Philip Pape: 0:00

I ever feel like you're chasing two conflicting goals? Maybe you want to drop some fat but also increase your strength, or perhaps you're trying to lean out while building muscle. What if I told you that with the right approach, you don't always have to choose. In this episode, I'm pulling back the curtain on a recent conversation I had with jazz, a power lifter, just eight weeks out from competition, jazz was facing a dilemma I see all the time, how to break through a scale weight barrier to get a mental win without compromising his performance. We're diving into setting realistic goals, prioritizing what really matters, and creating a plan that allows you to pursue seemingly conflicting objectives, you'll learn why sometimes there's a third option you haven't considered, and how the secret may lie in periodizing your nutrition, whether you're a power lifter like jazz a weekend warrior, or just someone trying to balance multiple fitness goals, this Episode should give you the confidence to eliminate any frustration when you're being pulled in two different directions. Welcome to wits end weights, the podcast that blends evidence and engineering to help you build smart, efficient systems to achieve your dream physique. I'm your host, Philip pape, and today we're diving into a topic that resonates with so many of us, how to navigate seemingly conflicting fitness goals, hearing a recording of one of my free 15 minute rapid nutrition assessments, a 300 pound power lifter who's eight weeks out his very first competition, he is torn between losing more weight to get under 300 pounds, and maintaining his muscle and strength. Join the call, thinking that he had two options, and we uncovered a surprising third option. So you're trying to build muscle, lose fat, body recomp prep for an event more than one of these at the same time learn a smart and efficient way to do it all right? Jazz, what is going on? Man,

Jazz Young: 2:03

hey, what's going on?

Philip Pape: 2:06

you as well? No, like, in person, yeah, in person, virtually, in person. It's funny what we call in person these days, right? But Yes, exactly, even though you're a few hours down in Philly and I'm up here in Connecticut, you

Jazz Young: 2:18

will meet someday, yeah, probably, I've been in Connecticut like

Philip Pape: 2:21

once, yeah, yeah, cool. So, just so the listener knows what we're doing here, this is a 15 minute rapid nutrition assessment, something I just started doing recently. It's going to be fast paced. And the goal here is to help you figure out what's one thing you should prioritize, one thing holding you back, and then maybe a few steps that you can get results with in the short term. I do know a little bit about what's going on with you, but I'm going on with you, but I'm gonna assume that I don't. So first big question for you is, why did you reach out to me? What are you trying to get done here with when it comes to your nutrition, your big goal right now?

Jazz Young: 2:52

So my big goal is maintaining strength. I'm about eight weeks out from my first powerlifting competition, so I do want to shut some pounds I don't have, necessarily. I did have a goal week, but I'm not necessarily going to hit that with the amount of time that I have. But I would like to come in a little lighter for this first beat, just to give myself a goal. But I also want to, you know, still hit some big lifts on the platform when I do go out there, so maintaining muscle and just literally, some body fat weight competition. Thanks,

Philip Pape: 3:25

man. Congratulations. By the way, on the urge to do that of powerlifting me at all. It's great. And I've been following you, you know, been following you, and you're a strong guy. I mean, like, when we get in some numbers here, and people will see, like, You're a big, strong guy. So

Jazz Young: 3:38

could see that for eight weeks out.

Philip Pape: 3:41

If you don't mind sharing, how much do you weigh? What weight class are you in?

Jazz Young: 3:45

So when I got on the scale recently, I was three, oh 1.6 so I float in between about 298, and 301 for the most part, like average weekly body weight. And what's the weight class? When I signed up, it was for 275 so that would be the weight class. Don't know if I'll get there, but I can always change it for my first meet, the first meet, I don't necessarily need a weight class. That's

Philip Pape: 4:12

good. And that's exactly what I was trying to get at here, right? Because people are listening like, okay, they have a specific event. If they have, uh, you know, even if you want to have a wedding, and you're trying to get down to a certain number. It's realistic expectations, and also it's important to you, right? Is it getting nice, big numbers and feeling good and like getting through it and done, or is it, you know, trying to fine tune every little thing get into the weight class, right? Guessing it's the former.

Jazz Young: 4:37

Yeah, I want to lose some weight, but I'm not really concerned about getting into the weight class. The first one is just to get the first one out the way, and then I'll be concentrated on weight class, and it's like after that. But I still want to, you know, continue on losing

Philip Pape: 4:52

Okay, so we're talking 25 pounds maybe, maybe you can get there eight weeks. Does that come out to three pounds a week, which your size is like exactly 1% a week. That's if you did it every single week right up until the competition, as you know, may not be super helpful for getting the best performance possible. Yeah. Okay, so, because we can talk about things like, let me ask you, you got a tapering plan coming up for your training? You have, you're working with a coach right for the training side.

Jazz Young: 5:21

Okay, yes.

Philip Pape: 5:22

Have you thought about the nutrition beyond just what you've already been doing in terms of prep the week leading up to it, and the meat day itself?

Jazz Young: 5:32

Not necessarily, like that far out, just mainly the nutrition leading up to it. I know probably about two weeks out, I'm trying to sit at wherever I wind up, week to two weeks out, just trying to hover there. So I don't, you know, do too much going into the competition. Yeah,

Philip Pape: 5:50

for sure. And I'm a big fan of, like, leading up to anything, even if it's an endurance race like a marathon. Want to keep things as stable as possible. Don't change what you're eating. Insert any supplements, you know, add a whole bunch of fiber, because that can mess with your digestive tract. All that stuff at the same time. You also don't want to be like under fed and under energy that period. So there's, there's a shift that we could make right where you could do a little carb loading not too far ahead of the meat, like three days ahead of the meat, the carb loading could be as simple as swapping out some protein for some more carbs. No, doesn't have to be like again, not like a runner who has to just 10 grams per pound of carbs or whatever. So, so what is your current I'm getting ahead of myself here, as usual, but what is your current nutrition look like? And what is it that you're trying to figure out that maybe isn't working, or you're just not sure of going forward.

Jazz Young: 6:45

So finally, is much protein I'm eating, like, I'll use back profector. And it's like, Hey, I picked high for the protein. So saying like 219 grams of protein, which is a lot of protein, even for a big guy like myself. So hitting that goal is kind of challenging for me, and my biggest thing is I like the snack, and then my work schedule is three to 11 o'clock at night, so sometimes I'll come home and still be hungry because I'm at work and tail end of the day. So

Philip Pape: 7:22

your protein's 220 you feel like it's high, and that's about point seven grams per pound of body weight. But listening to doing the math, they're familiar with the range we say like point seven to one gram per pound. But add some nuance to target body weight. But not only that, also based on lean mass. Originally, it's based on lean mass. The bigger you are. It doesn't scale linearly, right? So you have any idea, like your body composition roughly

Jazz Young: 7:50

a DEXA scan, but I don't know any in my area, so, and it's not

Philip Pape: 7:56

super important right now. It's just like, if you had a rough number of body fat to muscle, you can kind of say, Okay, this is how much lean mass I have, therefore this is how much protein be appropriate. But we forget about all that. We don't need to overcomplicate it. The 220 it's funny, because any guy over 200 pounds, I'd be like, you want to eat 200 grams of protein, at least no matter who you are being. 320 doesn't sound super high to me, but from a practical perspective, saying that it's difficult get that in, right? Yeah, okay. What does your meal timing look like right now? Like, how many meals a day? They all have protein. What sources of protein

Jazz Young: 8:35

I usually eat after I come from the gym, I'll eat like, some carbs, like rice cakes before I go to the gym, and just some Gatorade, because I wake up, like eight, nine o'clock, and I head straight to the gym pretty much. And then when I come home, I typically eat turkey bacon, some eggs, maybe a little cheese, some time to time, but, and that's usually like 12 o'clock, 12 to one o'clock, and then next time I'll eat will be at four o'clock, like an hour after my work, shit. And then like six dinner. So yeah, it's like dinner. So like four minutes, like a pre post workout,

Philip Pape: 9:18

mid afternoon or late afternoon, and then dinner. Okay, have you tried? Have you tried? Or are you able to with your schedule, adding in another snack?

Jazz Young: 9:27

A protein shake would be fun, but because I get home from the gym at like, 12 o'clock, I eat, and then I leave at two and I'm not really hungry, and then taking protein powder to work isn't like the most convenient thing for me, so I've done that before, but I don't have, like, my blender and stuff that I have at home instead of just shaking it out.

Carol: 9:51

Before I started working with Philip, I had been trying to lose weight and was really struggling with consistency, but from the very beginning, Philip took the time to listen to me and understand my goals. He taught me the importance of fueling my body with the right foods to optimize my training in the gym, and I lost 20 pounds. More importantly, I gained self confidence. What sets Philip apart is the personal connection. He supported and encouraged me every step of the way. So if you're looking for a coach who cares about your journey as much as you do, I highly recommend Philippa.

Philip Pape: 11:12

All right, cool. No. And again, we don't have to shoehorn it into like meal frequency. I just always ask that question, because some people have an opportunity on the table to just get an extra meal in. Maybe it's earlier in the maybe it's in the morning, maybe it's later at night, but not too close to bedtime. So you told me like your post workout has freaky baking, eggs,

Jazz Young: 11:30

cheese. How much fat are you getting in your diet? Roughly about, okay, macro factor, it was probably about anywhere from 80 to 100 grams, roughly that what you're actually getting. That's your target. What target is?

Philip Pape: 11:47

Okay? What are you actually consuming based on your log, based on my log, probably about 80. Oh, okay, so that's reasonable, all right, because when I heard turkey bacon, eggs, cheese, I'm thinking, Okay, you have some room to maybe clean out some of the foods to get more protein and less fat, and then it's the same amount of food. You know, doesn't sound like too much of that's going on when you have lunch. When you have dinner, these, you know, meats and vegetables and some starch, for the most part, they

Jazz Young: 12:12

look like, yeah, so the first meal is usually like some stir fry steak with rice, and then my last meal is usually just like a protein and a veggie. Okay,

Philip Pape: 12:26

yeah, love this stir fry, steak. Man, make me hungry. Yeah, stuff,

Jazz Young: 12:32

it's my go to No. That's

Philip Pape: 12:34

great. I love it. And the fat sounds reasonable. So when you say the protein's high at 220 are you actually hitting that number, and it's just like, feels like enforcing it you're

Jazz Young: 12:43

not hitting the number. I plug in my this my lunch and what I'm gonna eat for dinner, like the protein source, that's the first thing. I plug in, the macro factor. It'll have me at like, one. And I'm like, Oh, I still got 70 more to go, and I'll get the yogurts, like, Greek yogurt, the oikos, yeah, would you like 15 grams? But I can't eat four of them. A Destiny piece.

Philip Pape: 13:13

You know, it's funny, I have that same breath, oh, it goes zero, right? And you put it in a bowl, and you're like, I'm up to, like, 150 grams. I'm up to 200 grams, and that's only, like 150 Cal. 50 calories, a pretty good protein, dense source of food there. But yeah, you're right. It kind of fills you up. You're saying you're not really hitting 220 right? No, no,

Jazz Young: 13:32

I'm probably getting closer to about where from 170 to 190 Okay, some days I do get the protein, but it's few and far between.

Philip Pape: 13:46

All right, did you say earlier, you you're getting hungry, some hunger, yeah, towards

Jazz Young: 13:51

towards the end of the of my work shift, okay, I'll eat my last meal at about six, seven o'clock. Yeah.

Philip Pape: 13:57

Protein could definitely help with hunger, right? But, before we get to that, do you have your gold macro factor currently set to lose at a

Jazz Young: 14:06

certain rate, like two pounds a week? Yeah, it's two pounds a week.

Philip Pape: 14:09

Two pounds a week, all right, so you know for a fact that that rate you're not going to hit the 275 unless you plan to do some water manipulation. You don't plan on that do Okay, good. You shouldn't do that at a year level, doing your fifth competition, maybe

Jazz Young: 14:24

you look into that. That's for another competition. Yeah, exactly.

Philip Pape: 14:28

So you resigned to that of not hitting the weight class, or is part of this conversation, like, Hey, can I speed it up more aggressively and hold on to my strength and muscle

Jazz Young: 14:39

a little bit of both? Okay? Like, maybe speed it up a little bit. Like, main thing is just, I don't want to lose the strength going into the competition. Strength is fine, but if I don't get to the weight class, I'm resigned with fine with that, even my coaches, like, we shouldn't really press for that right now. So okay, and

Philip Pape: 15:00

you're nowhere near to getting what's the next weight class? 275, would

Jazz Young: 15:04

be the next the weight class I signed up for? No, I mean, up. Oh, up. Go eat. Okay, all right, yeah,

Philip Pape: 15:11

yeah. Because I mean, where I'm coming at this, and you tell me, if I'm wrong, it's like, got your short term goal, and you've got your long term goal. I imagine your long term goal has some health goals in there, and some, you know, body composition goals, and we could talk about that, you know, to get to the 90 days past the competition up to the next year, that's a different thing. The short term, you're pretty much not going to make the weight class at this point, unless you go 1.2% a week straight on for the next six weeks, like a very aggressive cut, you're going to just feel terrible and then, like, your lifts are gonna drop and all that. Why not just toss that out the window altogether right now and just maintain, okay, maintain, like, get off the cut all together, right? And maintain your weight. Since you're still you're not close to the next weight class, and at risk of that, you could keep those glycogen stores filled, like, you know, up your carbs have more calories to work with, which will make it easier to hit your protein lift should, like, keep going up. I would imagine clean there's only upside to doing it that way. You're kind of, if you're not going to hit the lower weight class, why even that trade off? Yeah,

Jazz Young: 16:16

and I was thinking that too, yeah. But sometimes we just need somebody else to confirm it for us. Okay,

Philip Pape: 16:23

I should just ask you this. Why do you want to lose some weight before that?

Jazz Young: 16:27

It's just a goal. Like, if I didn't get the 275 like I said, I was our rooms on that, but if I can get the 290 and sit there, I'm perfectly fine with that too. But let's

Philip Pape: 16:39

dig in a little bit. Why is that the goal now, knowing that you have another goal in parallel, of smasher lifts on a power lifting me,

Jazz Young: 16:47

I've been over 300 pounds for a long time, so, okay, under 300 pounds and competing in the power lift in me compared to where I started, would be fantastic.

Philip Pape: 16:58

Okay, all right, I like it. I'm glad I asked. So that's cool, if you want to be like, the guy who's you kind of accomplish these two goals at the same time, and you could be super proud of that, right? And shout to the world, like, Hey, I got under 300 and I competed, and I got these massive numbers on my list. They're sitting right over 300 so why don't we make the goal? Like, 295, okay, you know, or two. You know what I'm saying? Like, just the psychological break, right? Like it's trade offs. It's all trade offs. You know that there's a trade off with everything. So, yeah, if the goal is 295 you can do that in the next, like, two or three weeks, easy, right? And at the rate you're already going, you should be there within a few weeks. Yeah, right, assuming you've been pretty consistent hitting the calories, yeah.

Jazz Young: 17:40

So these last couple weeks, I've just been kind of hovering at cracking so much, but just making sure I stayed around the 300 pound mark. So these last eight weeks, I definitely want to start tracking so I can get to sub 300 since you

Philip Pape: 17:57

kind of know what your maintenance is, just what calories right now,

Jazz Young: 18:02

I think like 3500 rocky could

Philip Pape: 18:06

see that. Okay, 3500 makes sense. What's your step count daily? Ish, 1000 steps. Oh, so you get a lot of steps? Okay, cool, yeah, I walk around a lot at work. That's great. That's really good, really listening. That's awesome. What jazz is doing here,

Jazz Young: 18:20

all this job, so I make myself walk around the shop and

Philip Pape: 18:24

stuff like that. Awesome. So 500 calories could then go into 1000 calorie deficit would get you. 1000 calorie deficit would get you two pounds a week. You could eat around 2500 calories for a couple weeks. Kind of feel it to you, okay, yeah. And then get in there around 298 297 and kind of decide, okay, I can push to 295 I mean, what happen is, when you get back out of that cut, gonna pop up a bit back because of the fluid. You want to get a little extra buffer there. And that leaves you a good five, six weeks to get back to maintenance and just stay there, get filled up, hit the lifts and everything. The only other thing that comes to mind is, are you doing a test day before then, like a test or anything like that?

Jazz Young: 19:14

I thought I know of I would have to check my coaching and see what He has planned. But he typically doesn't do that. He wants all your energy on the meat day. I

Philip Pape: 19:26

got it you were, I would say you could have an opportunity to do like a meat nutrition test day as well. I mean, I have to overcomplicate it, like, do what you normally do leading up to it, the carbs a few days ahead of time, a bit then, no, do your pre workout like you normally would, which is a, you know, sounds like you do the rice cakes and the protein, you probably want a bigger meal a few hours before the meat, versus what you normally do when going to the gym. And then the rice cakes. Take some fruit, take energy bars, Powerade, whatever you're kind of used to to getting really simple carbs, right? Not complex carbs. You don't want too much fat, too much complex or too much fiber early on, on that day, right? This is a separate thing we could talk about that offline, like, later and change too much, like, don't start taking a new supplement or anything like that. That can throw you off. Here's the plan, right? Step one, do a cut at two to three pounds a week for the next few weeks. Step two, go back to maintenance, right? And then step three, plan for, like, the pre meat nutrition to kind of fill up those glycogen stores. And then after that, we could talk about, okay, what is your long term plan? Now,

Jazz Young: 20:36

get jacked. No plan, okay, yeah, yeah. I want to be, uh, big and strong but just in a smaller package. You

Philip Pape: 20:43

know, it's gonna work really well for you, man, because you are a big guy with a ton of muscle who's super strong. So I bet there's a lot under there to, like, really reveal it to people. No, I'm just trying to reveal it. Yeah, we're skinny guys like me. We never quite pushed it that hard to get up there. It's like, up and down type of thing.

Jazz Young: 20:59

So do you think that sounds good? Okay, yeah, I think it sounds good. And focusing in after the competition is definitely gonna be the best thing for me, because I don't plan on competing for a while after that, so I have all of the winner. And you know, to focus on getting down to the next bodyweight goal

Philip Pape: 21:21

for sure, man. And you know how to reach me for that, we definitely should talk and map it out for you, because I think it achieved some great things, man, for sure.

Jazz Young: 21:29

Yeah, I think so too, yeah. I think so too,

Philip Pape: 21:31

yeah. All right. So I mean, I mean, there you go. That's, I know we went a little longer than 15 minutes, but I helped you get through the mental roadblock of between two different goals, right?

Jazz Young: 21:41

Yes, yes, definitely. Like I said, sometimes I had it in the back of my head, like, maybe you should just change the goal to something like 290 or something like that. But sometimes we need somebody else to tell us, hey, you should do this. Well, I was thinking that so

Philip Pape: 21:56

exactly, and I would just think of it as like, one quick goal. You get done. Now you're back to your main goal, and you get that done, and you're good

Jazz Young: 22:04

seeing what you did with Jeremy and how he did it in phases. Oh, yeah. Jerry. Bonanno, yeah, Jerry, I said, Jeremy. Jerry, sorry,

Philip Pape: 22:11

I've done that to him too. Yeah. Sorry, sorry, Jerry, sorry, Jerry, but yeah, I've

Jazz Young: 22:16

done that. And I'm like, oh, can do this, do the competition, still hit my goal on some of the lifts that I want to hit, and then focus on the next phase after that. Awesome,

Philip Pape: 22:29

man. Well, get it done and reach out to me if you have any questions along the way. Like, like I said, this is just to help people and see the how it kind of changes perspective, and it's gonna be a lot of fun.

Jazz Young: 22:42

Yeah, yeah. I'm looking forward to it. I'm excited.

Philip Pape: 22:45

I hope you enjoyed that conversation with jazz to us a recording of a 15 minute rapid nutrition assessment. These are free calls that I give all the time. I always have a few spots every week in my calendar. I encourage you, if you are looking for a little bit of assistance, to uncover the one thing that is holding you back and come up with a quick three step action plan, get results in the next 90 days ahead, and use the link in my show notes to schedule that with me. Won't bite, as you could tell from today's call. I just ask you some questions. We figure it out together. They give you some actions. I don't sell anything. I don't even mention my coaching, and you leave with a little bit of of clarity, actually, a lot of clarity and some next steps to take. And then from that, you can always go further and talk about specific resources and actions you can take to put those to the next level. So, if you want to schedule that free 15 minute rapid nutrition assessment, use the link in my show notes, or go to witsweets.com, click the top right, and I will talk to you next time here on the wits, and waits podcast.