Optimization Theory in Nutrition for Athletes

Philip Pape 0:01

What we're talking about today is how these Olympic athletes strategically cycle their nutrition to achieve peak performance , but also optimize their body composition , as some sports call for that . And if you're listening to this and you have a goal of leaning out , of building muscle , losing fat , we are going to talk about using the engineering principle of optimization theory to do that to build more muscle , lose fat , prevent plateaus , make your diet more effective and sustainable . So if you're tired of the yo-yo dieting , if you're not sure what to do with your diet , if you're struggling to improve your body composition , this episode will show you how to engineer your nutrition like an Olympian . Welcome to Wits and 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 P , and I want you to think about this . You've been dieting on and off for months , maybe for years , and sometimes you make progress , sometimes you don't . Your energy fluctuates , your workouts feel inconsistent , you're not quite sure if you're building muscle or kind of spinning your wheels and going up and down Sound familiar . Well , what if I told you that there is a way to structure your nutrition that allows for both muscle gain and fat loss without feeling like you're constantly fighting this uphill battle and not really making progress . And this is a method that aligns with your body's natural rhythms , perhaps even with your schedule , with periods of progress , with periods of progress , with periods of maintenance , with periods of recovery . Whatever life throws at you , you can handle it , and that's what we're exploring in today's episode , which is all about optimization theory . We're going to break down how you can apply the nutritional strategies of Olympic athletes to your own body composition goals , even if you never plan to compete or step on a platform or go to the Olympics , like most of us won't .

Philip Pape 2:09

Before we dive in , if you're enjoying the show , if you want more content on building muscle and losing fat efficiently , if you want content on periodization , sign up for my email list . The link is in the show notes or you can just go to witsandweightscom slash email and you will get all sorts of unique angles , interesting strategies , helpful content . Some of it's psychology , some of it's training , some of it is nutrition , special promotions , challenges all that fun stuff that you would only get on the email list . Again , click the link in my show notes or go to witsandweightscom slash email . So when most people think about dieting , they often fall into one of two camps the chronic calorie cutter , who's always restricting you know who you are . Or the eat whatever whenever crowd or eat in moderation . Or , you know , cut carbs or whatever , who avoids any form of structure other than some general blueprint or diet . Here's the thing neither of these approaches is optimal . I think you know that they're not optimal if you want to achieve and maintain your best physique and not even optimal . They're not even effective , they're not even sustainable , and that's the use of optimal that I'm using today .

Philip Pape 3:13

But that is where a concept called nutritional periodization comes in , and it's a strategy used by athletes in general . That's where we get the concept from , but it can be definitely applied to you . It's not just for elite competitors . We can adapt it to body composition for anyone , and in fact , it's exactly the approach that I take with my clients , whether it is in Physique University or one-on-one clients . That is what we do . So I want to talk about optimization theory and you'll see how this all comes together , about optimization theory and you'll see how this all comes together In engineering . This is a principle that is about maximizing or minimizing a function to find the best solution . In our case , we are using nutritional periodization to maximize fat loss and muscle retention , or to gain muscle and minimize fat gain , right , all while minimizing the negative impacts of our dieting , because we want it to be at least sustainable , if not enjoyable , depending on what process we're in .

Nutritional Periodization for Body Transformation

Philip Pape 4:15

So if we think about the Olympics and we think about athletes and how they do this , right , they do periodize their training . That is not what we're talking about today . I wanna talk about how they periodize their nutrition . That is not what we're talking about today . I want to talk about how they periodize their nutrition , and they tend to have four different phases or seasons . And so the one phase is the building phase , and this is where you are focusing on building muscle . You're in a slight surplus , you have higher carbs and you're either building strength or muscle . You're working on that skill and you're not selling yourself short in the energy department . You're giving yourself all that you need and , yes , it might come with a trade-off of you're going to gain some weight , kind of like the off season . Okay , that's one phase .

Philip Pape 4:58

Then we have the performance phase . This is where you shift to potentially maintenance calories . Right , you've gotten the skill development , you've gotten the strength , you've gotten the muscle and now you're going to balance things out and fuel your performance and hold on to those gains from the building phase . Then you might have a leaning out phase , especially for sports where they need an improved strength to weight ratio . Right , think of endurance athletes , where you need to lean out and get a little bit lighter . There's a lot of examples of this . Not all sports apply right . In some sports , bigger , bigger , bigger is better , and I'm not really talking about those . So the lean out phase this is where we now introduce a gradual calorie deficit . Maybe the protein comes up a little bit , you reveal some of the muscle you've built , or you lighten out just to reduce scale weight , maybe for a weight class or some other performance metric . But again , if you just care about how you look or your physique or aesthetics , this is also simply where you're going to reveal that muscle .

Philip Pape 5:51

And then , finally , we have the recovery phase , which is where we get back to maintenance calories . We come out of the dieting phase and then we focus back on getting to the routine we were in before before we get back to the next cycle of building . Now , through all of these cycles , the principles are roughly the same , but there are changes . There are differences . It cannot be helped . The calories change , the hunger signals change , the goal is different , even though the principles are roughly the same .

Philip Pape 6:21

And again you might be thinking look , I'm not an athlete , do I need to do all this ? Do I need to do cuts and bulks and all this stuff ? And the beauty of this approach is it doesn't have to be extreme , it doesn't have to be even that difficult . It could be very gradual and you can spend as long as you want in any of these phases . You could even skip some phases in certain cases . And it really comes down to how quickly not quickly as in quick fix , but how much you're willing to go in one direction or another and really step on the gas pedal to , overall , improve your body composition a little more efficiently than someone else who might be okay coasting for a while , right ?

Philip Pape 6:56

So for the average person , what does this look like ? All right , in the building phase , you might have a very slight surplus , something like this a quarter percent of your body weight a week , right , and that's where you would have plenty of protein . You would still have good quality food . You might have to have extra food , though , to get the calories in . You're gonna have more carbs and you're gonna be training really hard and really building your growth , your muscle , without excessive fat gain . And for some of you , building phase can be very lean , but I typically recommend around that sweet spot of 0.2 to 0.3% body weight a week .

Philip Pape 7:31

The performance phase , that's the next one . That's where you get out of the building muscle and you come back to more of a maintenance phase where you stay there for a while . You sustain your habits , you sustain your body composition . Maybe you're a little bit heavier and you're ready for a cut , but you've come out of that building phase and this may be as short as zero days for some people who just want to go straight into a cut , or it may be hey , I'm going to hang out here for a while and take advantage of my larger body mass for my numbers and everything else .

Philip Pape 7:58

Then we get to the leaning out phase and most people listen to my podcast . They're coming here . They're like how do I lose fat ? Or most people sign up as a client . You know how do I lose fat ? Not everyone . Some people want to go straight into the building phase , but leaning out is where we apply that moderate calorie deficit . You know , moderate for you , which could be aggressive for someone else , but for you it might be moderate to aggressive , depending on your calories , depending on your metabolism .

Philip Pape 8:21

And we do it strategically and we do it for a defined period . And by strategically I mean there's many ways to do it . We could do it as a straight line , like every day you're eating these calories , or we can alter it , we can cycle it , we can even cycle the dieting phase with breaks and these are topics I've talked about extensively on some of my recent episodes , such as my stair-step fat loss process or my three new dieting methods . Go check those out . And then we have recovery . We always have to have recovery out of a dieting phase , right , not a reverse diet , not a reverse diet . We recover straight to our maintenance calories and we give our bodies and minds a final break from that deficit . And we've revealed our muscle and now we are ready to walk around and just maintain those results for as long as we want , until you get the bug for the next building phase , which many of us do . So that is what we mean by periodization , and this allows us to optimize our nutrition for our goals at different times , just like Olympians do , just like athletes do , but tailored to your everyday life and body composition goals .

Philip Pape 9:22

Now , I mentioned optimization theory before and I really want to tie it to that and show you where it comes into play , because throughout this process , we're constantly gathering data and making adjustments . Without that , you cannot do this , you simply can't . It is going to be so much more frustrating . You're not going to know what's going on , there's going to be much more uncertainty and it's going to take a lot longer . My clients want to be efficient , they want to get it done , they want to know what's happening , they want to have confidence and they want to be able to fire me and do it on their own . And so this curiosity of hey , what's going on with my body ? What's going on with my ? Well , we're going to talk about the metrics . We track , but what's going on , so that I can make those adjustments and rapidly prototype my body along the way and go from start to finish as efficiently as possible , rather than blindly following some fixed plan .

Philip Pape 10:14

We're optimizing it based on our individual response , and that means tracking not just your scale weight which you should and daily would be ideal but also your circumference measurements your lifts , your lifting , progression , progress photos and , most importantly , honestly is how you feel , your biofeedback , your hunger , your recovery , are you recovering well from workouts , are you sore ? Your energy , your digestion , your sleep , your stress . All of this is valuable data and then , like an engineer fine-tuning a system , we make small adjustments , just small adjustments . Right ? Maybe you need a few more carbs in the building phase to fuel your workouts . Maybe you can handle a slightly larger deficit in the leaning out phase without losing muscle . And the key here is we are not making drastic changes . We're making small , calculated adjustments to optimize our results . And that's exactly what Olympic athletes and their nutritionists do , and they pay them a lot of money , or somebody pays them a lot of money and you can do this on your own . You can do this with a little bit of support . You can get a little extra support by reaching out to me and we can talk about that . But they're constantly fine tuning , based on their performance and based on their body composition data , to get where they need to be . And the real power of this just to give you a little bit of a surprise here at the end is nutritional periodization . While it does give you the physical changes . It profoundly transforms your relationship with food and your relationship with your body .

Philip Pape 11:43

All right , so one of my clients I'm going to call her Sarah . She came to me after years of yo-yo dieting very common , right , you've been dieting for years and she was either always on a diet and she tried all the fad diets , including keto , which is probably the most popular one today , other than , say , carnivore . Uh , I think she did weight watchers in the past as well . She was either on or she was , you know , off the wagon , off the track , right , there's no in between . And even if there's an in between , it's like no man's land uncertainty .

Philip Pape 12:13

And we started with the maintenance phase , at the recovery phase , as the lead up to the leaning out phase . And we talked about periodization and how , hey , we're going to map out the next six to 12 months and I mean literally map it out Like I will take a whiteboard , we'll draw a quick , quick and dirty little graph for the next 12 months and we'll scratch out what it looks like to periodize your nutrition over time . And it completely changed her perspective and I see this all the time . It's this aha moment of oh wow , like I can actually do this and I know with certainty that I'm going to go from here to there and here there maybe . Maybe as simple as I'm going to lean out with 15 pounds of fat loss right During the building phase .

Philip Pape 12:53

Uh , you then , once you've leaned out , what's cool about that is , once you've leaned out , now you're confident you can do it . We can go the other direction and you're confident you can do that without gaining too much weight , just gaining the right amount of weight and doing it on purpose , to build muscle . And then you learn to eat , not for emotion or because you can't help yourself , but you eat for performance , you eat for recovery , you care about nutrient density and whole foods because they fuel you and they feel good , not because they're quote unquote healthy . When you're in a maintenance phase , you practice sustaining the new habits , and Sarah did exactly that right . She now knew what to do . She didn't have the pressure of being on a diet , but it wasn't like going back quote unquote back to whatever you were eating before . It's still eating the same way . It's just scaling things a little bit .

Philip Pape 13:38

And when she was in a fat loss phase , she learned that she could lose fat without crash dieting . And that's the key it's controlled , it's controlled and then you don't do it forever . You give your body a break with the recovery . And this is so typical of pretty much everybody I work with . And in her case , by the end of that fat loss phase it was about 16 weeks she had lost something like 18 pounds . I was looking at her data . She lost about 18 pounds of fat , lost several inches on her waist . She actually gained some muscle because there was a net improvement in her body composition while she was losing fat , so she had some recomp . She actually built some muscle and lost some fat , so she didn't even have to lose that much weight on the scale . The most important thing is she now had this sustainable , fun , enjoyable approach to nutrition that she can maintain long term . She knew how to handle vacations . She knew how to handle vacations . She knew how to handle going out . She knew how to handle being in the summer versus being in the winter , versus the holidays versus the spring .

Philip Pape 14:34

And that's the power of nutritional periodization , right , it's not just about the physical , it's the approach that keeps you progressing year after year and you enjoy the process All right . So , as we wrap up , let me just recap all of this . Number one nutritional periodization is a powerful principle that we can live by , that is used by athletes and we can adapt it for our own body composition goals . Number two it involves cycling through different phases building , maintenance , leaning out , recovery each with its own focus , each with its own goal . Number three by applying optimization theory , we can continually fine tune our approach in those phases , based on our individual response and data . It's not fixed . And number four this strategy not only leads to physical changes , but can also transform your relationship with food and your body .

Philip Pape 15:30

Achieving and maintaining your ideal body composition , your dream physique , whatever you want to call it , isn't about perpetual dieting . It isn't about avoiding structure . It's not about intuitive eating . It's not just quote , unquote , listening to your body . It's strategic planning . It's purposeful nutrition with intent and ongoing optimization based on your feedback . That's it . That's really what it is when you put it all together , it's clarity and confidence .

Body Composition Optimization Through Email List

Philip Pape 15:55

All right , again , if you want to learn more about optimizing your body composition using this approach and many of the other things that we'd use , just join my free email list . That's all you got to do Join the list , you'll get the information and then , of course , if you ever want to reach out . You can reply and say hey , philip , what's up , I have a question and I'll answer it . That's it , simple . Go to witsandweightscom , slash email or click the link in my show notes . You'll get exclusive content that I don't share anywhere else tips on how to apply principles like these , journey , and you have a direct line of connection to me and our community . Until next time , keep using your wits , lifting those weights , and remember , in nutrition , as in the Paris 2024 Olympics , it's all about strategic periodization and optimizing . For you , this is Philip Pape . You've been listening to Wits and Weights and I'll talk to you next time . You