Wits & Weights | Fat Loss, Nutrition, & Strength Training for Lifters
For skeptics of the fitness industry who want to work smarter and more efficiently to build muscle and lose fat. Wits & Weights is one of the best fitness podcasts for evidence-based nutrition and fitness strategies. We cut through the noise and deconstruct health and fitness with an engineering mindset to help you develop a strong, lean physique without wasting time.
Evidence-based nutrition coach Philip Pape explores efficient strength training, nutrition, and lifestyle strategies to optimize your body recomp and metabolism. Whether you're focused on weight loss, muscle building, or both, you'll get simple, science-based, and sustainable info from an engineer turned lifter (that's why they call him the Physique Engineer). This show serves both women's fitness and men's health goals, with special attention to strength training over 40 and hormone health.
From restrictive fad diets to ineffective workouts and hyped-up supplements, there's no shortage of confusing information out there. Getting in the best shape of your life doesn't have to be complicated or time-consuming! By using your WITS (mindset and systems!) and lifting weights efficiently, you can build muscle, lose stubborn fat, and achieve and maintain a lean physique through sustainable body recomp.
We bring you smart and efficient strategies for movement, metabolism, muscle, and mindset. You'll learn:
- Why fat loss is more important than weight loss for health and physique
- Why all the macros (protein, fats, and yes even carbs) are critical to body composition
- Why you don't need to spend more than 3 hours in the gym each week to get incredible results with proper hypertrophy training
- Why muscle (not weight loss) is the key to medicine, obesity, and longevity
- Why age and hormones (even in menopause) don't matter with the right lifestyle
- How the "hidden" psychology of your mind can unlock more personal (and physical) growth than you ever thought possible, and how to tap into that mindset
If you're ready to separate fact from fiction, learn what actually works with evidence-based training and nutrition, and put in the intelligent work, hit that "follow" button and let's engineer your best physique ever!
Popular Guests Include: Mike Matthews (author of Bigger Leaner Stronger), Greg Nuckols (Stronger by Science), Alan Aragon (nutrition researcher), Eric Helms (3D Muscle Journey), Dr. Spencer Nadolsky (Doc Who Lifts), Eric Trexler (Stronger by Science), Bill Campbell (exercise science researcher), Jordan Feigenbaum (Barbell Medicine), Andy Morgan (Ripped Body), Karen Martel (hormone optimization expert), Steph Gaudreau (women's strength and nutrition), Bryan Boorstein (hypertrophy coach)
Popular Topics Include: hormone health, metabolism optimization, hypertrophy training, longevity and healthy aging, body positivity, best protein powder selection, strength training over 40, women's fitness, men's health, muscle building, body recomp, macros and nutrition tracking
Wits & Weights | Fat Loss, Nutrition, & Strength Training for Lifters
Is THIS the Perfect Fitness App? | Bonus
If you could design the perfect fitness app, what would it do? Let me know at witsandweights.com/question
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What if a fitness app could actually think like a human coach?
Not just track your activities, but understand them, analyze them, and make intelligent adjustments in real-time?
That's exactly what I'm designing: an AI-driven fitness coach in your pocket built on the Wits & Weights philosophy of personalized, sustainable body recomposition, built on sound principles of evidence, physique engineering, and experience.
It will adapt dynamically to your training, nutrition, lifestyle, and biofeedback as you take action and make progress. It will motivate you and provide accountability. It will "close the loop" between what you do and the results you're seeing.
The tentative launch timeline is this November 2025!
And I need your help.
What would the PERFECT fitness app do?
I want to hear YOUR ideas!
Go to witsandweights.com/question and let me know. Everyone who submits a question will be added to a special list and get a bonus when the app launches.
🔥 Take a 2-minute Metabolic Quiz for a personalized fat loss report (strength training & nutrition strategies)
🩸 Book a Performance Bloodwork Analysis to find out what's slowing your metabolism and weight loss (20% off - code VITALITY20)
🎓 Lose fat + build muscle in Physique University with evidence-based nutrition coaching (free custom nutrition plan - code FREEPLAN)
👥 Join our Facebook community for fitness & body recomp strategies
👋 Ask a question or find Philip Pape on Instagram
📱 Try MacroFactor 2 weeks free with code WITSANDWEIGHTS (my favorite nutrition and macros app for lifting weights)
What would the perfect fitness app look like? I've been thinking about this a lot because I am in the early stages of developing an AI-driven app built on my coaching philosophy and this very podcast. The idea is that it will adapt dynamically to your training, nutrition, lifestyle, biofeedback everything going on in real time, so your plan evolves with you, not just once every few months or weeks or even days, but potentially as you go. And while it's for everyone, my goal is that anyone can use it. The goal here is to make it the number one fitness app for people in their 40s and 50s, where getting leaner, stronger and healthier does mean everything, but the margin for error gets smaller as we get into our 40s, 50s and beyond and the demands of life get bigger. It's just who I identify with, being a man in my 40s myself. Now I'm not just talking about another workout tracker, another food logger.
Speaker 0:There's a lot of great apps out there, like Strong for workouts or Boost Camp or, of course, macrofactor for nutrition and even they're coming out with a workout app soon and they cover a lot of the bases right, and some of them are getting smarter as well and dynamic. What I'm talking about is something that merges all of those worlds together and really pushes beyond them in a new way that I don't see in the app store today. I want you to imagine some of these things that could happen. Tracking both your nutrition and workouts in one place, for example, doesn't really happen, outside of a few niche areas. I think RP does that, but it's very I'll say very constrained in terms of how it works. Estimating your daily energy expenditure we know Macrofactor does that well, but I believe that can be done at a very high level in other ways as well. Giving you feedback on your form just based on a video or photo, in real time using AI based on the principles of lifting.
Speaker 0:Adjusting your next steps on the fly, whether you're coming up on a deload or test week, you are not recovering well. You had had a rough night of sleep and it's integrating your Apple Health or Google Health data. Recovering well, you had had a rough night of sleep and it's integrating your Apple Health or Google Health data, and you know the sky's the limit about how this can happen, but the technology is there and I'm partnered with someone who is going to help me make that happen, and if you know me at all, you know that I have. I have high standards and I would want an app that I would use myself. Now, as far as ideas from the community, in our Facebook group we have Scott who said, hey, nutrition and workouts should be together. Like, why aren't they together by now? Jazz mentioned hydration tracking right, there's lots of little things related to nutrition that don't get tracked really well but are important. Nikki suggested that your daily workouts or training have advice tailored to you, your current level and adapt with you. You know, built in progressive overload. And then Tony had a big one, and that is combining the equivalent of Macrofactor's adaptive nutrition algorithm or maybe he meant the algorithm itself or something like it with periodized strength programming, so having your workouts adjust based on your nutrition as well.
Speaker 0:I've also been reading Reddit and a bunch of forums online and the same frustrations keep coming up. Most apps are too rigid, too generic, too siloed. They do one thing decently, but they don't talk to each other. They don't adapt to you like they should, and it's still a lot of work to use them. Plus, you have to use 10 different apps, and that's the gap that I want to fill.
Speaker 0:So let me ask you if you could design the perfect fitness app. What would it do? What are the features or frustrations that matter most to you? Go to witsandweightscom slash question and share your ideas with me. Big, small, practical, crazy out there, I don't care, because you're gonna be surprised at what is possible with the technology that I'm building this app on, and I want to hear your idea, I don't care how insane it is. Witsandweightscom slash question. The link is also in the show notes because if we get this right, guys, this will not just be another app. It's going to be a coach, a training partner, your data analyst, your podcast host all together, all in one. Go to witsandweightscom slash question and send me your ideas. Can't wait to hear them.
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