a good way to jump right to to understand what energy flux is all about. And Brandon is definitely a master of throwing in tons of practical strategies to use there. I learned a lot from that episode, and I'm sure the listeners did as well. The second episode is number 76 Episode 76 diet breaks energy flux, plant based protein and dieting psychology with Eric Trexler. And this we do cover energy flux in there specifically and then some other topics related to dieting and dieting psychology. And then a more recent episode would be episode 86 Energy workout nutrition and performance based strength for women over 40 with Steph Gaudreau. So Steph is well known in the fitness pays for space for focusing on strength and fueling your performance and not restricting. And pretty much all the clients she works with are in that category and not necessarily trying to lose weight. Although one of the pleasant side effects of any increase in your energy availability and your energy flux and perform and improving your strength and performance is that your body just tends to suck up more energy and require more energy. And therefore you need to eat more. And when that happens, you find out that if you want to go into fat loss, it's super easy in relative terms. So those are the three episodes, check out episode 5876 and 86. The big takeaway for this lesson, focus on increasing your expenditure. Don't focus on restricting or cutting, focus on increasing your expenditure through your training, right building muscle training hard training heavy, your movement, keeping your stuff count high, your nutrition, keeping a high protein, well balanced, mostly whole food diet and your lifestyle. Meaning keeping your stress down keeping your sleep high things like that. You want to build muscle to increase your expenditure for the long haul. Because muscle is metabolically active, it's very expensive tissue. You want to have an active lifestyle with lots of steps anywhere from, I'll say eight to 12,000 is a good number to shoot for eat sufficient protein to build and preserve muscle. Eat your carbs, for energy for performance, to spare your muscle tissue for recovery. And because they're delicious, and minimize stressors like poor sleep and too much cardio if you're listening to me too much cardio is a stressor and give your body the chance to build metabolic resilience, which then ultimately allows you to eat more and lose fat more easily. Isn't that what we want? Okay, lesson two. Evidence doesn't always mean science. Evidence doesn't always mean science. One of the valuable lessons I've learned coming from a skeptical perspective, right, that's the premise of the show is skepticism of the fitness industry. And evidence based nutrition, which I am a huge advocate of with my clients is that there is a hierarchy of evidence. And I don't know where I was first exposed to this concept, but I definitely it was reinforced in Alan Aragon's book called flexible dieting it came out I think, just last year might have been two years ago. And we had Alan on the show as well. really generous, super sweet, nice guy. That's, that's why I'd put it just just a really kind soul, who also is very smart and cares, and has a reasonable approach to this whole thing like a reasonable, flexible, sustainable approach. And he talks about the hierarchy of evidence in his book, and the way it goes is that the higher quality information you get, the more you can use it to sort of backup your claims. But at the same time, there are different levels of that hierarchy that all have to be accounted for. So I don't know if I stated that quite clearly enough, but I'm gonna go from the, what we'll call the highest quality kind of scientific information all the way to not what I'll call the lowest quality, but you'll see what I'm getting at. It's sort of the one that everybody dismisses, and yet I think it could have the most powerful effect on the individual. So the highest at the highest level, the hierarchy is systematic reviews, and meta analyses. So this is where they study multiple results for multiple papers, usually all of them having been randomized controlled trials, but potentially other types of studies like observational studies, and they look for the patterns across studies. And it's kind of like weeding out and filtering out and averaging out all the air and all the outliers from all those studies. So if you can find something like that, it tends to be a pretty strong bet. back up for whatever the claim might be. Next down on the list would be randomized controlled trials right? Now, I don't claim to be somebody that's very much into the methodology behind studies, I do have a PhD, I did have to go through the dissertation process and understand a little bit of this, I tend to be the type of person who takes the information does my best to understand it, validates it against good sources, who also make those claims. And also tend to work with my clients and myself to make sure that it works and and give you the prescriptive way to apply it. That's my preference when I do this podcast is, here's how to do something step 123. I may or may not always back it up with the science, right? I sometimes I try to sometimes I don't at the end of the day it is it does come from that place of a genuine attempt to back it up with with what the evidence supports. Okay. So anyways, randomized controlled trials where you have control groups and experimental groups, they are that are random, randomized, and they're controlled. So there you go. Next, we have observational studies, which would be for example, if people had certain lifestyles for 20 years, and then at the end of that 20 years, you know, you haven't been studying them, but you send them a survey and you collect all this information over the last 20 years. And you observe how all the variables interact and try to elucidate cause and effect or at least correlation. Cause cause and effect is very difficult, unless it's longitudinal, right, unless you follow something over time. So that would be the next level. Then we have anecdotes and the media, okay. And this is where we get into the fuzzy gray area gray area of you've got bro science, you've got fitness influencers, you've got folks like me who are just, you know, you you get to a certain level of trust for people because what they say seems to correlate with what you what you've observed works. But in many cases, the hucksters and the charlatans are the loudest voices. And they're also have the biggest conflicts of interest. And so it's kind of trying to tease all of that apart, like I have a conflict of interest in that I am a coach. And so a lot of what I do is to give you as much information to improve your health and nutrition as you can, knowing that you may also want to hire me to help you do that. But I feel like that's an aligned conflict of interest, if you will, versus somebody who is being funded by a supplement company to pitch a certain type of training program where there's not really an alignment between them. And then they hide the fact that the supplement program company is funding them, right. Or the whole carnivore diet, fiasco with with what says Paul Saladino and the liver King and all that stuff, right? Where there, there are so many massive conflicts of interest. And there's just falsehoods like, you know, the fact that he didn't use PDS, but he did things like that. So you really have to be careful in this part of the evidence. And then we get to N equals one, what is that, that's you or me, no matter how many things I tell you are backed up by the evidence, no matter how prescriptive I get, if you follow exactly what I'm telling you in a podcast, and it doesn't work for you. Don't immediately blame me, please. It could be that what I'm telling you works for most of the population, and you're an outlier, we are all outliers in certain parts of our lives. And whether it comes to training volume, how many carbs you need, or want, or can tolerate, how you respond to a deficit, your hormones, and I can go on and on. And so N equals one is the idea that there is a sample size of one, that's you, and is sample size. And nobody's going to know you better than you, your body, your biofeedback, how you respond to things, your tolerances, your allergies, whatever. And when you take all the evidence, and you start applying it to your life, and if your feedback tells you, this is not working for you, and you're sure that you've just done everything the way you thought it was supposed to work, then that's telling you something to that's evidence as well. And I don't think you should discount that. I think in fact, that could be the most powerful evidence. And if you're working with a coach, like if you're working with me, you tell me that you will tell me that you'll say, Look, this suggestion you gave me is just not working, what the heck, what do I do? And then I'll say, okay, something is different here, something's going on. Let's, let's go through the checklist. And let's go through the data. And let's most importantly, understand you. And when you do this over time, and you know yourself better than anyone, or again, if you're working with a coach who tends to understand you and your idiosyncrasies, and how you respond. That's where the magic starts to happen, because then you can tweak things that deviate from the quote unquote science, but are actually the best evidence for how it works for you. So maybe a long winded way to say that we should combine science and research with self awareness. And actually, I'm going to attribute some of this to my friend and client Alan Friedman, who was also on the podcast, because he said something to me in a message. Not long ago, he said that, while the podcast is full of structure with science based recommendations and insight, in addition to that, we have layers of intuition. We have self acceptance for what life gives us along the way. In fact, Alan said recently reminded me that the obstacle is the way, right, that obstacles in our way don't aren't always roadblocks, they could be part of the path. And so we accept these things, we acknowledge them. And then we check in with both our physical and mental status as we move forward. And all of these grounds us in the true cornucopia of evidence, if you will. Another piece of this is skepticism. And when I talk about skepticism, it's not just questioning everything that comes at you. It's questioning everything that comes from you. Meaning, we all have long held beliefs, some of which seem to have been backed by science. And they may be incorrect. Maybe maybe the science that they were backed up by 10 years ago, wasn't quite complete, or it was misinterpreted or what have you. And we want to question ourselves and our own beliefs and have that open mind. And it may not be that there's a black and white, this versus that. It could be the nuances. For example, I recently talked to Dr. Bill Campbell on the show. Okay. And that was that was episode 92. One of the episodes I'm gonna mention in a moment anyway. And one of the things he talks about is aggressive fat loss. He's a, he's researching aggressive fat loss in the lab, and seen with real people in a very controlled situation, right, a randomized controlled trial, that you can lose weight at a faster rate than we thought and still preserve muscle mass, but only if the duration is very short on the order of two weeks. So what we're effectively saying is not that you cannot lose weight at a certain rate of loss, and preserve your muscle, we're just saying that there's a corner case, that's the term I use. But basically, there's a a small scenario, a small set of scenarios, bounded by the variable of duration, where we can do this extra special little thing of aggressive fat loss. And so it just adds a little extra nuance to the situation. And that's why we have to avoid making blanket statements like you can never lose fat at more than 1% a week. No, you can, but only if you limit the duration. Okay, so I think you get my point with all of this, I think I'm hammered home, I'm going to share three episodes related to this topic of evidence doesn't always mean science. The first episode is Episode 80, flexible dieting, evidence based nutrition and protein strategies with Alan Aragon. So again, Alan's the man, he knows all about flexible dieting, he practically pioneered it. And he goes into everything in that realm. And I tried to ask him questions in a way that led him to certain answers, and he just wasn't taking the bait. I love it. You know, he's, he really is about flexibility in more ways than one when it comes to our approach to nutrition. So check out episode 80 Episode 92, I kind of have these out of order, I'm sorry, I'm gonna, the next one I'm going to say is episode 84. So 80 is the one with Alan Aragon. 84 was a solo episode I did called why working out less, burns more calories, and boosts your metabolism and fat loss. And the reason I'm throwing this episode in here, why working out last burns more calories boosts your metabolism fat loss, is it's one of those counterintuitive things we have to be open minded about and change our beliefs on so many people come to me saying, I work out six days a week, and I'm not getting results. And it's all set in a way where the working out six days a week is assumed to be a good thing for getting you results, which implies that there is a belief a belief there that may not be correct, or it may need to be, you know, pushed along into a slightly different direction. And so that episode is one where I tried to address one of those and I have many more where I where I do that because it's quite common that influencers or the media whoever spout off quote unquote truths that are the opposite of the truth. And they just just state it as if Oh, this is everybody knows this, right? Like, oh, carbs are bad, right? Of course not. You know, let's not, let's not accept everything. Okay, Episode 92 is the third one and episode 92 is the one with Dr. Bill Campbell. The title is physique enhancement, rapid fat loss plateaus and processed foods. With Bill Campbell. I'm sorry for my long title. Sometimes I really just tried to cram a whole bunch of keywords in there, you know, but episode 92 is really all about five specific topics related to physique enhancement. And I think you're gonna learn something new and Every single one of those, including the one on rapid fat loss, pretty cool stuff. So what's the takeaway here? I want you to take inventory of your personal beliefs, take inventory of those, and what others in the fitness industry are telling you do your own research, or I know that's tough, we don't all have time to go and read papers, follow people who seem to have a reasonable grasp of reality, rather than an ulterior motive, or a conflict of interest or obvious bias. And again, everyone has biases, everyone has an incentive, everyone has some reason that they're doing what they're doing. I started this podcast as a passion project, and it eventually morphed to align with my business. And that's okay, because what I'm sharing on the show is fully aligned with how I help people with the business and I stayed it over and over again and disclose it ad nauseam. So there are there's a difference in that sense. So just be aware of those of who's paying effectively for the information. Experiments on yourself as well. And don't assume that what works for a population will be ideal for you. If something feels like it's restrictive, and not aligned with your lifestyle, or values, except that there are multiple ways to get to the outcome you want. There really are there's not just one way, you're unique, in some ways, and universal like every other human in others. And we have to find that overlap. What's unique for you versus what, what's universal, and make it work. Okay, lesson three, there is magic in maintenance. And thanks again to Alan, because Alan, I think came up with that quote, either he said it or I said it, I honestly didn't even go back to listen, when I researched this episode. And it doesn't matter. It's like it's gone gone down into the mythology of the podcast. But the idea with magic and maintenance is, is a pretty powerful and profound one. And by maintenance, I'm talking about your maintenance, calories, maintenance, calories are those calories at which if you eat them, you will not gain or lose weight. And one misconception with that is that it is a fixed number, and it really isn't. And so by tracking your food, by tracking your weight, using whatever means possible, but of course, I have more efficient means that I've suggested before like macro factor on the last episode, if you can do that, you can become aware of your true expenditure. That is how many calories you burn every day, your true maintenance calories, right, your true metabolism, there's so many different words we use for the same thing. And that awareness unlocks so much opportunity, and so much potential to take control of your health in many different ways. It's kind of like until you do that, you haven't even found the doorway to all the potential paths, you're literally walking around in a void in like a black room with no light, you can't see where you're going. And then all of a sudden, you find this door and you open it and there's light. And that door is an awareness of your expenditure and your maintenance calories. And then you look through the door, all of a sudden, you see all the paths that you can take, right, some may lead back to the place that you had been before, but many of them are going to lead to exactly where you want to go and different ways to get there. That's how important understanding your expenditure is, and all the food lab, but many of the food apps out there, many of the coaching approaches out there, many of the the calculators and the guides and the programs, or even the coaches who say no, you don't need to worry about your calories at all. I feel like they are leaving a big part of of this awareness off the table. And by by taking the time to just do some tracking and collect some data on yourself, you're gonna have this massive awareness that gives you options. And those options will then allow you to shape your body to shape your body composition, to get stronger and build muscle to lose fat to stay exactly where you are for years and years while eating a well fed diet with Yes, plenty of carbs, to go through a recovery diet after a fat loss phase or maybe if you're a competitor after getting stage lean and do it in a way where you don't gain too much fat, but you also don't delay recovery and so on. So there are a lot of reasons that maintenance is so important. And I think Alan said it best when he said that there's magic in it, because it's actually in some ways harder to to maintain your weight than to gain or lose weight because you're effectively trying to get your body not to change too much. And so that's what gives you the skill, the knowledge and the awareness to do all the other things. Hey, this is Philip and I hope you're enjoying this episode of Wits & Weights, I started Wits & Weights to help people who want to build muscle lose fat and actually look like they lift. I've noticed that when people improve their strength and physique, they not only look and feel better, they transform other areas of their life, their health, their mental resilience and their confidence in everything they do. And since you're listening to this podcast, I assume you want the same things the same success, whether you recently started lifting, or you've been at this for a while and want to optimize and reach a new level of success. Either way, my one on one coaching focused on engineering your physique and body composition is for you. If you want expert guidance, and want to get results faster, easier, and with fewer frustrations along the way to actually look like you lift, go to wits & weights.com, and click on coaching, or use the link in my show notes to apply today. I'll ask you a few short questions to decide if we're a good fit. And if we are, we'll get you started this week. Now back to the show. All right. So I want to share some episodes with you related to this topic. And then I'll give you my takeaway for this. Episode 66 was with Jeff Hain sustaining fat loss results and maximizing recovery for the long game with Jeff hain. So that was episode 66. And it was pretty cool because we all we talked about was? Well, not all we talked about, it was two topics, right? It was maintenance and recovery. So ignore the recovery Part For today's scope. We talked in the first half of the podcast all about sustaining your fat loss results, but specifically what it means to live at maintenance. What are the challenges of maintenance? How do you stay there? How do you avoid, you know, getting out of it, and so on. So that's episode 66. Episode 69 was a solo episode I did called what to do first, lose fat, build muscle or body re composition. And I think this is an important one because it covered seven scenarios that people are usually in, right, what do you have excessive weight to lose just some weight to lose you're trying to build, you just came out of a fat loss phase and so on. And what to do, and all of it is it hinges on the idea of understanding your expenditure and understanding your maintenance. Right? It's again, it's the pivot, it's the fulcrum, it's the anchor, whatever analogy you want to use this the door, it's a doorway to all of these options. Episode 77 was with my man, Alan. So I, we knew I'd throw this one in there, from emotional eating and bariatric surgery to optimal health balance and mindful living with Alan Freeman. Now that episode covered his whole journey, all sorts of amazing inspiration in there. But it also includes the story about magic in maintenance and how he came out of a fat loss phase. And when he was going to maintenance calories, there was maybe some fear there of weight regain or, you know, what do we do at this point? How do we how do we motivate ourselves and keep moving forward? What does it mean and, and he discovered that there was a lot of beauty and magic to being in maintenance and feeling well fed and recovered, but not being afraid that you're going to all of a sudden gain a bunch of weight, it's a great place to be. And it's a place where a lot of people listening want to be. So that's why I think this is a great lesson. And I'm going to throw in a bonus fourth episode here. Okay, and this is only one episode or two episodes ago. Episode 98 Is your food logging app sabotaging your fat loss and physique goals. And that is a thinly veiled sales pitch for macro factor because it is so far the only tool I've ever found that will help you discover your true maintenance. And then once you discover your true maintenance, the magic starts to happen, as we've just been saying, Alright, so the takeaway, the takeaway for this, take the time to track your food and wait for at least three weeks. So what do you do with macro factor with a spreadsheet with a manual process, it doesn't matter. Do it for three weeks. And then you'll understand how your expenditure changes based on your food intake, your activity, your training, your sleep, your stress. One quick caveat, because I hear this almost every day when I'm on calls with people or we're you know, not with clients because clients I've we've gone through the education of this but people in the group and so on is that the activity on your wearable, the amount of calories burned on your wearable is useless. Do not trust it, do not use it. I mean, I can't be more quick unequivocal about that. It has such a high level of error and inaccuracy. It just doesn't mean anything. It's it's literally just a number that doesn't mean anything. So the only way to tell how many calories you burn every day, outside of a laboratory is the way I'm talking about to track your food, track your weight, see how your weight responds to your food period. That will account for all the things you're doing for all your activity or sleep or training or stress. It doesn't you don't have to measure all that stuff to know how your expenditure is changing. You just have to know how your body mass is changing. Okay. So this is very powerful awareness. This is very powerful feedback that will empower you. That's the goal. We're empowering you This is one of the key tenants of Have of motivation is having agency. So now that you can you have it, you can go down many different and flexible paths to your results. All right? Lesson Four, nothing matters. If you can't be consistent. Nothing matters if you can't be consistent consistency, adherence, sustainability, they're all kind of the same idea. The idea that whatever you do in life, I don't care if it's fitness, health, finances, career relationships, your hobbies doesn't matter. You have to do something that you want, or you're going to want to do every day. As my friend, my brother, my fellow podcaster, Carl Berryman, of inspired by impact reminded me in a very touching and compassionate message that he sent me in tribute of reaching 100 episodes. And the consistency required to do that. We all of us, you, me, all the listeners, all of us set an example for others in our life most through our actions. And being consistent with those actions. It's not enough to just do something once it's doing that thing every day, no matter what, and others observing that you're doing that and how important it is for you to get to that goal. Setting that example. It's being that role model. Whether it's listening to this podcast, consistently, engaging with our community consistently to get help going to the gym consistently, or consistently evaluating who you are, and why you're doing this at any given time, so that you are doing the things that serve you serve your goals, and get you the results that you want. So thank you, Carl, for reminding me of, of how just fundamentally critical, I was gonna use the word axiomatic because I'm such a nerd. And then I'm like, how many people I'm gonna lose by saying that, but basically, it is essential, and something you cannot do without to get your goals. Now, how do we do that? That's, that's a question. Okay. It's great. You know, what, Phillip, you're telling me this, and I want to be consistent. But how do I do that. And that leads me to talk about action. Now, again, this is not, this is not a trivial thing. So first of all, action, action leads to results, action leads to results. And by result, I mean, something changes. When you take an action, it's a stimulus response, you take an action, something happens, now may not be the result you want. And so you would take a different action. But once you get that little result you want in the right direction, like when you go to the gym, and you do your heavy squats. And then two days later, you realize you can squat five more pounds. And that's the result you want, because it's getting stronger. This leads to intrinsic motivation. A lot of people think you need the motivation first, but no, you just have to take that action. First, that one little tiny step, get that little win, and allow it to intrinsically motivate you but here's the thing. In reality, many of us we are human, our lives are turbulence, to say the least, you know, in in all different ways. And sometimes we need additional motivation. And we need to reduce friction or reduce resistance. So we need both somebody on the outside to push us in many cases. And then we also need to reduce things that are in our way, in many cases. And again, Alan said the obstacle is the way true. But of course, I'd rather go over a small rock than a giant boulder. I don't know about you. So this is where the idea of self determination theory comes in. So this is all tied in the topic of consistency. Please bear with me. self determination theory from positive psychology is the idea that we have our highest level of motivation when three things are maximized, agency competence, and relatedness, okay, agency is you are making the choice for you. You are empowered, you have freedom, you have flexibility. And this is where the fun comes in. This is where doing things that you like comes in, this is where you do things that you could do every day because it fits your lifestyle, because you can still enjoy going out to eat because you can still eat carbs, because you can still have your indulgences. All of those things are tied into you being empowered to make the choice, not some plan or diet program or book telling you to do it this way in this way only. So agency is important. And if what you're doing right now for your health and fitness feels like it is working against you, and your empowerment and agency could reconsider it reconsider whether there's a different way. So that's agency. The second part is competence. Competence is just knowledge, it's confidence, as well. In other words, if you know something, and you know that some a cause is going to cause an effect. Now you have the confidence next time that when you do this, this is going to happen. When I when I make these choices, I know I'm going to feel good in my workouts. When I make these choices. I know I'm going to lose a pound and a half over each week, right? It can be a very simple thing, or it can be a little more nuanced and complex, right? When I, you know, limit my saturated fats to a third of my overall fat, I know that I have a lower risk of heart disease down the line. I mean, that's a longer term thing. But regardless, having as much knowledge is going to be important. This is where this is where that comments earlier the five star review about how the person's trainer would tell them what to do, but they wouldn't know why. This is where knowledge itself also increases agency. Oh, powerful, right? This is where the more knowledge you have, guess what the more agency you have, because now you have the power of information, like they say Information is power. And now you have the confidence. And now you can take control be like, You know what, I'm in control of my health, I'm going to make the decision. I've done it based on working with others and learning and knowledge, but I don't have to be told what to do. I know what's going to work and I'm gonna make the choice. Alright, the third part of self determination theory is relatedness. And that is having others to, to have a community with to lean on to have in your back, right? Whether it's personal relationships, your significant other, your spouse, your close friends, you know, men and men, women and women, men and women, it doesn't matter all the people you care about in your life, who support you who do not sabotage you. And then more importantly, can you find people who are trying to go after the same goal in a similar way where you can then feed off each other, right? And we call this community and it could come in various ways it could come in the you being a listener of this podcast, right. And it could come in joining our Facebook community, the Wits, &, Weights, community or any other group that has like minded people going after the same goal. relatedness can come from having a coach, absolutely, if I'm your coach, I am totally in your corner. And honestly, that is all I care about. I care about your results, right? Not all I care about, of course, I care about you as a person, what I mean is, whereas others in your life, care about many, many other things and not so much what you're doing in the fitness world. Of that is my priority for you is getting your physical and mental health, you know, leveled up to the best it can be. So agency competence and relatedness. Definitely look at what and how you're doing things. And if those are not satisfied, something might be missing. All right, three episodes related to this episode 74 with my man, Carl carbo Berryman, who I mentioned before Episode 74 He was actually on the show twice and this is the most recent one. It's called bigger gains tracking your food or not. And fitness principles with Carl Berryman. So episode 74 Check that out. We definitely touch on a lot of principles okay principles, which is the which is where it's at. Okay, principles, Episode 70 is the next one episode 70 is tailor your physique for aesthetics, fat loss performance and health with Cody McBroom. Love Cody stuff, he owns a tailored coaching method. Yeah, he's another coach. So of course, he's a competitor like many coaches, but he's huge and established guy and I love to have him on the show. And I learned so much for him. He really helps people cut through a lot of this BS and that's what I find refreshing in that he, he helps you with the knowledge side and the agency side big time. Okay, he's like, look, this, this is how it works. Here's why. All this other stuff is just noise. And it kind of gives you that clarity. So I always appreciate folks like that. So check out episode 70. And then episode 72. With Eric Helms, we talked about self determination theory in that one, but overall, it's just a fantastic conversation, Episode 72, balancing strength, physique, recovery, plus animal versus plant protein with Eric Helms. Again, I know my titles are a little bit long, but we're trying to cover a lot a lot of topics in there. So episode 7470 and 72. Man that was out of order. I should have done 7072 74 But pretty easy to remember. All right, so what's the takeaway from this fourth lesson? The takeaway is to take messy action I love that too. Messy action not perfect action. Not I'm going to do it tomorrow. I'm going to do it next week. Once I have a plan. No, it's right now take action on whatever it is that you know you want to do to move forward. Do not wait. Don't wait. There's something you can do. There's something you can do. Pause the episode right now and schedule with yourself time to do that thing. Seriously. Here's a powerful one. Set up calendar appointments with yourself for the next week to block off your training time. Everybody listening to this episode should already be strength training or about to start strength training pretty much this week. Nothing can limit you can strength training with your bodyweight if you've got nothing else but you can definitely train. So that's what I want you to do that that's your action right now is to pause the episode, and add calendar appointments with yourself. For the next week. Let's see this episode comes out on a Tuesday. So if you're listening to when it comes out, you could set up your training for between Wednesday and Friday of this week. Or if you're listening it to later in the week, set it up for your very first, maybe for the Monday of the next week. But whatever the next training session is, set it up in your calendar, and then resume the episode. Okay. And by the way, reach out to me, send me a DM or send me an email, through the show notes very easy to find million ways to get to me. And tell me that you did that tell me that you heard this and that it inspired you and that you went ahead and you set up an appointment for yourself for your training, or for some other thing if you're already training to make sure you take messy action. All right, Lesson five, okay, Lesson five, your health is the most important thing you'll ever invest in. Health is intangible in many ways, isn't it? It's intangible. It's it's less tangible in many ways than money, and relationships, right with money, we feel it in our pocket, we feel it in our bills, we feel it with our property, right with, with our trips with our cars with all these things. Relationships, we feel it immediately and how people react to us in our interactions with folks, with our wife, with our friends, whatever. Health is a little bit of a long term intangible thing. Now yes, we can experience health physically in how we look. But even that takes a while to shape. And a lot of things related to our health come decades down the road. Now what is health, right, it's literally your body and mind together. And your ability to do things in the world. Your ability to do things in the world now. It's it to me that seems like it enables everything else doesn't it and your physique is is an outward representation of that health, right? But it's also tied to your confidence. Just as human beings, we can't help it. Our physiques, how we look are tied to our confidence period. And, and I speak to those people and I help people who are trying to improve their health and their physique, because I do feel that they all go together. Professional Success, personal relationships, doing the things you love, and doing them for many, many years with the highest quality of life are all built on your physical health. So I do say sometimes that nothing supersedes physical health, not even the person you love the most, because you can't love them and care for them. You can't take care of them without your physical health. Therefore, investing in your health leads to a stronger fitter, longer life full of vitality. But it actually hits you in the pocketbook, doesn't it, not because you have to pay for health but because you have to pay for poor health. Poor health is very costly. long term health care, long term care as you age has been estimated to be something like up to $2,000 a month over the age of 40. When you're in poor health. Now, you may not see that directly as a bill, but it's reflected in your insurance. It's reflected in maybe your life insurance is reflected in trips to the hospital trips to the doctors that just start to add up and then surgeries and procedures and medication, it just adds up. Right So conversely, fewer trips to the hospital, fewer injuries for your illness is going to help you out. And there's even costs that come out of that in terms of your career and your ability to do things that then level up your skills and level up your knowledge and so on. So you can make more money and provide for people and things like that. So your physical health is intrinsically tied to your well being and your everything else. It helps you reduce stress, it helps you reduce anxiety, even symptoms of depression. I know individuals who deal with depression, and health is one of their big go twos, it might even be just going for a walk. And then beyond that, the goals that we talked about on the show achieving strength and dialing in your nutrition, maintain the physique, you want all of these massively boost self confidence, and then that spills over into other areas of your life. Right. So if you tie it all together, it comes down to one big baffling question. And that is why do people rarely invest in their health? You know, we pay 1000s for cars, houses or college degrees. And then we become penny pinchers with our health, you know, not just not just with our money either, but also with our time. And when you think of going to the gym, that's a resource to time resource. And somehow we we make every excuse in the world to not go to the gym. But if you added up all the time outside of work and outside the relationships where you did, probably not such high value activity So let's say like streaming, or just doing leisurely things, it would probably add up to so many hours that you can easily find time to go to the gym. And for many of us, once you are going to the gym and getting results, that becomes a fun distressing experience anyway becomes a form of leisure that you actually do look forward to, which is great, because then it's a twofer, one. Now, as I produced this podcast, meaning as I went through the first 100 episodes of this podcast and started to learn and talk to people in research, I realized how many people are receiving terrible, even dangerous information from the fitness industry, to the point where I had to become a coach, I had to become a nutrition coach, nutrition specifically, because I think that's where the crux of a lot of the misinformation stems. I don't know if I use that phrase properly. But I wanted to help people cut through that nonsense in a very direct, like actionable prescriptive way, like, here's what we can do. Here's why. Here's why all this other information doesn't quite make sense. And mainly, I just wanted people to go through the process that I experienced back in around 2020. When I had been struggling for decades, I had done all the diets, I had done the CrossFit in the boot camps, and the running. And I finally realized that no, you know, I need to get strong, I need to do a little bit less, I need to manage my body and be healthier. I want to eat to fuel my performance. And now I have greater knowledge and control my results. Right, I want to get you the physique results, the health results you want. And I want to do it faster, more easily, and with way fewer mistakes. So this is why I personally hire coaches, for me for my training, for my nutrition for my business, for public speaking for podcasting. I don't always hire coaches for money. Sometimes I have mentors or we mentor each other, or I will swap services with somebody or a former client. Now all of a sudden, we have a relationship as friends and we help each other out. I mean, this is what community relatedness is all about. There's no one right way to do things. But if you're wondering whether I hire coaches, oh, yeah, because I've hired coaches for a single session and gotten more out of it than I could have learned myself in five years. If I did learn that, you know, training form, or how to effectively write emails, I mean, I don't know little things that I could have just wasted time and spun my wheels for months and years. I'm a smart guy. So of course, I have a lot of pride. And it maybe that was a proud statement to say I'm a smart guy. But my point is, I'm an engineer who thinks that I could get the answer to anything, just by looking it up myself. That's my point. Okay, just try to add a little bit of modesty back into the equation here. But because of that, it prevents me from thinking that others can help me more than I can help myself. And I know better by now. Like, that's almost a form of, of wisdom via age. Like it took me decades to figure that out of lots of mistakes. So let me ask you as the listener, before I get too long winded here. Have the strategies you've used before worked? Have you been able to be what we talked about earlier? Consistent? Have you nailed down that exact plan that works for your lifestyle? Based on the evidence that works, right? N equals one, it lets you enjoy all your favorite foods, it lets you still improve your body composition and get to where you want. Are you getting the most out of your training? And do you look like you want? Do you look like you lift? With all that hard work that you're doing? If the answer is yes, then I am thrilled for you. Maybe it's because you're listening to the show or like me, you're just extremely self motivated, you go out you find the information. Maybe you have a community maybe have mentors, and that puts you in the tiny, tiny, tiny percentage of people who have been able to figure it out on their own. And even that it's me, it's not quite on their own right? If the answer is no, ask yourself, why not? What are you going to do differently this time? Given that health is the most important thing you can invest in? That's the whole point of this lesson is that if health is the most important thing of all, and you haven't put every resource into it possible to get what you want for it, why not? This is one of the most important lessons that I've learned through 100 episodes of the podcast that investing in the most important thing to you in the world, your health is absolutely essential, and that you will find a way for something that is that important to you. Okay, so three episodes related to this topic, Episode 51. So going a little bit back in the archives to the halfway point, mental resilience and commitment to training despite adversity, earthquakes with Heather clinger. So Heather is a longtime client of mine, who went through a very challenging situation in Turkey when they had the earthquakes last year and she talked all about it Episode 51. And how committing to her health in multiple ways ended up giving her the massive level of resilience that she never thought she would have during highly stressful time. It's the kind of result we don't put on billboards, we don't put in our marketing, hey, you know, learn to lift weights and you'll be more resilient, like it's doesn't sell to say that. And yet, without it, I think she would have been in a very different place at that time. And so there's meaning, and there's intangible benefits to help all around us. That's kind of the point here. So check out her story in Episode 51. And then the next episode, going a little bit out of order here is farther back in the archives, Episode 30, to fix your nutrition for a healthy, balanced lifestyle with Tyler cero. Now, Tyler was my very first client, the one that inspired me to get into this. And she recorded an episode early on with me, we talked about powerlifting. And such that was before she was a client, but this one came a little bit later. And she talked about her journey since that point. So it gives you a good idea of how, you know, investing in your health can really pay off for what she went through. And then the final episode, I wanted to mention here is 95, how Carol lost 20 pounds and 14% body fat set a lifting PR and gained food freedom in her 40s. And this was very recent, I talked to another client, Carol, who shares her body recomp and fat loss and all the cool things that she learned in terms of her relationship with food, and her lifting love getting a love for strength training, working with barbells. And, of course, being able to now eat a lot more food and not feel like she's restricted in any way and having plenty of energy. So the takeaway for this is that if getting results with your health and physique, are the things that enable you to upgrade every other area of your life, then, Isn't it worth more than anything else you invest in more than your house, your car, the college degree, your career? Definitely more than new clothes or another service, you know, streaming service, even your relationships and mental health are dependent on your physical health. Because without your health, none of these matter. So ask yourself this question, what happens if I don't invest in my health? And am I okay with that? Right? I didn't invest in my health for many years. And if I went back to my, say, 25 year old version and said, ask myself that question and gave him all this context, he would have said, Hmm, I see what you mean, what am I doing not investing in my health? And I didn't until much later but I'm glad I did. So ask yourself, What happens if I don't invest in my health and my okay with that, and then that will give you clarity on how important this is to you. And if you are not, okay, that you are currently not prioritizing invest in your health, you're going to find a way to make it happen. Last thing, if you are interested in one on one coaching with me, because you're ready to invest in your health today, and see, this is the whole conflict of interest I mentioned earlier, I'm a coach, this is what I do, I help people, I'm gonna get you results, we're gonna get them fast, we're gonna get them easily with very few mistakes. And I'm proud to say that, and I know we can do it together. So if you're ready for that, if you want to get results within six months, six months in the scheme of the many, many years, that you may have been spinning your wheels, to get those results that have eluded you. Just click on that, click the link in my show notes and apply. And then here's what I'll do. I'll send you a few questions, literally five, at most, three to five clarifying questions. I'm going to gauge whether we're a good fit. And if you are, we can get started that same day. And here's the thing, if you missed it in my intro, I have a very special very limited promotion. To celebrate 100 episodes of the podcast, I'm doing a giveaway with my coaching. So if you apply, if you apply with the code from this episode, you're also going to get an extra month of coaching. So at seven for the price of six, a free tub of protein powder of your choice from first form, and a full year subscription to macro factor. And by the way, if you have macro factor already, I will credit you a full year regardless. To apply just use the link in my show notes. Enter the code Episode 100, all in Word, Episode 100. Again, anyone who mentions that code is guaranteed to qualify for this promotion. So take advantage of a good deal to finally invest in yourself. Invest in your health and get the results you want right now. All right for episode 101 Peter Lappe is on the show to talk about postpartum recovery from unraveling the complex condition known as diastasis. sis are diastasis recti to the unique challenges women face post pregnancy. Peter will address misconceptions and share actionable strategies for postpartum recovery. Please do me a solid and follow or subscribe to the podcast so you are notified when that episode and many others are published. And again, thank you so much to all of you for sticking with me through to Episode 100 and I am not slowing this train down. We will have many more incredible solo and interview episodes coming up. So keep listening and sharing. letting others know about the show is one of the best ways that we can spread the word. As always, stay strong. And I'll talk to you next time here on the Wits & Weights podcast. Thank you for tuning in to another episode of Wits & Weights if you found value in today's episode, and know someone else who's looking to level up their Wits & 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