Philip Pape 0:00

Today I'm dropping another bonus weird Q&A for you , so let's get right into it . Number one can you lose weight by eating negative calorie foods that require more energy to digest than they contain ? Oh , and I used to buy into this so hard with the celery , the idea that there's a negative calorie food that takes more energy to burn it , to digest it , to process it , than they have calories right . So your body burns more calories than the calories that are in the food and boom , you can lose weight , lose fat . All that and the celery is one cucumber lettuce pretty much . Now you can throw almost any of the greens in there for that claim .

Philip Pape 0:43

And yes , these foods are very low in calories . Yes , they are very high in fiber and water content . They have almost no calories , that is true . But the problem is the energy your body uses to digest them is minimal still compared to the calories they contain . It's always a percentage of that . The thermic effect of food they call it the TEF . This is the energy required for digestion Generally accounts for like five to 10% of your caloric intake . So the fewer calories that have to be processed and kind of separated out from these , the fewer , the lower the calories that it takes to process them . Did I say that right ? Yeah , I think so . So eating the low calorie foods like this obviously are going to help you feel full . So eating the low calorie foods like this obviously are going to help you feel full . That's the real benefit . They're going to give you nutrients in many cases , and you won't be consuming many calories , and that is really what's helping you with fat loss . It's not that they cause you to burn more than you consume . Let's stop looking for the magic pill , folks .

Philip Pape 1:42

But I've definitely heard this question , you know , uh , promulgated for many , many years and I used to believe it myself . Number two another . Okay , so today's questions really aren't that weird , to be honest , but they are common questions that still persist . That I now find weird , but that is in the lens of years and years of of shifting my perspective and learning about you know what , what actually works . So , number two can you shock your muscles into growing by changing your workout routine constantly or every week ? Okay , huge , huge myth from the bodybuilding world that persisted for decades and I thought this was true for so many years . So if you add variety to your training , at best it keeps things interesting . Okay , maybe a little bit more fun in a way , subjectively , but it's definitely not an effective strategy for muscle growth period . Now we have to define what we mean by variety , because there is an approach to bodybuilding where you could potentially change up lifts every week and still get growth , but even then you're tending to go over a what they call a mesocycle or a larger cycle where you're coming back to those lifts over and over again anyway and your body is adapted to them .

Philip Pape 2:58

But we are talking about random body split part programs . Usually it sounds like this hey , what does your training look like ? Oh , on Monday I go and I do upper body day . And then I say oh , so every Monday you do roughly the same five or six movements for upper body . Oh , no , I just pick whatever I want to do that day .

Philip Pape 3:17

That's the problem , because now you're frequently switching exercises , you never master proper form on anyone . You have no way of tracking your progress effectively , your neuromuscular adaptation doesn't kick in for any one lift . You get sore unnecessarily and you have no clue whether you're making progress or not until perhaps months later when you see a little bit of safe visual development , maybe Right . So the the reasonable suggestion here , if you do like variety is stick with the program for at least a few weeks , and by a few I mean like six weeks . Okay , maybe four , four is the minimum , but I like six weeks . Six weeks is not really that long and you can stick with the same lifts , and by same I mean whatever you did on Monday , do the next Monday . Whatever you're doing on Wednesday , do the next one . Not , you know , not every session is the same , but one week of programming gets replicated week after week for like six weeks , and you progress . You progress on your weight , you progress on your reps or even your sets , however it's programmed , and that is going to lead to the progressive overload , the adaptation and the growth that you're looking for . There's no such thing as muscle shock or muscle confusion period . There's nothing like that whatsoever .

Philip Pape 4:28

All right , number three , last question of the day Does eating late at night cause you to gain more fat compared to eating the same meal earlier in the day ? This is another one that's actually even less weird in that it's probably even more common that people think this like eating late is somehow a problem , or eating carbs late or whatever , and this is a misconception because , again , weight gain comes down to energy balance . I'm going to say that constantly until the day I die , because it is physics , it is thermodynamics . It is fact that when you consume more calories than you burn , that is how you gain weight . Period , regardless of when you eat , because your body's ability to digest and metabolize food doesn't drastically change after a certain hour .

Philip Pape 5:12

The problem is , people who eat late at night might be more likely to be eating the high-calorie , low-nutrient-density foods or exceeding their calories that they've already hit , or interrupting their digestion in their sleep at night , and that all contributes to hormonal impacts , to extra cravings and ultimately to overconsumption , which leads to the weight gain . So , in other words , somebody who eats late at night may simply be consuming more calories overall than somebody who doesn't , for a variety of reasons . Period , all right , I hope you enjoyed today's Q&A , or weird Q&A . If you have a specific question that you consider weird or you want to make one up , I'm happy to entertain it on the show . Send me a text message . Look in the show notes there's a link that says send me a text message and I will give you a shout out if you'd like , or I'll keep it anonymous and we'll answer .