Why Fitness Lab Exists

Philip Pape 0:00

Hey, Wits and Waits family. Quick bonus episode for you today. Since launching Fitness Lab in November, I've gotten dozens of questions from podcast listeners, potential users about how it works, who's it for, how it fits with the other tools and resources you're already using. So I filtered down the list to what I consider the top 15 most common questions, and I'm going to try to answer them in rapid fire format. These are real questions. I want to give you straight answers so it makes sense. And then you can choose whether the app is right for you. All right. The first question is I'm already tracking macros in another app, macro factor, chronometer, my fitness pal, etc. Do I need to stop using that or does this replace it?

Using Other Tracking Apps Together

Philip Pape 0:41

My answer here is no, they can totally work together, or you can rely solely on Fitness Lab if you prefer. What's the difference? Well, when you use both, your tracking app that you're using for day-to-day calorie macro logging, it tells you what is happening. And in some cases, you get targets, like with macro factor, it's based on your expenditure. Fitness Lab tells you how to use that information through the daily coaching, through pattern recognition, through behavioral guidance, through connecting it through all your other data, like your biofeedback. And so they can work together. So think of it like having a coach who coordinates your data, right? That's what coaches do. You track in an app, then you send it to your coach and they analyze it for you. But here's the thing Fitness Lab also works as a standalone using what I've called recently the bottom-up approach, where what's really important is do you have the right micronutrients, the right balance, the right macros? And are you making the food choices that support you? And if we can build up bottom up from there, it actually is so much easier to hit calories and macros to where they're that it's much less about, you know, fitting your macros and fitting those targets as it is making great choices for your food that then can also fit your macros and calories, if that makes sense. So you're not required to track macros comprehensively to get results. You have to track something though. And I think Fitness Lab does that really well in a lower stress way, but you can definitely use them together. For example, you can upload your actual screenshot of your log from your app instead of uploading photos of your food, and the app will be smart enough to interpret that data instead for you and even give you some feedback like, hey, is not enough color here, or you can have some more fiber nutrients, et cetera. All right, question two is kind of a nice segue.

How Meal Photo Analysis Works

Philip Pape 2:25

How does the meal photo or the meal pattern analysis actually work if you're not counting or tracking calories in the app? And by the way, as a side tangent, we just recently integrated with Apple Health and we are trying to pull in all the nutrition data. So we're working on upgrades where if you are tracking with another app, it can potentially pull all that in in some sort of automated fashion, right? Without making my fitness lab just another logger. But anyway, how does this actually work? So, how it works right now, and we're testing this out, and if if we find that in the next few months everybody uses it, there are even better ways to do this. We'll continue to improve. You upload one representative meal photo daily. Not your best or worst meal, but just what's typical. And it kind of prompts you for this. And by the way, a little hack, a little Easter egg here, if you will. You can upload multiple photos in the upload feature anywhere in my app. So technically you can upload multiple at once, but it's best to just identify or just upload one. And the idea the AI is gonna use photo vision analysis to identify the pattern of what's on your plate. And it's very comprehensive. It's more comprehensive than what's in macro factor right now, which is just the calories and macros. It looks at the balance of your macros, how much and what type of protein you're eating, the quality of the food, the plate composition, the the it does estimate calories and macros, but also looks at things like color. It compares it to how you've been trending over time. And it's not gonna judge you for, you know, if you have something indulgent in there or dessert or something like that. It's usually gonna suggest something additive, like, hey, let's add some more, you know, cruciferous vegetables to this next time, things like that. And so over days and weeks, the app can spot your trends, like you're inconsistent with protein, or your plates always have like one or two colors of these same foods, or your portions are drifting in a certain direction. So it's like pattern coaching, which is really your behaviors. That that's it's not the calorie police, right? Because that never helps anyway. Even the apps like My Fitness Power aren't great because they they sort of judge you on not adhering to specific calories. You know, an app like MacroFactor is going to be more adherence neutral, just like my app is. And so the goal here is awareness and course correction and nudging so that your behaviors get to where they need to be in a sustainable way. So you're giving the coach enough context, enough information visually to spot what's working and what's not. And that again is that bottom-up approach where you're building awareness of your eating patterns. It's something you can do on your own, of course, but it's hard to do for a lot of us when we're kind of in our own world. And this is where the the app itself can be super, super helpful, especially for those who are burned out with tracking. This could be a real game changer for you. All right, that's the second question. These aren't so rapid fire, but I'll try to speed

App, Group Coaching, Or Both

Philip Pape 5:11

it up. Question three should I join Physique University or just use the app or both? Or what if I'm already in physique university? All right, so this is a common question because you know, I was concerned developing an app that I would cannibalize the different offerings, and people are always like, How do I work with you? Like, how can I get the best support? And I'm gonna tell you that there are three ways to get support for me now. It's one-on-one coaching, which is a very small handful of openings for that at any one time because it's very, very high touch. Then there is my group program, which is called Physique University, and then there is the app. And I think that the one-on-one coaching can kind of work on its own with some support from Physique University. And then I think the app can work with on its own with support within Physique University. So the group program is kind of in the middle as able to support both one-on-one and the app. You probably wouldn't be using the app and do one-on-one coaching, although some of my one-on-one clients are wanting to try the app too. So I'm totally fine with that. And maybe they'll feel like, hey, they don't need me. And if that's the case, that's fine too, because at the end of the day, I want you to be empowered to do this on your own. So think of it this way: Physique University gives you community support. It is live calls, it is direct access to me and Coach Carol. So that human connection, it's a peer group, and there's a big educational foundation. There are a lot of courses, there's a curriculum, there's onboarding, there's tools, there's training templates. So a lot of that, a more traditional model that people appreciate and like, and then the ability to come in and say, run a challenge for the end of the year and get support and get feedback immediately on your questions. The app, Fitness Lab, is more of a daily AI coach that executes all of those same principles and guide and personalizes it for you pretty much in real time, but obviously without the community accountability. So it's a little more self-accountability, plus the app is giving you accountability, right? So if you're more of a lone wolf who just wants the daily structure and coaching without the group piece, which some of you are like, hey, I don't do well in groups, I don't need groups. Fine, the app works perfectly standalone. It's why I created it because I'm kind of like that myself, if you could believe it. And then if you're already in physique university or thinking about it, joining, I would say having the app gives you the daily execution

Bring Your Own Training Or Use Ours

Philip Pape 7:25

layer. And then having the community reinforces all those principles and what the app coaches. And it just gives you the best of everything together. And given the price points of all of these together, it's quite affordable for most people. I mean, far less than the one-on-one coaching, which I also have. And you can tell it sounds like I'm downplaying one-on-one, but I'm not. I just think one-on-one, which I think I have another, I think there was another question about one-on-one coaching. So we'll we'll address that later if I need to. But that's the answer is that Physique University is more community-based, has a lot of the education behind it, and the app is more daily structure and coaching, self, a little bit self-motivated, but there's definitely some accountant built in, and they can complement each other. All right, question four can I follow my own training program or do I have to use the apps? All right, this is a big one because it is totally your call. That's it's flexible. During onboarding, and by the way, the onboarding quiz, you can take it right now for free without even paying for the app just to see how it looks and what it asks and what plan it gives you. Go to wits and weights.com slash app and just do it. And then you don't have to buy the app, you could just see what the plan looks like. So during onboarding, you choose I want to create my, I want the app to create my program, or I'm following my own program or working with a trainer. And then if you're doing your own thing with a trainer, the app is gonna give you reflection activities because you're gonna tell it how many days a week you're working and a little bit about what you're doing, not too much, but then it'll ask you to reflect. So, what does that look like? That looks like upload you could upload a screenshot of your log if you want, or you can just conversationally say, hey, I did these lifts. You can say how it felt, you can tell it about your progress, you can upload videos for form checks, those kinds of things. And it's going to combine that with your recovery, your volume, all that to give you some advice. It's only gonna be as good as the data coming in, of course, right? So that's that's the self-directed part. If you want the app to create you a program, though, it will do that. And it does it pretty beautifully. And it'll create, you know, whatever days you choose, whatever equipment you have. If you say I'm traveling next week, you talk to the coach, you say I'm traveling and I'm only gonna have my bands, it's gonna redo your activities for that week automatically based on what kind of program you're following and what equipment you have. I mean, it's pretty slick. It gives you videos, it gives you how to do the lift, and then here's the cool thing: based on how you did it last time, it's gonna give some advice this time, including if you did form checks, it's gonna reinforce some of the things you had to work on from those form checks. Pretty slick. All right, question five is okay, so I paraphrase this one, but it's equivalent of many questions

Personalization For Injuries And Limits

Philip Pape 9:55

I've had. I'm 52 with a bummed shoulder. So I've had bummed shoulders. I've had people with back issues, people with shoulder issues, somebody with that with one arm. Will this work for me? And honestly, any question where it's like I am XYZ in this unique way, will it work for me? Of course, I'm gonna say yes because that's the whole point, is that the app is going to personalize itself to you to an extreme. It's pretty incredible. Guys, I had surgery. I said this is my surgery plan, and it's been giving me rehab ideas. It's been focusing on rest and recovery. I mean, it's it it knows what like the the rehab period's like for rotator cuff surgery. So it's kind of reflecting that pretty accurately. And it does it without crossing the scope of medical advice, right? It does it really well. So the app is gonna ask you, ask you about things like injuries and movement limitations. Some of that's during onboarding, and some of it is as you go. And then the biofeedback is gonna look at your recovery. And then that combined, if you're using an iPhone right now with Apple Health, there's some other metrics that we may be able to look at, like your sleep, that'll give us some good, uh give the the app the ability to adjust whatever it needs to adjust, whether it's your training or what have you. If you tell it you only have one arm to work with, it's gonna be able to tell you, okay, here's single arm stuff or here's what you can do. Right? So it's going to respect you and where you're at. It's not gonna push you into overtraining or injury. It's it's it's amazing. So that's question five. Okay, question six.

Balancing Lifting With Endurance

Philip Pape 11:22

How does it handle my marathon training or my endurance training on top of lifting? Now, this was a great question because somebody was hesitant to try the app because during onboarding, it didn't seem to ask anything about other types of training because I have a very strength, a very strong like strength training and body comp bias. But immediately when that user asked about this, that day I did I redesigned the onboarding to add in some questions that ask you, do you have other, it's like, do you have other training commitments? And it will specify like running, cycling, sports, things like that. And how do you wait your strength training to support them? What's the priority for you? So it actually asked that at onboarding. Again, you can go to witsandweights.com slash app, take the onboarding now and see all these questions and get a plan without even paying for the app just to see what I'm talking about. And then the program mean is going to be adjusted based on that. That's it. So if you're trying to train for an Iron Man and not be a power lifter, it's not going to try to give you powerlifting programming, period. It's going to, you know, complement things in the right way and deal with recovery in the right way. All right, question seven. Does this replace

When You Still Need 1:1 Coaching

Philip Pape 12:26

working with you one-on-one? Okay, there's the question about one-on-one. And this was an interesting one because people are like, well, if I have Philip in my pocket, I mean, basically nobody needs you as a coach anymore, right? And I always think of these as just different tools. I wanted to expand the toolbox for everyone. And I think between one-on-one and group coaching and the app, it kind of covers all the bases. One-on-one coaching, where I have a handful of clients just because it takes so much time and attention, which I want to give to them. So I don't want to have, you know, 20 or 30 one-on-one clients with everything else going on. One-on-one is for complex situations, is the way I'm going to put it. So, you know, severe undereating for many years where you've you're trying to recover your metabolism, maybe uh prep for competition. And I don't mean like a physique competitor necessarily, but like if you're getting ready for a powerlifting meet and you're trying to dial in your nutrition, I have a few clients that are in that situation. When you need a human to make judgment calls in real time, when you've got a special mix of hormone or diet situations, and even an AI app, you're not sure it would fully get all of that. You know, you need a human who can kind of do the research, reach out to other experts in the field. You know, I have a whole team of people that can support me that on the medical side and on the hormone side and with GLP ones and all that stuff. The app, though, is people who, you know, they want systematic guidance, they can self-implement, they don't need these bi-weekly check-ins with a human being or 24-7 access to a human, but it is so like having a coach in your pocket for 90% of the scenarios. So if you're dealing with something really complex or you like to have a human being holding you through this process, you know, I'm always available. Reach out. If you want the system and the coaching, but you're good executing on your own, or hey, you know, you can't afford or don't want to pay for one-on-one coaching, then the app is a fantastic solution for

Coach Chat For Specific Problems

Philip Pape 14:15

that. All right, question eight is what if I have a question about something specific, like I'm stuck on a plateau or I'm confused about what to do next. This is a good question because a lot of people don't realize there is a powerful feature in this app called a coach chat. There's a dedicated tab called that says coach and it's a chat. And so think of it like Chat GPT, but far, far more powerful and more trained on my content and on the evidence. So you can have full conversations and you can pick up those conversations later on on with different threads that it automatically creates for you. And so if you're stuck on anything, or if something new came in, like you just got blood work or you had surgery or anything, confused about a workout, not sure what happened to your form check, you know, because sometimes there's a learning curve here. Just ask the app. If you need to explain why, you know, you had pizza three nights this week or why your week was off, go ahead. Tell the coach, tell, give the coach context. Say there were like five cookie parties this week. It's not gonna know it until until you tell it, right? Everything you discuss gets remembered and used to adjust potentially today's activities, but definitely future activities, as well as how it converses with you. Even the communication style, I mean anything. Just pretend that it's a human and like tell it what you want, what you need, where you are. If you say that you hate cardio, the app's not gonna push it. If you say your knee hurts, you know, it's gonna figure out that with you. So it's like texting your coach, but 24-7, and it's gonna respond immediately, which is pretty amazing. And then the context sticks around. So you don't have to start from scratch every conversation like you would ChatGPT, because it's trained on all my stuff. So it's pretty cool. Question nine. All right,

Hormones, TRT, And Perimenopause

Philip Pape 15:59

some variation of I'm on TRT or HRT or I or my wife is dealing with perimenopause. Does the app account for these situations? This is another one where initially I would say yes, but the context was limited. And now I would say yes, absolutely, both directly and indirectly, because in the onboarding, I added questions about are you on hormone therapy? Do you have hormone symptoms? I added curricula about hormone awareness. And more most importantly, I would say is the biofeedback system, where you can track things like energy recovery, stress sleep, even your libido captures hormonal fluctuations more, I'll say naturally, right? Things that could affect these or vice versa can be captured. And so all of this comes together along with your age, along with your context, to give you suggestions on what to do. And if you're very specific, if you're like, I take thyroid meds, I'm concerned about my thyroid, I'm working on my thyroid, guess what it's gonna do? It's gonna give you some podcast episodes about thyroid, it's going to talk about, it's gonna give you coaching briefings about thyroid health. I mean, it's going to listen to you and adapt. Question 10.

Travel, Missed Weeks, And Resetting

Philip Pape 17:06

What happens when I travel or life just implodes and I miss a week? All right, another very common scenario. And I kind of alluded to this already, but the app isn't gonna judge you and it doesn't care about you breaking a streak. Okay. This is all just data that it's gonna learn from and help you with. No judgment at all. It's pretty cool. So you tell it you're gonna go on travel, maybe, or maybe you just forget to tell it altogether. And as you go through the trip, the app might be reminding you of certain things you haven't done. And then when you come back, the app is going to regenerate missed activities it thinks are important based on your vision of yourself, which we're gonna touch on that in a second, and based on where you are in your plan. Like if you missed your weekly check-in where we track how your body composition changes, the app's gonna prompt you every day and it's gonna get a little more urgent so we don't lose that progress. But then you can say in the chat, hey, stop reminding me about this darn thing. I don't want to do it this week. And it'll be like, okay, we're gonna just stop reminding you. But it does it does so because it certain data is gonna be more important than others to try to help you know that you're making progress and to adjust your plan accordingly, right? And the language is all super supportive. Like I train this thing to be very empathetic and supportive, but also to push you just in the right way. So it might say, hey, life happened. What did you learn? Right? It's gonna ask you to learn from it in a positive way. The goal is always to maintain patterns during these moments of chaos, right? You're never trying to be perfect. And so the biofeedback helps you adapt when these changes occur and you just pick up and keep going with your plan. Maybe it's a lighter version of the plan, whatever. The app is going to adjust to that. All right, question 11.

Realistic Timelines For Results

Philip Pape 18:45

How long until I get results, be honest? Now, I can answer this question the same, whether you're using the app or not. Okay. The first three to four weeks of a good sustainable body recomposition plan, of a physique development plan, of a health or physique or fitness plan is establishing that baseline and building your behaviors and your habits. You're learning the system that's going to stick with you for the long term, building that consistency. Then probably in the second month, maybe the third month, depending on your pace, you will see the trends of certain metrics finally start to move. Whether you're in a deficit or surplus, whether you're working on strength and the weight data becomes more meaningful than and things like that, right? So for body recomposition, we're trying to build muscle and lose fat, eight to 12 weeks before it's visually obvious, usually for a lot of people, right? Two or three months, if that sounds like too long, this isn't the right approach for you. You're looking for a quick fix and that's not sustainable. And you're just gonna gain all the weight back and it's not gonna get what you want. I'm sorry to say it, but that's the truth. So if you're looking for the sustainable approach that sticks, where you're among the 5% who do sustain the results, then then I think this approach is for you. Now, strength PRs are gonna come a lot faster, usually within days or weeks, you know. Session to session, you might hit PRs if you're new. And so all of this is really, it's called fitness lab because it's systematic experimentation, right? It's not a crash diet. Real lasting change takes time. And if someone is probably seeing you faster results than that, they're lying, or you're losing something in the process. You're making an unacceptable trade-off. So the app is going to take the right approach. Question 12 Can I build muscle and lose fat at the same time? All right. So this is body

Can You Recomp Successfully

Philip Pape 20:25

recomp. You need the right conditions for this. This again doesn't really, it's not about the app here so much as what science and reality tells us. You know, if you're training with progressive overload, eating sufficient protein, have good recovery. I think the app focuses on those things very, very tightly for you. And it's going to identify what's realistic. And I think that's important is understanding what is realistic for you based on your leanness, based on your training experience, based on all of that. Right. So the plan is going to reflect that. And again, you can go to witsweights.com slash app, take the onboarding quiz, and see what the plan looks like based on all of those variables. And you can say, oh my God, this is gonna take too long. This is not for me. And you can decide that that's the case. Most likely, though, it's actually realistic. And that's one of the eye-opening things about it. All

Identity-Based Coaching That Sticks

Philip Pape 21:11

right. Question 13. How does the app actually help me stick with this long term? I know what to do. I just can't seem to keep doing it. This is a big one. This is a big one. This is exactly why one of the first things you do in week one is create a vision of your future self. It's just a very simple activity. It's it's a very, it's like one or two questions. And but the app is gonna latch on to that. And you're not just setting goals, right? It's it's working on your identity. You you envision where you're gonna be in, say, six months or a year, three years from now, when you've achieved whatever goals you have. What does that version of you look like? How do they move through the world? What do they do just as a matter of course? How do they feel in their body? And then the app connects the plan that you have to this deeply meaningful identity-based vision of your future self. And then every activity in the app links back to that vision. So then when you're tempted to skip a workout or you're eating a little bit off your normal plan, then it's not that you're breaking a rule or anything like that. It's that you're potentially not reflecting the person you want to be or that you're becoming. And the app will just keep reminding you to connect those things. And so that is true behavior change psychology rather than just trying to create a habit, quote unquote. Okay. And the app is gonna remind you of your vision throughout the program. It's gonna keep you anchored to why you're doing this in the first place, which is a very hard thing to do, even for human coaches. So it's kind of cool. All right, question

Why Diets Fail And Systems Win

Philip Pape 22:38

14. I've tried so many diets, and every time I fail, why is this gonna be different? Okay, it's because we're not doing a diet. We're we're building a system and an experimentation process for you where you learn to interpret your body's signals. So, what's cool about the app is it doesn't just do stuff for you and feed it out to you, it helps you learn about these things. Why, why do we track weight trend? Why do why the biofeedback? How do you progress in strength? You know, how do you eat for your goals? And then keeps adjusting these variables one at a time based on it. And most diets are gonna fail because they're not personalized or they're too restrictive, period. And they don't account for things like your biofeedback, right? Your sleep, your hormones, your recovery capacity, all of that. So this app treats all of these variables as premium, you know, first class citizens on your journey. When life interferes, which it does all the time, we adapt the plan. We don't just abandon ship and start over Monday. So the app helps you do that so that you develop skills, develop skills. I think that's the key and that's what makes it stick. All right, last question.

After The Four Phases And Beyond

Philip Pape 23:42

What happens after the four-phase program? Is this a temporary thing? So when you go through the onboarding, witsandwaits.com slash app, you'll see a four-phase plan set up for you. And and again, that's before you even pay for the app so you can see if it's right for you. And what I would say is that that gets you from zero, and no, no insult intended, just wherever you're starting now, to being a pretty autonomous, self-independent person when it comes to nutrition and fitness science in about three to six months. So there's the foundation, there's mastery of nutrition, there's training and execution, and then there's some optimization within that six months. And after that, you're maintaining what you have. So the app is gonna help you with that, which is one of the hardest things for a lot of you is sustaining your results. And that's where the coaching, the check-ins, the troubleshooting continue to work for you. And you've learned the basic skills by that point. And then the app becomes more of an accountability system and a pattern spotter. However, I will say it can continue to advance further into more, to higher end, more optimal type uh education and practices, right? And of course, you're gonna have different goals. You're gonna want to cut and gain and cut and gain over many years. You're gonna want to compete maybe, or switch up how you train, or you know, lighten the load a bit, maybe your life changes, all that stuff. And the coach in the app knows your history, remembers your constraints, it keeps you on track indefinitely. So that's what I would say. It could be something you use forever, in my opinion. That's what I'm designing it for. Uh, but that's totally up to you. All right, that is 15 quasi rapid fire answers to your top fitness

Free Plan, Discount, And Wrap-Up

Philip Pape 25:19

lab questions. If you want to see what Fitness Lab would create for you specifically, your exact training approach, your nutrition strategy, the whole roadmap, go to wins and weights.com slash app. Take the free two minute onboarding quiz, and you'll see the entire custom plan before you pay for anything. That way you know it's right for you. And of course, through January 2nd, right now, you'll get 20% off with our holiday promo. Just go to wits and weights.comslash app. Wits and weights.com slash app. All right, I'll see you on Monday.