Optimizing Muscle Gain and Nutrition

Speaker 1 0:00

The reality is, to maximize your building muscle, you have to gain some fat and for a beginner it might be around 50, 50 fat to muscle, let's say. For a more advanced trainee it's gonna be skewed more toward fat because it's harder to add muscle right. So if we accept that, why would you want to clip that and go too conservatively and just draw out the process? You're still gonna gain, it's just gonna take a lot longer. Let's go and optimize it.

Speaker 1 0:29

Welcome to the Whits and Weights podcast. I'm your host, phillip 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 Whits and Weights community. Welcome to another bonus episode of the Whits and Weights podcast. This conversation is from my appearance on Andrew Romeo's podcast, romeo Athletics Radio. Now Andrew is one of my long time training coaches and he invited me on to talk all things evidence-based fitness and flexible dieting. We discussed the intricacies of nutrition and fat loss, how to optimize your lifestyle for the best body composition and my thoughts on tracking what foods to eat, what to focus on first, how to periodize your nutrition, and so much more. Enjoy my conversation with Andrew Romeo.

Speaker 2 1:35

Welcome to another episode of Romeo Athletics Radio. I'm your host, andrew Romeo. Today I have an awesome guest. It is Phillip Pape. Phillip, I've known you for what? 12 years now.

Speaker 1 1:44

Yeah, it's been a long time man.

Speaker 2 1:45

So Phillip and I have had a great relationship throughout the years. Phillip started out at CrossFit Revelation. When our gym was CrossFit Revelation Saw a lot of different training styles, different training methods, really ingrained in health and fitness, and coming out to the other side, he started his own health and fitness-oriented business. So, phillip, fill me in. What are you up to? What are we doing?

Speaker 1 2:07

Oh man, we're doing so much. This is gonna be an exciting year. So, as you know, I'm a nutrition coach, certified nutrition coach, physique engineer, and I've been doing that now for over two years. As you know, I was into the CrossFit world for a while with you and then moved more into the strength-focused muscle-building world and for me, it was a combination of curiosity and frustration. All those years you know that I was an action-taker. I liked to. I was very self-motivated. The problem was finding just the right thing for me. That allowed me to be consistent and stop thinking about the quick fix right and so many people are focused on, like when it comes to diet and nutrition, the quick fix weight loss right, and it was around 2019.

Speaker 1 2:50

I started running your strength program, actually, and then found a bunch of other resources as well, like starting strength and the muscle and strength pyramids Eric Helms, all those guys in 2020.

Speaker 1 3:01

I built my home gym because you know we were all locked down and that year I had my biggest strength gains ever because I just ate a ton, I drank a ton of whole milk, I lifted heavy compound lifts and I just went crazy doing that Once I gained the weight and realized I had a little bit of extra fat to lose. I then learned about nutrition, so I spent the next year or so diving into evidence-based nutrition you know everything from meal timing to getting enough protein, to tracking and I made a lot of discoveries that year that I think for some reason, people still don't hear about in the fitness industry, because weight loss, weight loss, weight loss right and eventually came around to the idea that muscle is everything, even for fat loss. And once I learned that, I started my podcast in late 2021, wits and Weights and actually you know, I think I mentioned it on your show before it came out and committed myself to launching it. I love it. Like a month later, that's awesome that is awesome.

Physique Engineering

Speaker 1 3:59

It's cool, so I didn't know how successful it would be. You know we're pretty big now, but the fun part about that is reaching a whole bunch of people who are misinformed by the industry and giving them the clarity they haven't had before. That, like I got to go through, where they no longer are thinking short term, they're no longer thinking weight loss, they're thinking body composition and building muscle and training for strength and longevity and performance, and it's a very positive community that we have and, like we were talking about before, we recorded, you know, positivity and yeah, so I started that in 2021. A listener and coworker of mine as you know, I'm an engineer as well. She was a powerlifter in Connecticut. Actually, she placed second in the USPA for her weight class and the only reason she didn't win is because her weight was like a couple pounds more than the other woman and even though they lifted the exact same total, yeah, so they got to go with the lighter lifter.

Speaker 1 4:55

Exactly so she said to me hey, I invited her on my show. And she said, hey, I just binged all your episodes and I was kind of blown away that I finally understand why my current coach was telling me what to do, even though I didn't understand the why behind it and my contract's expiring. Would you be open to coaching me? I said I guess I've never done it before, right? So I went and quickly figured out what certification to get. I worked with her and seven other people for free for like three or four months, you know, and refined all my systems and put my engineering hat on and came up with this whole approach to nutrition that I continue today, which is a physique engineering approach right, very data centric, but done in a way that gets you confidence that you've never had before that you could actually mold your body to what it needs to be.

Speaker 2 5:45

That's awesome. That's the first time I've ever heard the phrase physique engineering, and I like it. You should trademark it, if you have it, I should right.

Speaker 2 5:52

You really should. That's a great phrase. So a little background, guys, with Philip and I's relationship. Philip's probably one of the most detail-oriented people that I know and I think it really probably shows in your coaching. I don't know, you've probably built me five different websites by now and he's probably the only person I've ever worked with that pushes me to get him things being like hey, I need this from you, Whereas normally in that type of relationship it's the other way around, the inverse thing and I only say this because I really feel like that type of person would make a great coach.

Speaker 2 6:21

Where you're working with your people, looking to be, hey, this is what I need from you, this is where you at You're checking in on everybody, You're very thorough, just like you are building websites, doing all these other things, Because, I mean, those skills translate really, really well to coaching. So, with your personal journey, before we kind of dive into wits and weights and its progression, with your personal journey, what have you been setting out to do? So you said 2020, year of the gains, right, and I know recently you even had shoulder surgery and it seems like you've returned really fast.

Speaker 2 6:55

You look great. You look like you're in really good shape. How have you used nutrition to manipulate and or engineer your physique?

Speaker 1 7:03

Yeah, that's a great question. I mean, I think it's everything. Before we started recording, I was talking about how nutrition gets miscontruded as being just about food, and it really is everything in your lifestyle related to your physical being, from sleep and stress, to what you eat, how you eat it, when you eat it, to your mental health, to how you arrange your schedule right Like there's a million things and, of course, your training feeds into that. So for me, nutrition was finally figuring out that I could eat eat for fullness and satiety, eat things that I enjoy, not feel guilty about it and still get my results. It's awesome.

Speaker 2 7:44

Yeah, so you're getting the whole package, or I can eat foods. I like that's it. I can be full, I can be satiated and I can get the results I like. It doesn't get much better than that. So, with taking your personal experience over to that, how does Whitson weights work? So you've kind of explained like a client that you've worked with and bringing it online. You got some certifications and where you went through. But what does it look like to work with you? Because it's all remote from what I understand and, as you said, you like to use technology. What does Whitson weights look like? Where can you see what's that look like?

Speaker 1 8:16

Yeah, I mean, it's all about personalization, right? I think, just like in the training world, where you could either have a template that you run and then have a million questions and struggle because you don't have good form and technique and you're not sure how the rest period is, and all that. Similarly with nutrition, it's not about meal plans, it's not about a protocol. It's really about understanding your lifestyle. So what that looks like is a new client comes in and I do a detailed assessment, and this is all online. So there's forms and things like that. But I will ask you about your dieting history, your food preferences, your training, your schedule, your family. I wanna know are you a mom with kids that you've only got so many hours a week to do certain things? What's your schedule like for your training and your eating? Do you take thyroid medication in the morning where you can't eat before you work out at 6 am? All those little things that add up sleep quality, sleep timing, stress, hunger, on and on and on. And then I can put together a detailed plan for you from day one, but I do it in a way that's not overwhelming, because you're coming to me as a coach not to give you 50 things to do, but to give you one or two clear action steps this week that'll start pushing your comfort zone toward the lifestyle we want for you, so that you develop a skill set. You develop skills over time.

Speaker 1 9:32

So usually three to six months. We work together and in that time you're not only gonna learn more than you've ever learned about nutrition, you're also going to get the result, and the result is usually fat loss or building muscle. It's one of those. So what it looks like is the first month or two is like a pre-dieting maintenance phase for most people. If you're gonna gain muscle, it's still similar to that, because what we're gonna do is get you to your true maintenance calories. We're gonna help you understand how your metabolism responds to your choices.

Speaker 1 10:02

We're gonna demystify a lot of the things that you might think, like how are my hormones impacting my metabolism? What about my alcohol? What about my sleep? What about my training? Because you might have tried dieting in the past and said to yourself I just can't lose weight and it turns out that maybe you just didn't know how many calories you were eating, maybe you just didn't know that you were doing too much, too much cardio, right. Maybe you didn't know how your training affected your lifting or you didn't have enough protein. So all of those things. I'm a needs-based coach. It depends on what you need that week, week after week after week, when you check in. It's very custom and personal, but I try to make it not time consuming on your part. So I send you videos instead of requiring you to be on a call, for example, and I will answer questions over text as soon as you send it to me rather than waiting for the check-in. So that's just a little bit about the process.

Speaker 2 10:54

Yeah, I think that's a great concept of how this gets started, right.

Speaker 2 10:58

So, I signed up with Phillip and he's sending me these forms that I'm filling out. I'm giving him all the information he needs to really customize it with me. I mean, as you said, so you're sending out videos to them so they don't have to make a weekly meeting. Do they have a weekly meeting with you where you're giving them new skills or going back hey, did you do what you said you were gonna do this past week and how are we setting up this next week? What's that look like of the progression of skill building or habit building?

Speaker 1 11:21

Yeah, no, it's a great question. So there's a weekly check-in process that's based on all of the data that we're collecting on a regular basis. So if you don't wanna track or use data, I'm not the guy for you. But if you understand the value of information about you and your body, you're gonna get such fast results and clarity and confidence about yourself working together that it's not that you have to track forever, but during that time we're gonna track your food, we're gonna track your body measurements, we're gonna track your biofeedback so hunger, digestion, sleep, stress, mood, energy, even libido and then we're gonna track some qualitative things like what were your wins, what were your momentum builders, what lessons did you learn? And all of that you check in with a form.

Speaker 1 12:02

On Sunday, I have all your data most of it's connected with wearables and apps and then Monday I go through it all relentlessly like a detective and I figure out and connect all the dots for you with my engineering mind and then come out the other end with all right. Here's your one or two small, simple, specific actions for this week. It might be as simple as let's get protein with every meal, because your protein's a little behind right now. I want you to get a protein with every meal or with your training. Let's move your carbs around your training, because you're feeling less recovered but you have plenty of calories coming in. So it might be the timing Little things like that that I can bring the expertise to bear and help you move forward.

Speaker 2 12:41

Yeah, I think that's awesome. So, when we talk about data and obviously you love data and I like data myself with training what wearables do you suggest that your people use or what data tracking measures do you use for most of your?

Understanding Metabolism and Fat Loss

Speaker 1 12:53

clients Sure, so we've got food right. So, with food, we use an app called Macro Factor, and anyone listening I suggest using it. If you're interested in tracking your nutrition, you've probably heard of apps like my Fitness Pal and Chronometer. So I like Macro Factor because it does something that no other app does it calculates your actual metabolism based on what you eat and how your weight changes. Okay, and no other app does that. Every other app uses a formula or uses your wearable for your activity, which is very inaccurate. So that's one, and I have a code for that we could put it in the show notes and zoom up it Sure absolutely so.

Speaker 1 13:30

That's the food, and so from that I can see, when you check in, what's happening with your expenditure your metabolism. You and I were talking about hard gainers before we recorded and I showed you a picture of a client's expenditure just ramping way up. Well, if you didn't know that was happening, your weight would start to plateau and you would wonder why, even though you're eating a bunch of food, because you're still not eating enough food and your metabolism ramped up.

Speaker 2 13:54

As you saw it, you're not eating enough, that's it.

Speaker 1 13:56

So there's things like that. On the other hand, if you're in a fat loss phase, that's where a lot of plateaus happen, right? And so if I have a female client who Recently started lifting, she goes no fat loss, plays and phase and then hits a plateau. You know, don't freak out, right, don't freak out. There's something happening either. You're going through some body recomp, you're building muscle, losing fat at the same time, and therefore the added muscle is offsetting the loss in fat. Yes, and so we can see that with other measurements, like waste circumference. So if you're, if your scale weights the same, but your waist has gone down, you've lost fat.

Speaker 2 14:30

Right, don't freak out. I mean, that's a big thing. I tell people that all the time of like, please don't look at the scale too often. Like, especially with the, the tools that I use, as you know, we're always lifting weights, we're doing big lifts, we're deadlifting, we're squatting, we're benching, we're pressing. You're gonna build muscle. Yeah, you're gonna lose fat, but you're gonna put on muscle. The scales not gonna change as much as you think they would. So do you do any stuff with, like, body comp? I know obviously you're doing measurements. Do you try to use an in body or a body bod pod or a, what is it? The, the water hydrostatic weighing of that kind of stuff or whatever you have access to, or is that not required?

Speaker 1 15:06

Yeah, it's. If you think about online coaching and you got to work with the equipment. People have right, and so most people have access to inferior equipment, like the scales that you know, just simple home scales that are smart scales. So instead of doing that, I'd rather focus on your body measurements and how you look and feel. Yeah, right, and, and those are pretty simple. Now there's a formula called the Navy formula. If you Google it, sure that uses your neck and your waist if you're male, and your neck Wasting hips if you're female. And again, I don't trust the number, I trust the trend got you, so that trends up or down over time, it's pretty good.

Speaker 2 15:38

They I think they're Navy or the arm the military refers as taping and they have to get taped. And when they get taped, it's as you said. It's that ratio that they're looking at. You have to hit certain requirements to go within it. So cool, you say. You and I've been working together for month when we did our pre dieting phase, mm-hmm, moving into month two. What does the dieting phase look like? What's that in tail? Are we taking out certain foods? Are we adding certain foods? Are we talking about when I should eat, what I should, what? What's that look like? What's the phase to look like?

Nutrition Plan for Fitness Goals

Speaker 1 16:06

sure. So the whole purpose of the pre the primer phase is to develop the skills of Selecting your meals, planning your meals, getting sufficient protein, balancing the fats and carbs, making sure the fibers there, you're hydrated, you're on the right supplementation, like. There's a lot of things that go into that phase Before we even start fat loss, because we want to make it as successful as possible. Right, the idea with this whole thing is a sustainable approach, an approach that you've never taken before, which most people take do diets. Most people do diets. They cut foods out. Yes, we don't cut foods out. We add things in that serve you, that serve your athleticism, your goals, your performance, which would be protein, fiber, you know, vegetables, nutrients, things like that, so that when you go into the fat loss phase, it's just a matter of scaling.

Speaker 1 16:52

Okay, so in a fat loss phase, you're gonna, you're gonna cut calories, right, because you have to be in a deficit. We want to go at the right deficit so it's not too fast, and Also that it works for you and your hunger, right, we don't want to if it depends on your metabolism. If you have a low metabolism, we can't, we can't, cut a thousand calories from there. Okay, we're gonna be, you know, sub 1200. But if you're a bigger guy, for example, who burns 2,800 calories, yeah, we can go down to 18, on sure no problem. And then the protein has to say pretty high. Right, we can get into numbers, but it generally is gonna represent almost half your calories, if not more, during a fat loss phase. To hold on to the muscle we want to hold on to that muscle so that our body burns fat, only right, and then the carbs and fats naturally come down. So we start to make better food choices.

Speaker 1 17:39

If you were eating more pizza and ice cream and things like that, maybe you substitute with other indulgences that are a little bit less of an impact to your calories. But we don't have to cut everything out right. There are things like alcohol that, if you can do without it, are gonna help tremendously to cut out during alcohol, during fat loss. But it's definitely more of an additive approach. And Hunger is the biggest challenge. Okay, hunger is the biggest challenge, so we can't eliminate it, but we can manage it. We can play with meal timing, we can use a little, a little bit of time, restricted or intermittent fasting if needed for certain people. We can make sure you're putting vegetables and everything sure.

Speaker 1 18:16

Watermelon, strawberries, like. There's a lot of things you know. If you have a sweet tooth, eat some fruit, like those little hacks that we.

Speaker 2 18:23

I mean anyone that's ever come in to me. In there they have some weight loss goals and, like, I eat a lot of fruit and I heard it's bad. I promise no one has ever come in overweight because of apples and bananas. Like it just doesn't happen. Couple questions that came to my mind. Number one we're talking about a lot of different foods. Right, we're talking about protein, which I'm assuming you're referring to mostly animal-based proteins, but correct me if I'm wrong there. Like so what is your kind of belief on foods? What types of foods we're talking about? Protein, scarps, fats, sure, should people be looking at.

Speaker 1 18:53

Whatever works for you. Okay, that's okay, that's what it comes out of. So, animal and plant there's there's a lot of controversy and debate about that, and I have a really good fellow coach of mine. He's actually recently gone vegan completely and he's a Plant-based coach, and so it's good to see different perspectives, because I've worked with some vegans and vegetarians but, like 95% of people, I work with our omnivores who eat animal-based protein. The key thing is to get all your amino acids right. We need essential amino acids that the body can't produce. It's easy to get those from animal-based sources, like you know you know, steak, chicken, pork, fish, seafood, eggs, dairy.

Speaker 1 19:30

But you can also get protein from lots of different grains, from legumes, from like tempeh, tofu, and then, of course, powders right. So it's a lot harder to get it if you're vegan or vegetarian and you might need some supplementation for missing vitamins like B12. But if you're an omnivore, yeah, I'm gonna say go after the lean meat sources, go after the dairy. You can get very creative with like cottage cheese and Greek yogurt with different fat levels. So if you're in a fat loss phase, you can go with like Oikos zero. You know it's flavored with monk fruit or something, or it's almost all protein and a little bit of carbs. You know hacks like that, so a lot of people don't understand. Like protein density. You know they're like well, I'm having ribeye, so isn't that protein? Yeah, it's a lot of fat too, so let's go with sirloin. Yes, right, hacks like that make make a lot of sense?

Speaker 2 20:14

I'm sure it does because, as you said, when you're really tracking your macro nutrient portions, when I talking about macro nutrients, guys, I'm talking about carbs, proteins, fat and, as Philip saying, having the steak, it tastes amazing. It's all protein. Well, yet no, it's not all protein. There's a lot of fat buried into there. So, what types of steak are you eating? And I'll be a little bit more controversial with I don't. I Think being a vegan is nonsense. I will be honest. That's just my personal opinion. There's no reason. Not the animal products, but again, that's more of a controversial stance. If you have serious physiological, you want to change your body, eating animal sources of protein and fat is going to be beneficial. Just my opinion.

Speaker 1 20:56

Yeah, let me, I agree. So from a health perspective it's detrimental. Well, not detrimental, but it just makes it so much harder. The reason my fellow coach went vegan is for ethical reasons. So if you're going to do it at all. I could see that, absolutely. The animal farming is pretty bad.

Speaker 2 21:12

But I still.

Speaker 1 21:13

I love meat and I'm never going to not eat meat, so it's a lot easier, I agree.

Speaker 2 21:17

So the other question that popped up into my head and we were talking about. The biggest challenge is hunger right For people losing weight, but I would also ask for the hard gainers is the biggest challenge also hunger, as well of eating past that point of being full? How do you approach the hard gainers? Because you give a decent amount of advice for the people looking to lose weight how about on the other side of the people that are looking to gain weight, gain muscle right. What's that look like for them?

Speaker 1 21:43

Yeah, just like with fat loss, when people plateau in the other direction, the number one reason is lack of awareness of what's actually going on. So if you identify with yourself as a hard gainer, it's probably because you think no matter how much you eat, you can't gain. Yeah, Right, and you see that in the scale, because the scale just well, the simple solution is going to be to eat more. But it's kind of flipping to just say that when you don't understand how much more to eat. And am I going to eat so much more that I start gaining fat? So there's a lot of fears built in like, oh, I'm going to gain too quickly. So by tracking your metabolism and knowing that it's ramping up at a certain rate, you know that you just have to eat more calories. Now how do you do that? That's the big challenge. So one of the best hacks is the meal timing and frequency. So if you're only eating three times a day and you need 3,500 calories, it's not going to cut it.

Speaker 2 22:31

Yeah, it's going to be a lot. That's going to be tough, not going to cut it Every time you eat.

Speaker 1 22:33

It's like 1,200 calories. Well, when you go to a restaurant and have like some, you have an appetizer and a modest dinner and maybe a glass of beer or something. That's probably 1,200, 1,400 calories, right, it kind of fills you up. And if you had to do that three times a day it's not sustainable. You just can feel bloated and all that. So eating five or six times a day, just like the bodybuilders used to do, it actually works.

Speaker 2 22:55

It's funny how the anecdotal stuff works.

Speaker 1 22:57

Yeah, bro, science a lot so, and that's the reason it works. The other thing is just the awareness of how many calories you need and the protein and fats and carbs. A lot of that's going to come from carbs, because your protein is pretty much what it is around that gram per pound ish. The fats will just scale up. Most people get enough fat in their diet. Especially guys who are hard gainers are plenty of fat. So then it's a matter of ramping up your carbs. Well, you can get carbs from very digestible sources that don't fill you up, like white rice and white pasta, and even a liquid form called highly brand cyclic dextrin. So it's a powdered form. True nutrition makes it. Dump that stuff in your pre-workout, your post-workout, any other drink, and you'll easily get your carbs that way.

Speaker 2 23:40

So it's great advice in terms of a lot of people are really scared of carbs. Carbs have a bad rap of I'm going to get fat doing this. So, with your hard gainers, right, so they're gaining this weight Do you set the expectation of, yes, you are going to gain fat and, yes, you are going to gain muscle. At the same time, we're shooting to gain more muscle than fat and then we're going to hit a peak place and then we're going to do a cut face and then we're going to pull some of that fat off while we maintain your muscle and then we're going to cycle back up and it's like this cyclical or this undulating wave that slowly trends up with muscle you guys can't see me right now, but I'm making waves with my hand but you slowly go up with muscle as you gain fat, lose fat, gain fat, lose fat, but you're consistently gaining muscle. Is that similar to what you do?

Speaker 1 24:21

It's exactly what I do. I actually recorded an episode that I don't know if it comes out before or after this, but on my show called why I'm Getting Fluffy Before I Get Jacked, okay, okay, where I talk about my personal experience and struggles and fears around that, because I still have them right, like. I still mean like, okay, I've got my, you know, my, my power belly, so to speak, and the. What I like to tell people is let's, let's accept the facts and the reality first.

Speaker 1 24:46

The reality is to maximize your building muscle, you have to gain some fat and for a beginner it might be around 50, 50 fat to muscle, let's say. For more advanced training, it's going to be skewed more toward fat because it's harder to add muscle, right. So if we accept that, why would you want to clip that and go too conservatively and just draw out the process? You're still going to gain, it's just going to take a lot longer. Let's go and optimize it. So by optimizing it we're going to gain as much muscle as we can, and then the rest is fat, and beyond that point would be just fat. So we kind of have to have to find that sweet spot, which for most guys is like two to three pounds a month, sure, which you might call a lean gain, right.

Speaker 2 25:26

But either way, as you said, you're optimizing this process Exactly.

Speaker 1 25:30

And that's the thing is like how do you get two to three pounds a month? That's very precise. Well, that's where knowing your metabolism comes into play how many calories you need to adjust each week to kind of keep that ramping up. But you're going to hit plateaus, like you said, you're going to hit a plateau and you're going to eat more. You're going to hit a plateau, you're going to eat more. Ultimately, six to nine months is a good timeframe to gain muscle. So for a man that's like, let's say, 160, 180, they're probably going to gain 20 pounds, 20, 25 pounds during that time, of which, if you're lucky, 10 or 15 is muscle on the upper end. For a newer intermediate, maybe it's five to 10. You know, guy, like you, it's like three.

Speaker 1 26:05

You've got a lot of muscle, and then we just cut the fat after that. And so what I like is timing your nutritional periods with your seasons of life and your seasons of the year. So guess what that is? That's eating through the holidays, eating through the winter, the winter fat, the winter bulk, and then cutting in the spring, just in time to wear less clothes and go to the beach. Yeah, that's it.

Speaker 2 26:26

You know, dude, I see a lot of your methods are very, very similar to what I practice and what I preach for forever. But what I really like about what you're doing is you're giving them the data and you're really personalizing it down to their metabolism, to their like specifics, where, like I give the general overall advice. I hear what you're talking about and what you do and I agree and I think that's how I operate as well Seasons of life, times of the year, and also to what you're saying of prioritizing protein. Even when you're losing weight, we're adding more protein than you would be if you're gaining weight. If you're gaining weight, we're adding carbs, like. All of those things are right in the wheelhouse of what I believe in as well. A little bit of a less business question, a little bit more of a personal question what is your favorite go to meal when you are trying to gain weight?

Speaker 1 27:14

Oh boy my favorite meal when I'm trying to gain weight. It's funny because right after this I'm going to go to this place called Popovers. Bistro down in it's in Simsbury. Okay, that's the Indian Waffles.

Meal Prep and Weight Gaining/Losing

Speaker 2 27:27

Then that's it Right there. Chicken and waffles is your go-to gain, your weight gainer.

Speaker 1 27:31

You think about it. It's chicken, a lot of protein it's got it's breaded, so I got my carbs and they do it gluten-free and all the fancy schmancy stuff. Right, it's got bacon, it's got syrup, so more carbs in there, you know.

Speaker 2 27:41

Now it doesn't have veggies. It sounds delicious?

Speaker 1 27:43

Yeah, it is delicious, you should try it. It doesn't have any vegetables, so I make up for that, usually with fruit or something. When I get homes Bananas, grapes, apples, and I eat plenty of vegetables with dinner and I'll have vegetables with a snack. You know all that. So, yeah, anything with a solid amount of protein and a lot of carbs is awesome during gaining. It's a lot of fun, man. I mean, right now I'm eating I don't know 3,200 calories a day, where at most ever I was up to like 3,700. It's a lot. It's a lot of food, but since my surgery, everything's been a little wonky.

Speaker 2 28:14

So and it's a little wonky, just due to your recovery and your ability to output calories.

Speaker 1 28:20

in terms of the work, I can't explain it and this is the thing which so for people listening. If you're a client of mine, like this, stuff is always changing your life and how your metabolism looks and works and responds always changes with your lifestyle. So that's why the clarity is important For me. I was gaining since April, so it's currently January, and my surgery was in July. So after my surgery, I went back to maintenance because I wasn't able to train, but all of a sudden my expenditure ramped up.

Speaker 2 28:53

Really interesting.

Speaker 1 28:54

And I looked into it and there have been studies that looked at rotator cuff surgery specifically and because of all the rebuild of the tissue.

Speaker 2 29:00

You say it's your body healing.

Speaker 1 29:02

It's what it is. It's your body healing. I was able to see that in my data because I continued to track. So I saw it ramp up by like 300 calories within like a couple of weeks. I mean it was massive. And so I started to lose weight, even though I was trying to maintain my weight Because I didn't realize I would have to eat so much. So it then came back down. I started to train again and I started to go and build again, but my metabolism kept dropping, dropping, dropping. After it peaked, so it dropped like far below where it normally sits. And then, ever since then, it's recovered back, but it's like maybe two or 300 less than it used to be now and I think if I continue building it, it will eventually get back to where it was. It's just an oddity of it's really interesting.

Speaker 2 29:42

So do you notice? Have you tracked it through getting sick and saw the same thing, like when your body is working so hard to kick a virus or get over an infection? Have you seen the metabolism kick up in terms of hey, we're working overtime, I'm working while you're asleep right now? Like, do you see that or no?

Speaker 1 29:59

It's not. No, it's not as predictable for an illness. For some reason, I think the body is compensating and conserving calories and turning illness as well. But my recommendation if you have an illness is don't diet through the illness, like eat the calories and even eat a little bit more than you think you need. It's okay, you might gain a little weight, but you're gonna recover faster.

Speaker 2 30:18

Yeah, get kind of kick it. So to take the question I just asked and flipped it on the other side favorite meal for when you're losing weight.

Speaker 1 30:24

I don't even wanna think about that, because that's not gonna be long from now before I have to start my next cut.

Speaker 2 30:31

I just, rather than favorite, go to-.

Speaker 1 30:33

No, I'll tell you. I'll tell you so I like to meal prep chicken thighs. Okay, and a lot of people think they can't have chicken thighs during fat loss, right, because they're a little fattier than chicken breasts.

Speaker 2 30:44

I mean overall chicken like the fact that chicken is minimal.

Speaker 1 30:46

It's minimal and that's what I wanna tell people. If you look at the macros, there's not much of a difference, but a massive difference in flavor. So I will meal prep. Yeah right, like at least in my opinion when I cook a turkey for Thanksgiving, like I'm getting all the dark meat.

Speaker 2 30:59

My wife gets all the Pack it way more flavor, I know for sure.

Speaker 1 31:02

It's flavor. So all you have. I love this for meal prep. You get a whole package of like family size chicken thighs. Throw them in a casserole dish, sprinkle whatever seasoning you want. You don't have to add any oil or fat, because it'll have its own fat. Bake it 400 degrees 30 minutes and you've just meal prep your thighs for the week and then at lunch, during a fat loss phase, I can chop that up, put it in a salad. The fat from the thighs is like the dressing for the salad Nice yeah.

Speaker 1 31:25

And then I throw in tons of vegetables and fruits, so cucumbers and peppers and whatever it just fills you up. Like I encourage big ass salads for lunch daily during a fat loss phase. So yeah, that's what I would say.

Speaker 2 31:36

So when you're looking at salads, fruits, veggies, are you tracking, like, the grams of carbohydrate via the salad and just making? Because I have a heart, I feel like it'd be hard to ever overdo it with veggies. Do you find that people ever overdo it with veggies?

Speaker 1 31:51

No, you can't overdo it with veggies unless you're up to like 60 or 70 grams of fiber a day or something crazy like that. I encourage lots of veggies and especially green vegetables and things that fill you up, that you enjoy, right Cruciferous vegetables, all that good stuff. So I do track everything and I weigh everything with a food scale right so yeah, and in a fat loss phase it's gonna be easier.

Speaker 1 32:12

If you cook from home, you can weigh things. If you have a spouse that cooks for you, like I do a lot, she kind of understands. I try to do it a little bit less intrusively. So my hack there is don't ask your spouse to like weigh everything for you ahead of time, just eat the food, enjoy it. But you can weigh the before and after. So I just weigh the plate full and then I weigh the plate empty and I eyeball the ratio of everything and I put it in as grams and I can kind of tweak. Okay, it was 400 gram meal, I just log 300 grams. I just need to scale everything up so it matches.

Speaker 2 32:43

I think that's a great hint right there and a great hack to that. Would you give the same advice for, let's say, because a lot of people that are looking to lose weight are new parents hey, my kids are five, six, seven, eight. However, old, I'm trying to turn on life and reprioritize myself. Any overarching suggestions you would give them for weight loss, similar to like that hack, anything that you're like hey, this is a really good go-to. I give this piece of advice all the time. This is what I would look at.

Speaker 1 33:10

For parents Like are we talking about?

Speaker 2 33:13

I mean. So the last piece of advice was like hey, with my spouse making me meals would be this regard. Hey, I'm eating my meals with my kids. This and that, I'm running all over. Do you have any like quick pieces of advice for that?

Speaker 1 33:23

Yeah, I mean you just wanna simplify. I'm a big fan of systems and automation and simplifying. So when you talk about meal prep, meal prep's a great skill, but don't overthink it. Like don't think you have to be the Marie Kondo of meal prep where you're doing like Tupperware's of every single dish of every single day. Just do what I said before batch cook of meat, batch cook a starch or a carb and maybe batch cook a vegetable not even vegetables are easy to just throw in and every time you cook dinner, make a ton of food and just eat leftovers. Yeah, that's really smart. Just make like that's it. Eat leftovers for lunch, eat leftovers for dinner. You know, make enough during the week, so there's variety and then mix and match and just don't overthink it.

Speaker 2 34:02

I mean that's. I typically do that same thing where, like last night, I made so one of my favorite meals that I eat. With gaining weight, losing weight. I refer to it as a meat bowl, which is pretty much a taco bowl. It's a pound of ground beef with everything that I wanna throw under the sun, but a lot of times, like last night, I ate half of it peeled away. The other half put it in Tupperware. All each other. Half tonight. Great, perfect meal is done easy, doesn't matter what my kids are eating. I now have hacked through that and now I know how to eat. So back, kind of working with you on that side of the conversation. We're in phase two. We're going through phase two. Are you just giving them nutrition advice? Are you also working with them on weightlifting and training programs? What's that look like? So I'm listening to the podcast. I'm excited to work with you on nutrition. What's the whole program really look like?

Importance of Weight Training and Nutrition

Speaker 1 34:49

Yeah, so I don't. I'm not a personal trainer per se, but you know I've been lifting a long time and I'm very much a student of lifting. So one service I provide is form checks and reviews of your training, and I even suggest training programs or I'll refer you to trainers like you. You know Most of the people I work with. They already have been lifting for a short while. Like in my marketing material it says you've been lifting for three months at least and maybe you're stuck at this point. No matter what, you've got to be strength training when you work with me. So don't think you're just, it's just food Gotcha. You know I've had discovery calls with individuals who are like I just want to fix my nutrition, I don't want to lift. I'm like you know what, I've flipped that around, like if you had to do one thing and didn't have much time, it would be lift weights.

Speaker 2 35:31

Period. I just recorded a video today and it was my top two fitness tips. And number one lift weights, and if you don't know how to lift weights, hire a coach to teach you. And number two is move, just move every day. But number three to that would be hire someone to teach you how to eat.

Speaker 1 35:47

Yeah, yeah, and there's a lot of misconceptions about nutrition, like if you go online on Facebook or Instagram, you'll see all these free resources about meal plans and how to do groceries and this, and that I'm not that kind of coach like. That's not me. For me, it's about getting down to developing the skill and the engineering and the data and understanding yourself. You're an adult, you know how to go to the grocery store and kind of pick, pick foods, but if you don't, I'll give you the feedback on that. It's needs-based, right, it's needs-based.

Speaker 1 36:17

So training is huge and part of what I see Rome with people coming in is they're either training too much or they're not training effectively with progressive overload, right, a lot of women are doing a lot of cardio and I had someone reach out to me and say I'm swimming seven days a week for 40 minutes in a fat loss phase. I'm lifting four days a week and I'm always sore. Am I doing too much? I'm like, yes, I'm like, at least you asked the right question. But yeah, I've had clients who had adrenal issues, what presented as thyroid issues, hormone issues as young as late 20s or early 30s and not that those issues can't exist then, but oftentimes it's too much stress on the body right, I agree.

Speaker 1 37:03

So fat loss is the one time you don't want to be overstressing yourself, and so walking is huge and not doing too much. Am I not doing too much? It's the right amount of volume and intensity for your training, intensity being the most important variable. Load by intensity, right For the listener. I don't mean effort and sweating, I mean the muscle stimulus right.

Speaker 2 37:23

Yeah, how have you been going? It's really interesting. So old old coach used to be a head of the Olympic weightlifting team in America. His name is Joe Mills, a world champion, national champion. He used to always say two is better than four and three is better than six. He was talking about training days and intensity. If you're training intensely for three days a week, that's all you need.

Speaker 2 37:44

You can't train six days a week. If you're training intensely two days a week, that's better than training not intensely four days a week. And it's figuring out to your point that balance and having the recovery and the nutrition to fuel your recovery so you're able to adapt and get the gains that you're looking for and really see the changes. Sorry, guys, but with that I completely agree. It's really trying to figure out what foods do I need to recover to get the adaptations that I'm looking for. Am I looking to lose weight? Am I looking to gain weight? How much do I need to rest? How much do I need to sleep? So, with that, do you ever have any supplement recommendations that you're like hey, all of my clients are using creatine, or all of my clients are taking B vitamins or vitamin D, or do you go down that rabbit hole of supplements or do you stay away?

Speaker 1 38:30

Yeah, no for sure, right from the beginning. I asked that in the intake form, like what supplementation are you taking? Because I also want to know medication. I want to know are you taking DHEA or some sort of hormone treatment or whatever? And then look at what the gaps are. Most people are nutrient efficient in a lot of vitamins and minerals, but especially magnesium, so I'm a big fan of everyone taking magnesium. Vitamin D maybe get tested with blood work. I live in the Northeast. I take 5,000 IU a day and my blood work's fine. It's not too much right, but with taking 5,000 IU a day it's just putting you at normal.

Speaker 2 39:07

It's if it was sunny out.

Speaker 1 39:08

Exactly, and I try to get out for walks but I'm pasty, white and everything. I don't know what it is.

Speaker 2 39:12

And you said you're originally from Florida right, yeah, yeah. That could be part of your body being like hey, we're from Florida and now we're in the Northeast and there's no sun here.

Speaker 1 39:19

Could be an adaptation. So the fish oil, if you don't need enough fatty fish, I think is good for the Omega 3s, and then a multivitamin of some kind, creatine for sure, and I think I go. Oh, probiotics, big fan of probiotics, especially the high quality kind that get the bacteria to your gut. There's a whole area of research around the gut microbiome and how important that is Not just for health but also even for your metabolism, metabolic rate.

Speaker 2 39:47

I always find that really interesting. So you dive into gut health and we don't have to go down that rabbit hole.

Speaker 1 39:50

I'm not an expert in that. Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 2 39:52

What I find is interesting is, let's say, you and I drink the same exact protein shake we have. There's 30 grams of protein in this protein shake. I might absorb 20 grams of protein out of it. You might absorb 28 grams of protein out of it. And it really comes down to what your gut health looks like and what's going on down there, what type of protein it is, what receptors are open. It's just, it's a whole wide world. But to Philip's point, I definitely believe in probiotics and it's just something and easy, easy. Take one pill a day and you're covered and your gut's going to be healthier, no brainer. And it's also a lot easier than eating a ton of fermented food, because if you go down the other side of it, people are going to be like you need your fermented food, you need this much fermented food today, and they're like how many pickles do I have?

Speaker 2 40:31

to eat yeah, sauerkraut, yeah sauerkraut and pickles and all that kind of stuff. So, philip, what does the future of what's in weights look like? What are you doing next? What are you on to? What are you doing?

Speaker 1 40:40

Yeah, I mean it's really exciting. So you know, I've got the podcast, which is kind of where everything begins. And if anyone listening here like, what I want you to do is check out the podcast and get to know me and what we talk about and learn because I like curious people, you know I like to work with curious people who are self-motivated and want to change Like they want to change. You have to be ready for change and ready to make that happen. Get into that kind of world and that community first, before you even reach out to me for coaching, honestly, because I want you to know that you can like and trust me and get used to my personality and be ready to work, because you're going to work with me. But I'm going to get you a plan to be successful doing that.

Speaker 1 41:18

So wits and weights, and then this year I'm very excited for what we're trying to get going on the coaching side. Right now I do a one-on-one coaching primarily, which is a very high touch personalized service. I want to take that model and evolve it into a little bit more of a community experience. So you still get one-on-one attention, a personal plan and nutrition plan and check-ins, but within a community environment where you've got modules that you can learn from, kind of ongoing education on nutrition, and it's just this great experience, probably for a little bit less the cost of you know lower than a pure one-on-one coaching.

Speaker 2 41:54

I think that's awesome and I guys, if you want a free resource, listen to Phillips podcast.

Speaker 2 41:59

Go to wits and weights. There's a ton of information on that. He brings on great guests that you're going to probably learn more than you can even comprehend right now, and then you can go back and listen to it again once you have a base level of knowledge and understand more of what you just heard. So really good resource, especially if you're looking to lose weight or gain muscle. Both sides of that Phillips show would be a great resource for you. So, Phillip, anybody that's looking, they've listened to this and they want to work with you Beyond the podcast. Where would they find you? Where can people find you online?

Speaker 1 42:26

On socials.

Speaker 2 42:27

What's that look like?

Speaker 1 42:28

I'll just give you two places to go either Instagram at Wits and Weights so just send me a message. I'm a nice guy, I'm the guy you hear here, Don't be afraid, Just reach out and say hi. Or witsandweightscom, where I've got you know. You could either apply for my coaching. You could download a bunch of free guides I have there's like a rapid fat loss guide and hunger hacks guide and all sorts of fun stuff, and the podcast and everything else is there as well.

Speaker 2 42:51

Cool, great. So, guys, if you're looking to go find Phillip, he just told you where to go Go do it. Anything else you want to add to?

Speaker 1 42:57

the show. Just, you know this is a new year. If you've got resolutions, if you're like super motivated because you're hearing this early on, you know, don't wait, take an action. Take a small, simple action this week. It doesn't have to be huge, you don't have to change everything. Just set that micro goal and go after it. And if you need any help, reach out to Roam, reach out to me, we'll help you get there.

Speaker 2 43:14

I love it. Thank you, Phil, for coming on.

Speaker 1 43:17

Thanks so much for having me. 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.