The Plan Isn’t The Problem

Philip Pape 0:00

Hey, Wits and Weights family, quick bonus episode. This is Philip, and I want to chat about something on my mind, a little bit unscripted here, something somewhat under-discussed when it comes to what you're trying to do with fat loss. And that is that the plan is almost never the problem. The problem is what happens between the plan and when you execute your real life. But more specifically than that, I want to put it in the context of coaching. Think about when you hire a coach, any kind of coach, it could be nutrition coach, strength training, like a personal trainer, maybe you're a runner or powerlifter, whatever, you're basically paying for two things. You're paying for their expertise, who they are as a human, what they know, their credentials, their experience. And then you're also paying for their availability. And the expertise side is where you hear a lot of the pitching happen in terms of trying to differentiate themselves. You know, this coach has worked with X number of clients, they know this protocol or method, maybe they're an expert in hormones, whatever. That's influencer world 101 today, right? And of course that matters. You do want the right person. I know plenty of, you know, terrible coaches and plenty of people who will ghost you. But the availability part, I think, drives a disproportionate amount of the actual outcome. Again, when you're trying to get help from someone else. And this can apply to any area of life, but we, of course, are talking about fitness nutrition. And we kind of accept that, okay, if you're going to work with a coach, it works this way. You've got, say, weekly check-ins or monthly calls or Voxer or messaging channel where you can send something in, or maybe it's a group setting with posts, right? And I have forums just like that when I work with clients. And that's not a knock on coaches or anybody. That's that's the world we live in when it comes to availability, human bandwidth, right? How much time you you have as a client and also how much time your coach has. A really good coach is gonna have 10 tend to have more clients and they're running their business, they have a life, they're trying to be efficient, but also help you as much as possible. So there's this practical limit, and what you get for it

The Coaching Availability Gap

Philip Pape 2:05

is hey, you don't have a coach that could stand next to you 24-7. It's like the psychiatrist on call, right? Or the sponsor, or just if you were a Hollywood actor and you were prepping for a role, you might have a coach with you literally 24-7, but none of nobody else has that. Okay. And real life doesn't make it easy, does it, to schedule around these types of things, these check-ins. So there's this fundamental limitation or problem in coaching. It's kind of an engineering problem in my mind. And if we take a real world example when it comes to nutrition, I could tell you to the cows come home, hey, you need to plan ahead. If you're gonna go in the middle of the week and you're gonna have a stressful week and you can't bring your lunch for whatever reason because you're out and about for work and you need to go to Chipotle, for example, okay, plan ahead, know that you're going there, look at the menu, know what you want to get. But in reality, sometimes that doesn't happen. So I want to speak to the cases where that doesn't happen, where you're kind of caught, caught off guard, which happens a lot in life, sometimes due to things out of your control. And of course, you don't have a coach sitting next to you, right? And this is where, this is where tools can come in. I'm gonna get to that in a second. But going to this like Chipotle example, I like Chipotle. I didn't like it when they had that neurovirus years ago, but I came back to them. And, you know, I do love having a lot of protein and a protein bowl, uh, or a nice burrito if I really need the carbs and I'm bulking, for example. But if let's say you actually do have a coach you're working with, or you're in a group program or something like that, you're not gonna be able to like reach out to them in the moment when you're at Chipotle at 12:30 on a Tuesday trying to order something and you didn't plan for it. And maybe this, maybe it's your first time at Chipotle, it was just next to work, whatever. And then there's things like, hey, last night was a stress-eating night. Today's decision is gonna really affect the rest of the week. And the time that you would actually need help from another person, like a wingman or wingwoman or a coach, is the time when you can't have somebody next to you. And so, where am I going with all this? What's my rambling

Tools For Decisions Under Pressure

Philip Pape 4:06

about? I this is a problem I was trying to solve when I built my app Fitness Lab. This is this is what I'm getting at is the I've been thinking a lot about tools, right? We have GLP1s as tools now. We have, of course, you know, our barbells and tracking apps and things like that as tools. But the gap for a lot of people, it isn't it isn't information, that's for sure. Information's free. It also isn't often tracking. So a lot of people call in or listen or who listen to this show, they know the value of tracking for awareness, whether it's on paper, in a spreadsheet, in macro factor, in a in a workout app, whatever. And there's plenty of tools for that as well. So the missing piece is hey, could you have a something like a coach in the moment when the decision is there in front of you and you can't realistically afford to have someone on call to help you make good decisions and not make decisions after the fact. In other words, not just do the thing and then go back and diagnose it afterward, which is a good thing to do, but what if you could be proactive? So here's what I want to tell you about. We just released the spring version of Fitness Lab with a ton of new features. And there's one feature I want to talk about right now that relates to this gap, this

Pre-Meal Coaching

Philip Pape 5:14

problem. It's a new feature in the daily activities called pre-meal coaching. It's part of the meal coaching activity. It used to be called nutrition check-in or something. It's called meal coaching because you can have the option to do pre-meal or post-meal coaching. Up until now, you would log the meal after you ate and then you get some coaching on it. And of course, you could take a picture before you ate and it would tell you what's in it. But now it's specifically designed that before you take that first bite and you pick the pre-meal coach and then take a picture of what's in front of you or what's in the menu or whatever, you will get a structured, I'll say, coaching feedback in the moment to make that decision. Now it might sound simplistic, like duh, you could always do that with ChatGPT or whatever and just whip up your phone, but it's more sophisticated that. I'm gonna walk you through real quickly what it looks like. So let's say you're at Chipotle and you are about to order and you have options in front of you. You could take a picture of the menu, is probably the easiest way to do this, but you can also describe, or if you have a picture of whatever it is from their menu, you can do that as well. So if let's say you typed it out, you're like, okay, I'm gonna get the Chipotle bowl, double chicken, rice, beans, cheese, sour cream. And then you'll immediately get back a structured response. By immediately, I mean within a few seconds, the app is super fast. It used to be slower, we've gotten it faster and faster and faster. It's very fast. And you get three parts. The first is what the app calls protein and portion alignment. Basically, how does this thing you're considering line up with what you actually need right now, based on your goals and what you've been eating? Or, or it'll take the menu and suggest something that aligns. That's the cool part. The second is then a concrete adjustment. This is your action. Now, this action could be on what to choose, or let's say you caught it a little bit too late, you already ordered something, you take a picture, it might say, Hey, eat three quarters of this and save the rest, or skip the sour cream because your fats are running high, or something like that. Although it's better if you can be ahead of it. Something specific, okay, before you actually eat the thing. And then the third piece is like the broader coaching pattern level insights. Like, hey, this is a classic high protein meal. It's energy energy dense. Here's what to watch if you're eating for a couple times this week. Maybe in the future you want to do this, uh, blah, blah, blah. Okay, so it's super comprehensive, but also very fast and in the moment helps you make a decision. And then if you want to go deeper, there is a discuss further button, and then you get into the full chat where you're like, hey, how do I balance my meals like this during the week? Do you have any tips for eating out, whatever? And it asks really good clarifying questions. So, unlike ChatGPT, where you don't quite know what to say next, it's all on you. Our app will actually very specifically give you choices to answer after each one if you'd like, or you can type freeform because it's trained on everything I know, on my data, on my philosophy, on the podcast, on the evidence. People say it often feels like chatting with me, which is the point, because I can't be that 24-7 on call coach for all of you. And even folks who are in our coaching program where we teach you to do this stuff for yourself, the app can be complimentary if you're looking for that real time. Like I need something right now that's going to align with this. So that's coaching in the moment. That's what a good human coach would do if you were able to have access to them right next to you. Except they're not because they can't be, because that's not how real life works unless you have thousands of dollars to put to blow. And so that's that's the shift I wanted to talk about today. It's not tracking, it's not having like a better plan. It's having this real-time coaching at decision points where you often get off track. It's a great pattern interrupt. And this works at other decision points too. You could do it while you're grocery shopping and deciding between options. You could do it for a form check right in the middle of your workout. Drop in a video. Our chat now handles video and audio. You can throw in Google Sheets, you can do whatever. Even in the moment, you can say, Hey, am I pushing hard enough in the gym? So think of it that way as like I can have a real nutrition and strength coach with me at all times. Answer my question whenever I want, in a much more sophisticated, rapid, and contextual way than say going to Chat GPT or something like that. All right. So I

Recap

Philip Pape 9:19

this almost sounds like a commercial for my app because it kind of is, because I'm very excited and passionate about it, and I think it's gonna help a lot of people. And right now we're in the middle of the spring promo. So it's 20% off all of our plans, and it runs through this Friday, May 8th. So if you're getting this when this episode comes out, there's about a week to go. Pre-meal coaching is part of it, along with this smarter coach chat that I mentioned, along with Apple Health Integration. And oh, here's a bonus I didn't even mention. There's a brand new Saturday meal planning activity that will help you walk through your week in just a few minutes. So that's been super helpful as well. Link is in the show notes or you can go to witsandweights.com slash app. After Friday, it goes back to full price. So if you're curious, this is the week to try it out. Check it out. Witsandweights.com slash app. All right, until next time, keep using your wits, lifting those weights. And remember, the coaching that matters most is the one that you actually have the most access to. I'm Philip Pape, and I'll talk to you next time here on the Wits and Weights podcast.