The Fear of Gaining Weight

Philip Pape 0:01

If you're afraid to gain weight because the scale might go up . So you keep trying to diet down but never seem to get leaner , and you're frustrated because you feel stuck in this endless cycle of cutting calories without seeing real changes in your body composition . This episode is for you . Today , we're uncovering why your fear of gaining weight is actually keeping you at a higher body fat percentage , and how strategic weight gain could be the key to finally achieving a leaner physique . You'll discover the counterintuitive science behind why gaining weight first often leads to better long-term results , and how to break free from the constant cutting cycle that's keeping you stuck . 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 Pape , and today we're tackling one of those huge mindset blocks that keeps people from achieving their ideal body composition the fear of weight gain , and how it's actually preventing you from getting leaner . Now I also have a companion guide that shows you exactly how to structure your nutrition to build muscle while minimizing fat gain , and if you want to pause the show and grab my free muscle building nutrition blueprint , the link is in the show notes or you can go to witsandweightscom and click free stuff to download . I highly encourage you to download this free guide now so you can take real action based on the information you're about to hear in today's episode . Again , the link is in the show notes . Or go to witsandweightscom , click free stuff for my muscle building nutrition blueprint .

Philip Pape 1:39

All right , let me start by telling you about Jenna . She was a client of mine who came to me frustrated after about three years of trying to get lean . She weighed about 150 pounds and she was constantly cutting calories . She was constantly trying to lose that last bit of stubborn fat , but every time she dropped a few pounds she would end up gaining it back and then her body composition wasn't really changing . We could tell by her measurements how her clothes fit , performance , everything . So this might sound familiar to you , because it's a very common situation . People get stuck trying to cut all the time and never really doing the other side of this equation that we're going to address today . Now , what Jenna didn't realize , what many of you might not realize , is that she was stuck in a constant cutting trap , even in moments when it felt like she wasn't dieting per se . It was just always in that under-fueled , under-fed situation , and today we're going to break down why this might be keeping you fatter than you need to be and then what to do instead . So let's talk about why this happened , just to set the baseline .

Philip Pape 2:42

When you're always trying to cut calories to lose weight , there are three things working against you . First , your metabolism adapts . This is totally normal . There's nothing wrong . It's not breaking or getting damaged . It's just called metabolic adaptation .

Philip Pape 2:58

And I think of men in this case , for example , because I can relate as a man myself . I had a client we'll call him John . He had gotten down to eating about 1800 calories a day , and that's starting to get a little bit low for an active guy who strength trains and weighs north of 180 or almost 200 pounds and I'm actually kind of in that range where , to me , a pretty aggressive diet is around 1800 calories , worst case . So his body had adapted to functioning on these fewer calories because of persistently trying to cut . And then what that does is it makes the fat loss incredibly difficult from that point , because you kind of need to reset things and rejigger what's going on or take a completely different approach , such as gain weight , which we're going to talk about and this process of your body conserving energy , of reducing its calorie burn as you lose weight and as you get deeper into a diet and be in a calorie deficit . That's called metabolic adaptation .

Philip Pape 3:53

The second thing is that without adequate calories period , you cannot build meaningful muscle . You need to be in a surplus , or I'll call it a perceived surplus , which for some people means they can walk that fine line between gaining some muscle and losing some fat at the same time , mainly for newer lifters . But you have to have some sort of surplus , an energy surplus , for your muscles to grow . And this is crucial because muscle is the key to all of this . It's the key , it's a secret weapon for the fat loss itself . It's kind of the big twist or the big irony is that the vast majority of you are probably spending years , if not decades , trying to cut , trying to lose fat . You absolutely want to lose the weight , you absolutely want to lose the fat and you're making it harder on yourself just because you don't take a short blip of your time to build muscle . Just to say it like it is , muscle is metabolically expensive tissue . It burns calories even when you're not doing anything , and I know other tissue can do that , too , like fat , but it burns the most , and adding muscle to your frame makes so many things easier , all right .

Philip Pape 4:58

Third thing and this is what I see all the time in my coaching practice is people get stuck in a cycle where they are afraid to eat more because they might gain weight , because their history has told them that nothing I've ever done has worked , that I'm always prone to getting fatter or gaining weight . Why the heck would I do this on purpose ? That's the thought that goes through our head . Why would I do this on purpose ? I just had a call today with a client where we talked about how I needed her to eat more . She was hesitant to do it . It wasn't due to any logistical or behavioral reason . It was simply the fear holding her back , and there were a lot of things pointing to why she needed to do that . We'll cover some of that today . I don't want to stretch that story out , but it's very common , so don't feel alone if you're listening and think that's you . The irony is , of course , that this fear is what's keeping you from achieving the lean physique that you want .

Philip Pape 5:51

All right , so let me explain how this works , because let's just nail it down for you and talk about the science or the mathematics . It's really math of body composition , and I'm an engineer , I think , in terms of numbers . Not a lot of people do , and so it can frustrate people to go through this exercise . I'm really going to try to simplify it so you understand the big aha moment that comes from this . This is where it gets really interesting . All right , I'm going to break down the numbers so you think about weight gain and fat loss , maybe in a new way .

Philip Pape 6:19

So let's just use a simple hypothetical example . Let's say we have a skinny-ish male , a man who weighs about 150 pounds . Let's say 5'9" , 150 pounds . That's pretty quote-unquote skinny , but he has a little bit of extra body fat . He's got 20% body fat . Now , that's not in the obese territory , that's not excessively overweight , but at 150 pounds , this person is going to look what we call skinny fat . I'm using this example because I want you to know that there are all types of body types where you can have extra body fat and not necessarily be big right , and so we're going to start with this example , just for easy numbers . So , 150 pounds , 20% body fat , that means he has 30 pounds of fat mass . Okay , that's 20% of the 150 . I'm doing the math for you . Just go with the numbers 30 pounds of fat mass and the rest is 120 pounds of lean mass . That's the remaining 80 pounds , or 80% . Now , lean mass is not just muscle , it's also your bone , it's tissue , it's all of your organs . It's everything other than fat . But just keep this simple . So when you focus on building muscle instead of trying to cut calories , what can happen ?

Building Muscle to Burn Fat

Philip Pape 7:29

So let's say , over a four-month period , a nice conservative , reasonable rate of gain so you don't gain too much fat , you go from 150 to 160 . You gain 10 pounds Okay , 10 pounds , not a big deal Through proper training and nutrition , and that is key . About six or seven or even eight of those pounds are muscle , especially for a newer lifter . A vast majority of that can be muscle . We're going to go with seven . It's about two thirds . The evidence is very , very strong in showing us that this is a common ratio . The more advanced you get , the more it trends toward 50-50 . The newer you are , the more it trends toward 50-50 . The newer you are , the more it trends toward 7 or 8 out of 10 . So we're going to go with 7 . Okay , if it's 6 , it just changes the numbers a little bit . So you've gained 10 pounds , you're 160 pounds . 7 of that is muscle , 3 of it is fat . So you've gained some fat as well . But stay with me .

Philip Pape 8:18

So , after this gaining phase , we do a simple cut to lose three pounds of fat . That's it . The final result looks like this your new body weight is now 157 pounds . Remember , you started at 150 , you gained 10 , you lost three . You're at 157 pounds . However , your new body fat percentage remember originally it was 20 , it is now 19.1% . Now , the real thing we care about here is you're going to look leaner and more defined despite weighing more on the scale .

Philip Pape 8:50

This is just the math and I may be stating the obvious for some of you , but others you may have your mind blown . And the reason you should have your mind blown is you just went from 150 pounds on the scale to 157 pounds on the scale and you dropped a percentage of body fat . And that's just a small , simple example of something extremely achievable in a fairly short timeframe for just about anyone . That's why I wanted to use that example . I didn't want to go with 20 , 30 , 40 pound swings either direction . You know we can get into that .

Philip Pape 9:20

Just keeping it simple , you are now heavier on the scale and leaner . So think about it the same amount of fat mass , because you gained three pounds of fat while you were gaining the 10 pounds , but then you lost it . So same fat mass , but you have more muscle . Now you have seven more pounds of muscle , 127 versus 120 . And so now you have a lower body fat percentage .

Philip Pape 9:40

Now , the bonus here is , of course , you're probably going to have a higher metabolism . Now you weigh more , so you have to burn more calories , and the portion of that extra weight is muscle , which is even higher calorie burning . Now you can eat more food . Now you're going to have more energy because you're eating more food . Now you can perform better in the gym because you have more energy , because you're eating more food , and you can have more restful sleep and be stronger than ever . Isn't that cool ? Now you might be thinking okay , philip , the math makes sense . I get it , but how do we make this happen ? Because you say seven out of the 10 is muscle , but I'm still afraid that if I gain 10 pounds , it's going to be fat , and then I'm just worse off and I'm where I started , or worse than that Okay , and this is where we have to understand the science of muscle growth . And I want to break this down into practical terms because you , unlike the vast majority of people out there , are going to be doing a few things very differently than most people in terms of food , in terms of movement .

Philip Pape 10:33

First , let's talk about why you need a calorie surplus to build meaningful muscle . All right , so I had another client I'm going to call him Mike . He was trying to re-comp , do body re-comp . He was trying to lose fat and gain muscle at the same time , and he was eating at his maintenance calories , whatever those were at the time based on our tracking . He was lifting weights and he was getting frustrated because the changes were coming slowly . And why was he doing body recomp ? Because he was afraid of gaining weight and the best thing that I could , I'll say , convince him to do was at least not cut right now . Let's at least try to hold steady and see what happens with our body composition , even though it's going to take time .

Philip Pape 11:10

And I explained to him that , you know , building muscle is a very energy , expensive process . Your body needs the extra protein for the actual muscle tissue , it needs the extra calories to support the building process . It needs extra energy for recovery from training because you're going to train hard , and it needs resources for all the metabolic processes involved in your body . There's a lot going on to build this muscle and this is why research consistently shows that without a calorie surplus , muscle growth is significantly limited . And studies that look at natural lifters show that even in perfect conditions , you might gain one to two pounds of muscle per month as a beginner , and a half to one pound per month as an intermediate , and even less as you get more advanced . Okay now going back to that one to two pounds a month and the example I gave you of seven months , I think I said the 10 pounds was over four months . So what did that come out to be ? Seven pounds of muscle . Of that , 10 pounds over four months just under two pounds . So I was going on a little bit slightly more aggressive side , but again , you could switch the math up , add an extra couple months to the time frame . It all works out .

Philip Pape 12:13

The key here is that these rates are only possible in a calorie surplus . You're not going to gain at that rate . When you're at maintenance or at a deficit , the numbers drop dramatically . Yeah , sure , you might gain muscle , but now stretch out your time frame over years . And that's where the frustration lies , cause any little blip , any little interruption in your training or your life which happens all the time , especially as we get older , right , busier lives , more obligations You're just going to sabotage that . And so when people say , can I recomp , I'm like yes , under perfect conditions , or you can give yourself the benefit of life and go into a surplus , right ? And that's why this constant cutting approach fails , because you're never giving your body the resources it needs to build the muscle that would ultimately make you leaner . So how do we actually put this into practice ? You're like okay , what do I do ? All right , after the break , I'm going to give you the step-by-step approach that I've used successfully with hundreds of clients .

Tony 13:09

Stick around for that . My name is Tony . I'm a strength lifter in my 40s . Thank you to Phil and his Wits and Weights community for helping me learn more about nutrition and how to implement better ideas into my strength training . Phil has a very , very good understanding of macros and chemical compounds and hormones and all that and he's continuously learning . That's what I like about Phil . He's got a great sense of humor . He's very relaxed , very easy to talk to . One of the greatest things about Phil , in my view , is that he practices what he preaches . He also works out with barbells . He trains heavy not as heavy as me , but he trains heavy . So if you talk with him about getting in better shape , eating better , he's probably going to give you some good advice and I would strongly recommend you talk with him and he'll help you out All right , welcome

Effective Muscle Gaining Strategies

Tony 13:53

back .

Philip Pape 13:53

Let's start with how to implement a muscle gaining phase . First , you need to know when to start a gaining phase . Here are the best candidates from my experience and from what the evidence shows us . First , people who have been stuck in a cutting cycle . So if you've been going up and down , up and down , up and down , have not had progress , you're probably ready to try a muscle gaining phase . Just what's the worst that can happen ? You gain a couple pounds of fat that you can cut off anyway . Yeah , but there's much more upside .

Philip Pape 14:23

The second thing is those who can , for example , see their abs but they still feel skinny fat . There's a lot of you out there . You're like I don't want to lose my abs , but you don't have much muscle . What are those abs worth ? What are they buying you ? What are they giving you ? I mean , if you are successful using your abs at something and you love what they give you , then maybe you're cool .

Philip Pape 14:43

I'm guessing most people who are listening are like especially younger men , for example . I'd say most people who are listening are like especially younger men , for example , skinny men , but men , women , it doesn't matter who are just clinging on to being what they think is lean , but it's really just . They can kind of see some definition there because they don't have much weight on their body . They don't have much fat on their body but they also don't have much muscle right . So their body fat percentage is still quite higher than you would imagine . Like the original example 150 pounds , 20% body fat and to put that in comparison , when I am about 180 , I'm about 20% body fat right , and guys I know are even leaner than that at 180 , who've been doing it longer than me . So just keep that in perspective . Another person who this is good for anyone who's been at the same weight for months or years and who have not changed their physique All right , so kind of a similar situation , but different . Because you might be heavier , you might have a little extra fat and you're scared of gaining weight because you're like I got to lose this fat but maybe you're holding yourself back by not taking that opportunity . So let's talk about the actual process and I'm going to use another client , tom , as an example . I've got so many client stories that I can pull from here . It's a lot of fun really .

Philip Pape 15:56

He started at 170 , super common weight for guys that are like 5'8 to upwards of 5'11 , even six feet , believe it or not . Some guys on the skinnier end right around there , 170 pounds , fairly quote-unquote lean , not happy with his physique , because really he had some extra body fat and didn't have much muscle . And I said , let's , we got to gain . And he was , he was good for it , right , he was cool with that Gaining phase . Let's go , let's , let's really push it at about 0.4% of your body weight gain per week . I'm not going to do all the math , but it comes out to several pounds a month , right , such that a decent chunk of that is going to be muscle . Going back to what I said before one to two pounds of muscle a month-ish .

Philip Pape 16:36

We focused heavily on a training program that built his base of strength but also included some hypertrophy , some bodybuilding style stuff , so that he could really train hard and develop his physique at the same time and we can measure the physique as we go along . So that's the third part of this is monitoring his body composition changes , monitoring his bicep and chest size , for example for men , you know , that's a really great indication of body size . Making sure his waist size wasn't like ballooning up right , which it shouldn't . If you're going at a reasonable rate , you're not going to gain that much fat . You gain a little bit , so your waist is going to go up a little bit , but everything else is also going way up in terms of performance and strength and muscle . And , by the way , strength and muscle are sometimes proxies for each other , but not always . That's why you have to have a good coach and kind of understand how to train .

Philip Pape 17:22

And so what did we track ? Well , we track scale weight , obviously . We look at the trend of weight , make sure that it's trending up at the right rate and not too much , but also not too slowly . Where he's stuck , where he's in a hard gaining phase and we need to eat more , so we track that . We make sure that his strength and his performance and his reps and his volume should all be going up on his program . We look at measurements that show , you know , proportional changes , whatever those are . I mentioned the body metrics before .

Philip Pape 17:55

Progress photos . Yes , progress photos can be a little deceiving during a gaining phase because again , you have some of the fat coming along from the muscle . So with a shirt on , you should kind of notice , especially as a guy , but even women , you know you've got your arms are starting to pop your delts , your shoulder caps are starting to pop nice back all of that . If you took your shirt off , yeah , you might have a little extra fat covering your abs , right . So that's kind of where we can play mind games with ourselves if we're not careful and having a coach to kind of look at that objectively and be like , no , it's cool , you know , yeah , of course your waist is up a half inch or an inch since we started , but look at all this exceptional growth in other areas of your physique .

Philip Pape 18:31

And then there are the things that we want to avoid , the pitfalls that I see all the time . The first one is actually gaining too fast , which is , I'll say , for beginners and intermediates . My current recommendations are up to about 0.4 to 0.5% of your body weight per week max , and some of you might be more comfortable around that 0.3% of your body weight per week . But if you're gaining , like you know , over a pound a week , then that's probably way too much . Like that's just a simple rule of thumb .

Philip Pape 19:07

The second thing is not pushing hard enough in your training . You don't want to waste the time you're doing in the stimulus . I'm not saying that you should ever not train hard enough . That's true you should , but there's something about knowing you've got the calories and the energy coming in that you've got to be dialed in enough where you're not constantly taking breaks , because if you're going on vacations and going on travel and shifting and skipping workouts , then you probably are going to gain more fat . And if you're going to do that , I would want to plan in times of potentially at maintenance instead of in a surplus , to prevent that .

Philip Pape 19:41

The next thing is getting spooked by the normal water weight fluctuations that occur , which includes gaining early on . So your first few weeks you're going to gain a decent pop in weight and it's not necessarily you're gaining too fast , it's because of the water , the fluid , the carbs , and then it normalizes and then you're good to go . So the first few weeks , just let what happens happens it's not a big deal and then you can really have the data dialed in after that . And then , of course , that leads to people cutting the gaining phase short at the first sign that they're gaining too much fat or getting uncomfortable . And that could be as short , you know , as long as even three or four months , when we're intending to gain for , say , six or nine , and you're like , oh , it's three months and I'm just not liking it . You've got to stick it out . And again , this is where having support and having numbers and having data can really be helpful , because it is very easy to panic when the scale goes up three pounds in that first week , but when you know why this happens , you realize it's totally normal , right ?

Philip Pape 20:38

Most of the water weight is , or most is , water weight from increased carbs , glycogen , training , volume , inflammation . Your measurements in that week , you'll notice , probably didn't change at all . Even your waist . Even when you feel a little bloated , even when you have a little extra weight , you'd be surprised that your waist measurement didn't even change . I mean , if you're a bigger person , it might go up like a quarter inch , if that's even . It's in the noise . Your strength , though , should start to take off . I mean , for some people it's literally the next day after you have that first big meal bigger than you've been eating , and I was like , oh man , my deadlift just shot up . I've seen that happen . And then , after about two to three weeks , your weight will start to stabilize . So the magic here happens when you stick with the process long enough to get to that anabolic environment and see meaningful muscle growth right .

Philip Pape 21:25

Remember the examples from earlier okay , many of my clients who get started on this journey , especially a lot of women , are convinced that the strategy is backfiring about six weeks in . Okay , six weeks , because the first three weeks they got through the waterway Okay , they're good , and then another three weeks in you're like is anything even happening ? And yet I'm eating all this food and I'm feeling kind of full all the time . Right , there's a lot of mind games that go on , but then by I'm going to say week 12 , which is three months in , that's when you're going to start seeing definition , really , that you've never seen before . If you're doing this right , even though you're technically heavier and you have a little more body fat , when you're really doing it right , that's where the gains start to pay off .

Philip Pape 22:07

And this brings me to a crucial point about patience and mindset , because I think I said it before , the biggest obstacle is not the physical process . You get that , you get the numbers , you get that this is important . Hopefully , you've listened to Wits and Weights for a while and if you haven't plenty of episodes in the library about this , it's not that , it's not the physical process . I can tell you exactly what to do . You can go download my blueprint that I mentioned earlier . It'll tell you what to do . Great , it's the mental game of being okay with short-term weight gain . To have that long-term success , that ease of carrying around this extra lean tissue , eating more food , having more energy , looking and feeling great and better , even at a higher scale weight , you have to trust the process and the mathematics that we talked about earlier . But yeah , it can definitely be a mental game . So here's what might surprise you , because I always like to end with a little bit of a moment at the end of these shows . After working with hundreds of clients , I've noticed something and that is that the ones who achieved the most dramatic transformations you know we love the before and after photos , but the ones who achieve the most dramatic ones are not the ones who diet the hardest and are trying to stay lean year round . It is the people who embrace the counterintuitive approach of strategically gaining weight to build muscle period . The people who are willing to jump into that are the ones that have success . It might take some time , it might take working through the mental side , it might take some emotional support along the way , but it will pay off .

Philip Pape 23:45

Take Mark I think I mentioned him . He was one of my most successful clients . He spent years trying to get below that magical 15% body fat for men by constantly cutting . I think he was doing carnivore . He was doing all these diets , you know , trying to like eat the same food all the time rice and broccoli and chicken or whatever . And we're like let's just throw all that out . Man , you can enjoy lots of different foods , you can enjoy a decent amount of calories . That out , man , you can enjoy lots of different foods , you can enjoy a decent amount of calories . You've got to commit to a proper , steady and long enough gaining phase and then we can follow that with strategic cut . And that's what we did , right . So he trusted me . He's like all right , I put my trust in your hands . Let's go six , nine months hard out on the gaining .

Philip Pape 24:23

We had lots of discussions about like oh man , I'm noticing extra fat and blah , blah , blah . But I said but what is going well ? Oh well , my deadlift keeps climbing , my squat keeps climbing , I feel great , my leverages are good . Like on and on and on . That's what we need to focus on . And guess what he ended up at the 12% body fat , I think , was the number right . He ended up doing better than , I think , most people when they try to do this . He just had a propensity for it , but he had never given himself the chance to build the muscle first , and I think what happened is his body just super responded to the stimulus and he just slapped on some meat to his body and then now the fat loss is easy , right , and he could get to that 12% body fat , weighing 10 pounds more than when he started . That's the part that's so cool , right ? The key isn't just that physical transformation , even though it is amazing . It's the mental freedom of no longer fearing the scale going up .

Philip Pape 25:18

All right , next week we are going to dive deeper into exactly how to structure your year as we're closing on the end of the year here . So , thinking ahead to next year , whenever you're listening to this , it doesn't matter how to structure a 12 month period between your bulking and cutting phases to set yourself up for an incredible 2025 or whatever year . You're looking ahead and I'm probably going to give you some different scenarios , but I'm going to try to simplify it and give you a single 12 month period that you can then shift left or right , depending on where your starting point is . Today I'm going to break down the timing , how to know which phase to start with , how to transition between phases for the best results , and then you know , we'll talk about that next week , but today I want you to remember that the fear of gaining weight is probably the thing keeping you at a higher body fat percentage than necessary , right ? So having absorbed today's episode will set you up well for next week's , next Monday's

Strategizing Muscle Gain With Nutrition

Philip Pape 26:15

.

Philip Pape 26:15

I have other episodes before then , but next Monday's episode where we talk , where we help you structure out the cutting and bulking phases all right , because the math doesn't lie . Sometimes you have to be willing to see the scale go up temporarily to achieve the leaner physique in the long run , and that was really my message for today . All right , if you're ready to break free from the constant cutting and you want to learn how to build muscle the smart way , the how-to , the steps , download my free muscle building nutrition blueprint using the link in my show notes or go to witsandweightscom slash free . This guide is going to walk you through exactly how to structure your nutrition for optimal muscle gain and minimal fat gain . Until next time , keep using your wits lifting those weights and remember sometimes the fastest way to get lean is to gain weight first . I'll talk to you next time here on the Wits and Weights Podcast . Thank you .