Philip Pape: 0:02

Have you been stuck in the cycle of trying to lose those last 5-10 pounds, but something just doesn't feel right. Your workouts are there, you're tracking your food, but the results don't match your effort. Today, I'm sharing a recent coaching call where I told a client to do the exact opposite of what you might expect gain weight. You'll hear why this approach could be exactly what you need too. Whether you are a former cardio junkie turned lifter, a busy mom or dad juggling fitness with family, or just tired of chasing that arbitrary scale weight, this episode reveals how shifting your mindset about weight gain might be the key to finally achieving the lean, strong physique you're after. Welcome to Wits and Weights, the show that helps you build a strong, healthy physique using evidence, engineering and efficiency. I'm your host, Philip Pape, and I want you to picture this. You've already lost some weight, some fat, through tracking your food, lifting weights, eating your protein. The scale has moved, but now you're stuck. You think maybe I need to lose five to 10 more pounds, but deep down, you're wondering if that's really the best way to go. You're pretty happy where you are, even though there's a little more fat to lose, but you also know that you want to improve your physique. That is exactly what happened during a recent 15-minute rapid nutrition assessment call that I had with Libby. I'm going to record more of these now going forward so you can hear what it's like to have a conversation with me and get some coaching on these calls. What started as a conversation about potentially losing the last few pounds or maybe going back to maintenance, turned into shifting your mindset toward gaining weight and building muscle, and in today's episode I'm going to share what happened during that call. I'm going to just play the recording for you and why this mindset shift about gaining weight could be what you need for your own transformation. As you listen to the rationale and the process and how this is done Before we get into it, if you're feeling stuck with your nutrition or training, if you want the same kind of clarity and direction Libby gets after you listen to this book a free 15-minute rapid nutrition assessment with me.

Philip Pape: 2:14

It is not a sales pitch at all. You will hear this exactly today in the recording. Just click the link in the show notes, go to witsandweightscom, click the big button at the top or click the free call link. This is a focused, fast-paced strategy session where we identify your biggest roadblock, and then I give you a three-step action plan to overcome it. All right, enough of that.

Philip Pape: 2:33

Let's get into today's story about why sometimes the best way forward is to flip your approach. So I know you gave me a little bit of information when you signed up for this and you had mentioned, uh, your goal weight, your body composition. You've gotten to a certain point and you're wondering what to do next and really the purpose of this call. It's only 15 minutes, right, it's pretty fast paced. I want to get a fairly clear picture of where you're at, what's holding you back, what the next steps could look like, Um, and then really help you narrow it on one thing and give you a few steps to get there. So, with that said, what is the main reason you booked the call?

Libby: 3:08

Sure, so I am, I'd say, a few months into my new healthcare journey just learning about macros and protein and the value of strength training. I was always a pretty healthy-ish person, I worked out, I did all the things, but then I guess this month I just started to learn more about the macros, about intermittent fasting. I was searching in podcasts and I was like using keywords, and so that's how you popped up and then I just started listening to a bunch of your episodes and I felt like they really helped me like educate myself and just really really add to my knowledge base. And so I guess, like if, to just like kind of like set the stage super fast. So I'm 42, have three kids, again like more or less, you know, healthy. I'm at the.

Libby: 3:59

I used to be like more of a cardio person and then it's, you know, I learned that like weight training is really important. So I guess you know, what I wanted to say today is to tell you kind of like what I'm doing nutrition wise, what I'm doing fitness wise, and just kind of get your assessment on like where I should go from here. But essentially, like I'd say, probably in the summer I was about 10 pounds heavier than I am today, and five, six. I was about 150 pounds. Let's call it I wanted. My goal was like. I was like I want to get to 145. That would be awesome.

Philip Pape: 4:32

I mean, I'm a foodie, I really like food, I like to eat.

Libby: 4:33

I don't overeat but I enjoy it. I don't want to live a life of deprivation, I don't want to be in a diet, but I I was like, okay, if I could get to 145, this would just be great. And I started, you know, upping my protein a whole bunch, learning how to do that. I started intermittent fasting, but like baby fast, like just don't eat after dinner and the next time I eat is morning, that's really all it is. But that also helped me and I just found that I think, probably especially because of the protein, that over the past few months, like the weight has that weight that I held onto there kind of just went up. Like I just lost the weight. I didn't even feel like it was a huge effort and then actually I went past that 145 and now I'm at like 140. And so this is like an interesting thing for me because like I haven't been this weight probably since, like maybe almost having my first child, which is now he's turning 11 next week and I'm like I don't think my weight at this. My goal doesn't have to be weight anymore. Like I just don't actually like I feel healthy, I feel like I look like I feel good how I look, and so I'm like, okay, weight doesn't have to be the goal. But I am, of course, like I'm holding on to some excess fat, like it's in the stomach area. I've kind of always held like I'm not large, but I've always held some excess weight in my stomach area, in my thighs, and I'm like, okay, I think this is a body composition change I'm looking for, so I don't need the scale weight to move, I just want to add muscle, right, convert the fat to muscle. And so first it was the eating, it was like the adding the proteins.

Libby: 6:06

I'm using macro factor because of you. I used your link. Thank you so much for that. I think macro factor doesn't. But the thing is this now I'm weightlifting a lot more. So I don't think macro factor likes the fact that, like I put in that my goal now was 135, because again, I just don't even know what to use as my goal. Maybe my goal should just be maintained, I don't know. But it just keeps kind of cutting my calories down and I'm not. I'm not hungry, I'm okay. I just like don't know how much more I wanted to take me down Because, again, I'm weightlifting and so, if anything, I think maybe the number on the scale is actually going to go up a little bit maybe.

Libby: 6:43

And so that's the thing. So, nutrition-wise, that's kind of like what I'm keeping tabs on there and then working out-wise. I go to this amazing gym here we strength train. It's hypertrophy. They're like OCD on form. They have their eyes on you. I'm doing all kinds of things with better form than I've ever done in my life before. So I do that twice a week. I do Pilates once a week and then I'm trying to just then find a way to get hit in once or twice on my own or in a class and just like get my heart rate up, because I feel like I should have a little bit of that, okay.

Philip Pape: 7:20

I'm letting you talk because you're saying so many things that I want, if people hear this, that you've already leveled up and I was going to ask you, like, what does your training look like? How are you tracking? Are you eating more protein? So you even have a mindset of, okay, it's not all about the scale. So I love that. It sounds like obviously you'd listen to the podcast. What were you? What keywords were you searching?

Libby: 7:40

by the way, when you think I was searching like macro. I was searching protein. Okay, I was probably also stretching like strength training or like weightlifting.

Philip Pape: 7:49

Okay, cool. So, um, just just to summarize, right, you've gone through part of the journey. You've lost some fat I'll say, you know, not just weight. You've lost some fat. You've been training, you're eating, you're doing a lot of the right things, Right, and now you're wondering what to do next. Uh, in terms of not only your goal, but like which direction you want to go. So I was going to say, like, are you chasing fat loss? Are you chasing muscle? Are you chasing performance? Like what is the real thing? If you dug deep, where you want to be like a year from now, do you care at all about the scale anymore? It sounds like you're moving mentally away from that. In which case, have you ever gained weight? Have you ever intentionally gained to build muscle?

Libby: 8:26

So I know I listened to your episode about like. You know, sometimes it's not right to be like in a cut and you should do the gain. So the answer is yeah. I mean now I've done a whole bunch of months of like doing this cut and I'm like, well, maybe I shouldn't actually like, or even maybe I should just be eating at maintain so that I can like really build muscle. But yeah, I mean, that's what I'm looking for. I'm really looking to like convert the fat to muscle. That's like my main. Yeah, right now, yeah.

Philip Pape: 8:51

And I know. And what we mean right, of course, is is lose fat, build muscle at the same time. And when you mentioned a macro factor giving you lower and lower calories, that's because your expenditure has dropped Correct In the app. You've seen it drop. Now it could drop. It could drop for good reasons. It could drop because you're gaining muscle and losing fat already and therefore the scale isn't moving as fast as it would if you were only losing fat and Maca Factor says oh well, if you're eating this amount of calories and you're not losing as fast, we think you are burning fewer calories. In reality you're not. You're just kind of it doesn't know that you're adding muscle.

Philip Pape: 9:28

I see that all the time with clients. It looks like a plateau, but then you measure your waist and your measurements. How are you measuring? Are you? Are you taking circumference measurements?

Libby: 9:35

Yes, so I just started like I literally three weeks like I literally have taken two measurements. Now because, again because you cause you were like why didn't you start measuring?

Philip Pape: 9:45

So I started doing, do you, do you like? Just very simply like, like your clothes, how they fit, like, do they fit Does is your waist smaller, like things like that, even without the measurements, can you tell over this time?

Libby: 9:56

Yeah, I mean well, yeah, I mean I'm comparing myself at this point to, like, let's say, August or September. So, yes, definitely a definite difference. And people, I mean also the biggest thing is that I'm like getting it from. I'm getting positive affirmation from other people.

Philip Pape: 10:15

Awesome. And then, internally, what kind of affirmation do you want? And by what I mean by that is are you wanting to be? Are you wanting to be stronger? Are you wanting to be? Is there a athletic or performance related goal you have? Like, I'm just curious, beyond just physique, if there's anything specific you're going for.

Libby: 10:32

Well, I do actually this is kind of funny to say this, but um, I've never been able to do like a real pushup off my knees, cool Okay. And I really like to be able to just crank out some pushups. I'm just not there. I mean, I'm just not there yet, you know.

Philip Pape: 10:45

Okay, perfect, so awesome. That is a strength goal. Pin that and put that up on your wall or wherever, and make that a goal of yours. Because then, as you think about your training, your cardio, the mix of how you move because I know you mentioned twice a week training, once a week Pilates and then some HIIT Definitely have some specialization in there toward the pushup and, of course, if you need resources on that, let me know.

Philip Pape: 11:11

Um, a lot, of, a lot of women will want to get their first chin up, for example. Right, so there's a progression you can get there, um, but that that's a, that's a fun way to drive your need to gain weight so that you, when you start doing it, libby, you're not getting too concerned about the fat you might be gaining or the muscle, because that's the biggest fear. So I mean, based on what you're saying, I think the only thing really holding you back from like explosive performance and being super strong and what, um, what? Nikki Sims she's actually giving me the podcast from Barba Logic. She calls it thriving and strength. Right, thriving and strength is the gaining uh for muscle. So I think, if you're open to it, that a six to nine month building phase could be really solid for you if you do it at a conservative rate, since you're already tracking with macro factor. I mean, how does that sound?

Libby: 11:58

before I get into any details on that, I mean it obviously like sounds a little scary to me because you're just like you know, you're like I've made all this progress and like now is it real? Like what am I going to see? But like I guess what I could do is, instead of tell macro factor that I want to lose, I can just tell it I want to maintain right, and then it will anyway just up my calories and I could just try eating at that maintain level.

Libby: 12:22

Like it's funny because I am maintaining right now, which is why he doesn't like that I'm not losing. But maybe I just tell it I don't want to lose and then it will up me, would that be?

Philip Pape: 12:31

Yeah. So if I were to like, let's say, let's say you were a client, I never worked with you before we said our goal is to build muscle, I would definitely, I would definitely spend a month or two of maintenance to let things normalize.

Philip Pape: 12:41

And then I would go into a surplus, but you don't want to just be at maintenance long-term. If you're going to do this right, and since you're currently in a cutting phase, I would definitely set it to maintain for three to four weeks, just so you can let the calories come up. When you do that, try to overshoot the calories. A mistake a lot of people make is they stay in an unintentional diet. You've probably heard of reverse dieting out in the world. I don't like that term. I don't know if you've ever heard me say I don't like reverse.

Philip Pape: 13:09

Reverse dieting is when you just gradually increase calories to try to get back to maintenance. Well, since you're tracking with Macrofactor, you know what your maintenance calories are. Just jump right to there and overshoot it by a little bit, and then that'll force your body to recover as fast as possible. And then, over a several-week period, you'll see some transitional changes like a fluid retention, maybe a tiny bit of bloating. That sometimes happens initially because you're upping your carbs and your body sucks in more glycogen, and initially it's like a little bit of puffiness. But then your body adapts and it starts to release the fluid again and that gives you a nice chance to just kind of get used to that. See how you feel with your training. You should feel really good. Your biofeedback should tick upward, like you shouldn't have hunger. Your sleep and stress and all of that should like feel better, supported by the energy, and then you can say hit the gas pedal, go for a gain at something like if if you want to be conservative, 0.3%. Everybody wait a week.

Libby: 14:08

And I'll send you.

Philip Pape: 14:08

I'll send you resources on this later. You know, when we're done I'll shoot you an email with the steps, Um, and I'm also going to send you. Just yesterday in the physique university we did a training on gaining and the fears associated with it. So I'm going to send you like a Google doc that has some thoughts, just to kind of reset your mind. And then I did a podcast a long time ago that said why I'm getting fluffy before I get jacked and I, like was vulnerable about my concerns about that. That I think you'll relate to as well, so I'll send you those, Um, but yeah, I would. I would say maintenance for four weeks and then 0.3% body weight a week for at least six months. And given that it is, uh, February, you're in the Northern hemisphere I would take that all the way out, past any point where you're like worried about eating too much If you got off of the game, meaning like go all the way through the holidays.

Libby: 15:01

Okay, although this is probably going to like reverse it. It's just in the summer when we moved back to the States and I see people I know this sounds whatever. This sounds maybe shallow, like I just I want to look great when I see people in like July Okay.

Philip Pape: 15:17

So, okay, got it. Here's what we can do. Are you, are you pretty happy with where you are right now as a, as a baseline? Okay, okay, then what we can do is it is February, so, uh, march, april, may, june, july it's still a decent amount of time. There's a couple of ways we can slice this. One is to do like a, a mini bulk, which normally I wouldn't recommend, but it's something, and you can kind of dip your feet in the water and see what it's like for like three months March, april, may and then you could do a six to eight week mini cut and kind of get right back down to where you were, but having added a little bit of muscle.

Libby: 15:51

How does that sound?

Philip Pape: 15:52

Yeah, I would, I would we're trying that, in which case you don't want to wait too long to get started. So I'm going to say maintenance two weeks, bulk three months. Cut six to eight weeks, the bulk is, the bulk is going to be. I almost want you to go slightly more aggressive, so I'm going to say 0.4% a week and then the cut is going to be what's your expenditure right now? I didn't ask that.

Libby: 16:16

I'll let you know.

Philip Pape: 16:17

Let's see.

Libby: 16:18

My expenditure. Um so, uh, here's what it says right now. So it's saying 1794.

Philip Pape: 16:26

Okay, we're on 1800 and that's after the cut. Has it dropped? And it's dropped from like what? 20,000, 2,000, 2,100.

Libby: 16:34

Oh, do you know that I'm not? I actually hold on. Look, there's this insights graph. Um, let's see where. Would I see the very beginning of it?

Philip Pape: 16:43

Yeah.

Libby: 16:44

I think well, you know I haven't been using, I mean because of you. I haven't been using it that long, so probably I only started it in the high 1800s.

Philip Pape: 16:54

Okay, okay, fair point If you haven't been using it long and it may not have converged all the way to 1880 something.

Libby: 16:58

Yeah, cause I've only had like a month and a half of data. Yeah.

Philip Pape: 17:03

Okay, then when you go back to maintenance you're probably going to be obviously in the upper 1700s. It may recover a little bit over the next couple of weeks, but that's. It's pretty short timeframe for that to cause any much change. But then when you go into the bulk, um, you're probably going to be eating, you know, 1900, maybe 2000 calories. Like it'll push you a little bit. The carbs are going to come up a bit and then you do that for, you know, 12 weeks or so and if you do the math you'll see you're not going to gain that much and at least half of it's going to be muscle. If you're training hard, it's going to be-.

Libby: 17:34

And the funny thing is I'm like what will I even do with 2,000? Like if you give me 2 eating like this, that I'm like what do I even need to get to 2000 calories? I guess like lots of snacks, I don't know. I just I have a good protein rich meal and I'm like I'm full. I'm like I cannot stuff another bite in my mouth.

Philip Pape: 17:55

So I mean yeah this is where we can go down so many rabbit holes. Obviously, um, this is what I help people with coaching, but honestly, the the the easiest advice I would say is meal frequency is your best friend. Like having more meals?

Philip Pape: 18:09

because, that's usually the biggest challenge for people who don't get hungry is just um frequency and then a little more calorie dense foods and occasional indulgences are fine if you need to get them in there, as long as you're eating like 80% 90% of whole foods and fiber. Um. So I would say that for the food and then for your training. The only I wanted to visit that real quickly because, um, all I would think here is I would prefer you be training three days a week and if I was going to ask you cause this membership.

Libby: 18:38

You could do it's this, this. It's like this membership gym and you can move to a third day a week.

Philip Pape: 18:44

Yeah.

Libby: 18:44

So I just wanted to ask you like in in my scenario, you would do three days a week of weights at the gym For sure You're 42 years young.

Philip Pape: 18:53

Look, I'm 44. You're 42 years young. A lot of potential for muscle. Three minimum. I mean maybe even four, but I would say three. Um, I don't know. The Pilates If you do it for fun, that's great, Like you don't need it.

Libby: 19:05

I want to do it. It's like something that I just love, or whatever.

Philip Pape: 19:09

Yeah, that's cool, yeah, so. So one Pilates is three weights and then but like I, need to get right Like I should get some.

Libby: 19:23

I should to Fitbit like literally new a month I'm trying to hit those 10,000. And if the weather's nice here, more so.

Philip Pape: 19:31

Yeah, yeah, 10,000 solid, I mean anywhere over eight, is good. And then if you really want some little bit of extra hit to your cardio, hit to your health heart, but not hit. I'm a big fan of sprinting now, and by sprinting I don't necessarily mean on flat ground, I mean you could do it on a bike or elliptical or whatever. Really, um, simple short sprinting protocol. So you're going to look at it and say this is kind of like hit, but it's a lot more recovery and rest time than normal hit. And honestly, at this point, listen to my episode with Brad Kearns coming out on the 21st and he mentions the exact protocol that I've stolen from him, because a lot of my clients don't even do cardio in that sense, they just walk a lot.

Libby: 20:15

Walking is the best.

Philip Pape: 20:16

Thing you can do for fat loss. It keeps the stress low. Hit can be a little bit stressful. Granted, when you're gaining it's less stressful, but you don't need it unless you really really enjoy it. Libby, which most people don't Do you enjoy it or no?

Libby: 20:31

I'd say like not really. But there is something about when you're done and you feel really good. You know what I mean.

Philip Pape: 20:36

I get it, I get it, that's the dopamine and the endorphins.

Libby: 20:41

I get it, yeah, yeah.

Philip Pape: 20:46

But it also. So just always remember that kind of addictive high is also associated with stress. So, um, whereas walking you don't get the addictive high, but you get the more long-term high. You know what I'm saying? Like it's super. So that's just my philosophy on that. Um, I think that covers the bases. Again, I'm going to number one. You're going to go to maintenance, bulk, then cut, and then you could always redevelop a new phase of periodization after that. It never ends. It's a fun thing. I'll send you two resources that I mentioned. And then I recommend up up into three days a week training, lots of walking. You don't need to do the hit, it's not going to hurt.

Libby: 21:18

I mean, if you've fit in, that's great, and then I'll send you a recap with with notes and resources later on.

Philip Pape: 21:24

Awesome, okay, are you in our Facebook group?

Libby: 21:31

Um, I don't know actually. No worries, I'll send you a link to that. I've looked at it.

Philip Pape: 21:32

Have I joined? I mean probably joined, I don't know. Yeah, all right, cool, I mean any other questions, anything else? Uh, this, is.

Libby: 21:36

This is truly like amazing and, uh, I may be reaching out to you at some point about coaching as well, so thank you so much. This is a great start and definitely I'm looking at it as like this is a long-term, like. I think, my perspective has you know what I mean. It's not just like a diet, it's like this is now like life.

Philip Pape: 21:57

I can tell you you and I are totally on the same page. I'm really happy when I meet someone like you who's like, just gotten the bug and discovered this, the the secret sauce of like how this all works based on the evidence, just like I did like four years ago, and it becomes so much easier. You're going to get all the, all the things you want if you just put in the work and um, yeah, I'm here to help you out. However I can Amazing.

Libby: 22:17

Awesome Thanks.

Philip Pape: 22:18

Libby, thanks for doing the call, awesome yeah.

Libby: 22:20

Thanks so much for your time.

Philip Pape: 22:31

All right, look for my email. Okay, sounds great. Thanks again. Bye-bye, all right, and that was my call with Libby.

Philip Pape: 22:33

As we wrap up today's episode, I really want you to take away one key message that sometimes the best path forward isn't always what you expect, and that's why some expert guidance and someone looking over your shoulder could be exactly what you need. Libby came to me thinking she needed to lose the last few pounds, but what she really needed or wanted was permission to build, to build muscle, to build strength and, most importantly, to build a new relationship with her body and the scale. And she was already on her way toward doing that, and now she's going to take it to a new level. So if you're in that place right now where the scale has become your enemy, where you're stuck trying to lose those last few pounds, or where you just know something needs to change, but you're not sure what, take that as your sign. Your breakthrough might be on the other side of letting go of weight loss or even fat loss as your primary goal. And if Libby's story resonated with you, if you're ready to get the same clarity about your next steps, go ahead and book that call with me.

Philip Pape: 23:24

It's a free 15 minute rapid nutrition assessment. It's not a sales pitch, it is just a focused session. We identify your biggest road block. I give you some steps, some resources. Off you go and you find success in just 15 minutes. That's all it takes. You could transform your approach to fitness and nutrition, just like Libby did. Click the link in the show notes or go to witsandweightscom and click the big button to schedule that assessment. Until next time, keep using your wits, lifting those weights, and remember sometimes gaining is the new losing. I'll talk to you next time here on the Wits and Weights podcast.