Philip Pape: 0:01

Your metabolism is slowing down. They say you can't eat like you did in your 20s. It's all downhill after 30. But what if I told you that most of what you heard about aging and metabolism is completely wrong. Aging does not inevitably doom you to weight gain and energy loss. The latest research shows that your basal metabolic rate stays remarkably stable from your 20s until your 60s. So why are so many people struggling with weight gain and energy loss as they age? Today, we are uncovering the real culprits behind what feels like a slowing metabolism, and they're not what you think. You'll discover the shocking truth about what's actually happening to your body as you age and the eight evidence-based strategies that can not only prevent metabolic decline but potentially reverse it.

Philip Pape: 0:56

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 today we're tackling one of the most persistent myths in the fitness world the idea that your metabolism inevitably slows down as you age. We've all heard it or said these things ourselves Just wait until you hit 30, 40, 50. Your metabolism just isn't what it used to be, and these are the kind of statements that seem to make intuitive sense when you notice changes in your body composition and your energy levels as you get older. But the thing is that research tells us a different set of facts and both are not mutually exclusive. In other words, you're both right, and when we look at the data, we discover that the relationship between aging and metabolism is more complex and it's more within our control than conventional wisdom or the industry might suggest. And today I want to break down what is happening. What is happening with your metabolism as you age, why you might be experiencing changes in your body composition getting fluffier, getting more belly fat, things like that and, most importantly, strategies, of course, strategies that you can implement, starting today, to maintain or even boost your metabolic rate, regardless of your age. And it is never too late, before we get into it, if you are right now feeling like you're struggling with your metabolism or your body composition or your energy, I've created something that can help Wits and Weights.

Philip Pape: 2:24

Physique University is my coaching community. It's where I've taken the best from my private clients, my one-on-one process, and put it into a group program that's more, let's say, affordable and accessible to a lot more folks. And we tackle these kinds of issues by giving you a roadmap, an onboarding plan to follow. It personalizes the nutrition and training based on the evidence. And right now I'm offering two weeks free so you can kick the tires. You get access to your first challenge free when you join and within those two weeks you could take full advantage of the program. No strings attached, nothing blocked off, including the customized nutrition plan, training programs designed for your goals, direct access to me, our community for support, for accountability. So much more. Just go to whitsonwastecom, slash physique, or click the link in the show notes to get started.

Philip Pape: 3:11

And I just want to get back into the topic now and let's talk about what's happening with metabolism as you age. First, we have to understand what we mean by metabolism. Your total daily energy expenditure, tdee, which we also call our metabolism, is the amount of calories you burn every day. It consists of several components and if you have to break it down, we typically use four components so you can understand what happens as we age. So the first component is your BMR, your basal metabolic rate. This is the energy your body needs just to maintain your basic physiological functions while you're just going about your business your heartbeat, your breathing, your cell turnover, your brain function, your organs and so on. For most people, this represents about two-thirds of your total daily calorie burn, so that's very important to understand. Next is the thermic effect of food, or TEF. That's the energy your body expends to digest, absorb and process the nutrients you consume. Tef typically accounts for about 10% of your total calorie burn. And then, finally, we have two pieces that are often lumped together but they're quite distinct that are related to your physical activity. One is eat and the other is neat. Eat is exercise activity thermogenesis that is, the calories you burn during planned exercise, which represents just 5% of your daily burn, and non-exercise activity thermogenesis, or neat, and that is all the spontaneous movements you make throughout the day fidgeting, doing chores, standing instead of sitting, and including walking in there, which, yes, can be deliberate, but it's distinct from eat. So if you combine those, you got the other rest chunk of your metabolism. Like I said, 5% for neat, maybe as much as 15 to 30, 40, 50% for neat, depending on how active you are.

Philip Pape: 5:00

The surprising thing that floors a lot of people and it surprised me when I learned this a few years ago is the research published by Herman Ponser. Now, his initial research was in 2021 in the journal Science, very well-respected journal. He later wrote a book called Burn and he showed based on doubly-labeled water, which is a very accurate way to determine someone's metabolism that when adjusted for fat-free mass put a pin in that because we're gonna come back to it it's actually a really important caveat. When adjusted for fat-free mass TDEE, your expenditure, your metabolism remains relatively stable from age 20 to age 60. It's only after age 60 that we start to see a noticeable decline in the metabolic rate, and this is important. I want to repeat that because it's so contrary to popular belief and you might not even believe it based on how your own body has responded with age. Your metabolism doesn't automatically slow down just because you're getting older, at least not until you're well into your 60s. But if that's true, why do so many people experience weight gain and difficulty losing fat as they get older, even though they're eating the same amount? And so the answer really lies in the physiological and lifestyle changes that often accompany aging. And remember what we said adjusted for fat-free mass, so this is going to be relevant here Fat-free mass includes muscle tissue, okay, so it is not simply aging that is causing your metabolism to slow.

Philip Pape: 6:30

Let's look at the actual mechanisms that lead to, I'll say, what feels like metabolic decline and in actuality, does reduce your metabolism, and it's tied to fat-free mass. The first and perhaps most significant factor is just that it is muscle loss. You are losing your fat-free mass. That is known as sarcopenia when you lose muscle. With age, this is a natural process. With aging Starting in your 30s, we begin to lose our muscle mass gradually, and then it accelerates after 50. And since muscle tissue burns a lot more calories, not only at rest versus fast tissue, but for many other reasons that having more muscle burns calories, which I discussed in a past episode, episode 291, 10 reasons muscle burns even more calories than you think. Losing muscle directly then impacts your BMR, your basal metabolic rate, and research shows the average person loses three to 8% of their muscle mass per decade after age 30. And then this rate accelerates after age 60.

Philip Pape: 7:33

And what's causing the muscle loss? A big part of it is hormonal changes. Right as we age, we have decreases in our anabolic hormones like testosterone, growth hormone, igf-1, which is insulin-like growth factor one, and these are all critical in building and maintaining muscle. So you don't have the same hormonal milieu, as they call it, as when you were in your 20s when you're just raging with hormones. Also, changes in thyroid hormone activity can reduce your metabolic rate, and declining sex hormones affect fat distribution and our body's ability to preserve muscle. Another reason is mitochondrial dysfunction.

Philip Pape: 8:09

Mitochondria, as you might have heard, are the powerhouses of your cells. They produce energy, and as we age they become less efficient. That results in a reduced cellular metabolic rate, and then that is compounded by increased oxidative stress, increased inflammation, and then that further impairs mitochondrial function. Then there's the increase in fat mass. So, unlike muscle, fat tissue is far less metabolically active, which means it contributes minimally to calorie burning. And then, as you age, there's usually a shift toward visceral fat accumulation. That's the dangerous fat that accumulates around your organs, and this type of fat releases inflammatory cytokines that can negatively impact metabolism throughout your body.

Philip Pape: 8:55

But perhaps the most significant factor that most people don't consider outside of muscle mass is the reduction in physical activity and neat, as we age we often become more sedentary, we sit more, we move less. Spontaneous activities like taking the stairs, walking to the store, fidgeting, tend to decrease, sometimes dramatically, and this reduction in daily movement can account for hundreds of fewer calories burned each day. And then there's sleep quality. Sleep quality declines with age. Many older adults have disrupted sleep patterns shorter sleep duration, poorer sleep quality. You know, life just gets in the way, right? We get busy, we have kids, we have family. Work gets more stressful. Poor sleep is not great. It impairs your glucose metabolism and elevates your stress hormones. It increases your cravings, increases belly fat storage. It reduces fat oxidation and all of those things functionally slow your metabolism.

Philip Pape: 9:53

And then finally, kind of related to this, but separate is chronic stress. Right, I could put this at the top of the list for some of you. Yes, it becomes more common because we have complexities as we get older. I sometimes daydream about those times when I was a child and I could just frolic outside in the summer in the grass on my bare feet without a care in the world. I look at my pets and I think the same thing. I'm like if only I could be a dog for a day. Now, in my 40s, I know what stress is like. We have elevated cortisol from this chronic stress. That encourages fat storage again, especially in the abdominal region. It also promotes muscle loss, insulin resistance. So it's a laundry list of things and it's not that your metabolism is just slowing down mysteriously. It's that all of these factors, many of which are lifestyle-related, are creating the conditions for metabolic decline, driven largely by the reduction of fat-free mass, the reduction in muscle, combined with all the stressors that I just talked about.

Philip Pape: 10:51

The good news is that, since many of these are within our control, we can take action to prevent or reverse this decline right now. No matter what age you are Obviously the younger the better, but you are where you are, so don't make any excuses. As you're listening to this show. If you are not active, if you are not strengthening, if you are not doing the things we're going to talk about in the next section, this is your wake-up call. This is your clarion call. This is the moment where you cross the Rubicon and you say I am finally going to prioritize myself so that I can live a long, healthy life. I have not just a lifespan, but a health span. I can fulfill. What? The deeper why is my purpose in life when it comes to my physical and mental being on this planet? What is that for you? And so I want to get to the part you've been waiting for here. What can you do about this?

Philip Pape: 11:41

And I've identified, for this episode, eight evidence-based strategies that can maintain or increase your metabolic rate, and you're going to have heard this many times on the podcast in one stage or one form or another. And these are principles. These are foundational, but I want to break them down for you. Strategy number one can you guess it? I'm going to give you a pause. Of course, strength training.

Philip Pape: 12:03

Without strength training, almost all of this goes out the window and you join the mass of the population who ends up in metabolic decline, frailty and diseases of aging. Inevitably it will happen. It will happen if you are not strength training. Sorry to say it, but I'm not sorry, because strength training is amazing. It can be fulfilling, enjoyable and you're gonna feel like a badass if you do it. Okay, resistance training will combat sarcopenia, because why You're building and you're preserving muscle mass I mean, it's as simple as that.

Philip Pape: 12:35

You're doing what the human body was evolved I don't want to say designed, evolved to do is push against loads in the real world, and this has so many benefits. It enhances the mitochondrial density and function we talked about in the real world, and this has so many benefits. It enhances the mitochondrial density and function we talked about at the cellular level. It boosts your metabolic efficiency. It increases your anabolic hormones, all the things right, not to mention making you functional and strong and capable and building muscle mass, just in general. And of course, side effect is you have a more athletic, lean physique. So it mitigates the age-related hormone declines like nothing else.

Philip Pape: 13:11

I mean, it is incredible how many people I've worked with and I will put myself in that category who are in their 40s or 50s or 60s have had mostly a sedentary lifestyle, start strength training and it is like they are a completely new, young, fit person. It is incredible, and the research is clear on this. Strength training is non-negotiable if you want to maintain your metabolism as you age. So how do you do this? Well, I would start where you're at, if you're not training at all. Two to three strength training sessions per week.

Philip Pape: 13:46

Focus on compound movements like the squat, the deadlift, the bench press, the overhead press. Eventually you've got pull-ups or chin-ups in there, maybe you have some rows in there and then eventually you can branch out into machines or bodybuilding work or whatever. But you're going to start simple with basic compound movements that engage multiple muscle groups for the most muscle mass efficiently. Full range of motion that gets you stronger. Don't be afraid to lift heavy. Progressive overload is key to stimulating growth and maintenance. Okay, I've talked about this on other episodes, I'm going to leave it at that. It is so important that you get into this. You start training, you learn how to do it properly. I mentioned earlier we have something called Physique University. We will teach you how to do that. We not only teach you how to do it and give you programs, we're gonna show you how to program for yourself so you have the skill to do it for the rest of your life. That's number one.

Philip Pape: 14:35

Strategy number two is to prioritize high-protein nutrition. Protein-rich diets support the muscle synthesis and they prevent what's called catabolism, which is the breakdown of muscle tissue. They prevent this. You don't need a massive amount of protein, but you probably need a lot more than you have today. Protein also has the highest thermic effect of food among the macros protein, fats, carbs. Protein will burn more calories being digested than carbs or fats, and so you get a lot of benefits with protein for muscle, for maintaining your diet, for feeling full, for being satisfied, for having delicious food and for adults over 40, research suggests you need even more protein, and we're talking again, not a massive amount.

Philip Pape: 15:19

I would start at 0.7 grams per pound and work your way up to as much as one gram per pound and you're fine. You'll never really have to go beyond that, except for special cases or advanced strategies. All right, spread it across your meals and you're golden. Of course, you should be tracking your food so you know how much protein you're getting. That's, that's a, that's a side method that supports getting enough protein. Um, if you want to do that accurately, precisely and easily, I would use macro factor. Link is always in my show notes at the bottom. Use my code witsandweights all one word to get two weeks free. But that will be a game changer for you. All right.

Philip Pape: 15:57

Strategy number three is to boost your NEAT, your non-exercise activity thermogenesis. This is also a game changer for people. I've had clients who are desk jockeys, lawyers, accountants, engineers. They might get 3,000 steps in a day because they're not thinking about it and they've gotten in a rut of just working all day. Going from three to even six or seven massively improves your health, your calorie burn, your longevity and lots of other things like blood sugar control, hormones, et cetera, insulin resistance the list goes on and again. Start where you're at Small, frequent movements throughout the day can, by themselves, significantly increase your calorie burn right.

Philip Pape: 16:33

Using a standing desk, taking short walks, pacing between meetings or during all meetings, if you can doing your chores, gardening right, not, you know doing things with your hands outside instead of hiring everybody to do stuff. Going up the stairs, parking farther from the store and that's just not even going for deliberate walks, which are the next level to this All these contribute meaningfully to your calorie expenditure. So what does that sound like? It sounds like not sitting on your butt all day. Sitting itself is its own mortality risk. So not sitting combined with regular movement throughout the day is going to mortality risk. So not sitting combined with regular movement throughout the day is gonna be huge. And we know that NEAT can vary by up to 2,000 calories per day between individuals of the same size based on their lifestyle right. And we're not talking 30,000 steps a day, we're talking about being fairly sedentary to being somewhat active. So this could potentially be the most impactful factor in the short term, especially for your daily energy expenditure, which will make then eating easier, getting more calories easier or being in a deficit easier when you're going for fat loss. In fact, we just did a mini challenge in the Physique University to help everybody increase their set count. So if you join, you can go grab that. We're done with the challenge. But the challenge document and guidance is there. It's a lot of fun, we gamify it and we do challenges every month. So another reason to join, all right.

Philip Pape: 17:51

Strategy number four is to improve your sleep hygiene. Hygiene just a nice fancy word for all the aspects of your sleep ritual, your routine. To improve the quality of the sleep, yes, we want to have sufficient duration, sufficient hours of sleep. Like you don't want to be so deprived that you're just exhausted and, whatever you do, it's not going to matter. We're talking five to six hours of sleep is really that threshold where you start to get deprived. But if you, if you're over, say, six and a half, and you're aiming for that, seven to nine hours, you know nine, nine is almost nobody I've worked with, other than retired people, are going to get nine hours of sleep. Let's just admit it. Okay, that's fine. Raise your hand, you know who you are. Um, the vast majority of us are going to get maybe seven or eight, and that's fine, as long as you focus on quality, because the quality is what really impacts the hormonal function and your thyroid, your metabolic health, your cravings, your, your belly fat.

Philip Pape: 18:42

And along with that comes consistency. If you, the number one hack I have for you, if you want to call it that, is going to sleep and waking up at the same time. Even if you only get six hours of sleep, I would rather you first get a consistent six hours of sleep, at the same sleep and wake times, even on the weekend, than try to get an extra hours of sleep if that's not, let's say, accessible or sustainable for you. So consistency is actually the biggest game changer for people. Then there's the environment. You know the dark, quiet, cool environment.

Philip Pape: 19:16

Sleep mask I'm a big fan of a sleep mask. I like the pressure that it puts on your eyes. It creates a sense of safety to your body, especially if you're a side sleeper and you're trying to sleep on your back. It's yet another way to create that pressure on top of you to keep you on your back. And we know that just poor sleep is a game changer in the negative sense, like it's a link to reduced insulin sensitivity, increased hunger hormones, decreased satiety hormones. I mean, you get, you could. You're starving and craving high sugar, high fat foods, when you don't get enough sleep. You know this, like if you're listening to this, you know this, and even if you're tracking your food, you're going to be hungry, hungrier, a lot hungrier. Even if you have the so-called discipline or willpower not to eat the extra calories, you're doing yourself a disservice by not getting enough sleep. So if you're gaining a bunch of weight, if you have metabolic dysfunction, if your metabolism is declining, sleep is a big part of that.

Philip Pape: 20:05

Strategy number five is managing chronic stress. Now, this one is a tough one for a lot of folks. Yet it could be the most important aspect, because a lot of us can't change the job we have or the family we have, and those things cause stress for us. And you've heard all the tricks you know mindfulness, meditation, deep breathing, yoga, doing things you enjoy, play, doing a hobby right, you've got to find what that thing is for you. For some people, it's just adding in some time for short breaks throughout the day and just not go, go, going forever throughout the day. It's finding time for yourself. Just like I encourage you to carve out time for training, I encourage you to carve out time for nothing, and by nothing I mean you've got no obligations or priorities in that time you've scheduled with yourself. It could be 15 minutes and you're just going to do something for yourself to lower your cortisol or make it more consistent, to improve your mental health, and this could be going for a walk, which kills two birds with one stone and increases your NEAT. It could be simply sitting down and enjoying a nice book, having a coffee, whatever that's for you to decide, but this is going to be massive when it comes to your metabolism. And if you've done all the other things, later this week I'm doing an episode with Adam Badger Shout out to him Great guy, fellow coach, and he's really an expert in chronic stress. And what I like about him is he doesn't approach it from reducing your stress or coping with your stress, but rather how do you change your perception of stress? Ah, so I want you to listen to that episode on friday or, if you're listening to this later. It's two episodes after this one Because we all face the same kinds of stressors, but we don't all react to them the same way.

Philip Pape: 21:55

Right? We don't all react with road rage when someone cuts us off in traffic. Some of us are able to just let it slide, understand that maybe that person's having a bad day and, honestly, do we care and just move on, and your reaction to that causes a physiological stress reaction or not? And there's a long list of things like that. So understanding how you respond to the stressors can be a game changer, even if you don't eliminate the stress or do a stress coping hack. All right, stress coping hack All right.

Philip Pape: 22:31

Strategy number six is, I'll say, cardiovascular exercise or training or activity. Now, I got to be careful here because many of you are doing too much cardio, but I think there's a place for activities like play sports, sprinting, that, especially when they're anaerobic, like sprinting that can enhance insulin sensitivity. They actually can contribute to your metabolism, your energy flux and your training and recovery. I know that most health organizations recommend 150 minutes of moderate intensity activity per week. That's what, two and a half hours but a lot of people misconstrue that to be like running. I do not subscribe to that. I think your strength training provides a lot of the purpose of that in terms of cardiovascular health and even conditioning. Yes, I think walking is the next thing that gets you to let's say, 90, 95% in this, in this uh bucket, and then the other five 10% could be the play, the sports, the sprinting. I would avoid medium to high intensity chronic type exercise like running, unless it's something you really enjoy. But that's a whole separate topic, because some people think they have to do it, some people are addicted to it. That's all a separate topic, but I would prioritize lifting, then walking and then a little bit of player sprinting. All right.

Philip Pape: 23:44

Strategy number seven is to actually spend time with your diet not in a deficit and potentially a lot of time in a slight surplus, to support the first thing we talked about, which is strength training. I really should have coupled them together, but I don't wanna do that because they're separate skills that have to be developed. One skill is strength training, which you could do regardless of your diet, and then the other is your diet itself, which will support your strength training and the building of the muscles. So I wanted to include this in here because, yes, in the short term, eating more food will increase your metabolism. That's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about fueling yourself and giving yourself the energy to support your hormones, to support your muscle building, to an extent where you develop metabolic health over the years and you're able to support muscle building much more efficiently. What do I mean? I mean not dieting all the time, or even that frequently. So when I work with clients, what we do is we learn how to control our physique development and control our diet in a structured way where we don't feel it's restrictive, but instead it's fuel, it's energy and we spend.

Philip Pape: 24:49

Most people end up, after they've gone through the first year or two of this fat loss with understanding how to build muscle as well will start getting into yearly cycles where they might be dieting as little as, say, six, six weeks and, as the most, the maximum you would be dieting on a regular basis is maybe three months at the most. Okay, in a 12-month period. So what does that leave you? Well, that leaves you with at least nine months of not dieting. Now, that doesn't mean you have to be in a calorie surplus in those nine months building muscle, but it does mean you're not dieting. I, however, would encourage people to spend a decent amount of time in a calorie surplus early on, as they're doing this for the first time.

Philip Pape: 25:30

As a noob, you know, a novice, late novice, intermediate for the first couple of years, maybe even three years, have two or three muscle building phases in there. Doing that will give your body the best chance to pack on all that lean tissue and set yourself up for the rest of your life. To just maintain that muscle right, you've got to go through the building process once at least once or twice, I should say. You could do it a few more times if you're really into this. You really want to add even more muscle. But even just doing it once or twice is going to be a game changer for you, because now you'll have that extra lean mass, you'll have a higher metabolism just walking around, you'll be able to carry a little more body weight, eat a little bit more food and again, that is a game changer. That is how you increase your metabolism, especially for women in peripost-menopause and men who have a decline in testosterone. It is going to counteract all the things you are concerned about that cause issues Because, for example, the drop in estrogen causes extra belly fat storage and a drop in muscle mass and an increase in body fat. Well, if you're strength training and you're eating, you're going to counteract that. You're going to build muscle, you're going to lose body fat and therefore you are going to thrive in peri and postmenopause, where everyone else is struggling and that's what you want, all right.

Philip Pape: 26:37

The last strategy, number eight, is also nutrition related. It's really your timing and your meal frequency. So the way I like to think of this is meal timing and frequency is more about consistency for your current phase. So what do I mean by that? You're going to be in a phase when do you have a goal? Your goal might be fat loss, it might be to maintain, it might be to build muscle, maybe you have an athletic pursuit, it doesn't matter. You're in a phase, right, and within that phase, you're going to have a certain amount of calories and macros and you'll come up with a decent meal structure for that, right.

Philip Pape: 27:12

I want to eat four times a day, mostly protein, and here are my feeding windows, or my feeding times the. The goal, then, is to be consistent with that. Consistent not just with quantity, but also with timing, right, we're not talking about fasting here. I'm not talking about anything fancy. Just like the sleep wake times, and sleep times should be consistent. Your eating should be as consistent as possible. Now, calories can fluctuate. They can fluctuate naturally and they can fluctuate intentionally, and I think the body is okay with that, as long as you do that consistently as well, like if you have three high days and four low days every week. If you just keep doing that like clockwork, your body will get used to it and we've seen that that can improve your body's I'll say safety that it feels and it will jack up your metabolism. In many cases it probably has to do with insulin sensitivity Again, mitochondrial function your cells.

Philip Pape: 28:03

It probably has to do with insulin sensitivity Again, mitochondrial function your cells, guys, your cells. You want to baby them and treat them like pets that you're trying to take care of, and by cell I mean just everything in your body. This includes your gut health, everything else, yes, and I don't want you to think that you have a lot of control directly over the cell, but the things you do, your cells are watching and listening and learning. They're reacting to it. Your whole metabolism is derived from how they function, and how they function is derived from what you're putting in your body, how much energy you're giving it and what you're doing.

Philip Pape: 28:34

It's lifestyle. All the diseases we're concerned about that are the biggest killers cardiovascular disease, diabetes, et cetera. All all you know all come from obesity and that all comes from lifestyle. Right, we have control over this. We may need help. Sometimes we need pharmacology totally understandable, that's fine, but it's in our control. That's the point at some level. So when you've got this I'll call it metabolic flexibility and improved efficiency and insulin sensitivity you're going to burn more fat, you're going to have better fat oxidation, you're going to have more easily preserved lean tissue and avoid catabolism.

Philip Pape: 29:08

Right, I hope I'm not throwing around too many technical terms here, but really this is what it comes down to. If you understand physiology, biology, anatomy, you understand that you are almost in total control of this, even though to get that level of control may require guardrails, structure learning and yes, for some people, pharmacology. It depends. I'm not ruling out lots of tools for the job. We just got to get the job done right. The effectiveness is going to vary from person to person because of genetics, but it's largely within your control. You just have to find out what works for your body and works for your lifestyle, and you don't have to implement all these eight strategies at once. Please don't do that.

Philip Pape: 29:45

Start with the foundational ones, the first three I talked about Strength training, protein intake, moving more. Just start there, and even there you could just do one at a time if you'd like, pick the one that's most accessible to you. Start doing it. If you want to increase your protein, what do you do first? Well, you got to track how much you eat and how much protein you eat. So you go, use macro factor to do that and log it, and then you'll know within a few weeks how much protein you actually have and how much you need. Boom, you have the gap. You work up to the gap, you get there. New habit Strength training. Well, you need to know how many days a week you're going to do it, what equipment you have access to, and then what program are you going to follow? Again, in Physique University, we make that super easy for you. Come join us, try it out for a couple weeks. Steal all my stuff in that first two weeks. Get your custom nutrition plan, cut and run. You could do that if you want. I hope you don't. I hope you stick around and see the value of it and want to actually learn and grow and develop your system.

Philip Pape: 30:35

It's kind of like going to college that's why we call it university, but in a good way. Well, not good. I liked college. Some people, you know, find it difficult. Um, I found it difficult and I enjoy it, but anyway. Uh, it's like going to nutrition and training school, um physique university. What's in weightscom slash physique. All right, the cool thing.

Philip Pape: 30:53

I wanted to give you one more fascinating little fact here. Okay, about metabolism and aging related to muscle, because we think of muscle as for strength and aesthetics, but your muscle is an endocrine organ. When you contract it during exercise, your muscle releases compounds called myokines that regulate your metabolism and your inflammation. And the myokines communicate with your fat tissue, with your liver, your brain, all your organs, and create a cascade of positive metabolic effects. And that is why training itself not just building muscle, but the training itself improves insulin sensitivity, your hormones, your fat oxidation, reduces inflammation, supports brain health.

Philip Pape: 31:34

There is a still understood, like less understood, aspect of building muscle that seems to burn more fat than not building muscle, independent of all these other factors that we think we know about already. And it's incredible. And this means when you engage in strength training, you're not just building muscle to be strong, to look better, you're activating a signaling system that's just sitting there ready to be used. That's going to improve your health at the cellular level. See, we're back to the mitochond improve your health at the cellular level. See, we're back to the mitochondria again, at the cellular level, and that's why I often tell my clients muscle is your metabolic currency, right, the more you have, the richer your metabolic health will be. And, unlike the inevitable decline in certain hormones with age that you would have if you didn't train, you're going to increase this signaling through strength training well into your 80s and 90s. Isn't that amazing? So when you pick up those weights, you're not just fighting against age-related muscle loss, you are reprogramming your metabolism at the molecular level period. That is the power that you have over your aging process, regardless of what conventional wisdom might suggest.

Philip Pape: 32:42

All right, so as we wrap up, remember aging does bring certain changes, right, that is biology. We can't avoid it. You're eventually going to die. We have to reconcile with that. But this narrative that your metabolism is doomed to slow down dramatically, it's just not supported by the science. I actually get a little bit annoyed and irked when I see memes about this stuff, just like I do when people make fun of how much they love cookies. You know, like it's this inevitable thing. I actually get annoyed by that. Now, I probably shouldn't, but it's kind of a defense mechanism people have because they're not doing the work, they're not focusing on their nutrition and they're not training. Maybe they don't know what to do. If so, if you know someone like that, give them a link to the podcast.

Philip Pape: 33:21

But what the research shows is that many of the metabolic changes we associate with aging are heavily influenced by the lifestyle factors within our control. So if you implement the strategies we discussed today, especially strain training, protein intake and increased movement, you can maintain or improve your metabolic health regardless of your age. Your age no longer becomes a factor. You're going to get younger as you get older. That's my philosophy. Right now, I'm 44 and I'm way younger physically than I was at 25. And you could be that too. I don't care what age you are right now.

Philip Pape: 33:52

Your metabolism does not have to decline just because you're getting older. Remember that small, consistent actions are going to compound over time. This is really about habits. This is a process that's going to take time. You're not going to overhaul your entire lifestyle overnight. So start by focusing on just one strategy today that seems most accessible to you and build from there. If you rush the process, if you're impatient, you're not going to make it and you're going to be relegated to the vast majority of people who do see the decline in their metabolism. But if you do these things, your metabolism will thank you. Your cells will thank you for decades. Right and again, maybe the most important takeaway is you have far more control over your metabolic not only your rate, but your fate than you may have believed, because your metabolism is not at the mercy of when you were born. It is responding to the signals you give it through your daily choices and habits.

Philip Pape: 34:43

All right, if you found value in today's episode, if you want personalized guidance on optimizing your metabolism, your training, your nutrition, your body composition, your health, just join us already. What are you waiting for? You're gonna regret not joining us at Wits and Weights Physique University I have a link in the show notes. Or go to winstonwatescom slash physique. You're going to get two weeks free to just try it out. Open kimono. I will even give you a demo if you'd like.

Philip Pape: 35:07

I want you to know what it's all about and what you're going to get, because I'm kind of sad when people come in and they are there for maybe a week and they don't really do anything and then they leave. I'm like, oh, you just missed out on something that is going to change your life. Yeah, there's a lot of bells and whistles in there, right? You get a customized nutrition plan from me based on your specific goals. You get workout programs. You get workout philosophy.

Philip Pape: 35:32

There are courses on physique development. There's the community, there's the coaching calls. We're going to have some live workshops. We're also going to have some guests on our lives and, of course, a supportive community. Just go to witsandweightscom, slash physique or click the link in the show notes. What are you waiting for? Let's create that sustainable approach that works with your physiology, so that you can combat metabolism with age. All right, until next time, keep using your wits lifting those weights and remember, when it comes to your metabolism, age is just a number, but what you do with your body every day is what truly counts. I'll talk to you next time here on the Wits and Weights Podcast.