Philip Pape: 0:01

Eat these five superfoods and lose 20 pounds by next week. Now, that is the kind of promise that floods our social media feeds, beckoning us with the allure of quick, effortless weight loss or other quick results. Sometimes they're just believable enough to make you wonder if they actually work, and that's the insidious underbelly of the fitness industry. Today, we're exposing oversimplified fitness solutions, from detox teas that promise to melt fat overnight to 10-minute workouts guaranteed to give you six-pack abs. We're going to unpack why these magic bullet approaches not only fall short, but are the very bane of the existence of this industry, and something you'll want to craft some effective and intelligent armor against. No, this episode will not tell you the five foods that will help you lose 20 pounds by next week unless those five foods are water but it will help you sift through the misinformation to become a more discerning content consumer, and, ultimately, that is what will get you the exact results you're looking for. Welcome to Wits and Weights, the show 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 dealing with a topic that's probably frustrated every single one of us at some point in our fitness journey, the do this one thing advice that's plastered all over social media. You know what I'm talking about. You know what I'm talking about. It's these posts that claim if you just eat these five superfoods or you just do this one magic exercise, you'll insert result here. You know, lose 20 pounds in a week, get a six pack overnight. Insert result here lose 20 pounds in a week, get a six pack overnight. And oftentimes it sounds just reasonable enough to maybe, just maybe, work. And then it snags you in through enticing marketing copy or an unbelievable price. But be honest with yourself. How often have you tried following this kind of advice and then found that it actually delivered on its promise? Yeah, a big fat goose egg. And some of this advice is sillier than others, but it's all worth examining so that we can understand the patterns and the logical fallacies behind them, not to mention, often, the motives.

Philip Pape: 2:17

Now speaking of silly fitness myths, if you want to stay updated on the latest silly myths out there and my sarcastic take on why they're silly and much less silly, evidence-based solutions that actually work, delivered straight to your inbox, join my free mailing list at witsandweightscom slash email or click the link in my show notes. Again, I love to send out myth-busting type emails about these things so you get a more nuanced picture of what actually works. And I don't tell you it's only this thing. It's usually much more nuanced and personalized than that. So to get those, click the link in my show notes or go to witsandweightscom slash email.

Philip Pape: 2:55

Now, today's episode was inspired by a message from one of our listeners, jen Emma, and some recent discussions I've seen on Reddit as well. Jen, shout out to you, thank you so much for bringing this up. Your frustration is shared by so many people out there, myself included, and for years that's kind of the trap that I fell into wanting that next easy thing or that one thing that works. And it's the exact kind of myth busting we love to do in this show, with this lens towards skepticism and curiosity that I want everyone to have. Let's start breaking down why these one-size-fits-all solutions are so appealing and why they ultimately fail. Then later in the episode, we'll talk about strategies to navigate information online without having to learn how to read scientific papers. This is where, hey, you could listen to guys like me. You can listen to ladies and men who have podcasts, who you respect, who you trust, without necessarily having to dive all the way deep and spend four hours a day reading papers.

Philip Pape: 3:58

First, what is the appeal? The appeal is that these quick fixes promise fast results with minimal effort, and we all know that fast and cheap are two of the pillars of marketing and results and why people make their choices. If I told you it takes six to 12 months to lose the fat you want to lose, or you see a billboard that says you can get it done in one day with liposuction, and even if it's five times the cost, you can see why people make the decisions they do. We see the same thing with well, I'm not even going to go there and talk about pharmaceuticals in any way today, but you get the idea and these quick fixes. They're often backed by carefully selected quotes cherry-picked from studies, or even studies themselves that are cherry-picked from studies, or even studies themselves that are cherry-picked, or definitely, testimonials are huge Testimonials from people who look like they've got it all figured out before and after photos. And in a world where we're all short on time, we're bombarded with information. We love instant gratification.

Philip Pape: 5:01

A simple solution is incredibly attractive and it doesn't have to be crazy. The diets that are out there, something like keto that says just eat this and don't eat this. That is simple and it's attractive, but it doesn't necessarily mean it works. The problem here is that our bodies are complex systems. They're influenced by a multitude of factors genetics, lifestyle, your stress levels, your sleep quality, everything you're doing every day, your age, all these things, your hormones right, and the idea that one single change is black and white, dramatically will transform your body is, frankly, ridiculous. Speaking of ridiculous, I trolled the internet and I looked for some real world examples and Reddit is a great place to go for these, by the way and I found four that were interesting and not too crazy, actually, and people believe these and oftentimes jump into them and you hear the marketed quite extensively.

Philip Pape: 5:55

So the first one is detox teas. These teas are usually marketed as a simple solution to weight loss. Right, weight loss is the thing everybody seems to want, and they'll say things like drink this tea every morning and lose 10 pounds in a week. But guess what? These teas are just laxatives. That's all they are. It's just reducing what you eat, causing you to expel it from your body, drinking a bunch of fluid, and they lead to temporary water weight loss. They're not burning fat. They're not detoxifying your body right. That's what your liver and your kidneys are really good at doing, naturally. And this premise of losing weight fast is found in lots of these claims, and oftentimes it's because it actually quote unquote work. Like when you go on keto and you cut out a whole bunch of carbs all of a sudden and you cut out all processed foods all of a sudden, you're probably going to drop calories massively and you're going to drop water weight massively, and so that first week or two you're going to have multiple pounds of weight loss. Little to none of it is actually fat loss. So detox teas are one.

Philip Pape: 6:56

The next one is the 10-minute ab workouts, and I bring this up because back in the 90s, when I was a teenager and then actually it might've been the 2000s, I was in my 20s I definitely fell prey to the idea of the very short workouts every day that can produce these maximum results, these amazing results, and 10-minute abs, or six-minute abs even, are one of those, and you've seen these for years and years and years, and they keep popping up on Instagram influencers claiming that if you do a specific set of exercises every day for just 10 minutes, you're going to get a six-pack in just a few weeks. Right Now, any form of movement training exercise will do something for you. It may not be the thing you're looking for and it may not be the best thing for you, but for someone who hasn't been working out at all, then starts doing something, it's going to give you some result, right, it might help a little bit with your core strength. It might develop your ab muscles just a tiny bit. But then you get very disappointed when you realize not much visibly is happening and not much is happening beyond that, because you're not changing your diet, you're not changing your body fat percentage, you're not actually training overall for strength and muscle in the proper way progressive overload, those kinds of things. So anything that just promises something in only a few minutes a day you have to be skeptical of. Having said that, there are minimum effective dose ways to train that you don't have to train very long and can get pretty good results. But it's going to be very personalized and it's going to be a little more nuanced than something like this.

Philip Pape: 8:27

All right, the next one is I'm just going to call it the keto craze. It continues to this day. You can fill in the blank and replace keto with carnivore, if you'd like. Some influencers are pushing these diets. Take the ketogenic diet, for example, as the only effective way to lose weight, and you see the zealots out there, because they'll reply to other posts that are more nuanced and they'll say no, it's.

Philip Pape: 8:49

You know, not all calories are equal. Energy balance is not how it's done. It's carbs are making you fat, right, or it's. This is making you fat, or you know it causes it's inflammatory or it's toxic or whatever, and it really does ignore the fundamental principle of energy balance that you have to be in calorie deficit, regardless of the diet you follow, to lose fat. Now, that doesn't mean that certain foods might not be triggering for you, and by triggering I mean they can cause inflammation or they can cause a change in your stress levels, or you may have a bad reaction or an allergengen or something like that. But again, it's very personalized and this is where an individual has to go through a process of figuring out what those are, not just saying I'm going to cut all these things and the be all end all, because guess what happens? Right, when you cut out all carbs, most people are miserable and you've just eliminated wide swaths of your potential food, delicious foods on your plate, that could be perfectly fine for you, and not only fine for you, optimal and beneficial for you. So just replace the keto craze with the carnivore craze or the vegan craze or whatever specific diet you want to put in there.

Philip Pape: 9:56

And then the fourth one I wanted to mention today is it still persists intermittent fasting as this cure-all. And I actually saw an article recently talking about one of the more recent studies looking at autophagy and longevity, and the interpretation people were coming away from it was oh see, intermittent fasting, you have to do it because then you'll live a long life, again, not realizing that it didn't account for so many other factors of longevity, including muscle mass. And a lot of these studies are either observational, or they are done on rats, or they are done where you isolate one mechanism from all the others. And so intermittent fasting is really the big one, because it's a hugely popular trend and it hasn't stopped, and I did it myself for years and people will push it for much more than it probably is beneficial. So what do I mean? They push it as a solution for weight loss, muscle gain, mental health, right, everything, longevity and again, I like to separate what's true from what's not, and what's true is intermittent fasting can be an effective tool for some people, particularly for managing calories and meal timing and your hunger signals, and that's it. If it's good for your schedule, if it's good for your adherence, then it could work for you. But you don't have to do it and it offers no benefits versus not fasting, versus eating five, six, seven meals a day and spreading out the feeding window no benefits whatsoever other than the lifestyle and the adherence perspectives.

Philip Pape: 11:30

Okay, now let's circle back to our main claim. Right? The title, the title of the episode eat these five foods and lose 20 pounds by next week. Anything that sounds like that. This is the perfect example of the kind of oversimplified, unrealistic promise we're talking about, and I admit I used it as clickbait to get you to listen to this episode, but it's because I want to emphasize how ridiculous it is.

Philip Pape: 11:53

Because, first of all, losing 20 pounds in a week is not just unrealistic, it is potentially dangerous. Right, healthy, sustainable weight loss, fat loss typically occurs at a rate of about one to two pounds per week. That is the vast majority of people. A tiny group of people might go a little faster than that, especially if they're bigger or maybe they have a lot of muscle, a higher metabolism. Any tiny, tiny people will go slower than that because they can't go that fast. Their metabolism is lower. They're a smaller individual, right, they don't want to eat so few calories, but one to two pounds is pretty typical. Secondly, while certain foods because again we're talking about the five superfoods or the five best foods certain foods can definitely be part of your healthy dietary pattern. No single food, no small group of foods, no quote unquote. Superfood has the power to cause dramatic anything on its own. Hey, this is Philip, and I hope you're enjoying this episode of Wits and Weights. Anything on its own only look and feel better, but they also experience incredible changes in their health, confidence and overall quality of life.

Philip Pape: 13:13

If you're listening to this podcast, I assume you want the same thing to build your ultimate physique and unlock your full potential, whether you're just starting out or looking to take your progress to the next level. That's why I created Wits and Weights Physique University, a semi-private group coaching experience designed to help you achieve your best physique ever. Wits and Weights Physique University a semi-private group coaching experience designed to help you achieve your best physique ever With a personalized, done-for-you nutrition plan, custom-designed courses, new workout programs each month, live coaching calls and a supportive community. You'll have access to everything you need to succeed. If you're ready to shatter your plateaus and transform your body and life, head over to witsandweightscom slash physique or click the link in the show notes to enroll today. Again, that's witsandweightscom slash physique. I can't wait to welcome you to the community and help you become the strongest, leanest and healthiest version of yourself.

Philip Pape: 14:07

Now back to the show. Having said that, I am a huge fan of incorporating diversity in lots of different foods and knowing that if you have nutrient deficiencies, there are certain foods that will help with those deficiencies. But even then, it's not just one food. Right? The things you get from mushrooms, you might be able to get from asparagus. The things you get from I don't know squash, you get from spinach. Right? There's a lot of crossover here and diversity is where it's at. And when we talk about weight loss or fat loss, we're talking about energy balance. And then we're talking about sustainable habits, not magic foods. Right? Do you enjoy what you eat? Can you make tasty recipes? Right? Can you meal prep and find the stuff at your grocery store and then see how that can fit around your meal plan and your macros and calories and nutrient needs. That's the way to go.

Philip Pape: 14:57

So now, why do people push these solutions? I mean, I think the biggest reason is they're marketable, right, it's a lot easier to sell a simple solution than a complex or boring or nuanced or personalized one. And many of these influencers who are already, let's say, fit or thin or whatever the look we're attracted to, they've probably put in years of consistent work, training in the gym, actually tracking their macros and focusing on their nutrition and not actually using the thing that they're selling. But again, it's not catchy. Now, I'm not saying that all advice on social media is bad. Of course not. There are tons of knowledgeable ethical trainers, coaches, experts out there sharing great information. There are also lots of well-intentioned people who inadvertently share poor information. I'm really most concerned about the ones that deliberately and unethically share known and correct information and they push it for marketing purposes.

Philip Pape: 16:06

The key here is to learn to distinguish between the realistic I'll call it evidence-based advice. But again, you have to be careful. People aren't calling themselves evidence-based and just cherry-picking evidence. So we have to learn between the difference between that and the flashy stuff, the quick fixes and then they're not always obvious because they're not always as crazy as some claims. So I want to give you some strategies now to navigate this minefield of information, because I do get that question all the time and this does go back to Jen's original question, a listener who I gave a shout out to of like, what do I do? There's so much you know, do this one thing? Advice out there. All right. So five simple strategies.

Philip Pape: 16:44

The first one is to focus on the principles, not the tactics. So, instead of when you see information where they're talking about a specific food or exercise, always know that anything specific where it's black or white, where they're excluding things, typically they are violating the principles of nutrition and training, which allow for a lot more variety than what they are claiming right. And if you know how energy balance works, how progressive overload works, the importance of being consistent, right Behavioral change, you can then say, okay, does this thing violate any of those principles? And having said that, I realize that sometimes I will say that I have a favorite way to do things. So, for example, I am a huge advocate of compound lifts as the fundamental way to train, but hopefully I've never said that that's the only thing you should do or that's the only right way to do it. Instead, I make my argument based on the cause and effect. I'll say okay, compound lifts use more muscle mass, you can lift heavier weight and they save time because you're using multiple muscle groups. Therefore, from a time efficiency standpoint, which many of you are going for, it's probably the optimal approach. So you got to listen to how it's worded as well. So focusing on the principles and applying them to what you hear instead of the method itself like there's a one right method can be very helpful.

Philip Pape: 18:05

Number two is be skeptical of extreme claims. Always If someone promises rapid, dramatic results, especially with minimal effort, your BS detector should be on high alert. Real sustainable change takes time and effort. When someone reaches out to me to ask for help and I can tell that they're maybe interested in coaching and working together One of the five questions I send them. Okay, I just send five questions. One of the five questions is how important is sustainability to you? And sometimes I'll get an answer like I'm not sure what that is, or I'm looking for results in 12 weeks, and then that's a red flag for me and it's like, okay, that's unrealistic, this is what it actually requires. If you are good with that, of doing it the right way for the first time in your life I don't necessarily say it that way then I would love to help you, because this is going to change your whole perspective of how you do this. And if they're like, no, no, I really need to lose, you know, 20 pounds in 12 weeks, I'm like okay, I'm not the coach for you. You know, good luck. So be skeptical of extreme claims.

Philip Pape: 19:10

Number three, the third of the five principles here is looking for credentials and experience. Now, it's not a guarantee that someone with a credential is going to be any good, but what you want is kind of the whole picture. Does someone have the relevant background, education, experience and kind of the totality of that put together, where you can see the authority they've developed over the years? You can see other people who trust them. They get around, maybe they're on a whole bunch of other podcasts and you can go see who trusts them and what kind of shows they're on. A guy like Dr Eric Helms has been on my show a couple of times. You can't help but just find him all over the internet and easily figure out. He knows what he's talking about, Whereas somebody else. If it takes you a while to Google them and you have trouble even finding information about them and they have this special program that's kind of locked down behind you only find out if you pay the $27 to get the guide right.

Philip Pape: 20:07

There's a spectrum of things and I don't think you have to have a degree, that's for sure. Right, I don't have a degree in the nutrition side. I have a PhD, but it's not in nutrition. But I do have a lot of. I do have coaching certification. I do have a lot of experience. I've worked with a lot of people. I have this podcast, right, like, I've put a lot into the world that allows you to validate me and kind of do a background check on me. So do your background check on someone, right? And that includes how they train and how they eat and what they're posting on their story and all that good stuff. That's number three, all right.

Philip Pape: 20:46

The fourth principle of navigating this minefield is understanding that context matters. Context matters, and one way that context matters is that, for example, what works for a 22-year-old fitness model or bodybuilder bikini competitor might not work for a 45-year-old parent with a full-time job who's in perimenopause, right. Your approach needs to fit your lifestyle and goals, but also the information out there needs to be clear what context it falls in. If somebody is just making a blanket claim without context, that is a red flag. So not only should it have context. That context then allows you to understand whether it makes sense for you, and we tie that to principles and it all comes together. The fifth principle here is embracing personalization, right?

Philip Pape: 21:38

The most effective fitness plan, workout program, nutrition plan is the one that's tailored to you. Now, who does the tailoring? That might be you, that might be you with a buddy or friend, that might be you posting on a group that you're in and other people help you figure it out, and that might be a coach helping you do it. What it's not is a cookie cutter plan or a one size fits all plan that's out there. I do love efficiency, so I'm fine with templates, like when it comes to macros and you know that your expenditure is 2,500 calories and then you go online you find like a 2,500 calorie meal plan. Well, sure, that is a great template to start from, to give you an idea, to give you some inspiration. Similarly, if you work out and you want to go four days a week, up or lower, and you go to, for example, the Boost Camp app, which I use personally. In fact, I can throw a link to that. I think I do have a link to that in the show notes further down, free programs from experts. You can then say, hey, I want to build muscle, I have four days a week and I have a home gym with barbells, and then kind of find a template that works for you.

Philip Pape: 22:49

Even then, however, with the meal plan, with the workout program, you may need to make modifications. You probably will need to make modifications for your individual needs what you like, what your schedule is, what your circumstances are, what things you can train with, what food you like to eat, and on and on. So the fastest, easiest way to do that is working with a coach. The slower but still effective over the long-term way to do that is some trial and error to find what works best for you. And if you listen to this show, I can definitely point you to specific episodes on specific topics that will give you some inspiration on how to do that trial and error, how to experiment. All right.

Philip Pape: 23:25

So the big picture here fitness, getting fit, getting jacked swole looking better, losing fat, building muscle. This is a process and it's very personalized to you. It's not a destination that you just do this one thing and get a result. It's building a new system for yourself, a system for you based on habits. Now if you're wondering, okay, I, even as a certified coach and fitness professional, I don't have all the answers and I hope I never claim to. In fact, one of the most valuable things I've learned is the importance of saying I don't know, or it depends, and that can be frustrating for people.

Philip Pape: 24:07

The fitness industry it's constantly evolving as new research emerges, so even things we think we know sometimes get turned up on their head and change, like this idea of the anabolic window and eating protein. We know now that you can eat tons of protein all at once and your body will still use that to build muscle, and so now we know we can eat whatever amount of protein we want, as many meals as we want, as long as we get the total protein for the day, and that can be liberating. Once we start to learn the nuances from the research, other research might show us that, hey, we've confirmed time and again that you probably need to eat at least 0.7 grams per pound of protein every day or you're going to have some negative outcomes in terms of muscle mass strength, hypertrophy, health, all that right. So there are some I'll call it thresholds, or there are some things that are kind of like the law of gravity, where you kind of know they're true, but it took years of research emerging and confirming that right. What we thought was true a decade ago might be disproven today or might continue to be confirmed, and that's why it's important to stay curious, to keep learning, to be willing to adjust your approach as you go.

Philip Pape: 25:19

And this mindset, this continuous learning, this adaptation, this growth mindset, is far more valuable than any single piece of fitness advice, Even something that I might say on this show. It's just a little blip of information. What matters is how does it work for you? Are you learning about yourself? Are you adapting and growing? And that allows you to evolve with the science. It allows me to evolve with the science as a person who is a proclaimed quote unquote expert and I barely even want to use that term. It's just because I'm obsessed with this and I've spent thousands of hours looking into this stuff. It allows you to experiment with different approaches and then find what works best for you. And that is where we're trying to go. So the next time you see a do this one thing post, instead of immediately trying to implement it, ask yourself how does this fit into the broader principles of training and nutrition? Is it sustainable for me? How might I need to adapt it to my situation? And this approach? It's hard to say, it's not sexy, it's kind of boring. It's doing the work, it's putting in the effort, it's not a quick fix, but I promise you it is the smart, efficient way to go to actually get long-term success that you sustain for the rest of your life.

Philip Pape: 26:38

All right, as we wrap up, let's recap the main points. Number one one-size-fits-all solutions rarely work because our bodies are complex and individual. Number two be skeptical of extreme claims and quick fixes. Number three focus on the principles rather than latching onto tactics or methods. Number four personalization is where it's at. What works for someone else might not work for you. And number five have that mindset, embrace that mindset of continuous learning and adaptation. The goal is not to find the perfect diet or workout plan. It's to build the nutrition and training system for you that runs 24-7, the nutrition and training system for you that runs 24-7, always works. Lets you enjoy life while doing it.

Philip Pape: 27:19

All right, if you found value in today's episode, if you want to continue learning how to separate fitness facts from fiction, make sure to join my free email list at witsandweightscom slash email or click the link in my show notes. You're going to get regular updates on common fitness misconceptions. You'll get science-based solutions things that I do with clients actionable strategies so that you can figure out what works for you and actually achieve your goals, and you're not going to fall for empty promises. Join my email list at witsandweightscom slash email and arm yourself with knowledge, plus a little bit of my quirky personality and writing to make informed decisions about your health and your fitness. All right, and then later this week you're going to see an episode called Diet Soda is Good for you. That plays into this theme of skepticism and how to evaluate what you read online.

Philip Pape: 28:09

Make sure to follow the show right now in your podcast app. Click follow so that you don't miss it. You'll get notified when it comes out. All right, until next time, keep using your wits, keep lifting those weights and remember there is no one right way to get fit. Find what works for you, be consistent and enjoy it. I'll talk to you next time here on the Wits and Weights Podcast.