Why Muscle Must Come First

Philip Pape 0:01

You've been told that fat loss is made in the kitchen , with a calorie deficit combined with strength training to hold on to your muscle . But what if that's completely backward ? What if building muscle must come first in your transformation journey if it's really going to work ? Your metabolism , your insulin sensitivity , your hunger signals and , yes , your ability to shed stubborn fat is tied into how much muscle you have , and most fit pros aren't going to tell you this because it challenges the industry's eat less , move more mantra and what they're trying to push , which is generally weight loss . Today's episode reveals why strength training creates the metabolic engine that makes fat loss almost effortless by comparison and gives you a framework to finally get those lasting results . Welcome to Wits and Weights , the show that helps you build a strong , healthy physique using evidence , engineering and efficiency .

Philip Pape 1:04

I'm your host , philip Pape , and today's episode is something special because I recently had the opportunity to be interviewed on the Be Rad podcast with Brad Kearns , former world-ranked professional triathlete , guinness World Record holder and New York Times bestselling author . And this is around the time . I read his book , co-written with Mark Sisson , called Born to Walk , and he had me on his show because we wanted to tackle one of the most persistent misconceptions or myths in fitness the idea that calorie restriction and diet should be your first priority for fat loss , or indeed that quote unquote fat loss itself should be the first thing you do . Instead , we explored why building muscle through strength training is the foundation upon which all successful body transformations are built . So why wait ? This discussion aligns perfectly with what I've been teaching for years on this show that a muscle-centric approach creates the metabolic conditions for easier fat loss . Approach creates the metabolic conditions for easier fat loss , for better health , for long-term sustainability .

Philip Pape 2:09

Rather than create another entirely new episode on this topic , I wanted to share this conversation because I essentially hit the juggler Is that the term ? I went straight for the juggler when it talks to the principles that I regularly discuss anyway , and I think it's a great encapsulation of that . If you enjoy this episode , all I ask is go ahead and hit follow on Wits and Weights if you haven't already , and that way you'll catch every episode when they come out on Mondays , wednesdays and Fridays . And then go ahead and follow Brad's podcast Be Rad with Brad Kearns , and I love his podcast because of the aspect he takes when it comes to cardiovascular fitness and endurance , especially from the perspective he comes from . All right , so here we go . Here's my conversation with Brad Kearns about why building muscle first is your secret weapon for effective fat loss . Philip Pape , we are here . We are here . Good to see you again , brad .

Brad Kearns 3:02

I had so much fun joining you on your fabulous podcast Wits and Weights , where we talked about the book Born to Walk and a broad-based approach to functional fitness , and so I said we got to get over to B-Rad and get in deep with the great work you're doing over there , especially as you describe your , I guess , quantified and analytical approach to proper fitness protocols . And I've always been kind of a intuitive style athlete and not getting deep into a regimented approach because I know that doesn't work for me from experience . But I also realize when I'm performing or pursuing these complex goals , like trying to be a sprinter in the old man's division and dealing with minor injuries and aches and pains and things that set me back that you really have to be careful and strategic with your dispensation of energy in order to progress with fitness . So I thought we could get into that background mission statement of your podcast and then some of the the fun things that you've learned as a host and fun topics that really have resonated with your , your listeners . How's that for an intro man ?

Philip Pape 4:13

yeah , man , that's a great intro . It's funny . I just heard you talking on your show about um you were talking to one of the greatest runners of all time and how she has an intuitive approach . And I get these comments all the time from folks that say , well , I'm not a data person , I'm not um , I'm not an engineer , I don't think that way . And yet I've talked to experts who are professional bodybuilders , competitive bodybuilders , who had one point in their life where they said , look , I need to buckle down and use some sort of tracking or measurement just to know where I am and to calibrate where I am first , and build that skill and build that intuition , and then , at some point in their lives , they have that level of intuition that they don't need to do it anymore . So I hear what you're saying , man . I could go both directions and the spectrum is wide and I'm all about flexibility . So , yeah , let's get into it .

Brad Kearns 5:01

Yeah , you were talking about Shelby Houlihan , the American record holder at middle Distance , who just came back from a four-year layoff , and I was really blown away about how she mentioned that intuitive approach and just getting out the door and running at whatever pace she felt like . And so here's like one of the fastest female runners in the world who , if you were training with her , you'd be like how fast are we going today ? I don't know , we'll see . And it was really a profound insight . But at the same time , she's working with the greatest coaches on the planet who have

Wits and Weights Meets Be Rad

Brad Kearns 5:33

a very , very refined and sophisticated approach .

Brad Kearns 5:35

I had Grant Fisher's coach on my show , michael Scannell , old friend of mine , who I used to race with in a professional duathlon , and he reported how they sat down in November and plotted out his path to the Paris Olympics and where he had the magnificent performance of winning two bronze medals in both the long distance events of 5,000 and 10,000 . But he had every workout planned from November to August 4th for the first race and August 9th for the second race . And that was fascinating and he said he was so structured and so focused that he hit basically every single workout . So that's the sign of a really well-informed training program If you can lock in and perform every workout as desired . But of course , for the average recreational enthusiast that's listening to wits and weights or trying to get out there and stay fit and as well as coach soccer and perform in the in the corporate setting , uh , that's when we have to . We're forced to have a more fluid approach , but we still might benefit from that foundation of structure and quantification yeah , I think there's a place for guardrails .

Philip Pape 6:40

while being simplified and also the the intuitive aspect in terms of , let's say , your biofeedback , how your sleep is , your stress , your digestion , your hunger , those things can be quantified , even though they're subjective , and so you're kind of melding the two together just to give yourself an idea of where the heck you're landing right now , to even make a decision from and have informed data .

Brad Kearns 7:05

What kind of stuff is important , like if someone came in as a new client who's proclaimed a desire to get fit and they're doing a little bit of this and that , but now they want to get into a program .

Philip Pape 7:15

Yes , I help with clients with strength training , body composition , fat loss , and it's funny because we do . We have a lot of the same approach when it comes to getting stress off of the body through potentially reducing the amount of cardio and , uh , how much you're working out and also training in a way that gives you more recovery . Especially as we age , people complain about , you know , their joints , um , and injuries and health issues , and they're stressed because of life and their family . They have families , like you said , because of life , and they are family . They have families , like you said , gen pop , we have , you know , two jobs or running a business and parents , and so , um , when we start , I I just like to spend two months baselining what you're doing and giving you your own self-awareness of how much you're eating , what you're eating , the composition of the food , some of the micronutrients and the fiber , um , how the movement and the training you're doing affects your recovery , because I don't want to say , hey , here's the best program for you on day one if I don't even know you yet .

Philip Pape 8:10

I do an intake but I don't really know . I want to see how your expenditure and your metabolism responds to the things you're doing . I want to understand how your hunger and your sleep responds , because after two months you may be in a great position to build muscle rather than try to diet and lose fat and have the best outcome that way . We just don't know until we have that initial , you know data set . So having a coach to guide that uh , you know with you , it's kind of like the analogy you said with these elite athletes . Even a gen pop person can have that person in their corner and take off some of the mental stress and even emotional stress , right when they can be the person that you can unload to , and all you got to do is just enter the numbers and your coach can kind of help you understand what the numbers mean and then you can make decisions from there .

Brad Kearns 8:54

What is a gen pop person ?

Philip Pape 8:58

Oh , what do you mean Like general population ?

Brad Kearns 9:00

I just oh gen pop Okay , I thought you were going to say like gen X , gen Y and gen pop , like for old old mans or whatever . Yeah .

Philip Pape 9:07

Okay , gotcha General population Is dropping excess body fat , the preeminent goal that you see the intent is the person's thought when they come to me weight loss or building muscle and we have to reframe it , and that's one thing we can get into is we reframe weight loss away from scale weight and to body composition , metabolic health and having a muscle-centric approach to health and physique .

Brad Kearns 9:37

So maybe you can go deep on that term . What does it mean to you ?

Philip Pape 9:41

The term body composition .

Brad Kearns 9:43

Muscle-centric approach oh , muscle-centric approach ?

Philip Pape 9:44

Oh , muscle-centric approach , yeah , so you know , we think I guess we talk about being over fat or obesity being a concern in society and for sure it is , I'm not going to deny that , and there are a lot of extrinsic factors , environmental factors behind that . But what I find is people are attempting to lose weight or lose fat as the predominant way that they get quote unquote healthy , kind of like they . Many people think running or cardio is the predominant way to get healthy or lose fat . We know that's not the case .

Brad Kearns 10:11

Burning calories .

Philip Pape 10:12

Yeah , yeah , burning calories . And until you've spent some time understanding how to train properly to add some strength and muscle to your frame , you can't maximize the health that you're going for , even if it is a great physique , because you haven't built the foundation , so you can't sculpt a pebble , is the analogy . I like you can sculpt a nice big stone , but you can't sculpt a pebble , so you've got to build that at some point . If you've got excess weight to lose or excess fat to lose from a metabolic health perspective , fine , we can get there , it's not a big deal , but at some point you then have to build muscle .

Brad Kearns 10:48

It seems like someone who is succeeding building muscle is going to shed excess body fat in the process .

Philip Pape 10:55

Exactly that's the secret that I don't like you don't know what it's experiencing .

Brad Kearns 10:59

We gave it away . All the other trainers are listening , going . Oh , I'm going to redo my branding now .

Philip Pape 11:04

Yeah , right , no , and that's the thing . You can't , you don't , you can't , you can't know that until you experience it , we can talk , talk about it all we want on our podcast , and I do , brad . Like half of my episodes in the last month are probably about why you should gain weight , you know , or why you should build muscle , and it's not always about gaining weight on the scale , brad right . It is really about energy and fueling yourself and performance mindset , rather than even a physique or a scale mindset . And once you're focused on performance , all the other things start to come in mind . Whether you're trying to lose fat or not , like you said , you will start to lose fat . It gets easier . Your metabolism increases because of the extra muscle mass , the extra weight you're carrying around , the lower stress , the higher protein , the higher fiber . It all aligns really well .

Brad Kearns 11:51

It also seems like right now , as I am a member of the 60 plus division I just turned 60 recently and so I'm looking around at my peers and I have a lot of lifelong friends who have had extreme or a decent or good devotion to athletics and fitness and all that but it seems like we're now kind of turning a corner , hitting a fork in the road , where the first and foremost objective is to build or preserve that lean muscle mass and muscle strength and not so concerned primarily with keeping the waistline down . But I think you know the dad , bod and the busy working parent , male or female , from ages 25 to age 50 or what have you , is kind of just not eating too much food and keeping your pants size the same . But now it seems like , you know , we have an intense focus and a desperate need to keep that muscle on , to the extent that we might even , you know , rethink some of these strategies that maybe have been successful to manage caloric intake .

Philip Pape 12:59

Yeah , are you familiar with Jonathan Sullivan ? Some people call him Sully or Dr Sully . He wrote the barbell prescription and he uses a term called the athlete of aging , to that exact concept . If we think of life as not an inevitable decline but really an athletic pursuit where we want to thrive as a human and again , this is why I resonate with your message so hard , is that that's what we want . When I'm 95 , I still want to be deadlifting , like I want to die doing a deadlift . You know what I mean , like whatever that means to you .

Philip Pape 13:31

And it hits really close to home for me , brad , because I've had two situations just in the last two weeks with family members one who passed away after being in a

The Muscle-Centric Approach to Health

Philip Pape 13:41

nursing home for a number of years and declining very quickly because he just wasn't mobile . He could have been but he kind of , I'll say , gave up on life . I hate to say it that way , but it was . It was sad , you know , and he was in a wheelchair and then the health issues accelerated , um , because of it . And then another family member who went to the hospital with heart issues . And it's , it's the same story we've heard so many times , the predominant story we hear with older folks of polypharmacy right Taking so many medications on top of each other , of heart conditions , of metabolic disease , type 2 diabetes , all of these age-related diseases , even some cancers , could all be prevented with a little extra muscle mass , a little more movement and just watching what you eat and really enjoying the process too .

Brad Kearns 14:28

So , when you have an intake or a thousand of them , what are the prevailing themes Like ? What do you think is the biggest and most egregious offense to healthy living and longevity ?

Philip Pape 14:43

That's a good one . The most egregious offense .

Brad Kearns 14:46

So is it the junk food diet or is it the , uh , you know , sedentary baseline daily pattern , that kind of thing ?

Philip Pape 14:54

Yeah , I mean , I guess the red flags are going to depend on the person , but it generally is the lack of training or training properly . So we're talking lifting weights and I know there's kind of this triumvirate , um and I know you talk about as well of you know lifting heavy things and then moving a lot , and then some sort of explosiveness , right , whether it's the sprinting or the player , what have you ? Um , people are not training and so no matter what they do with their diet , it's not going to matter , because they're going to lose muscle . That's my perspective . So when someone comes to me and says I want to fix my diet , I don't care about lifting weights right now , I'm like , let's flip that around . Let's flip that around .

Philip Pape 15:32

If I can get you in the gym , it's going to cascade to your desire to fuel what you're doing in the gym , to want to eat healthier . You're going to have better regulated hunger signals year . You're going to have better regulated hunger signals . You're going to have greater insulin sensitivity , all the other things that lead to the eating side becoming much easier . And guess what ? You'll have a little more resilience , even if your diet isn't so great , like at least to start , until we start to optimize it going forward .

Brad Kearns 15:55

Yeah , I think what you just said is hugely underrated . Like people do not make that connection , they you know the diet industry is massive and all the programming and things we've heard our whole life to where you know you just got to manage your portion sizes and fast a little bit or try keto or do this or do that . But then maybe like describe in more detail how going and hoisting some weight around is going to optimize your dietary habits .

Philip Pape 16:24

Yeah , yeah , this is . This is a great topic , I mean , I think so . There's multiple reasons for it . The big one is , I think , the hormones and the insulin sensitivity from lifting weights , which is extremely underrated because we know that insulinemia you know the term .

Brad Kearns 16:42

Hyperinsulinemia is chronically excessive production of insulin .

Philip Pape 16:45

Yes , yes yes , always trying to suck out the technical terms which is related to cortisol , which is related to the lack of muscle mass , is extremely important because muscle is a thing for glucose , right .

Philip Pape 16:56

So the more muscle mass you have , the better you can utilize the carbs that you're eating . And I always talk about carbs in the context of how sedentary you are , because you can't simplify carbs being good or bad . Right , you can't just say , well , carbs are bad . Well , if you're sedentary for sitting on the couch all day , the more carbs you eat , sure , it's just going to go to fat storage it really any excess of calories are , but carbs especially right . And there's inflammation and et cetera .

Philip Pape 17:21

And quite the opposite happens when your strength training is that your body wants to suck those carbs up , both the ATP and then the glycolytic process that comes after that from long training sessions , from having the muscle mass . It's just going to suck it up like a sponge . That's sort of the way I like to say it . And so you need those carbs . You want those carbs . Where was I going with this In that , from a metabolic and insulin perspective ? For food , it means that you can have a very flexible diet , both in terms of macronutrients and calories . You can be fueled up , you can eat more food and be living the vast majority of your year , not dieting . That's what I wanted you to get to is where you're almost never dieting , isn't that great .

Brad Kearns 18:06

I mean , I hope people do . You really get this insight deeply ? You powered through that with a great explanation and the sync concept . So I want people to fully understand . When you have a lot of muscle mass on your body or you're stimulating the muscles in a workout , the , the glucose is going into the muscle to refuel and replenish . That's insulin's job is to restore energy into storage depots we know about how it does that into the fat stores , but it's also doing that to help , you know , replenish and recover your muscles . Compare and contrast to someone who's sitting around . What happens to that glucose ? Well , in the case of the trends of modern lifestyle in America and across the world , you're gonna get type two diabetes over years and decades because the glucose just flows around in your bloodstream . Insulin is produced , that mechanism gets exhausted . That's that hyperinsulinemia , and then you have elevated glucose and elevated insulin and that's the disease pattern of life . So it's sort of you know , the reason that going and lifting weights is important is so you don't get diabetes .

Philip Pape 19:18

In a nutshell , and , in the short term , take advantage of the fact that it , you know it suppresses those postprandial glucose spikes , blood spikes , which then affect your hunger signals . You have much better regulated satiety . All this GLP-1 talk about the weight loss drugs . Well , your body has that naturally and strength training can trigger it Without side effects .

Philip Pape 19:38

Yeah , it can trigger it , which intends to decline with age , which is one of many reasons people have more and more difficulty as they age , unless you're training . So to me , lifting weights , I don't want to say it solves everything , but it is kind of the magic pill to a lot of these issues that people have with age . And Brad , I've had clients who are very well muscled and they need to lose some body fat because they're very over fat as well . But they have much better health markers than somebody with less muscle who's overweight . And that just tells you something right there that there's a huge mitigating factor , that muscle mass . That can't be underrated .

Brad Kearns 20:15

I'm kind of curious how someone gets to that point , because if you are a fit enough person to carry around an impressive amount of muscle mass , why the heck do you still have a gut there ? And it must be just horrible dietary choices that override all these beautiful insulin sensitivity benefits of lifting the weights every day .

Philip Pape 20:37

Yeah , I mean . There's multiple reasons . One is intentional in the powerlifting world , People intentionally gain a lot of weight to push more lifts and get bigger numbers .

Brad Kearns 20:46

Yeah , physics yeah .

Philip Pape 20:48

That's all it is . Yeah , yeah , you get more cross-sectional area . Yeah , you know what I'm saying . The allometric scaling that occurs and then the absolute numbers that scale up once you gain more weight .

Philip Pape 21:00

And , frankly , just , some people never had a great diet to begin with , even though they lift weights . It doesn't . They're not mutually exclusive . It's very possible to have a poor diet and still have been able to lift and build muscle over time , as long as you have the just net fuel in your body . It's not efficient .

Philip Pape 21:16

But guys come to me and they're like hey , I've tried carnivore , I've tried this , I've tried that . And we we work together say look , all you need is a good , nutritious , nutritious , whole food diet . Look at your protein , look at your fiber . You're still going to have plenty of calories coming in , but we're just going to , you know , track what's going in your body and we're going to regulate that so that you can drop some of that fat and then get back to a nice lean state and then you're good to go . Um , I'm right now in a gaining phase , brad , I am . I mean , you can see me just by top . It's not like I'm . I'm fat , right , uh , but I do that on a regular basis , I will gain 20 pounds and then lose 20 pounds , but with the intent to build muscle over time .

Brad Kearns 21:56

Uh , so describe how and why

The Benefits of Building Muscle First

Brad Kearns 21:58

you initiate these gaining phases .

Philip Pape 22:01

Yeah , for efficiency .

Philip Pape 22:03

So if you gain right now the research based on the latest studies and meta-analysis , which are quite recent there've been maybe four or five studies in the last five years that have given us the most of this data Gaining weight at around , let's say , 0.3 to half a percent of your body weight a week for a beginner or intermediate is kind of the optimal level where you're going to gain the most muscle without gaining too much fat in terms of time duration , and it's going to depend on the individual .

Philip Pape 22:32

So if you've done it before , you may know your individual numbers and they might be higher or lower . If you kind of know that , let me tell you I have spreadsheets for all this stuff , right , you know we have a numbers guy where you can plug in numbers and know exactly how efficient your muscle gaining was , so that next time you go in a bulk you could either go faster or slower , um , but then you do that and now you're talking six , nine , maybe 12 months where you add a significant amount of muscle , and we're talking multiple pounds , right , five , 10 pounds of muscle , uh , and then you can do a fat loss phase and then you can effectively sustain that . The alternative is doing a more intuitive approach and kind of maintaining your weight and building muscle slowly over time . It's just going to take a lot longer to add those slabs of meat to your body . That's all .

Brad Kearns 23:16

So are you systematically over-consuming calories when you're in the gaining phase and as well as doing hypertrophy style workouts ?

Philip Pape 23:27

it's exactly what it is . Yeah , you're in an intentional calorie surplus . It's not crazy , it's not a dreamer bulk , as they would call it back in the day , where power lifters you know go in and order you know ten cheeseburgers and like three orders of fries , it is maybe 200 calories a day surplus , right , something like that for most people .

Brad Kearns 23:45

That's what everybody eats , Philip , Come on Just naturally right . But they're not training . That ain't no surplus . We're in a lifelong surplus yeah .

Philip Pape 23:53

Yeah . What happens , though , is if you're doing it consistently and by consistently I mean because you're tracking , you don't fall too low or you're unintentionally not in a surplus your expenditure , your metabolism will tend to ramp up quite a bit . Hundreds of calories , like for most people . For women , I'll tend to see anywhere from like 100 to maybe 400 or 500 calorie increase over the months . For guys , it could be 1,000 . It could be 2,000 . It's insane . And you're eating . You know where you start eating .

Brad Kearns 24:22

2,600 , 2,700 calories . You might end up 4,000 or more , Like I'm up to 4000 now . It's a lot of food , man . It's a lot of food . So your metabolism is increasing as a consequence of both eating more food and doing these strenuous workouts .

Philip Pape 24:41

Yes , and gaining more weight ? Right , Because you're carrying around more your BMR is higher . And probably metabolic adaptation , that it's like opposite metabolic adaptation , where your body is just so flooded with energy it tries to be as inefficient as possible in burning calories .

Brad Kearns 24:57

How so .

Philip Pape 24:57

Kind of the opposite of how . So what do you mean ? How so ?

Brad Kearns 25:02

I mean you're over-consuming calories .

Philip Pape 25:04

So what is the adaptation that's occurring where the body's trying to yeah , I mean , I believe it's just your body is not trying to hoard calories like it would during a fat loss phase , when , I mean at the mitochondrial level , you're even conserving energy . The hormones get downregulated . I think it's just the opposite of that , right ? So I don't know to what extent that's the case . I think it's just the opposite of that . So I don't know to what extent that's the case . I don't think we have science that says it's .

Brad Kearns 25:28

These are the exact components . Yeah , it's a fascinating , fascinating topic . Well , you know , it happens and the science is uh , what your scale says ? Uh , three months later , because theoretically , you would gain um way more than you did if you just counted calories and had the same lower metabolic rate , right ?

Philip Pape 25:53

Right , exactly that's where you would hit plateaus if you weren't tracking that and staying on top of it . You basically have to over-consume by more each week as your body is ramping up .

Brad Kearns 26:01

It's the opposite , uh , the traditional approach to uh fat loss , where you're lowering calories , lowering calories and a lot of times uh , that doesn't work so well , as we know .

Philip Pape 26:13

Exactly . I'll say it's not a symmetrical problem . The fat loss side of the equation has lots more detrimental potential when you're chasing down into a deficit , because now getting to zero means you starve to death . Going the other way is a bit of a different situation . It's more of you're maybe trying to stuff yourself and I don't like to put it that way , because if somebody gets to that point , we need to talk and figure something out that is more sustainable . But it's not a symmetrical problem , if that makes sense .

Brad Kearns 26:43

Well , also , what's interesting is , I assume you're choosing exclusively healthful , high satiety , high nutrient-dense foods , and so it's not the cheeseburger and the milkshake diet and therefore , like you say , it's a ton of calories . It feels like you're a chore to eat that much food because you still have optimal appetite and satiety signals , but you're overriding them in order to add some more muscle .

Philip Pape 27:12

Yeah , that is actually a big challenge is when you have that high volume food and you're trying to gain weight . Now , if we think of whole foods , there are calorie dense whole foods right Like nuts . So that is where you start to incorporate more nutritious foods that are also calorie dense .

Philip Pape 27:29

Liquids like a smoothie , yeah pre-digested things like that , and you know what . For flexibility , though , I do think it's okay to have maybe five , 10% of your diet . Just I don't want to say free for all , but it's there for some flexibility . I know we may not be on the 100% same page there , but in my view is , when people restrict completely , they tend to binge , they tend to go the other direction and , honestly , when you have everything else dialed in , you're , you're . You're pretty good from that perspective . The other thing , what's interesting you mentioned hunger . Your hunger signals regulate and then what I find happens is you're really good at telling whether your body needs more calories before you know it , like before the data tells you , because you can actually get hungry in a gaining phase . If you're starting to fall behind your metabolism , I'll have clients say why am I hungry ? I'm eating 3,500 calories . I'm always eating 20 . I'm like because your body is hungry .

Brad Kearns 28:24

Yeah , that's fascinating , even though you're eating a lot of calories , yeah .

Brad Kearns 28:27

Yeah , and you're turning up these important dials . I've talked about this a lot on my podcast referencing the work of Dr Herman Ponser , author of Burn , and talking to Jay Feldman four times the Energy Balance podcast , where he has this bioenergetic model of health where the more you consume in nutritious foods I'm talking exclusively about that , not shoveling junk down your throat but when you consume an optimal or even , in your case , like an aggressive amount of calories , you're going to turn up the dials of reproduction repair , growth and locomotion . I wonder if you experience certain symptoms like you're a little warmer or you're more fidgety at your work desk because your knee's tapping , because you have so much energy and so much energy to burn . I'm pleased to present B-Rad grass-fed whey protein isolate super fuel , the absolute highest quality all-natural protein supplement infused with creatine that delivers everything you need to optimize your appetite for fat loss , recover quickly from workouts and build and maintain lean muscle mass the single most important attribute for aging .

Brad Kearns 29:36

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Philip Pape 30:54

Yeah , that's a really good one . You definitely get hotter . I hear that all the really good one . You definitely get hotter . I hear that all the time . It's like you get hotter . And so for women who are in peripost menopause and they have hot flashes already it's kind of an interesting one , although some of those symptoms get mitigated when they're actually building muscle . Just ladies who are listening , just so you know it's kind of interesting . But yeah , the fidgeting is another one . That definitely explains why your metabolism takes off like a rocket , because everything stacks on top of itself . You actually move more unconsciously , and this leads to the joke about powerlifters trying to do as little as possible when they're not lifting weights so that they don't have to eat even more . Right , it's kind of a joke . Right , we want to be active , we want to be walking . It's great for a joke . Right , we want to be active , we want to be walking , it's great for recovery , etc . But there is a long-time joke about powerlifters just like acting like sloths between their lifting sessions .

Brad Kearns 31:44

Well , what's really interesting about that is now emerging research in the endurance athletic world , especially with these Norwegian triathletes who are coached by Olaf Alexander Boo triathletes who coached by Olaf Alexander Boo , a scientist with a scientific approach and we're now realizing that the consumption of calories as many as possible is fueling a more ambitious training regimen than we've ever seen , whereby these guys can go faster , for longer and train harder than any triathlete from

The Science of Gaining Phases

Brad Kearns 32:16

back in historical times .

Brad Kearns 32:17

And it's really fascinating to me because I felt like I stuffed my face every day for those nine years of training and traveling on the professional triathlon circuit and we always had to have food around us and I traveled with a bag of food , but it was the only way we could sustain a really ambitious training regimen .

Brad Kearns 32:35

And we also learned from like old time bodybuilding culture that the limiting factor for Mr Universe to not have even bigger muscles , or Arnold in the movie Pumping Iron , the limiting factor was not that they couldn't train another hour a day and go from five hours a day to six hours a day . The limiting factor was the ability to digest and assimilate calories , and your stomach will explode if you go over 7,000 calories every day for six months time requiring you to down-regulate your training . But somehow the triathletes who are training eight hours a day now they're inhaling so much food , not only in real life but during exercise , that they're able to go really fast and be in the carbohydrate burning heart rates , rather than this huge emphasis we've always had at endurance of , like you wanna be a good fat burner and you wanna lower your heart rate , so you're burning emphasizing fat burning during your workouts and you're not getting tired . So it's kind of like flipping it on its ear to say eat more , train harder , get fitter , build more muscle , live longer .

Philip Pape 33:40

Yeah , exactly , and I didn't know if that's always a good thing , but in general , if you're doing it right and you structure your recovery , well you can avoid , because what I also see is if you go too hard , then now you potentially have joint and tendon issues , especially for those bodybuilders where they're almost outpacing their own ability to with their connective tissue to support what they're doing . Of course , that's where enhanced and steroids come into play too for some of those Um , but that's another great point about why we we become this huge furnace is that you can train harder in an almost exponential way when you're highly fueled , thus accelerating the ability to build that muscle . Maybe that's why it's super efficient to be in a calorie surplus .

Brad Kearns 34:23

You know that kind of ramp up of your .

Philip Pape 34:25

I see it myself as well , and one of the hardest things is to pull back from that when you need to , when you're trying to like peak out on your strength , when you're trying to peak out on your strength and you actually want to reduce the volume and actually hit max loads , it feels like you're not working out that much , so you're almost , you almost like to have to hold back , like just today I didn't do accessory work in my training because I'm in a final three week phase where I'm going to peak out on week four on my squat , my deadlift , my press . I'm deliberately eliminating all that volume to put it all into the ability to hit those lifts and it feels like I'm not working because I have all this energy , like you suggested .

Brad Kearns 35:04

Yeah , yeah , I mean this is , I'd say it's become a hugely controversial subject because we have so many longevity experts touting the amazing life extension benefits of fasting and restricting carbohydrates to the extent of ketogenic eating , and I've had a big recalibration in my own mindset and belief system and strategy to realize that if you're in that category of healthy , active , athletic person with good blood values and so forth , the restriction of calories for any reason is unwarranted and I'd much rather focus on eating more , moving more , training harder , recovering faster as my path to longevity .

Brad Kearns 35:47

My new mantra , as listeners know , is perform , recover , perform , recover and that there is no role of fasting in that equation . And I appreciate this discussion about kind of the opposite strategy . Because you look healthy on the screen , man , you're putting up some big weights . I mean , how are we gonna measure your longevity and your basic health and fitness status right now ? How about pulling a new PR on the deadlift ? So whatever you're doing is working by definition , as opposed to starving yourself and heading to the gym and pulling some moderate weights or whatever the opposite would be .

Philip Pape 36:25

Yeah , and I feel like when you get to that point of building that foundation , even if you are going to go into a calorie deficit and go into a fat loss phase , it tends to be so much easier and almost not feel like a diet .

Philip Pape 36:38

I mean , I have a lot of clients in this situation where I say , look , let's not worry about cutting right now , let's build a foundation . What you're going to find after that is that a quote unquote diet , maybe the only diet you'll ever do , because you're trying to get to that whatever leanness that is that you're going to walk around , as even that isn't going to feel that hard . It might take 12 weeks and it might be at a moderate rate of loss and because you have this high metabolism , it's kind of easy to do and you're still going to eat mostly what you like . You know you have to cut out a few things here and there , um , and then you're done . So doesn't that sound great Like ? If you're listening to that , just understand how powerful that is versus the yo-yo dieting always losing weight , losing muscle when you lose weight , because that's what happens when you don't train and then you get more and more skinny fat or fat over time , and then the metabolic issues wrap up , you know , as we age .

Brad Kearns 37:25

Yeah , I wonder you've probably seen this too . When we were , you know , really first building the primal blueprint community and doing retreats and interacting with a lot of people , there was a lot of people that came to us with seemingly severe metabolic damage from a long history of yo-yo dieting and they'd come forth and report that , hey , I tried your eating style of the ancestral approach with meat , fish , fowl , eggs , vegetables , fruits , nuts and seeds . I don't eat any grains anymore , I don't eat processed sugars , I'm not drinking my Starbucks anymore and I'm still struggling to reduce excess body fat . And I wonder if you see that amongst your population , and are there some people that , just because of their past history or their current status of poor metabolic flexibility or whatever you want to call it , do they require some kind of a different approach ? Or how do you deal with that ?

Philip Pape 38:17

Sure , I mean , there I'm , I'm like I might be that guy . So I was so , way back in the day I did at Atkins right , I remember Atkins even slim fast . I mean it's crazy . This stuff I tried over the years and then I joined the CrossFit community back in 2010 . I did that for about eight years and I found out about the primal community and paleo and I actually did that . I have so many cookbooks still in my kitchen with paleo recipes , okay , and I was still overweight and I couldn't quite get there either .

Philip Pape 38:51

It helped a little bit , right , it helped in terms of other aspects of health , but without that training stimulus , you're right , there was a big missing piece . That's the piece that I'm so passionate about now . That's why I put it at the top of the list and everything else kind of falls from that . The other thing is , what was I going to say about that ? I think people get too hung up in the fact that certain foods whether you talk about the quality of food or the exact type of food or the macro are going to solve everything for them or vastly improve their metabolic health . I think even if you had the quote-unquote perfect diet , it is not enough . It is just not . You have to give yourself the chance to live like a human , a functional physical , pushing things around , human in the world .

Philip Pape 39:35

I knew a guy , kevin Kevin . What's his name ? Oh man , kevin McShann is that his last name ? He's in a wheelchair , he's paralyzed from the waist down and one of his favorite things to do every day is lift weights . And he , he talks about it . So passion . He's like no one has an excuse . If you can I mean if you can move something on your body , you can be active and you should be active . Very inspiring guy , guy .

Brad Kearns 39:57

Right , there's , it's within reach of everyone and , interestingly , it doesn't take uh , huge chunks of time to dabble and and and progress down this road of being a competent person who does resistance exercise . So it starts there . Diet is not enough . Love it , yeah . And how about compare contrast to the widespread pursuit of steady state cardio in with the goal of weight loss ? You know what I'm going to have to say about it because I said it on your show , but is there , do you have some insights about the difference between a protocol that has strength training , some brief , explosive activity like sprinting , a foundation of , you know , comfortably placed movement versus the people who are getting that sweaty red face climbing the stairs for 45 minutes , however many days a week , at the gym , or going to these difficult classes like the morning spin class and all that thing as their main and perhaps sole pursuit of fitness .

Philip Pape 41:02

Steady state cardio yeah , there's a couple angles I could come at this , one from . One is the fact that you can find thousands , if not millions , of people who don't do any of that type of cardio and have amazing health . I mean , if that's not proof , you know people who lift , people who don't do any of that type of cardio and have amazing health . I mean , if that's not proof , you know people who lift , people who walk , they eat right . You know , like you said , they might , they might do occasional activity , they might play sports . You know they have fun , but they are not doing that . I know what you refer to as metronomic , day in , day out cardio . That that's one . That's one answer I have . Uh , another one is just clients that I've worked with , especially women , who have what they think is an adrenal failure or an issue with their cortisol . They have hormonal issues . They might be as young as 27 or in peri and postmenopause , and it's often that they're just doing too much , that the stress is compounding what's going on with their bodies . And when I tell them let's just drop all of that , I mean I like to take a like eliminate all the cardio approach first add in the lifting and then start to add in the other things until you hit a equilibrium , a nice equilibrium , right . You'll know when you've gone past that point .

Philip Pape 42:16

And I had a client who she thought she would have to be on medications forever . And um , she was a massage therapist , so she was active like seven , eight hours a day working with people , and she was going to the gym five or six days a week . She was doing Peloton , she was hiking , she was doing a lot . And I got her training three days a week for about half an hour , lifting really heavy . And they say , no , you shouldn't put uh , women who have adrenal issues and high stress on heavy lifting , don't do that . It's just like when they talk about autoimmune conditions . Don't lift heavy .

Philip Pape 42:46

Quite the contrary , the evidence supports lifting heavy for just about any population . And I think you know this , brad like and by heavy I mean 60 to 90% of your max . You know like , whatever you can lift for the , for one single rep of , let's say , a deadlift or squat , 60 to 90% is a really solid range to lift in . And what happened to this client is she came off her medications because her stress dropped significantly without any other changes to her lifestyle . It was mainly the movement Like you're talking about . It was just too much cardio . That's just two angles I come at it from . The whole sprinting thing is actually a little bit newer to me , to be honest , and like I said before we started recording , I'm telling everybody about it because

Cardio's Role in a Strength-Focused Program

Philip Pape 43:29

I'm doing it myself too . I just did my couple first sprints over the last few weeks .

Brad Kearns 43:32

Nice . Yeah , it's a difficult one to ramp up with , because most of us stopped from our last season in middle school , soccer or high school or what have you . And then we know from research that we lose the anaerobic explosive muscle fibers at a much greater rate from aging than we do . Our aerobic conditioning and for some reason , the fitness population at large are getting their cardio in but , you know , grossly deficient in anything that resembles near maximum effort .

Philip Pape 44:09

Yeah , and I wonder , in the lifting community specifically because I've talked to a bunch of guys since you came on the show community , specifically , because I've talked to a bunch of guys since you came on the show there are different pockets of knowledge and understanding . When it comes to quote unquote conditioning , because it's always been a hot topic with the old adage of , like cardio is going to kill your gains , right , and then there was the counter argument of no , no , no , in reality you can actually do a decent amount of cardio , up to like half the amount you lift , without detriment . The question is , what do you mean by cardio ? Because that's a very broad umbrella , and so I start with the lifting and I say , okay , lifting itself is , um , is , is really a form of cardio . Um , your heart rate is constantly spiking when you're doing heavy , especially when you're lifting heavy .

Philip Pape 44:52

I can show you on my Apple watch you know , look at this guy guy , he went on a jog with a lot of stoplights , I guess it looks like that you know every spike is a rep of of my deadlift and it pops up to you know 130 , 135 , like actually right around the fat max heart rate , believe it or not kind of interestingly .

Philip Pape 45:08

I don't know if there's a correlation there , um , but the cumulative amount of um getting your heart rate high plus the epoch right , the post , the post-active post , uh , you know , I'm trying to say exercise post , uh , whatever the , the acronym .

Brad Kearns 45:21

Excess post exercise . Excess post yeah , oxygen consumption is uh . The concept is that you you burn more calories after the workout and that's where you get the really strong driver for fat reduction . It's not the eight 700 calories you burned at the workout , but it's the next 24 hours that matters a lot .

Philip Pape 45:42

Yeah , and I still use that , the old term afterburner effect , and you know well , that's , that's not real , but actually there is , there is , it is still a thing . Um , so , there , so just lifting alone is going to get you somewhat well-conditioned . And then I go to the next step and say okay , does your strength training program include speed work or enough volume that that also increases your work capacity ? So that takes you to another level of conditioning . So , for example , um , the West side barbell guys like Louie Simmons , the conjugate style program , now those guys were like big enhanced pot body , uh , power lifters . But the principles that they used and I don't have to go into all the training principles of conjugate , but they had two days a week that were max effort and two days a week that were dynamic effort . And on the dynamic effort days they would use accommodating resistance . So they would use bands or chains . Um , if you don't have bands or chains , you just use vault , you speed . So you do a lot of sets of low reps sub-maximally . So rather than doing , say , three sets of five heavy squats , you might do 10 sets of two at 70% right , and you're taking 30 or 60 seconds rest instead of two , three , four minutes rest and you are exploding on that concentric as powerfully as you can , where the plates are rattling , like that's a good indicator that you've done it right and that builds work capacity . It builds the movement pattern . You know it's a developmental variation for the main pattern when you're not without taxing your central nervous system with the load , and then you've got conditioning as well . So I like that approach .

Philip Pape 47:22

If you're a lifter , then I say , okay , what else do we need ? Walking , that's the next form of cardio . We've got to get to that . Eight to 10,000 steps is usually solid for a lot of people . It's very practical . If you want to be a 20,000 step a day guy , go for it , but you know eight or 10 . And then it's the big question , brad , what do we do ? Do we need anything else ? And so when my clients are in fat loss , they're like should I get a little cardio boost ? And what I've recommended up to this point is some form of medium steady state , like on a bike or pushing a prowler , but not running , cause I'm a big fan of , you know , recovery involving using the concentric and not the eccentric right . You do all those , those um squats , those air squats and CrossFit . That is that you're going to be sore .

Brad Kearns 48:04

So the eccentric . Uh just define that a little bit in case in case . People are uh falling off a bit .

Philip Pape 48:12

Sure , yeah , yeah , I know it's , it's the , I'll guess . I guess I'll say the pushing up part of the movement , the contractile part of it , so , like in a squat , it's the coming up part of the squat , whereas going down that's the concentric . That's the concentric .

Brad Kearns 48:23

Yeah , the concentric is lifting up and the eccentric- . The eccentric is like when the muscle is lengthening and shortening at the same time , or something . That's why you get sore . Is that the definition ?

Philip Pape 48:39

Yeah , yeah , I should get a better way to describe it , but yes , I think of like running , for example . The concentric is when you push off the ground , the eccentric is when you land .

Brad Kearns 48:48

The eccentric is when you land . Yeah , so when you're landing people , like going down a hill , and you see your quads tighten or tense but they're also being forced to absorb the impact , so they're kind of they're flexing but they're shortening at the same time . Same with lowering down from the deadlift is lifted off the ground and then you lower . The eccentric part is what causes that micro tears in the muscle and soreness , and I believe that's exclusively so , like you can't get sore doing concentric things , only the eccentric .

Philip Pape 49:25

Right , because the eccentric is what controls the resistance against gravity .

Brad Kearns 49:29

Right , so that's what leads to the muscle producing force and then tearing and oh right you're , you're absorbing gravitational force while you're flexing the muscle , as opposed to um not absorbing the gravitational force .

Philip Pape 49:43

Yeah , yeah , which is why I like say swimming or biking or pushing or pulling a sled as forms of quote unquote cardio , um , but , but .

Philip Pape 49:53

But , like we talked about before , I liked the idea of sprinting as opposed to hit . Um , I used to . I used to be into the Tabata style CrossFit hit , which was like the inverse of what you you know . It would be like a two to one work to rest ratio , and then I kind of evolved toward a maybe one-to-one , but I like the one-to-six that you talk about with sprinting as well . Regardless , very few of my clients do much of that cardio anyway , because they find they don't need to and most people don't quote-unquote like doing this kind of cardio great reason is for recovery from the other workouts .

Brad Kearns 50:31

You're going to be bashing your muscles with the ultimate eccentric behavior of running down a paved road especially . You mentioned Tabata , which is a popular interval training protocol , but what's so funny about that ? Has been widely misappropriated and abused , because the original research with the Japanese speed skaters was it was a four-minute workout . It was 20 seconds on , 10-second rest , 20 seconds work . Or is that the opposite ? Excuse me , 20 seconds work , 10 seconds rest ?

Philip Pape 51:05

Yeah , two to one , yeah , yeah .

Brad Kearns 51:06

Yeah , two to one work to rest yeah , and then you're done in four minutes . But you go to the local neighborhood fitness club and they say 9 am Tabata class , and so they'll do like all kinds of crap with this two to one work to rest ratio , first with your bicycle pedaling , and then you get off and do some pole work or whatever . But the workout's meant to be an extremely challenging , high-intensity interval session and it's over in four minutes , besides warm-up , cool-down and all that stuff . So it's a great protocol , unless you extend it out to an hour of CrossFit where you're doing Tabata , box jumps and rope climbs and upside-down push-ups and things that get people injured when they get fatigued at the end .

Philip Pape 51:50

And then you do grace , you do you know where you're doing like 30 power cleans with 135 . I was there , I did it for eight years . It didn't do anything for me other than give me some injuries , some tweaks . I was miserable most of the time , although I love the community , and I touched a barbell for the first time , which was great , but I didn't learn proper form until after I stopped doing CrossFit and just focused on on training . Um , and that's important for people to know , because I think I think it's okay to be I don't want to say judgmental , but I try to discourage people from doing those things at all , like I'm not sure that there is any positive , even when you have the community aspect . I think there's other ways to do that . There are some really good group traditional strength training programs now where you can get in a group but actually train with progressive overload .

Philip Pape 52:38

Do it low and slow , take your rest periods , have your recovery . That's what I would encourage people to look for .

Brad Kearns 52:44

I'll tell you my CrossFit strategy that was very successful for me is you bail out at around the one third or the halfway mark , cause I've done a grand total of three or four CrossFit classes in my life , visiting someone . Hey , let's try this out . And there's so many good aspects of the community and the , the , the philosophy of broad-based functional fitness and all that great stuff , as opposed to training for a marathon . It's the run fit club where we show up and we jog six miles every day . We're CrossFit's , building all these skills . But , like at the one third to halfway mark , I was good and I'm a fit person . But you know they're saying , okay , we're gonna do 15 pull-ups and then come over here and do the box jump and then climb the rope . All right , I did it high five . And then they go okay , now we're gonna do a set of eight and then break it down to four and then we're gonna do five and I'm like , what the F are you talking about ? I just did 15 pull-ups . That's a personal best for the year .

Brad Kearns 53:42

So I think the fatiguing aspect of a lot of traditional fitness programming is the big problem , not the workout design so much as when we're talking about elite , high-performing athletes , especially the people we watch in the Olympics . They're not blasting these workouts to the point where they're on their hands and knees and having shitty times in the last four reps . They are very consistent and they're almost always working well within their capacity . We will watch Gabby Thomas collapsing on the ground after running a mile time trial , since she's the Olympic 200 meter champion , and that was not her cup of tea . But even then she got up if you want to watch the video and did four straightaways of 150 builds or whatever . So we're socialized , I think , to struggle and suffer and CrossFit is extremely to blame there there , as well as the endurance community to blame rather than a properly organized training session where you don't walk out of there staggering to the nearest pint of Ben and Jerry's .

Philip Pape 54:41

Yeah , and I think it comes down to what are you trying to accomplish and if that is not getting you what you're trying to accomplish .

Brad Kearns 54:46

I want to crush myself . Man , that's my goal .

Philip Pape 54:48

Exactly . Yeah , I want to be miserable and I want you know , I want to be injured .

Brad Kearns 54:52

I want to be miserable .

Philip Pape 54:53

Yeah , and I'll tell you if . If your goal is to get your VO two max up , you could do that with lifting and walking and if you want to get a little bit higher , apparently sprinting which , by the way , I'm going to do an official VO two max test . It's been a long time I got when I'm at the peak of my bulk and I'm at my heaviest and I've barely started sprinting . That's going to be my baseline . I'm going to report back after about three months , once I've lost about 15 , 20 pounds and have been sprinting for a while . We'll see .

Philip Pape 55:21

I'll share that data with you guys , Listeners .

Brad Kearns 55:23

Vo2 max is a volume of oxygen per milliliter per kilogram of body weight . So you're going to be gaming the test . Milliliter per kilogram of body weight ? So you're gonna be gaming the test . If you drop 10 pounds , your VO2 max score will skyrocket .

Philip Pape 55:34

I don't care , man , no , I'm just yeah , yeah , no , it's great , we can normalize it you can I ? Bet , you can normalize it by body weight .

Brad Kearns 55:42

And also well , you have maximum volume period and then , and that's , I don't think that would be affected by anything . Whether you're lifting weights or sprinting , I mean you kind of have . That's why VO2 max is largely genetically determined . It's just how much oxygen can you consume when you're exercising at high intensity . But I'm also annoyed at how the fascination and the hype around VO2 max is like the ultimate anti-aging marker and it is . If your VO2 max is terrible , then you're in bad shape , son , and you better get your butt together and get out there and move your body and work your heart and lungs . However , once you have a competent VO2 max , which I'm certain that you'll have from your lifetime commitment to fitness , it's not such a big deal and arguably we might want to negotiate for carrying around more muscle mass as hitting another important fitness pillar that directly compromises your VO2 max potential .

Philip Pape 56:42

Yeah , which then brings up another issue , or not an issue , but a curiosity people might have is how important a lot of these health metrics are Resting heart rate lipids . A lot of these health metrics are resting heart rate lipids , hrv . Especially in the context of your current periodization phase and the body mass and muscle mass you're carrying around , it is really important . Like BMI , for example , is a totally worthless statistic unless you're just looking at a population right , and we know that new metrics like body roundness are more relevant . And , honestly , just taking a tape measure of your waist , you know you can kind of that's one of the best proxies for body fat right there . Anyway , it's very simple and that's the kind of data I like working with clients on , where it's data , but it's easy to measure , it's easy to track . Where I was going with that is that .

Philip Pape 57:27

Going back to those clients who are highly muscled but also overweight , you will still see health metrics that are not where they need to be because they're not walking enough . For example , I've had clients who are lawyers . They sit around all day . They get 3,000 steps . They're highly muscled . We don't change anything except their steps . They go up to 6,000 , 7,000 , and their resting heart rate starts to decline and a lot of their health markers , according to blood work , improve just from the walking . And so that's just just , you know , more proof of the power of being an active person in general and not having to do it via miserable cardio or chronic cardio .

Brad Kearns 58:05

Is 3,000 . Pretty crappy , is that like a pretty inactive person ? So you will . Even if you're just going from the parking garage to the office building and then you go down the hall to use the bathroom and then you walk around the house , are

Getting Started with Strength Training

Brad Kearns 58:20

you going to get up to like one or two or 3,000 steps with doing almost , you know , minimal exercise ?

Philip Pape 58:27

So if I think of my own self working at home , if I was recovering from surgery , and I could hardly do anything ?

Brad Kearns 58:34

no , I've been in that state . I probably still got like 1,500 steps .

Philip Pape 58:37

I don't know you can almost not , unless you're just sitting in one spot all day , which I suppose there are people who do that . I mean , this guy was lifting weights , so just from the lifting sessions , three days a week , he was probably getting 3,000 steps from his lifting session or 2,000 . Was lifting weights , so just from the lifting sessions , he , you know , three days a week , he was probably getting 3000 steps from his lifting session or 2000 . Really , wow , maybe 2000 . Um , I pace , I pace between my sets to get steps while I'm working out .

Philip Pape 59:01

So that's a good trick for people to have it stack . But going from three to six and then six to eight or nine , we know that that seven to nine is really the sweet spot right , Based on the mortality literature , on a massive step change in your health . And that's not inaccessible for most people . Seven to nine , it's not crazy .

Brad Kearns 59:18

If it is , then we got problems and we got to talk about it and we got to set you up with with with Philip and take , do that intake form and say what the heck is going on here .

Brad Kearns 59:26

Um , I mean back to the message of the book born to walk like this is a whole separate category from your fitness objectives , and your to-do list is that we are obligated to be in movement throughout the day . It's a no-brainer , it's like on the same category as sleeping . And then , oh , do you want to have a high quality , fit , active , energetic life ? Then let's talk about fitness . But I kind of put that in the given category rather than oh , okay , I have to do some weightlifting twice a week and I got to .

Philip Pape 59:56

I got to walk like no kidding , yeah , if I have a client who is not walking and they should be . And here's the thing with coaching right Is that you can't force people to do things , but you can try to frame it in a way that shows them it's inevitable that they need to do this for their own health . I do think , like the training consistently and the walking are must do's , no excuses . If you can't do them , then something else has got to change , Whether that's a time audit , getting something else off your plate , eliminating , delegating on and on , it's a time management thing for a lot of folks to be honest .

Philip Pape 1:00:36

That's your excuse and there's no excuse . You can do it with your dog . You can do it with your kids . You can do it walking around the house . How many of you are watching Netflix or scrolling social for at least an hour a day ?

Brad Kearns 1:00:52

That hour , go ahead and scroll social but walk while you're doing it like , don't make an excuse . Yeah , it's like saying I I don't have the budget for uh nutritious foods . And then I have my uh b-rad nutrition guide where they I rank the world's most nutritious foods by by category . And we have sardines up there , we have liver up there , which is dirt cheap compared to buying a steak or even even a , and so there's numerous foods that are among the highest on the planet and they're pennies compared to driving through Chick-fil-A . I just lost another sponsor . Sorry , but you know there is budget concerns with people and time concerns too , and I've heard from those people and they've given me some plenty direct feedback that I strongly appreciate and empathize with people that are really jam-packed and we don't want to cut into sleep with nonsense social media badgering like just get up at 4.30 and do it man , no excuses , no , not going to happen , not going to be successful .

Brad Kearns 1:01:47

But there's that time management layered underneath where , oh yeah , I forgot about my Netflix hour to three hours every evening . Can I pinch into that ?

Philip Pape 1:01:58

Yeah , it's funny . I just in my Facebook group yesterday we posted the question like what's one of the what's one of the most challenging things about your fitness ? And somebody said getting up at 3 am for cardio ? And I replied brutal and I replied well , I see two problems with this . Do you want me to say what they are ?

Brad Kearns 1:02:16

Cardio and getting up at 3.30 ? Exactly . Oh my goodness .

Philip Pape 1:02:21

But then to be fair , he said , well , I'm just walking on an incline . I'm like okay , well , that's a little better than when I thought what you meant with cardio . But I'm still saying you're getting up at 3 am . I hope you're going to bed at like 7 pm or something .

Brad Kearns 1:02:32

Hey , that's a pretty disciplined person right there , someone who gets up in the dark and walks on an incline . They're going to succeed with a little tweaking . So before we wrap up , like if someone just wants to get started and drift over in that direction of being a competent resistance training person that's building muscle and looking toward that longevity goal , what's a baby step one can take if we haven't gone near that side of the gym over there with the bros clanking the plates ?

Philip Pape 1:03:03

Yeah , I would really love for somebody to have access to a barbell and I could give them the baby steps from that . This is the challenge , Brad , is people . This is one of the excuses you get is I don't have access to this or that , or my gym doesn't have this , or I have home gym . So really it's starting with what you do have access to right and not making any excuses , and then working on the main movement patterns squatting , picking things up , engine pressing and everyone's at different strength levels . Everyone has different equipment access . Obviously , if you reach out to me , I'm happy to give you a free program template or guidance based on what you have , but that's really what it comes down to .

Philip Pape 1:03:41

We we could do a whole podcast about progressive overload and training session . You know training and all of that , but it's really three days a week usually is sufficient for most people shouldn't take more than half an hour to 45 minutes when you're beginner beginner and what we're looking at is , uh , fairly heavy , fairly low reps . You know we're talking four to six , maybe up to eight to 12 , you know , in that range of reps , maybe three sets of three or four exercises , a full body , and you do that . You take a long , you take long rest periods . By long I mean at least two or three minutes . These aren't the 32nd circuit training . You're not super setting , You're just one exercise and then the next , uh , three sets each , and then you take a day off and you do it again three days a week and that's it Like . It's not at all like anything that you guys think of with F45 or CrossFit or you know the running club Right .

Philip Pape 1:04:34

That's just to keep it very high level , brad .

Brad Kearns 1:04:37

That's great . I mean you can probably utilize the machines if you're completely incompetent with a bar and you want to learn carefully and slowly . I saw people getting trained with PVC pipes with the experts that came to our primal con retreats and it was like you know , if you do 20 reps with a PVC pipe on deadlift , you're going to feel it , even if you're pretty fit , like you don't have to load up right away and bring in injury risk . I would hope .

Philip Pape 1:05:09

Yeah , actually it's funny . I was just talking to another lifter about the concept of progressive overload , um . I had a podcast in fact today's episode that just came out . Whenever this is coming out it's it's called um the only strength standard you need , and it was the idea that the overarching principle of getting strong is that your body needs stress . And by stress I don't mean chronic stress , I mean it needs a stimulus , it needs to recover and then it will stress . And by stress I don't mean chronic stress , I mean it needs a stimulus , it needs to recover and then it will adapt . But the stress has to be enough . Just like in your thermostat it's only gonna kick in when the house is too cold or too hot . You need to push and challenge yourself just enough so that you adapt for the next time . So you come in on Monday , you squat , you do three sets of five , at whatever weight , I don't care , maybe it feels super easy . You go in on Wednesday . I want you to add a certain amount of pounds .

Philip Pape 1:05:56

Maybe it's five pounds , maybe it's two , If you're not super strong . Maybe it's 10 , maybe it's 20 . If you're just a 20-year-old male testosterone coursing through your veins and then do that each session , At some point it's going to start to feel heavy , but at some point it's going to start to feel heavy , but you also are going to be able to keep going up for quite a while . A beginner can double or triple their strength in just a few months .

Brad Kearns 1:06:18

You know the legend of Milo of Croton , the great , legendary ancient Greek Olympic athlete . He was undefeated as a wrestler , one of the greatest Olympians of all time . In the old days in Greek history , he gained his strength by raising cattle , and so he'd pick up the calf when it was born , and then he'd pick up the calf every day for the rest of its life until he's picking up whatever a 400 pound animal . But yeah , that progressive overload . That's the . Yes , I got to get better at that man , because I'm kind of working with the same weight on my hex bar deadlift , because I have some fears about injuries . I've strained my back before and then I'm performing a recovering in my sprint workouts my bread and butter . But it's a really important point to remember that the body loves that challenge adaptation and that comes when you extend out and get toward your limit .

Philip Pape 1:07:12

Yeah , and you can do that with anything . Like you mentioned machines . There are obviously different tools for different jobs , some more efficient than others , depending on your goal , and again , we can talk about those details , but doing something and progressing on it is going to be helpful . It's funny you mentioned the low back thing . A lot of people do have fears about injury and I've known so many folks . I can think of one guy in particular um , he's an engineer , a guy from India , and kind of very skinny , you know , kind of skinny fat if you will . About 40 years old . Um eats a lot of Indian food , which delicious , but you know the , the macros aren't always optimal for for building , and he had really bad back pain . And this is super common with desk jockeys , right ?

Philip Pape 1:07:55

And I've experienced it myself , just really sore back pain . I said why don't you try deadlifting ? I'll come to my ? He lived nearby . I said come to my home gym and we'll just do it together . I'll show you how to do it right and then I'll give you a simple progression . And he started doing that and all his pain is gone .

Philip Pape 1:08:16

Okay , and I'm not . I don't mean this to say , oh , this is a miracle thing , because your particular back issue may be specific , but many people have seen pain go away in their joints and their back just from lifting weights . It sounds counterintuitive to folks that don't quite get it , like with the deadlift . Deadlift is one of the best tools to improve back pain . You got to do it right and you're going to have good form , but I'm super passionate about that , yeah .

Brad Kearns 1:08:33

It's great for your joint health . Yeah , you're getting the blood flowing , you're getting the discs lubricated . You're working toward a stronger , more resilient body . So whatever got you that back pain in the first place ? Now you're a stronger guy . You're going to ward it off .

Philip Pape 1:08:47

And would you rather have a strong bad back than a weak bad back ?

Brad Kearns 1:08:50

That's what I'm about to say Philip Pape , everybody from Wits and Weights podcast , tell us how to connect with you on your Facebook group and the other places that we should engage .

Philip Pape 1:09:01

Yeah , I mean on Facebook . We can put the link in , but it's called Wits and Weights . On Facebook , my podcast is Wits and Weights and on Instagram at Wits and Weights , so pretty easy to find me .

Brad Kearns 1:09:11

And you offer this remote service for consultation and programming .

Philip Pape 1:09:18

Yeah , I do online nutrition coaching , so it's really about fat loss , building muscle , all of that and , again , you can go to witsandweightscom learn all about that , or hit me up . And what I really want you to do , though , is listen to my podcast first and get the basics and understand my philosophy , and learn first before , because I want you to have that foundation , because then you're going to really take off and level up .

Brad Kearns 1:09:40

Love it . Nice little assignment . Okay , first people go listen and then reach out Come inform man , Bring your A game to fill up when you finally reach out and connect . Thank you so much for spending the time . I love what you're doing .

Philip Pape 1:09:58

Keep it up and thanks for

Key Takeaways and Final Thoughts

Philip Pape 1:09:59

listening . Everybody . All right , that was my conversation with Brad Kearns on his Be Rad podcast , and what I hope you take away from this discussion is how fundamentally important muscle is as a foundation for any successful physique transformation . The typical approach most people take is they restrict calories , they add in cardio , they white knuckle through hunger , and that is what doesn't work long-term , because it does not address the root cause . When you build muscle first , you create a metabolic environment where fat loss becomes just so much easier , dramatically easier . Your body becomes a glucose disposal machine . Your hormones work with you instead of against you . Your hunger signals normalize , and I've seen this pattern play out hundreds of times with clients those who focus on strength training first and diet second consistently achieve better , more sustainable results than those who do it the other way around . And this is especially true for people in their 30s , in their 40s , 50s and beyond , when natural muscle loss accelerates .

Philip Pape 1:10:59

Remember , muscle's not just about looking good or even being strong , though those are fantastic benefits . Your muscle tissue is highly metabolically active . It acts as your body's primary glucose sink . It's a sink for the carbs that you eat and it creates the conditions for optimal fat metabolism . So the more muscle you carry , the more resilient your metabolism becomes against diet fluctuations , aging , hormonal changes , all of it .

Philip Pape 1:11:25

So if you are struggling with stubborn fat , if you're hitting plateaus despite doing all the things , I encourage you to flip that around . Focus on building strength first . If you've never doneaus , despite doing all the things , I encourage you to flip that around . Focus on building strength first . If you've never done it before , building muscle and watch how much easier fat loss then becomes when you have that foundation in place . All right , if you enjoyed this episode again , all I ask is you hit follow on the podcast to catch every episode when they come out and then go follow Brad's excellent podcast . Be Rad with Brad Kearns wherever you listen to your podcast . All right , until next time , keep using your wits , lifting those weights , and remember the secret to lasting fat loss isn't found in restriction . It's found through building building muscle , that is . I'll talk to you next time here on the Wits and Weights Podcast .