Philip Pape: 0:00

Hello everybody, and this is a special bonus episode I'm dropping on my 44th birthday, october 26. Yes, I was born in 1980, so it's easy to remember my age. I joke with my daughters we have two daughters ages 10 and 12, that anything before the years they were born is ancient times, but especially their parents, who were born in the last millennium Pretty cool stuff. So, anyway, this is going to be one of the most unscripted but purposeful episodes I've ever done, and I really wanted to talk about a lot of the things I've learned, but also some of the things I've been doing, so you can get an inside look into my personal approach to optimizing using the things I talk about it. So you know I'm not a hypocrite, but also that I'm a human and I have vulnerabilities and flaws and areas that I'm always needing to improve. I also have those weak spots, like we all do, where there are things I have wanted to commit to and I still haven't right. We all have those as well, such as eating more fiber for me, and I've been consuming some more fiber as well as psyllium husk to get it, and that's not always optimal right. So that's what I wanted to talk about today and, if you care at all to reach out and say hello or happy birthday, that's cool. You don't have to at all. Um, sometimes I actually try to hide that information online, so I don't get all the messages because I'm kind of a loner in that regard.

Philip Pape: 1:23

I'm good hanging out with my family, my uh, my wife and daughters. They always like to. We'd like to celebrate the whole week for our birthdays in fun, surprising ways. So they took me to the Connecticut Renaissance fair last Sunday and I'm not, so I'm a gamer somewhat and I'm I'm kind of a nerd, a geek, but I'm not really into cosplay or anything like that. But if you ever go to one of these Renaissance fairs, um, it's the most fun. Part of it is watching people and how they're dressed up and the costumes they wear everything from Renaissance to Dungeons and Dragons, to, um, anime, and not not so much anime, it's something like this, but, um, you've got the jousting, you've got the hand-to-hand combat. They even serve mead, which you don't often find honey, wine, unless you go to a medieval-themed event. So they did that for my birthday, and we do a few other things to surprise each other.

Philip Pape: 2:17

I don't know where I was going with that, other than if you wanted to send me a gift besides a Maserati, which would be awesome, but something easy. I'm going to give you three possible levels. That would really be awesome and just put it out there. You never know. You always should ask. You know, if you want something, you just ask.

Philip Pape: 2:37

So level one birthday gift would be just tell somebody else about this podcast. And if this is the first time you're listening, this is not a typical episode. But if you really love the episode, um, yeah, maybe it is a typical episode, just kidding. Uh, go check out some of the more recent ones but tell somebody else about the pod. Just tell them say, hey, this, I love this podcast because X, y, z, it's really helped me, um, improve my fitness, learn about training. Uh, eat better, whatever. Just tell somebody.

Philip Pape: 3:04

Level two birthday gift would be to submit a five-star rating and review on Apple Spotify, wherever you listen right now. It doesn't take long and you'd be surprised how few people actually do that, even if they like the show and it really helps. So I would love to see a flood of five-star reviews just come in all in one day. And then level three birthday gift would be take a screenshot of the podcast or take a screenshot of you doing something while listening to the podcast, like maybe you're lifting weights, maybe you're doing yard work, walking around um, outside, whatever, and then post it online. Give me a shout out and tag me. It's at wits and weights on most of the platforms, uh, spotify, instagram, threads, x, everything, um, and then I'll definitely reshare and all that good stuff, and you could even screenshot the five-star review you gave. There. You go Two for one.

Philip Pape: 3:51

Anyway, I want to talk about some things going on with my health, my fitness, my personal growth since my last birthday. Perspective is an insights from an old guy, but yeah, I am only 44. So my goal has always been, since I turned 40 and really started to learn about training and eating properly, to fuel me in a sustainable way, has always been to turn back the clock to every year I get older. I want to be one year younger. Now. There are many forces conspiring against me, just like you, and that is life, um, and age is part of that injury. You know, um stress things that that change, that you didn't expect when the year started, and then they happen and we all have them. We all have different degrees of that and that's to be expected.

Philip Pape: 4:34

And the question is how resilient are you against those? Because this is one of the most common themes I've learned If you have a perfect plan, it's going to fail because it assumes that all the variables when you set up the plan are going to stay that way and that's never going to happen. So the perfect plan is always going to fail and then you're going to feel like a failure and you're going to judge yourself, whereas a very flexible plan that has a bunch of contingencies and risk management built in in other words, flexibility is the most sustainable plan, because then, when things happen, you are resilient to them. Things are going to happen Mentally, physically, they're going to happen. So it's not whether they're going to happen and that you are handle them perfectly. It's that when they happen, you're resilient. You have some shock absorbers for them and guess what that does? That allows you as a person to really show up as someone, to be there for others and, if that's important to you, if that's part of your purpose, is to be an active citizen and human in this world who is thriving, not only physically, but able to be among I'll use the word elite, but basically the top 1% in terms of physical capability. That that makes you the most powerful, confident person in the world, and it's an incredible reason to do all of this. At least, that's my opinion, and all of this is my opinion always. So if you resonate with it, awesome. If not, um, that's fine too. We all have different opinions, so let me know, but just let me give you some updates, okay.

Philip Pape: 6:09

So right now, many of you know I had surgery last year, so 2021,. I had left rotator cuff surgery and it took about six, nine months of recovery. I recovered really well and then it started to bother me again. I had a lot of inflammation, bursitis, and I worked on that with a few different folks, uh, including John Patrizzo. He's a physical therapist who's also a barbell trainer, um, but I have a lot of. I have a lot of coaches and mentors in my life. Right, and that's one of the lessons is how do you optimize things? We'll have a lot of people supporting you professionals as well, as you know, enthusiasts and positive people around you, whatever, at whatever level they are and seek those out. Always, right, the best, the best progress comes from the people who have the most support. Anyway, I worked on it and it helped a bit, but it just wasn't quite enough. So then I had a cortisone shot and that took away the inflammation massively. Sometimes you just need something like that to give you a boost and it helped a lot because then the pain went away. I was able to get back to normal training.

Philip Pape: 7:15

But I've learned a lot from injury, surgery, recovery how to manage the amount of stress I put on my body versus the amount of rest and recovery. And you almost have to flip it around. You know, when you're in your 20s you don't even give a second thought to recovery. Let's be honest. But once you get around 40, you know late 30s, into your 40s, especially if you've been sedentary, or I take that back even if you have been training a long time, you're still going to get beat up. You, even if you have been training a long time, you're still going to get beat up.

Philip Pape: 7:49

You kind of flip it around and say the most important thing I should think about first in my training plan is recovery, is rest, and then reverse, engineer that back to okay, now how should I train? How many days? How long should the sessions be? How many exercises and movements Should I go? Heavier, lighter Do I need to have um? Do I need to have more of a variety right between my, my lifts and my cycles? Am I going after hypertrophy or strength or whatever? And where does cardio fit in? Where does all of this balance in really nicely and then collect data like a fiend?

Philip Pape: 8:19

You know as much data as you can, even if you're not a data nerd. Okay, and don't tell yourself that. Don't say, well, I'm not a data. Just know that you have to track and measure stuff to know what the heck's going on. That's it. And however you want to do that, do it.

Philip Pape: 8:32

But when it comes to your training, um, so what I've found through all of these injuries and everything is, every time that happens, uh, yeah, I might get a little discouraged for a moment and then immediately say, okay, what can I learn from this? What can I learn and it's not just what can I post on the podcast about? No, it's. What can I post on social media? No, it's literally. What can I learn to become a better person, who's now even more resilient, right? And so with my training, I've I've been in a off, off and on fat loss phase for the past year, intentionally doing it that way.

Philip Pape: 9:06

I did an episode called my stair step fat loss approach, so you can find that in the catalog. Um, but I, um, I, yeah, I've been on and off with fat loss and what you find is that fat loss itself is a stressor and it's part of your recovery plan, meaning, if you need to recover or rest or prioritize your pain management or recovery management, strongly consider not being in a fat loss phase and, in my opinion, you shouldn't be in a diet more than three months out of the year. Tops, it might be three months in a row. It might be spread apart, right, it might be several mini cuts, but eating enough food and working on strength and improving yourself in the gym and performance should predominate your thinking and your year period. I'm, I'm, that is almost a fact.

Philip Pape: 9:52

Like, obviously, all this stuff is my opinion, but from what I've seen, what I've learned from coaches, what I've talked to on experts on the show, having an approach that is emphasizing performance and recovery first and foremost then makes all the other stuff fit into place like a nice smooth puzzle, you know puzzle where everything fits. And that's kind of how my perspective has shifted, instead of just going all out. Right, and I've talked to people on the show, some in the past, some coming up, like Jeff Alberts, godfather of of natural bodybuilding, and he's he's up there in age, and I've talked to other people in their sixties, seventies, eighties, and it's the same thing over and over. It's like stop trying to do so much and burn yourself out and get a potentially short-term result. That's really not worth it at all for long-term problems and pains and injuries.

Philip Pape: 10:42

Instead, think about, I'm going to be lifting for the next 40 years, 50 years, I mean, I'm 44. I would love to be lifting for the next 50 years, into my 90s. So what do I need to do for that? Right, and so anything I do it, whether it's my goals, whether it's the process I follow, is always thinking, okay, what's going to get me going for the next 50 years, right, okay, so enough, enough philosophizing. Is that a word? Um, get it.

Philip Pape: 11:11

Getting into specifics, what I've been running for quite a while now is a four day a week uh split, pretty traditional body part split, not body part split, but upper, lower split, a bodybuilding style program, but without a massive amount of volume, and I've been using Andy Baker's uh, top set, back offset approach and I love this approach. So, speaking of speaking of balancing heavy lifting with a little bit of lighter lifting and recovery, a top set back off set approach is usually you have one or two big lifts at the beginning of each session and you do your warm up sets and the first set is going to be in a lower rep range it might be six to eight, four to six, even three to five, and then the second set is going to back off by about 10% on the load and the reps are going to shift up. So if you do a back squat a set of four to six you're then going to do your second set 10 back squat, a set of four to six. You're then going to do your second set, 10% lighter, a set of, say, six to nine, and so you do a. You're kind of mixing strength and hypertrophy regimes in there, right? Not not that there is a big difference from the rep range perspective, but neuromuscular and central nervous system impact. There is a difference because that set of four to six is super heavy, it takes a lot out of you, but the set of six to nine it's not quite as a hit to your nervous system, but you are already fatigued from the first set, and now you're getting more metabolic stress, more of that, you know, on the mechanical tension. So it's kind of like that hypertrophy or bodybuilding set of reps, and neither is easy. They're both hard. Right, like four to six reps is hard, but then doing you know um six to nine at only 10% less, once you're already fatigued from the first set, is hard. And then you're done though. So it's two sets, two hardworking sets, say three to five lifts, where the last few lifts are more accessory or isolation movements, and it's kind of a nice balance where you're training pretty darn hard, you're getting that stimulus on the load, you're getting the volume in, but not too much volume. So that's how I've been training for quite a while.

Philip Pape: 13:16

I am thinking now, as I go into the fall and winter, this is going to be bulking season. You know, I got down to. I got down from about a little over 190 to hovering about low 170s right now, and I'm 5'9" and originally I was gonna try to get down to be a little more shredded this year, but because of the injury and recovery, I constantly came out of fat loss on purpose so that I could recover, and I've been fine with it. Honestly, it's been a really nice way to live, where I hardly ever feel like I'm really dieting, but I've still gotten the results of some of that fat loss. But now that we're getting into November, you know I got my birthday, we've got Thanksgiving, we've got Christmas, we've got the winter up here in New England there's.

Philip Pape: 13:55

You know, you don't need abs, you don't need abs and honestly I don't need abs that much, even in the summer. I mean, you know, I'm happily married, I'm not going out on the beach trying to show off my abs. So you young folks can worry about that. But you know, we all have a little pride in our physique and want certain things. So I prefer to just eat more and I prefer to lift more. And um, enough of my buddies making fun of me for not being strong enough. I'm going to, I'm going to work on that this winter again. So anyway, I'm fingering for the next six months.

Philip Pape: 14:23

So let's say, november, december, january, february, march, april, uh, maybe not. Yeah, six months. Six months is a good length for a bulk. I'm going to do a fairly lean bulk this time. So usually I go around 0.3% a week, right, and now I'm probably going to dial back to like 0.2. I mean it's it's two thirds the rate of increase, um, and it should result in maybe, um, maybe, uh, I want to say uh seven, eight, 9% increase in body weight at most.

Philip Pape: 14:50

So I usually recommend people gain between like seven and 10% of their body weight on a bulk. So if you're like 200 pounds, that is up to 20 pounds gain, right, and that's somebody who was not doing it the first time. When you do it the first time, you can go a little bit harder and gain a little bit more, because more of what you're gaining is muscle instead of fat. I've got a little bit more experience in me and a little bit less propensity to add more muscle, so I go a little more conservative. But anyway, what will that do to me? That'll put on, you know. That'll get me back up into like the low 180s or something not that high, and it'll set me up well for the next fat loss phase from a slightly lower point than last time. Again, I'm planning all this out 12, 18 months and you know what's going to happen. It's going to change in three months and it's going to change three months after that, just like I said earlier when I mentioned resilience, and that's okay, that's totally okay.

Philip Pape: 15:45

Yeah, one other fun thing I'm doing right now I'm I'm going off on different tangents, like I said it would be unscripted is peptides, and I want to do at least one, if not multiple, episodes on this, on my experiment with BPC-157, which I've always been skeptical about peptides. But I've talked to enough people now and looked at enough of the literature that I am very curious about it and, and because of the little bit of niggling pain in my shoulder, I figure, uh, why not try it out? It's totally natural. Um, in fact it the fact that it's a natural substance is why it can't be patented and why you won't see it in a pharmaceutical product necessarily, and then patented and going through the FDA approval process, kind of like with supplements. So it's definitely it's a choice you have to make. I'm not dispensing medical advice here at all. I'm going to personally experiment with it. It's a six week protocol, five days out of the week. You inject yourself in fatty tissue and I'm doing it on alternate shoulders and the goal is to speed up the tissue repair, tissue regrowth, as I continue to recover, which is another reason I think I want to get out of the fat loss phase.

Philip Pape: 16:54

Pronto, again, my birthday. As this drops my birthday, I'm going to be eating out a bit more. People are going to be celebrating. We're going to have some desserts, food, halloween's coming up. I'm going to enjoy myself. Period, not going to go crazy, but I'm going to flex, I'm going to open it up. I'm going to give myself the opportunity to enjoy without feeling like I have to say no to things which I never really feel that way. But I don't want to add on to the artificial nature of restriction when I don't need to. Okay, so that's what's going on there. What about family and the kids?

Philip Pape: 17:26

So many of you know I work from home. I've got my business, my main job in engineering. I'll tell you what I think the vast majority of nutrition and fitness coaches in there are probably not doing it as their only source of income, unless they've taken the time to really build it up. This is just an anecdotal assumption I'm making based on what I've seen, but I don't think people necessarily talk about all the other things. They're doing as much, and I don't necessarily as well either. Um, but I will say that it takes a lot of time to have a job and a business and to be a solopreneur, and efficiency goes right to the top, and so what I've done with that is I've become better as an engineer. I've also become better as a coach, because of both sides of that equation, and I've been able to use those systems from engineering and the efficient frameworks that I use to test on myself and find more unique, clever ways to do things and then bring that to you and bring that to my clients.

Philip Pape: 18:26

Ultimately, that's what I'm going for. I want you to get not the quick fix, I want you to get the efficient fix. I don't even know if fix is the right word, but, um, I want you to be able to work hard and get the most out of it. Not work harder versus not, work smarter versus harder, but work smart and hard and then get the most possible out of that. Right, and this is very different from my thirties, when I was doing a lot of CrossFit. I was doing more and more and more and more restriction, more cutting of foods right, more conditioning and working out, and it wasn't working for me at all. It was beating me up. I'm sure I got some of my injuries and long-term issues with my back from that, which have gotten a lot better now that I deadlift heavy, now that I lift heavy and many of you out there listening you're like what are you talking about?

Philip Pape: 19:17

A lot of people have pain. It has nothing to do with lifting. Most people have pain are not lifters when you look at just the average person, but lifting weights often helps you with that. It strengthens everything, it turns you into an athlete and helps you really dial in on improving your health and performance as you age right. Not through stretching and mobility and all that, no, through using your body the way it was meant to be used, loading it up and being smart about recovery.

Philip Pape: 19:46

Now, having said all that, one thing I have a backlash to in the industry is an overemphasis on quote-unquote capital H health. What do I mean by that? I mean the overemphasized regimens for longevity and health that are out there, whether it's eating clean and thinking you have to go low carb and that somehow leads to a longer life false, or adding in all this silly stuff. I don't, I'm not silly, but it's like the one percent stuff that most people need, the foundations. They don't need to be using saunas and red light therapy and cold plunges, right, and I'm just. I'm just honest about that, because people are always looking for oh, here's the new thing, the new shiny object going to do that. And peptides I'll put that in the equation too. Like I'm using peptides only after having done all the other 20 things that I need to do to support my health. And this is, you know, an extra little bonus curiosity. If you want a cold plunge, red light therapy, sauna, all that on top of what you're doing, you could fit it in. It's part of a balanced lifestyle and you like doing it, go for it.

Philip Pape: 20:50

My problem is where these things are used as a panacea for longevity and how so many people just need to lift weights. They just need to lift weights. Now, on the other extreme, we have people who are like all you need to do is lift weights. No, of course, not To be quote unquote healthy. You've got to manage your body fat. You've got to manage the balance of the foods that you eat, the macros and the nutrients. You've got to get enough nutrients right, enough fiber, fish oil right. There's a variety of things, not fish oil specifically, but omega-3s. There's a variety of types of things we get from diversity of foods combined with loading our system through weights plus getting enough sleep for our brain and for our recovery, keeping our chronic stress low as best we can and not going overboard on any extreme of anything right, including food. Like if you eat 300 grams of fat a day and most of those are saturated fat, I guarantee that's going to be a problem down the road Just because we say you can eat whatever you want.

Philip Pape: 21:55

There are limits to all of this stuff, and having those guidelines and having those constraints for yourself make a lot of sense. It's just we want the right ones right and the wrong ones are going to be okay. I'm just going to cut all of a food group and think that that's great for my health and when I, when I work with clients that. So you guys know, or you may not know, but you can schedule a free call with me at any time. It's called a rapid nutrition assessment. Um and I I didn't plan to promote this today, but I was just thinking about it because I get a lot of folks who jump on that and they're like, wow, I didn't. It's pretty cool. You offer free calls and you're not pitching me or selling me, because what happens is we have a talk, figure out what you need to do next, and then I send you along and I give you some resources and we're done. If you want to work more with me and need more support, you'll reach out right.

Philip Pape: 22:38

That's the way I like to do business, and probably the most common thing in terms of principles that we help unlock with clients or even in these calls is is the idea that there are many roads to roam for you, and anything that feels extreme or unnatural or not for you is not for you. Now, that is not the same as not doing hard things, meaning if you're like well, I just don't want to squat because it's heavy or hard which people don't tell me that, to be honest, I think they know better. But if they said that, I'd say, well, tough, let's try it. Like, at least make the attempt, let's see how it works for you, because I guarantee once you get the results, you'll say, well, I actually really love doing this hard thing. So I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about forcing yourself to again cut out food groups, or you have to do this many days of training, or you have to cut calories to this level and then say no to everything and feel like you're being punished every time you go out to eat, right. So that's, that's one of the biggest mindset shifts.

Philip Pape: 23:37

The other big mindset shift mindset shift I noticed with our kind of age demographic and I'm referring to anybody really from the late thirties all the way to sixties is related to hormones. I was going to say gut health. That doesn't really directly come up with clients until I bring it up as a potential cause of something, but hormones are getting big play, and let me just go on a tangent on this. Men and women, they're all being gaslit by the medical industry, and it's not necessarily the medical industry's fault. If you talk to enough doctors and understand their residencies and their training in medical school, you'll see that they get little to no training in nutrition or hormones.

Philip Pape: 24:15

Beyond that, though, the bigger problem in the medical industry is it's not set up to help you be healthy. It's just not set up for that. It's not set up to help you lift weights and eat well and get enough sleep and support your hormones. It's set up to diagnose an issue. Look it up in a book effectively and I'm not.

Philip Pape: 24:32

I'm not being oversimplistic here, but basically here's the issue, here's, here's a possible cause, here's the solution, and the solution will involve some sort of treatment and therefore it's an after the fact, what some people derisively call sick care. But there is a lot of truth in that and you've probably experienced that yourself. And only recently have insurance companies, for example, started to cover physicals, for example. Right, like 10 years ago, 15 years ago, they started to cover physicals, saying, hey, maybe it actually makes sense to help people preventatively. You know, prevent these issues because it will save us money, right, if the behavioral or the economic incentive is there. But that's just a tiny piece of it.

Philip Pape: 25:12

The bigger piece here, especially as we age, is there are things we need to be doing, like lifting right, like supporting our hormones and eating right that will massively unlock longevity and health and function that doctors don't have a clue about and they're not gonna recommend to you. And if you're starting to have anxiety, emotional issues, mood swings, if you're a woman in peripost-menopause and you're starting to have anxiety, emotional issues, mood swings, if you're a woman in peripostmenopause and you're starting to get tons of symptoms and you're starting to get belly fat and you're starting to your metabolism is declining, a lot of these things can be addressed through lifestyle. That's not to say you may not also need hormone replacement therapy? I'm supportive of both. I really am. What I help people with directly is the lifestyle thing, because you have so much control over that and it's something you could do now and you should be doing it anyway, and then that makes it easier to understand what's left in terms of, okay, do we need hormone replacement therapy? So I wanted to touch on that as well, because I think I think both are important in the medical industry helps with neither, if that makes any sense.

Philip Pape: 26:13

So what else is going on with me? Just just thinking through the list here Uh, I mentioned I've been on and off fat loss phase. Um, I'm probably going back to maintenance here this weekend for my birthday. I mean, obviously recording this a few days before my birthday, but you're hearing it on my birthday and what that looks like for me is something around 3000, or a little bit higher than that, calories. My maintenance is around 2800 calories. So if I go into a building phase here, even if it's a lean one, I know my metabolism will slowly climb and then those calories will go up as well. And then I aim for about 180 grams of protein, which is around my body weight, and then fats and carbs are pretty flexible, but there's usually plenty of flexibility in there for that.

Philip Pape: 26:53

As far as what my day looks like for eating, I eat pretty boring. I eat pretty much the same thing and that makes it easy when you do that. Breakfast is something like oatmeal, peanut butter, almond milk and some berries. I might throw in some other source of fiber or fruit in there. I love my coffee in the morning. Caffeine gets me going. It's great for your workouts as well. I have one or two protein shakes every day along with a ton of other sources of protein to get to that 180, which usually includes lean meats. I love chicken thighs. I like pork, lean ground beef, but even fatty ground beef, it's all good. Some game meat occasionally. I'm not a big fan of organ meat, but I'll eat heart, like in chili, for example, and the very rare occasional liver, more likely chicken liver. From a meat perspective, I love fruit.

Philip Pape: 27:40

For a lot of my clients, a lot of you out there, one of the easiest ways to add more fiber and nutrients is just fruit, because it's convenient. You pull it out of the fridge, off the counter, you eat it easy. People complain about vegetables because they have more picky tastes about vegetables and it takes more to prepare and cook. Those are all excuses, obviously, but I get it. So pick something that's accessible and build from there. And then, from a carb perspective, any form of starch or grains, rice, brown rice, quinoa, pasta, bread, oats it's all good. It's all good. Just kind of tracking.

Philip Pape: 28:13

Okay, what do I need for being full, given the volume, if I'm in fat loss or not, do I need salads in there? What do I like? That's important. I like to use olive oil as a way to cook with things. My wife is a big baker. She loves to make desserts, make them with the kids, and she doesn't use a lot of sugar either and they taste great. And I will always leave room for dessert most days, and I like that. It's fun. It makes it super sustainable because I'm good to go every day. I never feel like I'm deprived. I get to eat what my family eats. It's a lot of fun and you can definitely get there. If you're listening to this and you're like I'm nowhere near that, you can definitely get there.

Philip Pape: 28:52

And then for cardio, you know I aim for 10 to 12,000 steps a day. Lately I've been getting 10, but sometimes I go on a streak where I'm getting 12. And that requires a few walks during the day, but really it's a lot of pacing around the house. I have an up. I have a under desk treadmill as well. Um, some of that comes when I'm lifting, cause I pace around. So you find a way, find a way to do it. Um, I don't do a lot of other cardio.

Philip Pape: 29:11

I've I've had bursts where I do cardio, like running up and down the stairs, or I'll push my gorilla cart outside with some some stones in it for my from the forest as like a sled. You know push. I do have an assault bike. I might jump on that. You know I don't, I don't try to have. I actually don't have a routine for my cardio because it's not that important to me. As long as I get enough cardio and my biomarkers are, I'm happy with them right, like my resting heart rate is 45. My VO2 max I forget the number, but when you look on Apple it's like very high. I'm happy with that. Now, maybe my years of conditioning and CrossFit helped. I don't know. There's something to be said about your body adapting to these things. I also throw a rucksack on occasionally. I'll occasionally throw on my blood flow restriction cuffs. Actually, look for an episode on that soon. I had Nick Colosi on recently and then I'm doing another episode with a detailed breakdown of blood flow restriction.

Philip Pape: 30:06

And all the other movement I do is just fun playing with my kids, going outside, going for walks with my wife and kids parking far away when I go to the store, all that kind of stuff. And then, as far as business, I mean I don't want to get too much into that because this is more of a health and fitness podcast for you guys, but I prioritize my week each week when it starts. So when my week starts, I look at what's the one thing that I want to accomplish this week for my business and make sure I set aside specific time to that. And what I mean by that is I always have a list of 20, 30, 40, 50 things I want to do, but I can't get them all done. I don't have the time so, and I'm not going to find or make time for all those things. So what I do is I just pick literally just one, and some of them may be related. I picked just one and I deep dive into that right.

Philip Pape: 30:51

This week I spent some time looking at my followers and who they follow and preparing some possible guest pitches for people to come on the show, right? Um? On another week it might be working on copy for an email sequence, right? Little things like that, just focusing on one thing at a time, and then I really am. I don't, um, I never run out of ideas for this podcast for all of you, because I get tons of great questions, which I always love to have. You can send those to me directly as a text message or on Instagram at Whitson Waits, and as I'm lifting, I usually get a lot of ideas. As I hear nonsense online, I get a lot of ideas, so there's no shortage of that. So there's more coming, but if you want to hear something, let me know, and I think this episode has gone long enough.

Philip Pape: 31:34

I really am grateful for for a lot, and I'm grateful for you for listening to this show. I'm grateful for you for sticking in this long with this episode. Not sure how interesting it was, but it allowed me to get off my chest. You know I'm a real person. There's real things going on. There are things I'm considering all the time and I'm not a hypocrite about it.

Philip Pape: 31:53

I do like to practice what I preach and if you have questions about any of the things I talked about, let me know. I can shoot you a specific episode about that and I'm just thankful for you know, my wife, my family, the home that I have, the ability to be alive and move around and be functional, and for all of you. So, if anything, just tell me what you're grateful for or tell somebody else, or just tell yourself, write it down and again, if you want to send me a gift level one tell someone about the podcast. Level two submit a five-star rating and review. Level three take a screenshot of the podcast or your review or doing something while listening and give me a shout out and tag me online. That's it for today. Enjoy the next episode of Wits and we.