Precision Fat Loss Strategies for 2025

Philip Pape 0:01

If you're already dreading another year of frustrating fat loss attempts , wasting time with those popular diets that don't work for your lifestyle and genetics , or feeling overwhelmed by all the nutrition advice out there and not sure what actually works , this episode is for you . Today , I'm breaking down six science-backed strategies for fat loss that you can implement this year , based on your unique situation , your experience , level , goals , lifestyle . I'll show you how to choose the method that will work best for you and the exact steps to put it into action . And the best part is you don't have to do anything extreme . A 28-day challenge , start fasting or cut out food groups these are approaches that fit you like a glove , so you can stick with them long enough to lose fat without being miserable . 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 kicking off 2025 by breaking down six proven strategies for fat loss that align with your individual needs , and that is the key differentiator . The timing of this episode is intentional , because January is not just about New Year's resolutions . It's about starting the year with the right tools and knowledge to make sustainable changes , whether you have a resolution or just want to follow the process and get the result , and that is what we're covering today . Now , before we get into those strategies , I want to let you know that I've created a free guide called Precision Fat Loss that complements today's episode perfectly . It gives you a targeted plan including all six core strategies that we're discussing . It gives you detailed guidance on choosing the right one for you and the steps to implement your strategy properly . You can get your free copy at witsandweightscom slash free or click the link in the show notes , and it's a great companion to follow along with this episode .

Philip Pape 2:06

Now , my goal , as always , is to live up to what you're asking for as the listener or the viewer , so I wanted to share some recent five-star reviews that explain what we're about much better than I can , and I'm going to start with a review from RNK . Great stuff . Philip delivers interesting insights in a polished way . I love the analytical approach to health . He kept me engaged throughout the episode . The next review is from Brad Kearns , who , by the way , is going to be on the show soon . Really well-informed and interesting . Philip does a fantastic job , covering the most interesting and important topics , including scientific research into easily understandable and actionable tips for healthy living and especially getting fit and strong for a lifetime . And then we have LadyLifter07 . I love that . Handle Best nutrition podcast . Real advice for real people . Always look forward to the next episode . I should use that as my tagline going forward Real advice for real people .

Philip Pape 3:03

All right , let's start by addressing why most fat loss approaches fail . We've got to understand what the heck is going on in the world where so many people they lose weight and then they gain it back , and even when they lose weight , they lose muscle and they don't understand how to do this , despite tons and tons of information . And there are three core issues that I see all the time , especially with clients , and this is why they tend to seek me out and reach out and say , hey , I need help with this . The first core issue of the three is fat loss approaches usually treat everyone the same . They completely ignore individual differences . Now , I'm not talking about just general personalization . I'm talking about the vastly different genetics and lifestyles and goals that people have . And yet we lump fat loss all into one big giant category . For example , you've got people with different metabolic rates , just genetically and also based on their history . Some of you can eat 3,000 calories , maintain your weight . Others maintain it 2,000 or far less . That's the first issue . Then there's the recovery ability , and this is important for fat loss . When you're training five days a week , six days a week and you can't recover , that's going to add stress during fat loss , and you know some people need more rest , some people need more rest . Your lifestyle demands and your stress levels play a huge role . You know A busy executive with three kids is going to need a very different approach than someone with more flexibility in their schedule . And then the training experience and the muscle mass you already have . These are all factors that dramatically influence how your body responds to a calorie deficit . So that's the first core issue

Long-Term Sustainable Fat Loss Strategies

Philip Pape 4:43

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Philip Pape 4:43

The second core issue is that traditional approaches focus on short-term results . You hear me talk about this a lot . I think it's worth harping on the fact that 99% of diets out there are trying to get you a quick fix , whether it's the crash diets , whether it's the detoxes , whether it's programs like Weight Watchers or Optivea , whether it's the weight loss drugs and again , I'm not bashing on those drugs for people who need it . I'm just saying the marketing of that is promising rapid weight loss , even if it's ostensibly for a health issue , you'll still see like such and such achieved , you know , 45 pounds of weight loss . But what actually happens to the vast majority of people doing this when you're losing weight so quickly is , yeah , your hormones get completely out of whack . We know that happens Metabolic adaptation . I'll address that later . But worse for most people is they're losing muscle . They get ravenously hungry , they're cutting food so they want to binge on those foods again and they gain it all back . We're talking 95% of people gain it back within five years and oftentimes because you have less muscle , you're now going to have more fat than you had before , even at the same weight , and a lot of you are gaining even more weight than that . So the body fatness just keeps to creep up over the years .

Philip Pape 5:54

There's zero consideration in these approaches for building the habits that take you through all the different phases of life and through training and not losing muscle , the importance of maintenance , the importance of building and losing fat . It's all about the quick fix and that's the problem . The third problem is the approaches don't account for real life . A lot of them claim to be personalized , but by that they usually mean oh , we're going to take your gender and your genetics , or we're going to take your gender and your height and weight and a few other factors , and that's what we mean by personalization . No , what I'm talking about is the very significant differences between how people live and who they live with , and where they live and what their job is , and so on .

Philip Pape 6:41

And the existing approaches assume you're going to be this perfect dieting robot who never has social events . You never travel , you never . You know you have perfect stress levels . You get eight hours of sleep every night . Come on , like , when does that ever happen ? Ever , ever , ever , except maybe maybe a 20 year old or something with , like , no stress in their life . No , your work stress fluctuates . Your training intensity varies week to week . You've got family obligations that pop up . A sustainable approach has to account for all of that . It can't be the other way around . We can't say , well , you need to just get rid of all that . Like , you're not working hard enough . You need to double down and like , be disciplined . No , no , come on , this is reality , so work with me here , all right .

Philip Pape 7:28

So I want to now dig into the six evidence-based strategies that I've developed over the years with clients , and when I say I've developed , there's nothing new under the sun here . I'm just going to be totally honest . What I've done is taken , everything that I've worked with over the last three years myself , clients , this podcast and for 2025 , I smushed it all together into a very simple , understandable set of six strategies , all right , and I'm going to split them into three and three and then talk about how to which ones to pick , based on you . So let's build this piece by piece . I'm going to start with a foundational approach and then go to the advanced methods . Think of it like a pyramid , where you want to master the basics before moving to the complex stuff . And , by the way , the Precision Fat Loss Guide if you download it , it will tell you with a check mark or an X whether each plan is good for you , based on all the different situations that you could be in , so you can immediately rule out things that I would not recommend for you right now . So , strategy number one of the six here we go . Here we go .

Philip Pape 8:25

I don't know how long this episode is going to be . I call it the slow burn . You're targeting a loss of around a quarter to half percent of your body weight a week , which is quite reasonable and conservative , and you're doing it over anywhere from 12 to 20 or more weeks . I mean you could conceivably do it forever . I would never do a fat loss phase like that , but if you have like 300 pounds to lose , this could be the one that you want to go with , you know , in segments , over time .

Philip Pape 8:54

Now I know it doesn't sound sexy , right , this is not a quick fix thing we're talking about . This is about a half a pound a week for a 200 pound person , but here's why it's so powerful . First , you are going to maintain almost all your muscle mass Like . That solves that problem right off the bat . When you're only dropping weight this slowly , your body has time to preserve that precious muscle tissue . Compare this to crash dieting , whether it's done on purpose or because you're on a weight loss drug GLP-1 , you know , semaglutide , terzapatide , et cetera where you might sacrifice a decent amount of muscle as much as five to 10 pounds of muscle just to see the scale move faster .

Philip Pape 9:39

The second thing is this approach has the highest adherence rate . Okay , I've seen this with client and it just makes mathematical sense . Why ? Because you're not walking around starving all the time you can eat enough to fuel your workouts , to maintain your energy , to enjoy your food , and that's why I really like the slow burn . For a lot of people , again , you got to get out of the quick fix mentality and think I want to get the result . Yeah , but I actually want to keep the result and do it in a sustainable way . And , speaking of sustainability , it's perfect for that .

Philip Pape 10:10

This is the third reason I love it so much . You've got enough mental bandwidth to focus on things like eating your protein , your meal prep , recovering from your workouts , your training , and you're not just white knuckling through hunger , right , you get the mental capacity to focus on the process and the habits . And then , finally , there's a lot of room for social flexibility . If you have a wedding , a holiday party , if you like to go out a lot , whatever it is , one higher calorie day isn't going to really do anything . It's not going to derail anything . It's going to be a blip because we're not talking about having a very aggressive deficit . You're always not that far from maintenance anyway and you're just doing the slow burn . So that's strategy number one .

Philip Pape 10:47

Strategy number two this is the sweet spot and this is where you're targeting around a half to 1% of your body weight loss per week over about eight to 16 weeks . All right , this is actually my go-to approach for many clients because it perfectly balances the results with the sustainability . So it gets you there faster . And again , I can't discount the fact we do want to get there in a reasonable amount of time , right , or else we get impatient or we get mentally fatigued . So I understand speed is a factor , right , just not going too fast . And then the faster we go , the shorter the duration we can handle . So this is the sweet spot half to 1% loss per week over eight to 16 weeks . And so when you're losing about a pound a week for someone weighing 200 pounds , do easy math .

Philip Pape 11:39

You can see meaningful changes in the mirror while still having enough calories to maintain the quality of your training , and I think that's really important . I think the quality and ability to perform in the gym is like half the equation when it comes to fat loss . All right , you're not going to feel like you're dragging yourself through your workouts and the psychological impact is also moderate . It's more than the slow burn , but it's still moderate Meaning . Yeah , you're going to feel like you're dieting . You're going to have a little bit of hunger , but it's not overwhelming . You can still think clearly at work . You can still engage people with people socially . You can still maintain your relationships . It's not some extreme like , say , a physique competitor would do , and I can't tell you how many clients appreciate this balance . And , by the way , the reason I use this and not the slow burn with most clients is because they have my support there to know that they can fall and they can trip a little bit along the way , but I'm gonna keep them going , I'm gonna be there for them and they'll learn the skills that they need faster because they're working with me to get there .

Philip Pape 12:42

But you can definitely do this part on your own if you've got the right plan and the right approach . Now what's really nice about this is you have room for again some occasional higher calorie days , even if they're not planned in , even if they're not refeeds . Maybe you're going out to dinner with friends , maybe you've got a birthday coming up . You can just plan around the events for the week and not feel like you're really going way off , like oh my goodness , I'm just gonna wipe out my whole week's progress with this one thing . No , you can shift things a little bit and you've got some still plenty of flexibility . So that's the sweet spot .

Philip Pape 13:15

So strategy number three Now this is rapid fat loss . Okay , so you'll notice strategies one , two , three are really different buckets of speed . And before we get to the advanced ones , this is rapid fat loss . Now I have to be very clear here . This is like a precision tool that should only be used in very specific situations . We are talking about losing one to one and a half percent of your body weight over a very short timeframe two to eight weeks max . And by eight weeks I mean like you really better have a lot of muscle mass and some decent weight to lose and be everything dialed in . I would say it's more like four weeks is where I've seen this happen , and if you've ever heard me talk about rates of loss over 1% is where you're starting to risk a little bit of muscle loss . That's why we keep the duration very short . The main benefit here is you guessed it speed , speed .

Philip Pape 14:12

So if you do have a specific deadline , like a photo shoot or a wedding or a competition or that thing on the beach , right , for me it might be my upcoming . You know , we're going to Florida to Disney , we're going to visit my parents , we're going to go to the pool hey , I want to feel confident at the pool , that's all . So maybe I'm going to fit in a little rapid fat loss phase in the six weeks leading up to that point . This can definitely get you there , but you need to know exactly what you're doing with your training and nutrition Now , having this clear end point , like knowing it's going to end , and it's going to end pretty soon , that does help reduce mental fatigue because you know exactly when you'll be done right , and this isn't something you want to do indefinitely . And if you come to me and say , hey , philip , I did your rapid fat loss phase and I want to keep going , what do I do ? I'm going to say don't keep going , that's ridiculous . You're just going to start losing muscle mass , your hormones are going to go crazy , you're going to feel terrible and it's going to end up backfiring . Just don't do it right , don't push it . But if you want to , if you're in the middle of a year or two year long building phase and you're like , hey , I just want to shed some fat really quickly in six or eight weeks Again , not a quick fix , this is a controlled high protein , almost like a protein sparing , modified fast .

Philip Pape 15:22

If you've heard of that . It's very similar to that , but there's refeeds built in . There's a strategy to this and I wasn't going to mention this , but I do have a specific guide called Rapid Fat Loss . If you go to winstowheightscom , slash free , I'm not going to link it in the show notes , I'd rather you get the main precision fat loss guide and then you can like jump from there . But the key here is that short and also you have strategic refeeds and this is usually one day a week after about four days . So four days , very aggressive , and then one day of a refeed where you bump up your calories , mostly from carbs , right up to maintenance , and that's to . It's really to kind of just give you the mental break . It does help maintain some of your performance as well if timed appropriately , but it's mainly the mental break and the quick little jolt of recovery so you can keep going . So those are the three , I'll say , foundational strategies for fat loss .

Philip Pape 16:18

And now I want to get to the three advanced approaches , and what you're going to find is that these advanced approaches are more about timing and other variables and you could in a way , combine them with the first three . Right , so you can . I would start with one of the first three and then look at the last three to decide okay , do I need to really change the timing significantly based on my life ? And that's why you need the guide that I'm sharing , because it tells you later on , based on your situation , if this is appropriate . Okay . Strategy four , then , is called ride the wave . Yeah , I've got some silly names here . Okay , ride the wave .

Flexible Fat Loss Strategies for Success

Philip Pape 16:56

And this is where things get interesting , because , instead of trying to hit the same calorie target every day which , again , I would recommend for most people to start out you are intentionally varying your intake throughout the week or month , and you've probably heard of carb cycling , calorie cycling . A lot of these strategies are going to be related to that . This approach is fantastic for people who have regular interruptions , regular social events . Maybe you would always go out on Saturdays Great . We plan to hire calories on those days and then we pull back a bit during the week , and the beauty of this strategy is how it reduces diet fatigue and even the fear that you're constantly failing . Even if you're not failing , you know , there's the mental side of oh , I went over again . I went over again . You're not constantly grinding away every day at the same calories that might feel restrictive to you . You've got those higher days to look forward to , right ? Not cheat days , but they're planned days where you up the carbs and they're planned in , and this makes the whole process itself again more sustainable for people who have these regular interruptions .

Philip Pape 18:00

Now , one of my favorite applications is structuring this around training . Right , we got to be careful , though this is where classic calorie cycling comes in , or carb cycling where , all right , you've got a big leg day , we're going to bump up our calories and carbs on those days . On recovery days , we pull back a bit . The caveat is for some people , this backfires because they need more days . We pull back a bit . The caveat is for some people , this backfires because they need more . They need just as many calories on recovery days to feel like they're bringing it back from the fold as they head into the next training day . And it also depends on your training schedule , what time of the day you train , and on and on right . So , again , this is just an example , but ride the wave is essentially what it sounds like . It's you riding the wave of your life , of your week , of your months , of your seasons .

Philip Pape 18:43

Strategy number five All right , this is called alternating phases and I'll say that this takes the ride , the wave concept , to the next level in which you have a periodized on off . That on-off can be any length , so you might do two weeks of aggressive dieting followed by two weeks of maintenance , and this is especially powerful for advanced lifters , for example , who really understand their bodies , or sometimes women , to line it up with their menstrual cycles , which again , don't just start there , because , for I would say , 90% of women , they don't need to do that , but there's a small subset who it could help . It also might line up with your work schedule , your shift schedule . You know , I have a client who's a I think they call it a magistrate because it's not in the US but she has like intense , like a few intense months where she can't get much sleep , and then a few intense , a few months of total time to do whatever she wants , almost Right . And that's where you can line up the dieting across a month on , month off , two months on , two months off , very much like this stair step approach that I mentioned quite a few episodes ago . You can go , look it up my stair step fat loss process of okay , I'm going to diet for a while and then I'm going to stop , and then I'm going to go on and then I'm going to stop , right .

Philip Pape 20:06

It's just an overarching alternating phase approach and the mental relief during those maintenance phases can be massive . It could be the exact thing you need just to hold steady , get recovered , eat more food , feel more energized , give your body a break from the stress of dieting . Your hormones get a chance to recover if it's long enough during those phases . Leptin , thyroid , testosterone they all drop during extended dieting and they come back fairly quickly , but not like in a day . So when you alternate , say two weeks on two weeks off or a month on a month off , it can be an interesting way to manipulate that situation . You are not , I repeat , you are not just artificially increasing your metabolism that is bogus BS , myth stuff but you are getting a massive break and things recover to the point where , physically and mentally , you're ready to go for the next phase , which means you're going to stick with it . It's going to be sustainable . Hugely helpful for that .

Philip Pape 21:02

And then number six strategy . Number six is what I call the recharge , recomp . And again , I don't get any awards for these names . I like alliteration , let's just put it that way Recharge , recomp . So recomp , as in recomposition , where you build muscle and lose fat at the same time , this is technically not even a fat loss phase . You are eating at maintenance while focusing on getting your act together with your training and with your recovery , and this works incredibly well between more focused fat loss phases or if you've got a high stress period .

Philip Pape 21:39

So the reason I include this as its own strategy is to sort of give yourself the permission to drop this in when you need it . Maybe you didn't plan out alternating phases , maybe you're doing the same calories every day for weeks on end and all of a sudden you're like something is not working , or I'm hitting a plateau , or I'm just not feeling it . I don't want to be dieting , or this thing has come up in my life and I want to take the opportunity for the next month to focus on that . Drop this in . Think of it as a fat loss phase within your overall fat loss approach . It's kind of a mental switch , a flip the script , if you will . You're recharging and you're re-comping . You're trying to still lose a little fat slowly and you might even gain some muscle where you weren't necessarily gaining during fat loss , but you're not ready to push it to a building phase yet or come out of your fat loss phase . You still have more to go , so to speak . So the recharge , re-comp this is its own special strategy that can fit wherever you want or need it . So those are the six strategies and I believe , having gone through this and created this guide in today's episode , this covers the vast majority , if not all cases you could possibly think of , because you can combine these as well .

Philip Pape 22:49

So the next thing I want to talk about is how your metabolism adapts during fat loss , because this is going to influence which strategy will work best for you , in addition to the other things that we'll get to later . So I want to talk about the three types of metabolic adaptation that happen when you diet , because this is highly misunderstood . So this is when your hormones start to downregulate Things like thyroid , testosterone , leptin . They all decrease and this

Personalized Fat Loss Strategy Selection

Philip Pape 23:22

is your body's way of trying to conserve energy .

Philip Pape 23:22

Some people have used the term starvation mode , and I don't like that so much , but I get where they're going . It's your body clamping down . It has a built-in preservation system that says , hey , food seems scarce , energy's not coming in , let's slow everything down , right ? That's one thing . Then there's the reduction in your daily energy expenditure from the things you may not even notice . You might not even notice that you're not fidgeting as much . You're taking the elevator instead of the stairs , like you just get a little slower and sluggish and , unconsciously or not , decide to not move as often , or maybe you're going to park closer to the store . But not only that your body gets more efficient with movement , which sounds great , but it actually means you're burning fewer calories doing the same activities . So all of this comes into play .

Philip Pape 24:07

And then the third type of adaptation is probably the most noticeable , and that is the increased hunger signaling that comes along for the ride . And that is because your hunger hormones , like ghrelin they , go up , while the fullness signals leptin we talked about decrease . And so it's not about willpower . This is your body actively fighting against fat loss , and this is why it matters for choosing one of the strategies we talked about , because the more aggressive your approach , the faster these adaptations kick in . And I didn't even talk about the adaptation that occurs because you just weigh less . Right , by carrying around less body weight , you're going to burn fewer calories . Yes , I don't think of that as a metabolic adaptation so much as just pure math based on body mass , right . So if you go with something like rapid fat loss , let's say , all right , you might see these changes I just talked about . These adaptations occur within days .

Philip Pape 25:00

When we did our challenge for this , probably more than a year ago , I recruited some folks in the community and we all did it together . I saw people's expenditures drop pretty quickly . Now you couldn't tell in the data until days later , or even a few weeks later , because we use averages and trends , but you can tell in retrospect that it dropped a lot faster than it would normally . With the slow burn approach , on the other hand , right strategy one , these are going to happen much more gradually , and then it gives you time to adjust to them . This is where this personal metabolic resilience comes in .

Philip Pape 25:35

I think this is something that a lot of people overlook . This is your dieting history and your history of yo-yo dieting how often you've dieted in the past . That history is going to play a huge role today . I'm sorry to say it , if you've done a lot of crash dieting in the past , your metabolism might be a little more sensitive to calorie restriction , and we don't entirely always know why this is , and it's not necessarily a massive difference .

Philip Pape 26:01

For a lot of people , it's just because you have less muscle mass , right , which means , on the other hand , if you spent good time at maintenance and building muscle and not dieting as much , you might be able to handle more aggressive approaches better . But at the end of the day , this just comes down to the fact that you have a higher metabolic rate , and some of you are blessed with that . Some of you are not . The genetics make a difference , and on and on and on . That's why personalizing these strategies are helpful , and when we come back after the break , I'm going to help you choose the best strategy for you and then implement it . Plus , I'm going to reveal the surprising truth about adherence that changes how you think about good and bad days in your diet . And then I'm going to reveal one thing that all successful people do to stick with their fat loss plan and actually get the result they want . Stay with me .

Max 26:47

Shout out to Philippe . I know Philippe for a long time . I know how passionate he is about healthy eating and body strength , and that's why I chose him to be my coach . I was no stranger to dieting and body training , but I always struggled to do it sustainably . Philip helped me prioritize my goals with evidence-based recommendations , while not overstressing my body and not feeling like I'm starving . In six months , I lost 45 pounds without drastically changing the foods I enjoy , but now I have a more balanced diet . I weight train consistently but , most importantly , I do it sustainably . If a scientifically sound , healthy diet and a lean , strong body is what you're looking for , philly Pape is your guy .

Philip Pape 27:31

Welcome back Now . I'm going to walk you through exactly how to pick the right strategy based on where you're at right now . If you are a beginner , stick with the slow burn or the sweet spot period . I just simplified the whole thing for you . Forget the rest . Forget number three , four , five , six . Pick number one or two . You need to build those fundamental habits . First , consistent protein intake , regular training , proper recovery . It's like if you learn to drive , you wouldn't start on a Formula One racetrack .

Philip Pape 28:02

Intermediate folks now , by intermediate that's a very flexible term , but to me that's someone who has some experience training and maybe some experience dieting , but not necessarily In that case you can use any approach , except rapid fat loss is what I'm going to say . So approaches one , two , four , five , six . Because you understand how your body responds to different calorie levels and training intensities . You've got some experience reading your body's signals . So again , even if you haven't , like expressly gone through these types of highly targeted track fat loss phases , you still probably have experience from dieting in general and kind of understanding how your body reacts . But just make sure you truly feel like you have that experience . Otherwise , if you're like this all is new to me consider yourself a beginner , even if you're a more experienced trainer . So that's kind of what I mean is the experience with the dieting and the training together . Now , if you're more advanced , if you've gone through bulks and cuts , you've trained for a while , you're an athlete , et cetera you can use any strategy , but you still have to match it to your goals , right ? So if you're prepping for a show , yeah , maybe rapid fat loss makes sense and maybe not , right ? I know I talk to a lot of bodybuilders and they actually want to take time to get there and cut over time . Maybe you have some other event or date on the calendar where rapid fat loss makes sense . If you're in a high stress period , maybe that's where you want to drop in one of these recharge , recomp periods and just say , look , I'm not going to give up on fat loss , but I know that it doesn't make sense for me to be in a calorie deficit right now , but I'm going to put it on hold and continue later . But I'm going to still focus on doing all the right things keeping it sustainable , recharging and recovering my metabolism so I stop under eating and then maybe get some recomp as a side benefit .

Implementing Fat Loss Strategies

Philip Pape 29:52

So , other than that , there are multiple other scenarios in the guide itself .

Philip Pape 29:58

I didn't want this podcast to be three hours long , but there are , I think , four tables for four different types of tendencies or things to think about . There's a table on personal tendencies Do you love tracking , for example and so I want you to go through the guide yourself and just look at each one and say , okay , I'm that person . Here are the things yes , yes , no , no . That could work for me . So what I really want to do today is get to how to implement this . So , once you've picked the strategy , okay . So I gave you the six strategies , I gave you some thoughts on personalization , but definitely get the guide to get all the details , and then now we're going to talk about implementing at a very high level .

Philip Pape 30:40

All right , the first thing you have to do to implement a fat loss phase is you've got to know your numbers , and the best , the first number you have to know is your maintenance calories . Your maintenance calories are the calories you burn every day . The best approach is to track your food and your weight for at least two weeks and see how your weight responds to your food . That is the only accurate way to do it . First start , but they can be off by hundreds of calories . I think I used to say 400 calories in either direction and I heard someone recently say a 700 calorie swing , so I think it's the same idea . I don't know if they meant 700 either direction or just 700 total , like you could be up and down 350 , but it's insanely inaccurate . Your true maintenance calories are probably going to surprise you , because I've had clients who thought they maintained at 1800 and then we get them eating more and recovering and they're actually closer to 2500 . And I'll be honest , there's some that are the opposite . They're like yeah , I should be burning 2000 , but I'm not losing weight . Well , it's because you actually burned 1600 . So the only way to do that is to track your food and weight .

Philip Pape 31:52

And if you want an app that will do that for you so you don't have to pull out a complicated spreadsheet , download Macrofactor , use my code Wits and Weights . All one word . Yes , this is a plug , but it's a plug for my favorite app . I use it , my clients use it , I talk about it all the time because it's the only app that calculates your maintenance calories accurately and that's what you need to get the targets . Forget the other apps MyFitnessPal , chronometer and so on . They don't do that , so all they are are glorified loggers . They allow you to log food and then they're like tell us what your targets are . I'm like I don't know what my target is . Well , macrofactor gives you the target . Every week you check in , it gives you a new target based on how your and your weight . So you've got to start with that number , because that's the number you would eat to maintain your weight .

Philip Pape 32:46

And if you're not even eating enough to maintain your weight , that's a whole separate process . Okay , I talked about on the last episode , the last Monday episode , about the 12 month plan . I talked about this recomp phase . Not even talking about that . Today I'm jumping right to the fat loss phase . Once you've done all that setup , you've got your routine in place , and so on . Okay , so if you don't even know all the things you need to do to set yourself up for success in fat loss , go listen to that episode . See episode 260 , oh , it was before the new , it was before the replays that came out . Go look for it . It says 12-month plan for your best physique in 2025 , something like that . I'll include a link in the show notes .

Philip Pape 33:27

Once you have your maintenance calories , then what do you do next for macros ? Get this question all the time . We're gonna set our protein next . We're gonna aim for 0.7 to 1 gram per pound , and you can convert to kilograms if you want . 0.7 to 1 gram per pound of your target body weight . So if you're 220 pounds , you're trying to get to 180 , you're trying to lose 40 pounds , doesn't matter . Use 180 as your protein target max . So 0.7 of that to 1 times that , right . So what would 0.7 be ? It'd be something like 150 or something . So you'd be around 150 to 180 grams of protein . Okay , don't . If it seems like too much , like way too much , bring it down toward that 0.7 . You don't have to go to the one and , by the way , there's no benefit to going beyond that , whether you're in a cut or not , other than the tiny situation of the rapid fat loss phase where you might need to crank it up just a little bit . But even getting to that one is probably enough , even during that .

Philip Pape 34:26

Now , so you've got your calories , you've got your maintenance calories , you've got your protein . Now those maintenance calories are going to drop to the real target . You need to lose fat , right , and that's going to be based on the strategy you picked from what we talked about earlier . So let's say we're using the sweet spot at a half to 1% of your body weight a week , and so that's going to be about a 500 calorie daily deficit for a 200 pound person . Again , we're not going to do all the math on the show here , but that's what it comes out to be and you can adjust it as you go , like if that's too aggressive , not aggressive enough , you can always adjust it as you go . So once you have that deficit , now you've got your protein , the protein calories will be taking up some of those calories . Then fats and carbs are very flexible , and that's all I'm going to say about fats and carbs . Basically , if you set fats to around 30% of your calories and carbs the rest , that's a good starting point .

Philip Pape 35:21

Some of you may want a lot less fat , some of you a lot more . I definitely have heard that people on GLP-1 drugs , for example , like semaglutide and trisepatide , do better with lower fat . Just something happens where they have to go to the bathroom or they eat too much fat . So you personally may have different preferences and those preferences shouldn't be based on what someone said about keto or low carb or anything like that . It should be based on how you respond to the fat and carb levels with your energy , with your performance , with your recovery , with your preferences . All of that , all right . And then you want to track all of this . Now , again , if you get macro factor , you can track your food and get your targets based on your real results . But you could use a notebook , you can use a spreadsheet A million ways to do this . All right .

Philip Pape 36:07

So we've got our calories , we've got our deficit , so it brings the calories down . We anchored our protein and then filled in the rest with fats and carbs . And then a much less concerned , but still has a little bit of importance , is your meal timing . So people are like , okay , now , when do I eat ? What do I eat ? How do I do this ? My main recommendation here is to plan a decent amount of protein and carbs around your training , whether that's in the evening , whether that's in the morning . So if you lift in the evening , you can have more calories later in the day . If you're in the morning , you're going to have more in the morning . Pre-workout , post-workout , and then just keep things balanced as the day goes on . So keep the fats low pre-workout , but other than that , keep everything balanced . Also , don't train fasted , don't go low carb before your workout , just have some protein and carbs before and after . Other situations like low carb , keto , et cetera . Yeah , you're going to have to make adjustments if you want to follow those protocols For the training itself , the goal here is to maintain your strength .

Philip Pape 37:05

That is absolutely the goal . To maintain your strength , to maintain your numbers . If not , push your numbers higher where possible during fat loss . A lot of people make the mistake of dropping their weight and going higher reps when cutting , thinking it's some sort of fat-burning , you know whatever . A fat loss style workout , endurance , cardio , things like that no , keep pushing the heavy compounds , the heavy lifts , the typical types of training , to give yourself that signal , to preserve muscle .

Philip Pape 37:33

And then you want to track things to let you know that you are making progress right , not just your scale , weight and your calories and your metabolism , but also the trend in all of those your progress photos , your training performance , your body measurements . I like your waist , especially as a great indicator of fat loss for most people . A great indicator of fat loss for most people . Obviously , progress photos . You're not going to see a lot of change from one week to the next , but if you take it every week , then four , five , six weeks apart you can start seeing changes and that validates that , hey , what I'm doing is actually working . And then just the fact that you are adhering to this process and to those targets , that you are doing something every day For many of us , that is okay . We're logging in macro factor every day . We're putting our trend weight in every day . We're logging our workouts every time we go .

Philip Pape 38:20

I've had some calls with folks and I asked them how do you track your workouts ? They're like yeah , I don't really track them . Okay , it's like calculus then and advanced math to be able to remember every PR from the 20 lifts you just did last week . Impossible , not going to happen . You got to track . Now what most people miss is they get obsessed over the individual data points , and we don't want to do that . We want to look at trends , not data points . We want to have the data points when we look at trends .

Philip Pape 38:48

One higher scale weight during fat loss means absolutely nothing . For you to gain a pound of fat in one day means you would over consume by 3,500 calories . Well , if you ate roughly the same you did every day before that in that week , and then you gain two pounds . It's not fat , it's water weight , it's glycogen inflammation . There's a whole bunch of reasons that have nothing to do with fat . It's probably going to come right back down , and so what matters is the averages over time . All right , so here's something fascinating Most people don't realize about successful fat loss .

Philip Pape 39:22

The most successful clients I've had are not the ones that follow the plan perfectly . You're like what Don't you give them a plan and you give them accountability and support , check-ins , and that you're saying they don't follow the plan ? No , I'm saying they don't follow it perfectly . They are the ones . The successful ones are the ones who build in the strategic flexibility from the start . I help them do that , I help them identify how to do that , but they understand right from day one that this is not a game of a perfect plan and perfect execution . This is a game of real life , and so let's account for that right .

Philip Pape 40:03

Think about this If you're doing the slow burn approach and you you're losing a half a percent per week , you can have an entire week where you maintain weight or even gain a little weight and still average out to your target over a month , right , and this , this changes how you think about progress . It also takes enormous pressure off of you , right . It reduces stress , it takes off pressure off a single day or even a single week . And as far as being a coach , I can definitely help people process those thoughts , those emotions , those fears , to realize that that's the case , right , because we can't always see inside ourselves . We get in our own heads . And what's better than that ? Even than that , um , the way you think about progress is that your body can respond really well to the consistent variation you give it because it's in this low stress way . In other words , you're planning it in . You avoid extremes like even the ride , the wave and the alternate phase .

Philip Pape 40:56

Approach , I'm not approach . If I sat down with you and we mapped that out , I wouldn't have like a thousand calorie difference one day to the next . It would still be within spitting distance , so that your body feels assured and safe , let's say , to lose fat . But then it reduces the overall stress on you , which helps with your metabolism because you're planning it in and giving yourself the chance to succeed , and then your metabolism is maybe firing a little bit higher , burning a few more calories as a result , and then it makes the fat loss easier . So the fact that you've built in sustainability , you've slowed yourself down , will probably help you speed up the whole process at the end . Isn't that cool , all right .

Philip Pape 41:36

As we wrap up , let me emphasize something really important , and that is fat loss does not have to be a miserable grind . It doesn't okay . There's going to be some hunger and some challenges . Absolutely and too many people think suffering equals progress . It's not true . If you can choose a strategy aligned to your situation and then implement it properly with flexibility , you can achieve the results and live your life . They are not mutually exclusive , and that's the way I love to do it , and that's why , once you do that a few times , you realize yeah , it's not so hard . I actually got this , I have the confidence to do this and I don't have to do it too often throughout the year . If you go back and listen to my 12 month episode , you'll understand that I want you to spend probably nine months out of the year not dieting , but when you do have to go after it , you're going to do it just like this , with precision .

Philip Pape 42:24

All right , if you want to implement these strategies properly . Download my free Precision Fat Loss Guide . Again , it includes the detailed breakdowns of all six strategies , a decision matrix to help you choose the right one , and then some step-by-step implementation guidelines . Use the link in the show notes or go to witsandweightscom slash free , where I have a ton of guides , by the way , but for this specific one it's called Precision Fat Loss Link is in the show notes , or go to witsandweightscom slash free . All right , until next time . I hope you guys love this one . This was actually a fun one to put together and I hope it kind of maps out my overall thoughts on fat loss in general . Until next time , I want you to keep using your wits lifting those weights , and remember the best fat loss strategy isn't the one that works fastest , it's the one you can stick with long enough to actually work . This is Philip Pape , and you've been listening to Wits and Weights and I will talk to you next time .