Philip Pape: 0:01

If you're struggling to maintain muscle while losing fat, especially on appetite-suppressing medications like Ozempic, or if you're worried about losing hard-earned gains during a cut, with or without weight loss drugs, this episode's for you. Today, we're diving into the world of sensor damping, an engineering concept that explains why relying solely on hunger cues can actually sabotage your muscle building efforts. You'll discover how to outsmart your body's dampened signals and preserve lean mass, whether you're on weight loss medication or not. Get ready to fine-tune your body's performance and achieve the physique you want, even when your internal sensors are off kilter. 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 are hitting on a very critical topic when it comes to body composition one of the most asked about topics and that is how to avoid losing muscle when your hunger signals are dampened. Maybe when your hunger signals can't be trusted, whether from weight loss drugs like Ozempic or Manjaro or one of the many other GLP-1 agonists, or just being in a calorie deficit we're going to use an engineering concept called sensor damping to understand what's happening in your body and then, more importantly, how to work around it. This episode will give you some practical strategies, as always, to maintain muscle while losing fat, even when you can't rely on your usual hunger cues. Now, before we dive in, if you're enjoying the show, I'd always appreciate and be grateful if you could take a moment to rate and review Wits and Weights on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, because, yes, it helps others discover the show and see what they call social proof, but, more importantly, it lets me know what content resonates with you. I also love reading your feedback and I love giving a shout out if you want it on the show. It only takes a minute and it makes a huge difference it really does for small indie podcasters like me to get more of the message out in the world. So thank you, advance, for your support, and I just wanted to give a shout out, speaking of to a recent reviewer.

Philip Pape: 2:30

Clay Yeager titled the Best Health Podcast by Far. That is incredible to hear somebody say that. He said Philip is the best. He's so knowledgeable, vulnerable and personal. He's changed the way I view nutrition and health completely. He puts such time and effort into his content and has such a variety. I love the way that he gives different situations for different people and gives plans on what he would do if they were his client. That is so informative on applying it to your daily life. I'm super thankful for all the knowledge I've gained from him and looking forward to what this life change will do for me in the future.

Philip Pape: 3:01

Well, clay, that is, I love the high standards you've set for me. You know no pressure whatsoever, but I do strive to live up to those and make sure that people get as much valuable from this as possible and not just what you can get on any other podcast. For example, today's episode and every Wednesday episode is something I think is unique out there, and that is taking an engineering framework or principle because that is my background and applying it with my quirky, nerdy little brain over to fitness, but in a way that's very accessible and understandable. And that's what we're going to do today and we're going to keep building that mental muscle, which is our brain, one of the important muscles, at least metaphorically, with our body, along with our physical muscles. And we're going to start today by defining the context of why I put together this episode, and it's because these weight loss drugs, glp-1 drugs like Ozempic, manjaro and Wegovi and all of those, some of which are diabetes medications in fact, and then they created weight loss medications from them and there's a whole spectrum of them and their efficacy across a whole spectrum, but the essence of it is that they will allow people to dampen their hunger signals.

Philip Pape: 4:17

It takes away your appetite right, effectively, takes away your appetite and allows you to go into a calorie deficit, really almost, I'll say, effortlessly. I've seen it both in clients who've been on Ozempic for diabetes as well as clients who are overweight or, in some cases, massively overweight, and their doctors prescribed it to them, saying, hey, look, you've got to get your health in order. And this seems to be the only thing we can do right now. And then they find me and we work together on the lifestyle changes that support what they're trying to do so that eventually they can come off the drug. I never would say, hey, let's just stop taking the drug. First of all, it's outside my scope of practice, but secondly, I do think it's a helpful tool for a small set of people when used in conjunction with the things we're going to talk about today the challenges there's a couple of challenges really is one it makes your natural hunger cues unreliable. In that context. I've seen it.

Philip Pape: 5:12

I have had clients deep into a deficit and they check in with me and on a scale of one to 10, 10 mean meaning least hungry, how do you feel? And they score a 10 every time. It's like no hunger whatsoever, almost to the point where I have to tell them to eat enough not to be in too big of a deficit. Right? And this effect, this sensor damping effect, right? If the sensor is your body's appetite detection mechanism and now it is dampened, which means it just has less sensitivity, it takes away a key source of data by which you usually make decisions. Some would argue that's a good thing, because now it's taking away what has caused you to overconsume all these years. But it also interferes with the process of doing it via lifestyle change, like we're trying to do. And then what happens is you end up losing weight very quickly, almost too quickly, and because you're losing it so fast, you go well beyond that point at which you start to lose muscle mass. So let me be clear it's not that these drugs cause you to to lose muscle mass. So let me be clear it's not that these drugs cause you to lose more muscle mass. It's that these drugs cause you to lose weight faster in some cases much faster and you therefore lose more muscle weight, yeah, yeah, muscle. So let's tie this to engineering again.

Philip Pape: 6:29

In engineering, sensor damping refers to the reduction of a sensor's sensitivity. That's it. That's all it is. And in many cases you do it on purpose when you make a product, because you don't want that sensor to override other information. Right? You don't want it to override to the point where it's beyond noise and it becomes signal, right? You ever heard signal in the noise? Well, in this case, we like to have an appetite sensor usually, but in some cases, where it's just gone overboard and causing us to eat a lot, these drugs will reduce that, but they reduce it to the other extreme.

Philip Pape: 7:03

So when we apply this concept to our bodies, we can understand why we can't always trust our hunger cues, especially during weight loss. And even if you're not on a weight loss drug, you may find that certain cues at certain times are not totally reliable. This is also why I'm not a huge fan of intuitive eating at all costs, because I think there is a lot of skill development and self-awareness that has to be developed over time to become intuitive. Your body is a complex control system and hunger is just one of its key sensors. And then, when that sensor is damped by drugs, by dieting itself sometimes, or other factors, we have to rely on other feedback mechanisms to maintain optimal performance. And just for another quick tangent, my recent episode on why weight loss always fails applied that to scale weight, we can't just rely on one data point on scale. We have to rely on lots of other things to understand the true picture.

Philip Pape: 8:03

So the core philosophy here is about creating intentional redundancy in our approach to body composition. Intentional redundancy Instead of relying solely on one thing like hunger, we need to develop a multifaceted system of feedback and control. Again, this is why I love this stuff so much. Coming from a software and electronic control systems background, I see the body that way, and it gives me more clarity and control, especially when talking with and helping clients. So what does this look like? It just looks like other metrics, like your workout performance, the measurements of your body circumference, your energy level, tracking your biofeedback, having planned nutrition strategies that align with your seasons, that align with your goals, and so this concept of compensating for dampened signals will then go beyond just muscle preservation, even though I use that as the setup for today.

Philip Pape: 9:06

It can be applied to other aspects of fitness in life, like maintaining the intensity of your workouts when motivation is low. So, for example, motivation is dampened. Well, we rely on other things. We rely on the fact that our squat just went up right, or the fact that we've got our training scheduled at 6 am three days a week to override it, the fact that our bicep size is going up as we're doing those workouts right. It also applies to sticking to your nutrition during high stress periods, where the stress signal is dampened. I mean, it's kind of the opposite, but same idea, right. Or, you know, continuing your professional development to have personal growth, even when external rewards are not necessarily there. It can apply to anything. That's why I love these episodes and these concepts, because these can be applied to anything.

Philip Pape: 9:59

But let's focus on key principles, okay, and let's talk about hunger. Let's bring it back to body composition, hunger during fat loss, because what we want to do is not lose muscle. We don't want to lose muscle. What happens when we lose muscle? We become skinny fat. Our body fat percentage actually goes up, even though the weight on the scale goes down. We don't want that to happen, and if you're on one of these drugs, it requires extra awareness of these other data points.

Philip Pape: 10:24

Okay, Not just how hungry you feel or what the scale says. Requires tracking your performance, your photos, how your clothes fit. You know, having systems that don't rely on a single input, like planning your meals in advance, meal prepping on the weekend, setting reminders to eat For those of you who forget to eat, right, oh, I just get too busy, I forget to eat, and then I have to catch up on my calories later, and blah, blah, blah Set reminders. It might sound slightly neurotic, but guess what? If you're not doing it and you're failing to do the thing you want to do, there's got to be something in place to change your behavior right, rather than waiting until the emotions take over, the cravings take over, the hunger or lack thereof takes over, and then you're going to regularly calibrate your approach based on all of these data points.

Philip Pape: 11:11

So if your strength in the gym is declining or you're feeling unusually fatigued, it's probably time to adjust your nutrition or your meal timing, even if you don't feel hungry. Right, even if you don't feel hungry. That's where someone on Ozempic they're not that hungry, so they might not be eating enough, or they're not that hungry, and yeah, so they're not. So they're not eating enough, not only to not be in the appropriate deficit, they might not be eating enough to support even their performance and their training in the gym. And then it's a vicious cycle of well, now they don't go to the gym or they don't push as hard, right. And then the last thing with all of this, of course, is prioritizing the consistency of it rather than trying to be perfect. Because prioritizing the consistency of it rather than trying to be perfect? Because if you can hit 80% of your targets consistently, you're going to be in the top 5% of people, or even higher than that. There's no track, there's no track. Just remember that. There's no track to fall off of. There's simply do your best, hit the target. If you fail to hit the target, you start again the next day.

Philip Pape: 12:11

So the power and understanding that sensor damping can occur with us across a variety of variables, including hunger during fat loss, is that, instead of being at the mercy of unreliable internal cues, you become the controller of your system. Right, you're not beating it into submission, but you kind of. You're up there in your control room and you're looking at all. You're looking at the big mission control board of your body and you're saying, okay, this, this little sensor over here, this hunger signal, is not quite giving me the best information right now, so I need to take these other three or four displays over here and make the best decisions based on that. Of course, working with a coach can be super helpful in this regard, um, or working with someone else who, who's your partner, who can help give you a fresh pair of eyes, and then you're empowered to make informed decisions instead of just do it based on how you quote-unquote feel.

Philip Pape: 13:03

Okay, if you can learn to navigate fitness or health or nutrition with dampened signals, you're actually developing a more robust and reliable approach in general. Right, it's a skill that really goes beyond the context I'm talking about today of preserving muscle during weight loss. It's becoming more intentional, more data-driven decision maker in all areas of your life, and that builds mental resilience, that improves decision-making skills, that leads to more consistent progress in any endeavor you pursue. And then you're thinking, okay, philip, well, are you gonna get to the answer of how do I preserve muscle during fat loss? It's yeah. I just gave you the philosophy, I gave you the first principles. It's track all the things that matter during fat loss to preserve muscle and then adjust accordingly.

Philip Pape: 13:56

Now, practically, what does that look like? That looks like not dieting too quickly, which means don't go past around 1% of your body weight per week loss. So, for those of you who might be on Ozempic or considering it, just think about that, do the math and say, hey, am I going faster than the 1%? That's probably too fast. To maintain muscle, I need to dial it back, which means I need to eat more. It means continuing to train and it means continuing to eat sufficient protein. But honestly, I didn't wanna break down those specifics today because they're much less important than the idea that all of those things need to be considered. And if you need specifics, I've got so many episodes on the specifics that I can send you. Definitely, reach out to me on Instagram at Wits and Weights, or send me a text message using the show notes. So, as we wrap up, let's just recap the main points.

Philip Pape: 14:45

We've looked at how sensor damping applies to our bodies, especially when it comes to the sensor of hunger and appetite. When it comes to the sensor of hunger and appetite, when we're trying to maintain muscle mass during weight loss, especially when you might be on one of these drugs that dampen your appetite. And when that happens, relying solely on that cue can be misleading, and so creating a system of multiple feedback mechanisms is required. The goal is not to just lose weight. The goal is not to just lose weight. It's to improve your body composition, your health and your quality of life. Even if you are at a morbidly obese level of weight right now, and your doctor said you have to do this to lose weight quickly.

Philip Pape: 15:25

I have clients that are far north of 300 pounds on the scale and they are doing all the right things. They're going to the gym three, four days a week, eating their protein, they're sticking within a reasonable range of their calories so they don't go too quickly, and they're prioritizing sleep and their stress and all the other things, knowing that hunger itself isn't going to tell them much at the moment. And guess what that does? That gives them the confidence to eventually go off those drugs more likely than not. Right Again, unless we're talking about specific situations outside my scope of practice I'm not a medical doctor. I don't dispense advice like that, but I do help clients with their nutrition, and those clients then often choose to and, often with their doctors, decide hey, I don't need these medications, along with many, many other potential medications and treatments, potentially. So. By having these redundant systems relying on multiple data points, you make more informed decisions and you achieve more consistent progress, even when one or more of those internal signals may not be as reliable.

Philip Pape: 16:27

All right again, if you found value in today's episode, if you like this idea of hmm, here's a concept from an engineering, from engineering, that I can apply to fitness, but even other things in my life. I have a small favor to ask, and it's the same thing I mentioned earlier Take a moment to rate and review the show on your podcast platform of choice. I really would be grateful if you took the extra minute to do a full written review in Apple, but however you do it, it will help others discover the show and also let me know what kind of shows I should create. Only takes a minute, it just takes a minute. It doesn't take long at all, but it would mean the world to me and, as always, I am so thankful for your support, for you listening to this show, for being part of the Wits and Weights community. Until next time, keep using your wits lifting those weights, and remember when your body signals get dampened, it's time to turn up your intentionality. I'll talk to you next time here on the Wits and Weights podcast.