November 3, 2025 • 38 mins
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Your body isn't listening. You train consistently, watch your protein, do everything the evidence says, but body recomposition isn't happening.
The problem isn't your effort. It's the signal between your actions and your physiology.
Discover the 5 biggest body recomp mistakes keeping intelligent, hard-working lifters stuck at the same body fat and muscle mass for months.
You'll get specific fixes to align your training, nutrition, and recovery so your body can actually build muscle and lose fat simultaneously... even if you're over 40.
Episode Resources
- Try MacroFactor free for 2 weeks with code WITSANDWEIGHTS at witsandweights.com/macrofactor
Timestamps
0:00 - Why your body ignores your effort despite consistent training
2:49 - Mistake #1: Eating like you're dieting instead of building muscle
8:17 - Mistake #2: Training to burn calories instead of build muscle
13:42 - Mistake #3: Ignoring recovery and sleep
23:20 - Mistake #4: Tracking the wrong metrics
28:25 - Mistake #5: Expecting rapid results
🔥 Take a 2-minute Metabolic Quiz for a personalized fat loss report (strength training & nutrition strategies)
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👥 Join our Facebook community for fitness & body recomp strategies
👋 Ask a question or find Philip Pape on Instagram
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Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Philip Pape (00:01):
Do you ever feel like your body isn't listening
despite consistent training,watching your protein, doing
what the evidence says to do,and yet body recomposition,
building muscle, losing fat issomehow not happening.
What's probably breaking downis that signal between your
actions and your physiology.
It's not because you don't havethe effort.
It is probably because yourbody is receiving the wrong
(00:24):
message, which then leads to thewrong outcome and frustration.
Today I'm walking you throughthe five biggest body recomp
mistakes that I see keepingintelligent, hardworking lifters
stuck at the same body fat andmuscle mounts in the specific
fixes that align your training,nutrition, and recovery.
Welcome to Wits and Weights,the show that helps you build a
(00:57):
strong, healthy physique usingevidence, engineering, and
efficiency.
I'm your host, Philip Pape, andtoday we are again talking
about body recomposition,building muscle, and losing fat,
and the frustration when you'renot able to achieve it.
Especially if you are puttingin effort, especially if that
effort is consistent.
Solid training, on-pointnutrition, and yet things aren't
(01:18):
changing.
Now, if you're not doing thosethings, that to me is the easy
part.
That's the low-hanging fruit.
Even consistency, which I talkabout a lot as one of the most
critical variables, is still notgoing to buy you the result if
you're not consistent in theright things.
And maybe you're doing onething, like you're able to lose
a little bit of fat, but youfeel like you haven't gained any
muscle definition, or you'vegained a little muscle, but you
(01:40):
can't seem to drop that fat.
This is kind of the bodycomposition problem that is
really common as we get older,especially over 40 lifters over
40 who are smart like you, youlisten to podcasts, you
understand the evidence, youknow what protein synthesis is,
you might even be tracking yourlifts and your nutrition, and
somehow your body's not quiteresponding.
Now, I'm not talking aboutcorner cases or specific medical
(02:01):
or healthcare issues relatedto, for example, hormones or
something going on in your bloodwork.
I'm not talking that today.
Today I'm talking about reallythe big mistakes that people are
making that will uh quickly getyou over a hump to start making
progress.
And so it's not about workingharder, it's not about your
effort, it's not dedication.
And again, it's not justconsistency.
It's there are misalignments inyour approach that compound
(02:25):
over time.
You feel like you're doing allthis stuff, your body just let's
say it adapts to maintain whereit is instead of to transform.
And that is really tough for alot of us.
So I'm gonna break down fivecommon body recomp mistakes that
create this situation.
These are not just beginnererrors, these are mistakes that
very informed, intelligentpeople make, and I'm gonna give
(02:46):
you the fixes that will makethem work.
So let's get into it.
Mistake number one is you areeating like you are dieting
instead of recomping.
Now, this is a there's somenuance here, okay?
This is actually the number onemistake I see.
People hear body recompositionand they think, okay, I need to
train harder.
That's the muscle side.
(03:06):
I need to eat less and I needto diet to lose fat and kind of
do them together.
And they often drop intobasically a fat loss phase,
which is usually some sort ofcalorie deficit, often an
aggressive deficit, thinking,okay, that's how I can do both
at the same time.
And there's a lot of peoplethat talk about body recomp from
the dieting perspective.
But I think the problem is thateven a moderately aggressive
(03:30):
calorie deficit is gonna highlysuppress your muscle protein
synthesis beyond the beginnerstage.
Again, we're not talking aboutthe beginners.
When you first start, yourbody's very responsive.
You gain those few pounds ofmuscle, and maybe you could lose
some fat, right?
And that's great.
But we're talking about peoplewho have hit a wall.
And when any deficit at all,especially if it's reasonable,
you know, reasonably high, Ishould say, is going to impair
(03:52):
your recovery, which reducesyour performance in the gym.
And yes, you might start losingweight on the scale and
dropping some body fat and atbest holding on to muscle, but
you're probably not building amuscle.
And I talk all the time aboutthe importance of a muscle-first
approach.
And this really defeats thepurpose of recomp.
Now you might say, oh, what ifI want to lean out first and
(04:13):
then build muscle?
You can definitely do that.
You can definitely do that.
Okay.
And for somebody who's carryingextra weight, maybe they're not
happy with the layer of fatthey have in their body.
I'm not against that approach.
You know, setting things up forabout a month or two, then
going into a fat loss phasefirst and then going to
building.
I'm not against that.
What I'm against here isconstantly trying to bias your
(04:34):
approach toward that dietingside, thinking that, okay, the
muscle's gonna slowly buildbecause I'm training hard,
right?
I'm training in the gym, likePhilip says.
And, but I really need to losethat fat.
And you kind of get stuck in arut between the two directions.
If you were to do a veryaggressive fat loss phase and
just like focus and get it done,and then do a very, you know,
(04:55):
moderate to aggressive musclebuilding phase, I wouldn't be
judging, I'm not judging.
This wouldn't be an issuebecause it probably would work
for you.
Okay.
But a lot of you are just notspending the time building
muscle.
You are always eating likeyou're dieting, even when, even
when you're not quite in adeficit, if that makes any
sense.
All right.
We we look at the research,right?
(05:16):
When we talk about muscle gain,we know that we need a neutral
or slightly positive energybalance.
Even in successful recompstudies, the participants are
always eating at or nearmaintenance with high protein
intake, progressive resistancetraining.
You're not in a deep deficit,right?
I this is kind of what I'mtrying to get across.
It's an input-output problem.
Your body needs enough energyto fuel the training, the
(05:38):
recovery, the energy-intensiveprocess of building new muscle.
And if you don't do that,you're gonna stall.
So even if you're like, hey,but I want to lose fat as well,
if you are in a deficit, you'repretty much only gonna lose fat.
You're not gonna build muchmuscle.
You might build a little tinybit, but it's just gonna be
negligible.
It's not gonna be what you aregoing for.
When people say, hey, I don'tsee definition in my muscles
(05:58):
yet, and I've been doing thisfor a year or two, on that time
scale, you're not going to seeit unless you give it that time
to build muscle.
And so I think the sweet spotfor a lot of people is your
maintenance calories or veryclose to it.
I personally like aggressivemaintenance, which is going a
little bit above that, makingsure there's that high protein
signal, plenty of carbs to fuelenergy and recovery, right?
(06:19):
We know the protein piece iscritical.
Somewhere between 0.7 and onegrams per pound is kind of
optimal.
But if you want to push that alittle bit more and see how you
respond, not against that forsome people in terms of
experimentation, right?
And so if you don't have muscleto begin with, why are you just
trying to preserve the muscleyou have rather than trying to
add new muscle?
So the fix here, I think, isyes, you should be tracking your
(06:42):
food in some capacity so youunderstand what your maintenance
calories are, whether you usemacrofactor or whether you just
do it, you know, over time,keeping your weight fairly
stable and eating at the what ittakes to do that.
You you've got to kind of knowwhere that level is so you're
not accidentally dieting orgaining too much weight.
And then you want to keep thecalories pretty much there.
It's consistency is a loteasier to get to when you're
(07:04):
trying to maintain at that levelor a little bit higher and
really feel fueled.
But you're also gonna look atyour biofeedback, you know, your
weight trend, yourmeasurements, your performance
in the gym.
If you're not gaining strength,something has to be adjusted.
And if you're eating likeyou're in a fat loss phase,
thinking you're gonna recomp,you're not recomping.
You're gonna be in anaggressive deficit, have low
(07:26):
energy, both actual energycoming in and probably the
biofeedback of energy.
And that's just kind of aninefficient way to be quote
unquote dieting.
So again, if you're trying torecomp, if you're actually
trying to recomp, try to get atleast a maintenance, if not an
aggressive maintenance.
We covered all this in the90-day body recomp workshop in
physique university.
And you could always jump in ifyou're a member listening, you
(07:47):
can go find that replay from Ithink it was August, September,
August?
No, I think it was August.
And if you're not in, you couldalways join and go grab that.
And it has the whole processfor doing this, including the
aggressive maintenance.
But I think that's the firstand biggest mistake and probably
the easiest one for a lot ofyou to fix.
I get there's fear aroundgaining weight.
That's a whole differentsituation.
But if you're not in ameaningful surplus, you're not
(08:08):
gonna gain much weight at all.
And if anything, you're gonnajust accidentally lose some fat
along for the ride when you'renot focusing on eating like you
are dieting.
All right, mistake number twois that when you exercise, when
you train, when you move, you'realways thinking about burning
calories and you're not thinkingabout muscle.
So notice the pattern here,okay?
You know, you're listening towits and weights.
(08:30):
You know strength training isimportant.
If you don't, I'm telling youright now, it is probably the
number one thing you can do ifyou're not doing it.
Everybody should be liftingweights, in my opinion, pretty
much to the day you die.
And you've got to lift.
You've got to lift.
But the mindset has to go alongfor the ride.
And that means a mindset oftraining to improve and progress
and get stronger and buildmuscle, not going to the gym and
(08:52):
exercising, not going to thegym just to burn calories.
Even when you are doing cardio,believe it or not, you
shouldn't be thinking in termsof burning calories so much as
supporting your muscle buildingand your recovery and your
fitness and your mobility andall the things except that.
And I know it's hard to dobecause we're so fixated on the
old paradigm of, you know, eatless, move more, you exercise to
(09:16):
lose weight, and you do it toburn calories.
When in reality, that usuallyhas the opposite effect.
And so when you're doing theYouTube style workouts, circuit
training, you're doing around,you know, as many reps as
possible, no rest periods, allof that, thinking it's going to
somehow help your fat loss orburning more calories, it
usually backfires, it usuallystalls out your muscle building,
and it usually sends the wrongsignal to your body that you are
(09:37):
an endurance machine ratherthan a muscle, you know,
strength machine.
And your calories actually comedown, you know, in terms of
your expenditure, metabolism,right?
And then it gets frustratingbecause you don't see the
results you want, you don't seethe muscle definition.
And a lot of you out there Iknow are not training the right
way.
I work with new clients all thetime who've been going to the
gym.
Maybe they have a trainer.
A lot of these trainers aregood, many of them not so good.
(10:00):
And I'll give them a program.
And unless I'm very carefulabout prescribing exactly what
to do, I will see some mistakes,like, and and some of you know
who you are, so I'm not gonnacall out names, where they'll
see five exercises with threesets each, and they'll do all
five exercises for one set andthey'll rotate around and do it
two more times, kind of like acircuit.
And I have to, I have to remindremind myself that this is
(10:23):
where a lot of people come from.
And I have to kind of reteachthe idea that no, you do one
exercise, you go through all thesets, and you have sufficient
rest period because the goalhere is to train really hard to
get in the volume and also thatmuscular tension to grow.
And then you go to the next oneand the next one.
Sure, there's place forsupersets and all that.
We're not gonna get into thison this episode, but the point
of training is to build thatstrength and build that muscle,
(10:46):
not to burn calories becausethat's not gonna optimize muscle
growth thinking that way.
Muscle growth requiresmechanical tension, progressive
overload.
You have to lift heavy enoughweights through a full range of
motion, enough rest between setsto recover and maintain
performance.
And when you're lifting heavylike that, when you have rest
periods like that, you're gonnafind that training feels a
little bit slower and moremindful.
It almost feels less hard froma work capacity and a cardio or
(11:11):
heart rate perspective, but itshould feel more hard from a
pure strength effortperspective.
And many people find that thatis a really fun, amazing change.
I hear it all the time fromclients like, whoa, I really
like doing sets of five or eightinstead of 12 or 15.
You know, I really like thatbecause it's hard in a different
(11:32):
way.
It's hard in a more satisfying,thrilling kind of way that I'm
getting strong and I'm reallypushing these heavy weights.
And I have to be mindful andfocus on my form and that
tension and that neutrality, myback and the skill of the thing,
which becomes its own sense ofpersonal growth and satisfaction
while also serving the purposeof building your muscles and
(11:55):
your strength, right?
And your body's gonna respondto the quality and type of
stress that you apply, not tothe quantity of energy that you
burn during a workout.
And by the way, interestingly,when you are doing really heavy
lifts, oftentimes you burn justas many calories anyway.
You don't really realize it.
Your heart rate gets jacked up.
(12:16):
I don't want to say thatlifting is cardio, although I
want to do an episode that'skind of on that theme, but it
accounts for much of that hearthealth and cardio and calorie
burn, even though that is notthe point.
So, going back to you think ofstrength training or even
bodybuilding, where you're gonnahave two, three, four minutes
of rest between heavy compoundlifts, that is because you're
(12:38):
focused on the intensity.
By intensity, I mean the weighton the bar and getting that
mechanical tension with as manymuscle fibers as possible.
And that requires you to be aswell rested and training hard as
possible.
So if you train for musclesinstead of calories, if you
structure your training, notyour exercise, you're not your
workouts, even though I use theword workouts a lot, you're
(12:59):
training around that constantimprovement, plenty of rest,
plenty of performance, plenty ofeffort, right?
Good form, you're gonna begood.
You're gonna be good.
If you need to increase yourexpenditure, that usually
happens outside the gym.
Walking more, getting moresleep, less stress, not eating
like you're dieting all thetime.
(13:20):
Go back to mistake number one.
And honestly, when you trainproperly for muscle growth, your
body composition is then goingto improve faster anyway,
because you're gonna see muchmore of that muscle definition.
Muscle itself is moremetabolically expensive.
Your expenditure might even goup just from that.
Not a lot from that, but mypoint is the fact that you're
training in that way is gonnacascade everything else.
(13:42):
Okay, let's go to mistakenumber three, and that is that
you are ignoring recovery andsleep.
I can talk about this enough,but he but it's potentially
could be the number one mistakefor some of you, at least the
most underrated of the five.
And that is because thetraining that you do in the gym
is a tiny slice of your week.
What you do outside the gym iswhat really supports the
(14:05):
adaptations, the muscle growth.
You know, we know thatnutrition supports all this as
well, obviously.
But recovery and rest isactually gonna jack up your
insulin sensitivity, yournutrient partitioning, your fat
loss, it's gonna reduce yourbelly fat, it's gonna help with
your recovery and blood flow,it's gonna reduce your soreness,
(14:25):
and the list goes on.
We know that your hormones getwacky when you are restricted
with your sleep.
Getting less than six hoursevery night, if you are a less
than six hour sleeper, I wantyou to put this at the top of
your list.
How can you get more and betterquality sleep?
Or else you are hampering yourtestosterone, your cortisol,
your reproductive hormones, yourhunger hormones, you're gonna
(14:47):
impact muscle synthesis, bluntyour glyc, you know, how you
restore glycogen.
It sabotages every adaptationyou're trying to create with
your training, thus making it somuch less efficient that I'm
not gonna say what's the point.
I'm just gonna say why wouldyou do that?
Chronic stress does the samething.
When your cortisol is alwaysjacked up, you're in this
catabolic state.
Your body wants to break downtissue to grab more energy that
(15:10):
it's lacking because you're notgetting enough uh rest in that
parasympathetic state, right?
So your recovery capacity thenplummets, your performance then
suffers.
It's kind of a vicious cycle.
Recovery itself is a multiplierand it goes both ways.
You can't out train a systemthat's under-recovered.
I'm actually doing an episodeWednesday all about the, what is
(15:32):
it called?
It's all about the prioritiesin your hypertrophy or in your
training.
I forget the title that I'mgiving it.
This is a terrible sales pitch.
But it's about what should youprioritize in what order when it
comes to your strengthtraining.
And not even on that listbecause it's overriding
everything and almost makes thelist less relevant, is your
recovery.
(15:52):
In other words, it's not on thelist because it's part of
everything.
It's like the foundation ofeverything, right?
Your parasympathetic nervoussystem, this is the rest and
digest system, is what drivestissue repair and hormonal
balance, homeostasis.
It's the foundation of bodycomposition or recomposition.
But if you're in this highstress, jacked up fight or
flight state, constantlytraining, constantly exercising,
(16:13):
constantly stressed, you'renever going to activate that
system long enough to reallyhelp those adaptations.
You're gonna blunt lots ofthings.
So if you are listening to thisand you're like, oh my God,
that could be the reason I'm notseeing my muscles start to pop
and get defined.
Even if I lost a little bodyfat, for some reason my training
seems to be going to waste alittle bit.
Maybe it's because you'reunderrecovered.
I mean, it doesn't take a lotof under-recovery for this to be
(16:33):
a big problem.
The fix, of course, is toprioritize your sleep.
That's the big one foreveryone.
Seven to nine hours,non-negotiable, and doing all
the things with yourenvironment, with your pre-sleep
ritual, with the things we talkabout over and over again.
And I hope you you keeplistening to this podcast and
it'll kind of sink in over timehow important this is.
Because hearing it just once,you're like, okay, sleep fine.
I'm not gonna do anything aboutthat.
(16:54):
What's the next, what's thenext uh secret, Philip?
Okay, no, this is the bigsecret because it has everything
to do with your trainingperformance and your hunger
hormones, your belly fat.
Hey, look, if you got too muchbelly fat and you want to drop
that belly fat, improve yoursleep.
All right.
The second thing is some of youare never taking rest days.
You've got to take at leastone, if not two, if not three,
full rest days per week.
(17:14):
And I mean a real rest day, notthis quote unquote active
recovery day that is so popularwhere you're still doing a light
workout or you're going for arun or doing some intense
cardio.
Okay.
If you've got things dialed in,if things are optimized, having
sprinting or some form ofcardio on those days is cool.
But a lot of you just overdoingit and you're in the gym seven
(17:34):
days a week.
And I would strip it all theway back to three full body days
if you've never done thatbefore, and just see what it
does for your recovery and yourresults.
You might find, here's thething.
Imagine this (17:44):
you go to three days and you do that for let's
say eight weeks, eight weeks.
That's like two months.
See what happens to yourstrength and your muscle.
If it improves, what that tellsyou is that you can get a
result on this like minimum setof time in the gym and maximum
set of rest.
And that's a great startingpoint to build from.
(18:05):
Because then, okay, if you wantto add another day in, you kind
of know what you're comparingto.
And if it gives you a littlemore, great, but it's not
probably gonna give you as muchas just the fact that you have
all that recovery.
And then maybe you go to fivedays max, but that's it.
That's it.
Have those full rest days builtinto there.
Your body needs that break toconsolidate those adaptations.
And then the third thing herein this thing about recovery is
(18:27):
the use of auto-regulation.
What is that?
Auto regulation sounds like oneof those fancy engineering
words.
It's actually a commonly usedtraining term where you adjust
your training to yourperformance capability that day.
Now, I have to be very clear,it's not just a willy-nilly how
I feel, like, oh, I'm kind oftired today or I don't feel too
(18:47):
strong today, so I'm just gonnago half-acid on my workout.
It's more like if you if theweights feel are start feeling
really heavy and you're draggingand and you've done the things,
and maybe you haven't done thethings, maybe you had a bunch of
alcohol last night, maybe youdidn't sleep in, maybe you're
hungover, maybe you ate too muchlast night, whatever.
Okay, you warm up as if you'regonna train at your programmed
(19:11):
level.
And then if the objectivesignal is telling you that you
don't quite have the capacitythat day, auto-regulation is
saying, okay, how do I regulateautomatically to that situation,
but still train hard?
And what that might look like,it might look like a little
reset in your lifts, in yourweights.
(19:32):
It might, but it might simplybe you get a you get a rep less,
right?
Or you drop the weights on setstwo and three to get the reps,
like things like that whereyou're still training really
hard, keeping that intensityhigh, and there's just some
little give in the load orvolume or some variable, as
opposed to taking it all off orcompletely dialing back and not
(19:55):
really getting much out of yoursession.
That makes sense.
So, like if you are in a fatloss phase, auto-reg, there are
auto-regulated ways to trainthat allow you to train your
hardest knowing that you havelimited resources.
If you fix mistake number onethat I talked about today, like
not always being in a dietingmode and you're actually eating
enough and fueling yourselfenough, you shouldn't have to
auto-regulate in the same wayyou would in fat loss.
(20:17):
However, some days you are justnot gonna have the energy,
you're gonna be stressed out ofyour mind, maybe you didn't have
enough sleep.
So you've basically givenyourself a downgrade because you
didn't do the other things,right?
You didn't do the recovery.
And that's okay, it happens.
I'm not saying you have to beperfect, I'm saying that
happens.
And then it's almost likeyou're temporarily in a fat loss
phase.
And the question is, what areyou gonna do about it?
Now, some people may decide,you know what, since I'm working
(20:40):
out three days a week, I've gotfour rest days, I can shift, I
can shift out one day.
You may need to do that.
That may actually be thebeneficial choice to make.
But auto-regulation can bevery, very helpful as a way to
incorporate proper recovery oradjust to your recovery
capacity, right?
And since we're talking aboutrecovery, I did want to take a
(21:01):
quick break to talk aboutsomething that has been really
awesome for my own recovery.
I just talked about howcritical sleep is for body
recomposition.
You know, all of thatadaptation, the muscle growth,
the fat loss happens duringrecovery.
And we talked about quantity ofsleep, but we also need to talk
about the quality of yoursleep.
And I just want to talk rightnow about one thing that I
(21:23):
started using, oh, about threemonths ago.
My kids love it because theythey're like, uh looks like
mommy put on the uh, the cozyearth sheets.
They're they're they're veryspecial set of sheets compared
to the other ones I have.
They're made from viscos frombamboo.
And it's kind of weird becausethey cool you down, right?
They take the heat out.
(21:44):
And it's winter now.
And I thought, okay, does thatmean they're gonna be freezing
cold?
No, it's like that sense ofrelaxing, cool, but having the
comforter on top of it stillkeeps you overall warm, if that
makes any sense.
And I think the differencebetween those and other sheets
is extremely, I'll say, I'll saypalpable, right?
They they're they're verybreathable, they're like silky,
(22:06):
but not in that sweaty, likeactual silk.
They're actually like veryglide, they glide and they're
soft.
And what I like them because Iget really hot at night and they
help me stay cool through thenight, which means deeper sleep,
better recovery.
And man, my HRV, my stats on myaura ring all seem to improve
when we have those sheets on thebed.
So I'm telling my wife I needto get a few more sets.
(22:28):
Right.
And if you're again, if you'relooking at those things that can
help you rest well and reallymake the most of the sleep where
you optimize the use of yourprotein, you know, you reduce
the hunger, help with your bellyfat, and all that.
I would think about these typesof things.
So I'm a big fan of cozy earthsheets.
If you go to wits andweights.com slash cozy earth,
(22:49):
you can use my code wits andweights at check out and get 20%
off.
They have sheets.
They also have a lot of otherproducts you can check out, but
the sheets are absolutely myfavorite, all different colors.
Go to witsandweights.com slashcozy earth.
Use my code wits and weightsfor 20% off.
By the way, when you go to thatsite, it's gonna show you the
code as well, in case you forgetit.
So just use the link in theshow notes or go to
witsandweights.com slash cozyearth for those oh so
(23:13):
comfortable, oh so cooling,bamboo derived sheets from Cozy
Earth.
All right.
Mistake number four is thatyou're not measuring the right
things, the my right metrics.
And this is where the peoplelistening, you you, the
listener, you know, you'reprobably listening to wits and
weights because you like dataefficiency, maybe that
(23:34):
engineering mindset that I tryto bring to this process.
And you probably trackingcertain things.
But what I find talking topeople on calls and new clients
that come into physicsuniversity, for example, is
they're not necessarily trackingthe right things or the things
that they're tracking, they'renot using them the right way.
Let's talk about scale weight,for example.
A lot of misconceptions.
A lot of you are only trackingscale weight sporadically, or
(23:57):
like once a week or once amonth.
And the problem with those isyou can get a high point or a
low point, and it doesn'tactually tell you what's going
on with body fat because thosehigh and low points can be
multiple pounds in eitherdirection or kilograms based on
water fluctuation.
And so I'm a huge fan ofweighing yourself every day
because then you can take asmoothed average over time to
(24:19):
tell you what's actuallyhappening with the deep down
storage of fat, which is hard tomeasure in the short term.
It takes about three weeks tomeasure a change there.
That's why I think the processis more important than the data
sometimes, but they kind of gohand in hand.
And body recomp in particular,where you're trying to lose
muscle and gain fat, or you'retrying to gain muscle and lose
(24:40):
fat at the same time, your scaleweight might stay the same.
And that's not gonna tell youmuch, is it?
So, you know, yeah, that's onething, at least to know that
you're not gaining or losing toomuch.
But then you need the otherstuff, your, you know,
circumference measurements.
I mean, honestly, if you justhad to pick one, I would go with
your waist at the navel, at thenavel.
That alone, if that's dropping,you're losing fat.
(25:02):
And so if your weight's thesame, the waist is dropping.
That's a great leadingindicator of body composition
change, especially if then youhave indications of muscle
growth, like your biceps aregoing up, your chest is going
up, right?
I usually use about six oreight different data points when
I work with clients.
Um, we have this thing calledthe biofeedback or physique and
biofeedback tracker in physiqueuniversity.
(25:23):
It's basically a spreadsheetwhere if you put these
measurements in, it'll measureyour body fat, your lean mass,
your fat-free mass index, andit'll also show you what's
happening from one data point tothe next to kind of understand,
okay, over this body recompphase, I've had roughly this
muscle to fat ratio of change.
And I think that's reallyimportant because it gives you a
nice boost of motivation whenyou say, look, my scale weight
(25:46):
hasn't changed.
It's hard to see the change inthe mirror because you don't
notice change unless you go andlook at a before and after photo
over a decent amount of time.
And so something likecircumference measurements give
you a fairly rapid indicator.
And by rapid, I mean overseveral weeks, not you know, day
to day, obviously.
I mentioned photos.
I think progress photos can bemoderately helpful.
(26:07):
Ironically, I think they'remore helpful when someone else
is looking at them, yet that'swhat we are most probably
embarrassed to do.
If you're a private client ofmine, you know, that's part of
the process.
And I get you would feelprobably safest in that
environment being one-to-one.
If you're more in a biggersetting or a group setting, it's
not necessarily something youwant to do.
(26:28):
But I wouldn't discourage it inif if you wear appropriate
clothing and want to say, hey,here's where I was eight weeks
ago, here's where I am now.
Here's what I'm noticing aboutmyself.
Hey guys, what do you notice?
And and, you know, assumingthis is in a safe place where
people give you constructivepositive feedback, which I tell
you, any group that I run isgoing to be like that, or you're
(26:48):
out.
So if, you know, anybodylistening who's in physique
university, go ahead and postyour photos in whatever channel
makes sense and let us know, youknow, objectively what we are
looking for.
Are we are we looking to get abigger back?
Are we looking to get, youknow, more defined shoulders?
Are you looking to just dropbody fat and start showing your
six pack?
Right, those kinds of thingscan be indicators of what is
(27:10):
going on.
And sometimes only other peoplecan see them.
Uh, the next thing is reallyyour performance.
And performance is usually yourlifting progress.
Are you adding weight, addingreps and weight, you know,
because here's the other thingpeople say, look, I don't see it
too much in my in the mirror.
My waist hasn't changed thatmuch, but my numbers have get
(27:30):
gone up and up and up and up.
And a lot of times when thathappens, you've got a little bit
of a layer of fat that's beenthere the whole time.
And now your muscles underneathhave been building and getting
bigger, and you still don'tquite see the definition you
want.
That's the point at which,well, I know my fat-free mass
index has gone up.
I know I built some moremuscle.
(27:50):
Well, maybe now if I do a fatloss phase, I can reveal some of
that and I can be kind of put aput a bow on this whole process
to reveal what I've got, right?
So sometimes that's what ittakes is a combination of these
metrics, comprehensive trackingsystem with some key things that
make a lot of sense.
That's it.
That's really what this mistakeis that a lot of you are not
measuring the right things.
You're measuring scale weightsporadically, you're not
(28:13):
tracking your lifts, you'refocused too much on, say, the
mirror and feeling, you know,mirror or or maybe comparing
yourself to other people orwhatever.
Things that are not objectivethat really tell you what's
going on.
All right.
Mistake number five is you'reexpecting rapid results.
Yep.
I said it.
This is the one that's aboutmindset more than anything.
(28:36):
It's not about tactics, butit's extremely important because
you're expecting a quickresult.
I'm not talking about one week,I get it, but whatever you're
expecting, it's probably tooquick in general.
In fact, I'd like you whenyou're listening to this to ask
yourself if what you'reexpecting is realistic.
Because when you decide youwant to recomp, you want to
(28:57):
build muscle and lose fat,you're over 40, whatever, and
you set up your training, youdial in the nutrition, you start
executing the plan, and thenthree weeks goes by, four weeks
goes by, and it it feels likenothing has changed.
And this definitely ties intosome of the other fix mistakes
we've already talked about,doesn't it?
Because body recomposition bydefinition is inherently slow.
(29:21):
I shouldn't say by definition,that doesn't, that's
meaningless.
But the here's here's the thingthe bottleneck is the muscle.
It takes long, a long time tobuild muscle, no matter what,
even if you are intentionally ina surplus trying to build
muscle.
So if you now slow that down bystaying closer to maintenance
to try to get recomp out of it,you're slowing that process down
(29:41):
even further.
And because you're not anaggressive deficit, you're not
necessarily losing fat.
And even if you were, you don'thave the muscle yet, right?
It's kind of a catch 22.
So by saying that, hey, I don'twant to gain fat by going into
a surplus, or hey, I don'treally want to do an aggressive
diet because I know muscle isimportant, you're then putting
Yourself into a new quandary,aren't you?
Right.
(30:02):
And I'm sorry because Iencourage this for some of you,
because you don't want thoseextremes.
So you're left with this thingin the middle.
And by definition, you're notgoing to have as fast results in
either direction, but you'regoing to have steady results
that are sustainable in aprocess and a lifestyle that you
might really, really enjoy andbe able to stick to.
And that's why you would do it.
But if you think the processisn't working, and as a result,
(30:26):
you cycle back to some extreme,extreme diet, extreme cutter
bulk, let's say, and not donethe right way because you're
rushing into it, that creates abigger problem.
Let's look at numbers.
I like numbers, okay?
For trained lifters, people whohave been lifting for a while,
muscle growth rates averageabout a quarter to a half
(30:46):
percent of body weight a month,upper end.
Okay.
So if you weigh, let's say 180pounds, you're looking at a
pound, what am I trying to say?
A half a pound to a pound ofmuscle in a month if you're
doing everything right.
And then and then fat thatcomes along for the ride,
because if you're obviouslyeating more of a surplus than
that, the rest of it's gonna befat.
That's why it's kind of hard tofind that sweet spot sometimes.
(31:07):
Fat loss is a lot faster,right?
It's more like it could be ahalf to a percent of body weight
per week, right?
So it's like four times asfast.
Now, when you're trying to doboth at once, you're trying to
gain muscle and lose fatsimultaneously, the process is
even slower because the twogoals pull your body in opposite
directions.
Your body kind of wants to stayin the middle and you're
(31:28):
fighting against its naturaltendency by trying to push both
things and doing them kind of, Idon't want to say mediocre, but
you're making a trade-off.
So if you were to extrapolatebody recomp without doing a cut
or a bulk, I would give yourselfsix to 12 months of consistent
execution to see a meaningfulchange that first time.
(31:48):
Now, if you have a lot of fatto lose, or if you've never
built muscle, you might bebetter off with a more
aggressive fat loss or musclebuilding phase.
And I know it's not what youwant to hear, right?
We live in a world of instantgratification.
We want to see results now.
We've got tools and drugs andthings that make results faster
as well.
But your physiology doesn'tcare, does it?
It just operates on what it'sgonna do.
(32:11):
And everyone's is different.
We've talked about thedifference between consistency
and intensity.
Intensity or speed, chasingthat, you chase speed, it's
gonna create instability.
Think about it.
Chasing speed createsinstability because it's gonna
create a lot of change andvolatility and ups and downs
that you will probably have agut reaction to, and you'll try
(32:33):
to go the other way, and it'sgonna just create this big
oscillating effect that's gonnaget you even more nowhere.
Whereas body recomp is tryingto get somewhere by towing the
line in the middle andoptimizing these variables.
So realistic expectations fromthe start are really important.
Committing to six to 12 monthsof steady execution, you don't
(32:54):
have to be perfect, right?
Just consistent.
Again, that goes back to theconsistency piece.
And then focusing on measuringthe right things rather than the
outcome, measuring the processmetrics, the protein, the
training, the sleep, all thethings we talked about today,
tying it all together, reassess.
I would say monthly at minimum,but quarterly is probably where
(33:15):
you're gonna get the best bangfor your buck with body recomp.
So, for example, those in ourprogram in physique university,
we do weekly check-ins that aremore about the process and the
wins.
And then we want to look attwo, three, four-month phases at
a time to see true progress andthen make big adjustments at
that point if it's still notgoing where you want to go.
(33:36):
But by that point, it should ifyou're doing these things.
And then you could say, look,am I leaner and stronger than I
was three months ago?
If you could answer thatquestion even a little bit, then
you've done something right.
It may not be to the degree youwanted, and in many cases, it's
beyond what you expected,right?
There's often a surprise inthis in this situation because
you're actually focusing on theprocess in the short term.
And then three months down, youactually look at the big
(33:58):
picture.
You step back and say, beforeand after what happened, and
you're kind of shocked.
And then you'll see theprogress.
But if you're always zoomingin, if you're looking at the
day-to-day fluctuations, not theprocess, right?
But if you're looking at theactual day-to-day outcomes,
you're gonna drive yourselfcrazy.
You're gonna quit before theprocess has time to work.
This process is appliedphysiology.
If it had a degree name in acollege, it'd be called a
(34:19):
bachelor's in appliedphysiology.
Okay.
And it works, but it worksslowly.
You have to be patient, youhave to trust the process and
give your body time.
I'm sorry, that is not gonnasell programs.
I know it's not, but it's thetruth.
All right, so we covered thefive, I don't know if they're
the five biggest, but they'refive of the biggest body recomp
mistakes I see.
When you feed your body enoughto grow, when you train for
(34:40):
muscle, when you prioritizerecovery, when you track the
right things, and when you giveit time, the system always
works.
And the neat thing about thisis they are not isolated
mistakes or variables or fixes.
They're interconnected.
Because if you, let's say ifyou don't eat enough, your
recovery is also going tosuffer, suffer, which means your
performance is also going todrop, which means you can't
(35:01):
build muscle.
And then if you're not reallytracking these things, you're
not even gonna see that that'shappening.
Right?
So it's all tied together.
And that's how we can identifyyour weak points.
That's how we can fix them andstop making this feel like a
mystery and start making it feelinevitable.
Like, hey, I have confidence, Iknow this works, it's
inevitable.
Now, last thing I want tomention, if you want help
implementing anything we talkabout on this show, we do a lot
(35:23):
of really cool things insidePhysique University.
And the next cool thing we'redoing just in a few weeks,
starting November 18th, is asix-week strong finish
challenge.
And rather than all the otherchallenges out there that are
designed to like try to lose fator dial in all your habits
during the holidays, which as weknow is pretty close to
impossible for many of us.
This is designed to teach youhow to maintain what you have
(35:47):
with three options.
The optimal option, the onethat, yeah, you can go for it
and maybe you'll get there.
The minimum option, which is,hey, here's the minimum thing
that is still going to give youmost of the results, or option
three is the bailout option.
Now, I know you don't hear alot of coaches talk about this,
but you know, I wasbrainstorming with my assistant
(36:09):
coach, Carol, and others, youknow, some clients, and we're
like, look, what if you can'teven do the minimum?
Like, what if just you knowwhat hits the fan, it's the
holidays, everything's a mess,my schedule's all over the
place, my kids got all theseactivities, and I literally just
can't even do the minimum.
What do I do?
That's where the bailoutstrategy comes in.
That is like, what is the noteven minimum?
(36:30):
What do you call it?
It's like the backup to thebackup plan that still gets you
a win.
And I think psychologically itcan be very powerful.
And that's what we're gonna beteaching in this challenge.
I know it's very different.
It's called the six-week strongfinish challenge.
Starts November 18th, whichmeans it takes you through the
end of the year.
What's cool about the challengeis everybody's gonna be able to
get tons of wins and reallyfeel proud about themselves
(36:50):
going into the end of the yearthat you maintained instead of
backsliding like everyone elseis doing.
And then you're in a reallygood position mentally and
physically, you don't feeldepleted going into the new
year.
And I'm all about New Year'sresolutions if you want to do
them.
I'm sure we're gonna have somesort of challenge or group
cohort or something in the newyear to help people who really
want to get off on the rightfoot.
(37:11):
But let's finish the yearstrong.
So, anyway, if you joinphysique university right now,
you can get a head start becauseyou'll get a custom nutrition
plan.
If you use my code in the shownotes, it's a free plan.
And you'll get access to thecourse library.
You can kind of get thingsrolling with our onboarding and
get your nutrition plan set upand start figuring out the
habits you need to dial in withour help.
And then in a few weeks, thechallenge begins and you'll kind
(37:33):
of be in a good state to justexecute on that and be fairly
low stress through the holidaysrather than trying to run one of
those all-out fat losschallenges at just the wrong
time of year.
So if you want to get in onthat, go to witsandweights.com
slash physique or use the linkin the show notes.
Use the code FREEPLAN, get thefree custom nutrition plan that
(37:54):
I will build for you personally.
Get ready for the strongfinished challenge.
I'll see you there,witsandweights.com slash
physique.
Until next time, keep usingyour wits, lifting those
weights.
And remember that body recompisn't about doing more, it's
about aligning the right inputsso your body can adapt.
I'll talk to you next time hereon the Wits and Weights
podcast.
Do you ever feel like your body isn't listening
despite consistent training,watching your protein, doing
what the evidence says to do,and yet body recomposition,
building muscle, losing fat issomehow not happening.
What's probably breaking downis that signal between your
actions and your physiology.
It's not because you don't havethe effort.
It is probably because yourbody is receiving the wrong
(00:24):
message, which then leads to thewrong outcome and frustration.
Today I'm walking you throughthe five biggest body recomp
mistakes that I see keepingintelligent, hardworking lifters
stuck at the same body fat andmuscle mounts in the specific
fixes that align your training,nutrition, and recovery.
Welcome to Wits and Weights,the show that helps you build a
(00:57):
strong, healthy physique usingevidence, engineering, and
efficiency.
I'm your host, Philip Pape, andtoday we are again talking
about body recomposition,building muscle, and losing fat,
and the frustration when you'renot able to achieve it.
Especially if you are puttingin effort, especially if that
effort is consistent.
Solid training, on-pointnutrition, and yet things aren't
(01:18):
changing.
Now, if you're not doing thosethings, that to me is the easy
part.
That's the low-hanging fruit.
Even consistency, which I talkabout a lot as one of the most
critical variables, is still notgoing to buy you the result if
you're not consistent in theright things.
And maybe you're doing onething, like you're able to lose
a little bit of fat, but youfeel like you haven't gained any
muscle definition, or you'vegained a little muscle, but you
(01:40):
can't seem to drop that fat.
This is kind of the bodycomposition problem that is
really common as we get older,especially over 40 lifters over
40 who are smart like you, youlisten to podcasts, you
understand the evidence, youknow what protein synthesis is,
you might even be tracking yourlifts and your nutrition, and
somehow your body's not quiteresponding.
Now, I'm not talking aboutcorner cases or specific medical
(02:01):
or healthcare issues relatedto, for example, hormones or
something going on in your bloodwork.
I'm not talking that today.
Today I'm talking about reallythe big mistakes that people are
making that will uh quickly getyou over a hump to start making
progress.
And so it's not about workingharder, it's not about your
effort, it's not dedication.
And again, it's not justconsistency.
It's there are misalignments inyour approach that compound
(02:25):
over time.
You feel like you're doing allthis stuff, your body just let's
say it adapts to maintain whereit is instead of to transform.
And that is really tough for alot of us.
So I'm gonna break down fivecommon body recomp mistakes that
create this situation.
These are not just beginnererrors, these are mistakes that
very informed, intelligentpeople make, and I'm gonna give
(02:46):
you the fixes that will makethem work.
So let's get into it.
Mistake number one is you areeating like you are dieting
instead of recomping.
Now, this is a there's somenuance here, okay?
This is actually the number onemistake I see.
People hear body recompositionand they think, okay, I need to
train harder.
That's the muscle side.
(03:06):
I need to eat less and I needto diet to lose fat and kind of
do them together.
And they often drop intobasically a fat loss phase,
which is usually some sort ofcalorie deficit, often an
aggressive deficit, thinking,okay, that's how I can do both
at the same time.
And there's a lot of peoplethat talk about body recomp from
the dieting perspective.
But I think the problem is thateven a moderately aggressive
(03:30):
calorie deficit is gonna highlysuppress your muscle protein
synthesis beyond the beginnerstage.
Again, we're not talking aboutthe beginners.
When you first start, yourbody's very responsive.
You gain those few pounds ofmuscle, and maybe you could lose
some fat, right?
And that's great.
But we're talking about peoplewho have hit a wall.
And when any deficit at all,especially if it's reasonable,
you know, reasonably high, Ishould say, is going to impair
(03:52):
your recovery, which reducesyour performance in the gym.
And yes, you might start losingweight on the scale and
dropping some body fat and atbest holding on to muscle, but
you're probably not building amuscle.
And I talk all the time aboutthe importance of a muscle-first
approach.
And this really defeats thepurpose of recomp.
Now you might say, oh, what ifI want to lean out first and
(04:13):
then build muscle?
You can definitely do that.
You can definitely do that.
Okay.
And for somebody who's carryingextra weight, maybe they're not
happy with the layer of fatthey have in their body.
I'm not against that approach.
You know, setting things up forabout a month or two, then
going into a fat loss phasefirst and then going to
building.
I'm not against that.
What I'm against here isconstantly trying to bias your
(04:34):
approach toward that dietingside, thinking that, okay, the
muscle's gonna slowly buildbecause I'm training hard,
right?
I'm training in the gym, likePhilip says.
And, but I really need to losethat fat.
And you kind of get stuck in arut between the two directions.
If you were to do a veryaggressive fat loss phase and
just like focus and get it done,and then do a very, you know,
(04:55):
moderate to aggressive musclebuilding phase, I wouldn't be
judging, I'm not judging.
This wouldn't be an issuebecause it probably would work
for you.
Okay.
But a lot of you are just notspending the time building
muscle.
You are always eating likeyou're dieting, even when, even
when you're not quite in adeficit, if that makes any
sense.
All right.
We we look at the research,right?
(05:16):
When we talk about muscle gain,we know that we need a neutral
or slightly positive energybalance.
Even in successful recompstudies, the participants are
always eating at or nearmaintenance with high protein
intake, progressive resistancetraining.
You're not in a deep deficit,right?
I this is kind of what I'mtrying to get across.
It's an input-output problem.
Your body needs enough energyto fuel the training, the
(05:38):
recovery, the energy-intensiveprocess of building new muscle.
And if you don't do that,you're gonna stall.
So even if you're like, hey,but I want to lose fat as well,
if you are in a deficit, you'repretty much only gonna lose fat.
You're not gonna build muchmuscle.
You might build a little tinybit, but it's just gonna be
negligible.
It's not gonna be what you aregoing for.
When people say, hey, I don'tsee definition in my muscles
(05:58):
yet, and I've been doing thisfor a year or two, on that time
scale, you're not going to seeit unless you give it that time
to build muscle.
And so I think the sweet spotfor a lot of people is your
maintenance calories or veryclose to it.
I personally like aggressivemaintenance, which is going a
little bit above that, makingsure there's that high protein
signal, plenty of carbs to fuelenergy and recovery, right?
(06:19):
We know the protein piece iscritical.
Somewhere between 0.7 and onegrams per pound is kind of
optimal.
But if you want to push that alittle bit more and see how you
respond, not against that forsome people in terms of
experimentation, right?
And so if you don't have muscleto begin with, why are you just
trying to preserve the muscleyou have rather than trying to
add new muscle?
So the fix here, I think, isyes, you should be tracking your
(06:42):
food in some capacity so youunderstand what your maintenance
calories are, whether you usemacrofactor or whether you just
do it, you know, over time,keeping your weight fairly
stable and eating at the what ittakes to do that.
You you've got to kind of knowwhere that level is so you're
not accidentally dieting orgaining too much weight.
And then you want to keep thecalories pretty much there.
It's consistency is a loteasier to get to when you're
(07:04):
trying to maintain at that levelor a little bit higher and
really feel fueled.
But you're also gonna look atyour biofeedback, you know, your
weight trend, yourmeasurements, your performance
in the gym.
If you're not gaining strength,something has to be adjusted.
And if you're eating likeyou're in a fat loss phase,
thinking you're gonna recomp,you're not recomping.
You're gonna be in anaggressive deficit, have low
(07:26):
energy, both actual energycoming in and probably the
biofeedback of energy.
And that's just kind of aninefficient way to be quote
unquote dieting.
So again, if you're trying torecomp, if you're actually
trying to recomp, try to get atleast a maintenance, if not an
aggressive maintenance.
We covered all this in the90-day body recomp workshop in
physique university.
And you could always jump in ifyou're a member listening, you
(07:47):
can go find that replay from Ithink it was August, September,
August?
No, I think it was August.
And if you're not in, you couldalways join and go grab that.
And it has the whole processfor doing this, including the
aggressive maintenance.
But I think that's the firstand biggest mistake and probably
the easiest one for a lot ofyou to fix.
I get there's fear aroundgaining weight.
That's a whole differentsituation.
But if you're not in ameaningful surplus, you're not
(08:08):
gonna gain much weight at all.
And if anything, you're gonnajust accidentally lose some fat
along for the ride when you'renot focusing on eating like you
are dieting.
All right, mistake number twois that when you exercise, when
you train, when you move, you'realways thinking about burning
calories and you're not thinkingabout muscle.
So notice the pattern here,okay?
You know, you're listening towits and weights.
(08:30):
You know strength training isimportant.
If you don't, I'm telling youright now, it is probably the
number one thing you can do ifyou're not doing it.
Everybody should be liftingweights, in my opinion, pretty
much to the day you die.
And you've got to lift.
You've got to lift.
But the mindset has to go alongfor the ride.
And that means a mindset oftraining to improve and progress
and get stronger and buildmuscle, not going to the gym and
(08:52):
exercising, not going to thegym just to burn calories.
Even when you are doing cardio,believe it or not, you
shouldn't be thinking in termsof burning calories so much as
supporting your muscle buildingand your recovery and your
fitness and your mobility andall the things except that.
And I know it's hard to dobecause we're so fixated on the
old paradigm of, you know, eatless, move more, you exercise to
(09:16):
lose weight, and you do it toburn calories.
When in reality, that usuallyhas the opposite effect.
And so when you're doing theYouTube style workouts, circuit
training, you're doing around,you know, as many reps as
possible, no rest periods, allof that, thinking it's going to
somehow help your fat loss orburning more calories, it
usually backfires, it usuallystalls out your muscle building,
and it usually sends the wrongsignal to your body that you are
(09:37):
an endurance machine ratherthan a muscle, you know,
strength machine.
And your calories actually comedown, you know, in terms of
your expenditure, metabolism,right?
And then it gets frustratingbecause you don't see the
results you want, you don't seethe muscle definition.
And a lot of you out there Iknow are not training the right
way.
I work with new clients all thetime who've been going to the
gym.
Maybe they have a trainer.
A lot of these trainers aregood, many of them not so good.
(10:00):
And I'll give them a program.
And unless I'm very carefulabout prescribing exactly what
to do, I will see some mistakes,like, and and some of you know
who you are, so I'm not gonnacall out names, where they'll
see five exercises with threesets each, and they'll do all
five exercises for one set andthey'll rotate around and do it
two more times, kind of like acircuit.
And I have to, I have to remindremind myself that this is
(10:23):
where a lot of people come from.
And I have to kind of reteachthe idea that no, you do one
exercise, you go through all thesets, and you have sufficient
rest period because the goalhere is to train really hard to
get in the volume and also thatmuscular tension to grow.
And then you go to the next oneand the next one.
Sure, there's place forsupersets and all that.
We're not gonna get into thison this episode, but the point
of training is to build thatstrength and build that muscle,
(10:46):
not to burn calories becausethat's not gonna optimize muscle
growth thinking that way.
Muscle growth requiresmechanical tension, progressive
overload.
You have to lift heavy enoughweights through a full range of
motion, enough rest between setsto recover and maintain
performance.
And when you're lifting heavylike that, when you have rest
periods like that, you're gonnafind that training feels a
little bit slower and moremindful.
It almost feels less hard froma work capacity and a cardio or
(11:11):
heart rate perspective, but itshould feel more hard from a
pure strength effortperspective.
And many people find that thatis a really fun, amazing change.
I hear it all the time fromclients like, whoa, I really
like doing sets of five or eightinstead of 12 or 15.
You know, I really like thatbecause it's hard in a different
(11:32):
way.
It's hard in a more satisfying,thrilling kind of way that I'm
getting strong and I'm reallypushing these heavy weights.
And I have to be mindful andfocus on my form and that
tension and that neutrality, myback and the skill of the thing,
which becomes its own sense ofpersonal growth and satisfaction
while also serving the purposeof building your muscles and
(11:55):
your strength, right?
And your body's gonna respondto the quality and type of
stress that you apply, not tothe quantity of energy that you
burn during a workout.
And by the way, interestingly,when you are doing really heavy
lifts, oftentimes you burn justas many calories anyway.
You don't really realize it.
Your heart rate gets jacked up.
(12:16):
I don't want to say thatlifting is cardio, although I
want to do an episode that'skind of on that theme, but it
accounts for much of that hearthealth and cardio and calorie
burn, even though that is notthe point.
So, going back to you think ofstrength training or even
bodybuilding, where you're gonnahave two, three, four minutes
of rest between heavy compoundlifts, that is because you're
(12:38):
focused on the intensity.
By intensity, I mean the weighton the bar and getting that
mechanical tension with as manymuscle fibers as possible.
And that requires you to be aswell rested and training hard as
possible.
So if you train for musclesinstead of calories, if you
structure your training, notyour exercise, you're not your
workouts, even though I use theword workouts a lot, you're
(12:59):
training around that constantimprovement, plenty of rest,
plenty of performance, plenty ofeffort, right?
Good form, you're gonna begood.
You're gonna be good.
If you need to increase yourexpenditure, that usually
happens outside the gym.
Walking more, getting moresleep, less stress, not eating
like you're dieting all thetime.
(13:20):
Go back to mistake number one.
And honestly, when you trainproperly for muscle growth, your
body composition is then goingto improve faster anyway,
because you're gonna see muchmore of that muscle definition.
Muscle itself is moremetabolically expensive.
Your expenditure might even goup just from that.
Not a lot from that, but mypoint is the fact that you're
training in that way is gonnacascade everything else.
(13:42):
Okay, let's go to mistakenumber three, and that is that
you are ignoring recovery andsleep.
I can talk about this enough,but he but it's potentially
could be the number one mistakefor some of you, at least the
most underrated of the five.
And that is because thetraining that you do in the gym
is a tiny slice of your week.
What you do outside the gym iswhat really supports the
(14:05):
adaptations, the muscle growth.
You know, we know thatnutrition supports all this as
well, obviously.
But recovery and rest isactually gonna jack up your
insulin sensitivity, yournutrient partitioning, your fat
loss, it's gonna reduce yourbelly fat, it's gonna help with
your recovery and blood flow,it's gonna reduce your soreness,
(14:25):
and the list goes on.
We know that your hormones getwacky when you are restricted
with your sleep.
Getting less than six hoursevery night, if you are a less
than six hour sleeper, I wantyou to put this at the top of
your list.
How can you get more and betterquality sleep?
Or else you are hampering yourtestosterone, your cortisol,
your reproductive hormones, yourhunger hormones, you're gonna
(14:47):
impact muscle synthesis, bluntyour glyc, you know, how you
restore glycogen.
It sabotages every adaptationyou're trying to create with
your training, thus making it somuch less efficient that I'm
not gonna say what's the point.
I'm just gonna say why wouldyou do that?
Chronic stress does the samething.
When your cortisol is alwaysjacked up, you're in this
catabolic state.
Your body wants to break downtissue to grab more energy that
(15:10):
it's lacking because you're notgetting enough uh rest in that
parasympathetic state, right?
So your recovery capacity thenplummets, your performance then
suffers.
It's kind of a vicious cycle.
Recovery itself is a multiplierand it goes both ways.
You can't out train a systemthat's under-recovered.
I'm actually doing an episodeWednesday all about the, what is
(15:32):
it called?
It's all about the prioritiesin your hypertrophy or in your
training.
I forget the title that I'mgiving it.
This is a terrible sales pitch.
But it's about what should youprioritize in what order when it
comes to your strengthtraining.
And not even on that listbecause it's overriding
everything and almost makes thelist less relevant, is your
recovery.
(15:52):
In other words, it's not on thelist because it's part of
everything.
It's like the foundation ofeverything, right?
Your parasympathetic nervoussystem, this is the rest and
digest system, is what drivestissue repair and hormonal
balance, homeostasis.
It's the foundation of bodycomposition or recomposition.
But if you're in this highstress, jacked up fight or
flight state, constantlytraining, constantly exercising,
(16:13):
constantly stressed, you'renever going to activate that
system long enough to reallyhelp those adaptations.
You're gonna blunt lots ofthings.
So if you are listening to thisand you're like, oh my God,
that could be the reason I'm notseeing my muscles start to pop
and get defined.
Even if I lost a little bodyfat, for some reason my training
seems to be going to waste alittle bit.
Maybe it's because you'reunderrecovered.
I mean, it doesn't take a lotof under-recovery for this to be
(16:33):
a big problem.
The fix, of course, is toprioritize your sleep.
That's the big one foreveryone.
Seven to nine hours,non-negotiable, and doing all
the things with yourenvironment, with your pre-sleep
ritual, with the things we talkabout over and over again.
And I hope you you keeplistening to this podcast and
it'll kind of sink in over timehow important this is.
Because hearing it just once,you're like, okay, sleep fine.
I'm not gonna do anything aboutthat.
(16:54):
What's the next, what's thenext uh secret, Philip?
Okay, no, this is the bigsecret because it has everything
to do with your trainingperformance and your hunger
hormones, your belly fat.
Hey, look, if you got too muchbelly fat and you want to drop
that belly fat, improve yoursleep.
All right.
The second thing is some of youare never taking rest days.
You've got to take at leastone, if not two, if not three,
full rest days per week.
(17:14):
And I mean a real rest day, notthis quote unquote active
recovery day that is so popularwhere you're still doing a light
workout or you're going for arun or doing some intense
cardio.
Okay.
If you've got things dialed in,if things are optimized, having
sprinting or some form ofcardio on those days is cool.
But a lot of you just overdoingit and you're in the gym seven
(17:34):
days a week.
And I would strip it all theway back to three full body days
if you've never done thatbefore, and just see what it
does for your recovery and yourresults.
You might find, here's thething.
Imagine this (17:44):
you go to three days and you do that for let's
say eight weeks, eight weeks.
That's like two months.
See what happens to yourstrength and your muscle.
If it improves, what that tellsyou is that you can get a
result on this like minimum setof time in the gym and maximum
set of rest.
And that's a great startingpoint to build from.
(18:05):
Because then, okay, if you wantto add another day in, you kind
of know what you're comparingto.
And if it gives you a littlemore, great, but it's not
probably gonna give you as muchas just the fact that you have
all that recovery.
And then maybe you go to fivedays max, but that's it.
That's it.
Have those full rest days builtinto there.
Your body needs that break toconsolidate those adaptations.
And then the third thing herein this thing about recovery is
(18:27):
the use of auto-regulation.
What is that?
Auto regulation sounds like oneof those fancy engineering
words.
It's actually a commonly usedtraining term where you adjust
your training to yourperformance capability that day.
Now, I have to be very clear,it's not just a willy-nilly how
I feel, like, oh, I'm kind oftired today or I don't feel too
(18:47):
strong today, so I'm just gonnago half-acid on my workout.
It's more like if you if theweights feel are start feeling
really heavy and you're draggingand and you've done the things,
and maybe you haven't done thethings, maybe you had a bunch of
alcohol last night, maybe youdidn't sleep in, maybe you're
hungover, maybe you ate too muchlast night, whatever.
Okay, you warm up as if you'regonna train at your programmed
(19:11):
level.
And then if the objectivesignal is telling you that you
don't quite have the capacitythat day, auto-regulation is
saying, okay, how do I regulateautomatically to that situation,
but still train hard?
And what that might look like,it might look like a little
reset in your lifts, in yourweights.
(19:32):
It might, but it might simplybe you get a you get a rep less,
right?
Or you drop the weights on setstwo and three to get the reps,
like things like that whereyou're still training really
hard, keeping that intensityhigh, and there's just some
little give in the load orvolume or some variable, as
opposed to taking it all off orcompletely dialing back and not
(19:55):
really getting much out of yoursession.
That makes sense.
So, like if you are in a fatloss phase, auto-reg, there are
auto-regulated ways to trainthat allow you to train your
hardest knowing that you havelimited resources.
If you fix mistake number onethat I talked about today, like
not always being in a dietingmode and you're actually eating
enough and fueling yourselfenough, you shouldn't have to
auto-regulate in the same wayyou would in fat loss.
(20:17):
However, some days you are justnot gonna have the energy,
you're gonna be stressed out ofyour mind, maybe you didn't have
enough sleep.
So you've basically givenyourself a downgrade because you
didn't do the other things,right?
You didn't do the recovery.
And that's okay, it happens.
I'm not saying you have to beperfect, I'm saying that
happens.
And then it's almost likeyou're temporarily in a fat loss
phase.
And the question is, what areyou gonna do about it?
Now, some people may decide,you know what, since I'm working
(20:40):
out three days a week, I've gotfour rest days, I can shift, I
can shift out one day.
You may need to do that.
That may actually be thebeneficial choice to make.
But auto-regulation can bevery, very helpful as a way to
incorporate proper recovery oradjust to your recovery
capacity, right?
And since we're talking aboutrecovery, I did want to take a
(21:01):
quick break to talk aboutsomething that has been really
awesome for my own recovery.
I just talked about howcritical sleep is for body
recomposition.
You know, all of thatadaptation, the muscle growth,
the fat loss happens duringrecovery.
And we talked about quantity ofsleep, but we also need to talk
about the quality of yoursleep.
And I just want to talk rightnow about one thing that I
(21:23):
started using, oh, about threemonths ago.
My kids love it because theythey're like, uh looks like
mommy put on the uh, the cozyearth sheets.
They're they're they're veryspecial set of sheets compared
to the other ones I have.
They're made from viscos frombamboo.
And it's kind of weird becausethey cool you down, right?
They take the heat out.
(21:44):
And it's winter now.
And I thought, okay, does thatmean they're gonna be freezing
cold?
No, it's like that sense ofrelaxing, cool, but having the
comforter on top of it stillkeeps you overall warm, if that
makes any sense.
And I think the differencebetween those and other sheets
is extremely, I'll say, I'll saypalpable, right?
They they're they're verybreathable, they're like silky,
(22:06):
but not in that sweaty, likeactual silk.
They're actually like veryglide, they glide and they're
soft.
And what I like them because Iget really hot at night and they
help me stay cool through thenight, which means deeper sleep,
better recovery.
And man, my HRV, my stats on myaura ring all seem to improve
when we have those sheets on thebed.
So I'm telling my wife I needto get a few more sets.
(22:28):
Right.
And if you're again, if you'relooking at those things that can
help you rest well and reallymake the most of the sleep where
you optimize the use of yourprotein, you know, you reduce
the hunger, help with your bellyfat, and all that.
I would think about these typesof things.
So I'm a big fan of cozy earthsheets.
If you go to wits andweights.com slash cozy earth,
(22:49):
you can use my code wits andweights at check out and get 20%
off.
They have sheets.
They also have a lot of otherproducts you can check out, but
the sheets are absolutely myfavorite, all different colors.
Go to witsandweights.com slashcozy earth.
Use my code wits and weightsfor 20% off.
By the way, when you go to thatsite, it's gonna show you the
code as well, in case you forgetit.
So just use the link in theshow notes or go to
witsandweights.com slash cozyearth for those oh so
(23:13):
comfortable, oh so cooling,bamboo derived sheets from Cozy
Earth.
All right.
Mistake number four is thatyou're not measuring the right
things, the my right metrics.
And this is where the peoplelistening, you you, the
listener, you know, you'reprobably listening to wits and
weights because you like dataefficiency, maybe that
(23:34):
engineering mindset that I tryto bring to this process.
And you probably trackingcertain things.
But what I find talking topeople on calls and new clients
that come into physicsuniversity, for example, is
they're not necessarily trackingthe right things or the things
that they're tracking, they'renot using them the right way.
Let's talk about scale weight,for example.
A lot of misconceptions.
A lot of you are only trackingscale weight sporadically, or
(23:57):
like once a week or once amonth.
And the problem with those isyou can get a high point or a
low point, and it doesn'tactually tell you what's going
on with body fat because thosehigh and low points can be
multiple pounds in eitherdirection or kilograms based on
water fluctuation.
And so I'm a huge fan ofweighing yourself every day
because then you can take asmoothed average over time to
(24:19):
tell you what's actuallyhappening with the deep down
storage of fat, which is hard tomeasure in the short term.
It takes about three weeks tomeasure a change there.
That's why I think the processis more important than the data
sometimes, but they kind of gohand in hand.
And body recomp in particular,where you're trying to lose
muscle and gain fat, or you'retrying to gain muscle and lose
(24:40):
fat at the same time, your scaleweight might stay the same.
And that's not gonna tell youmuch, is it?
So, you know, yeah, that's onething, at least to know that
you're not gaining or losing toomuch.
But then you need the otherstuff, your, you know,
circumference measurements.
I mean, honestly, if you justhad to pick one, I would go with
your waist at the navel, at thenavel.
That alone, if that's dropping,you're losing fat.
(25:02):
And so if your weight's thesame, the waist is dropping.
That's a great leadingindicator of body composition
change, especially if then youhave indications of muscle
growth, like your biceps aregoing up, your chest is going
up, right?
I usually use about six oreight different data points when
I work with clients.
Um, we have this thing calledthe biofeedback or physique and
biofeedback tracker in physiqueuniversity.
(25:23):
It's basically a spreadsheetwhere if you put these
measurements in, it'll measureyour body fat, your lean mass,
your fat-free mass index, andit'll also show you what's
happening from one data point tothe next to kind of understand,
okay, over this body recompphase, I've had roughly this
muscle to fat ratio of change.
And I think that's reallyimportant because it gives you a
nice boost of motivation whenyou say, look, my scale weight
(25:46):
hasn't changed.
It's hard to see the change inthe mirror because you don't
notice change unless you go andlook at a before and after photo
over a decent amount of time.
And so something likecircumference measurements give
you a fairly rapid indicator.
And by rapid, I mean overseveral weeks, not you know, day
to day, obviously.
I mentioned photos.
I think progress photos can bemoderately helpful.
(26:07):
Ironically, I think they'remore helpful when someone else
is looking at them, yet that'swhat we are most probably
embarrassed to do.
If you're a private client ofmine, you know, that's part of
the process.
And I get you would feelprobably safest in that
environment being one-to-one.
If you're more in a biggersetting or a group setting, it's
not necessarily something youwant to do.
(26:28):
But I wouldn't discourage it inif if you wear appropriate
clothing and want to say, hey,here's where I was eight weeks
ago, here's where I am now.
Here's what I'm noticing aboutmyself.
Hey guys, what do you notice?
And and, you know, assumingthis is in a safe place where
people give you constructivepositive feedback, which I tell
you, any group that I run isgoing to be like that, or you're
(26:48):
out.
So if, you know, anybodylistening who's in physique
university, go ahead and postyour photos in whatever channel
makes sense and let us know, youknow, objectively what we are
looking for.
Are we are we looking to get abigger back?
Are we looking to get, youknow, more defined shoulders?
Are you looking to just dropbody fat and start showing your
six pack?
Right, those kinds of thingscan be indicators of what is
(27:10):
going on.
And sometimes only other peoplecan see them.
Uh, the next thing is reallyyour performance.
And performance is usually yourlifting progress.
Are you adding weight, addingreps and weight, you know,
because here's the other thingpeople say, look, I don't see it
too much in my in the mirror.
My waist hasn't changed thatmuch, but my numbers have get
(27:30):
gone up and up and up and up.
And a lot of times when thathappens, you've got a little bit
of a layer of fat that's beenthere the whole time.
And now your muscles underneathhave been building and getting
bigger, and you still don'tquite see the definition you
want.
That's the point at which,well, I know my fat-free mass
index has gone up.
I know I built some moremuscle.
(27:50):
Well, maybe now if I do a fatloss phase, I can reveal some of
that and I can be kind of put aput a bow on this whole process
to reveal what I've got, right?
So sometimes that's what ittakes is a combination of these
metrics, comprehensive trackingsystem with some key things that
make a lot of sense.
That's it.
That's really what this mistakeis that a lot of you are not
measuring the right things.
You're measuring scale weightsporadically, you're not
(28:13):
tracking your lifts, you'refocused too much on, say, the
mirror and feeling, you know,mirror or or maybe comparing
yourself to other people orwhatever.
Things that are not objectivethat really tell you what's
going on.
All right.
Mistake number five is you'reexpecting rapid results.
Yep.
I said it.
This is the one that's aboutmindset more than anything.
(28:36):
It's not about tactics, butit's extremely important because
you're expecting a quickresult.
I'm not talking about one week,I get it, but whatever you're
expecting, it's probably tooquick in general.
In fact, I'd like you whenyou're listening to this to ask
yourself if what you'reexpecting is realistic.
Because when you decide youwant to recomp, you want to
(28:57):
build muscle and lose fat,you're over 40, whatever, and
you set up your training, youdial in the nutrition, you start
executing the plan, and thenthree weeks goes by, four weeks
goes by, and it it feels likenothing has changed.
And this definitely ties intosome of the other fix mistakes
we've already talked about,doesn't it?
Because body recomposition bydefinition is inherently slow.
(29:21):
I shouldn't say by definition,that doesn't, that's
meaningless.
But the here's here's the thingthe bottleneck is the muscle.
It takes long, a long time tobuild muscle, no matter what,
even if you are intentionally ina surplus trying to build
muscle.
So if you now slow that down bystaying closer to maintenance
to try to get recomp out of it,you're slowing that process down
(29:41):
even further.
And because you're not anaggressive deficit, you're not
necessarily losing fat.
And even if you were, you don'thave the muscle yet, right?
It's kind of a catch 22.
So by saying that, hey, I don'twant to gain fat by going into
a surplus, or hey, I don'treally want to do an aggressive
diet because I know muscle isimportant, you're then putting
Yourself into a new quandary,aren't you?
Right.
(30:02):
And I'm sorry because Iencourage this for some of you,
because you don't want thoseextremes.
So you're left with this thingin the middle.
And by definition, you're notgoing to have as fast results in
either direction, but you'regoing to have steady results
that are sustainable in aprocess and a lifestyle that you
might really, really enjoy andbe able to stick to.
And that's why you would do it.
But if you think the processisn't working, and as a result,
(30:26):
you cycle back to some extreme,extreme diet, extreme cutter
bulk, let's say, and not donethe right way because you're
rushing into it, that creates abigger problem.
Let's look at numbers.
I like numbers, okay?
For trained lifters, people whohave been lifting for a while,
muscle growth rates averageabout a quarter to a half
(30:46):
percent of body weight a month,upper end.
Okay.
So if you weigh, let's say 180pounds, you're looking at a
pound, what am I trying to say?
A half a pound to a pound ofmuscle in a month if you're
doing everything right.
And then and then fat thatcomes along for the ride,
because if you're obviouslyeating more of a surplus than
that, the rest of it's gonna befat.
That's why it's kind of hard tofind that sweet spot sometimes.
(31:07):
Fat loss is a lot faster,right?
It's more like it could be ahalf to a percent of body weight
per week, right?
So it's like four times asfast.
Now, when you're trying to doboth at once, you're trying to
gain muscle and lose fatsimultaneously, the process is
even slower because the twogoals pull your body in opposite
directions.
Your body kind of wants to stayin the middle and you're
(31:28):
fighting against its naturaltendency by trying to push both
things and doing them kind of, Idon't want to say mediocre, but
you're making a trade-off.
So if you were to extrapolatebody recomp without doing a cut
or a bulk, I would give yourselfsix to 12 months of consistent
execution to see a meaningfulchange that first time.
(31:48):
Now, if you have a lot of fatto lose, or if you've never
built muscle, you might bebetter off with a more
aggressive fat loss or musclebuilding phase.
And I know it's not what youwant to hear, right?
We live in a world of instantgratification.
We want to see results now.
We've got tools and drugs andthings that make results faster
as well.
But your physiology doesn'tcare, does it?
It just operates on what it'sgonna do.
(32:11):
And everyone's is different.
We've talked about thedifference between consistency
and intensity.
Intensity or speed, chasingthat, you chase speed, it's
gonna create instability.
Think about it.
Chasing speed createsinstability because it's gonna
create a lot of change andvolatility and ups and downs
that you will probably have agut reaction to, and you'll try
(32:33):
to go the other way, and it'sgonna just create this big
oscillating effect that's gonnaget you even more nowhere.
Whereas body recomp is tryingto get somewhere by towing the
line in the middle andoptimizing these variables.
So realistic expectations fromthe start are really important.
Committing to six to 12 monthsof steady execution, you don't
(32:54):
have to be perfect, right?
Just consistent.
Again, that goes back to theconsistency piece.
And then focusing on measuringthe right things rather than the
outcome, measuring the processmetrics, the protein, the
training, the sleep, all thethings we talked about today,
tying it all together, reassess.
I would say monthly at minimum,but quarterly is probably where
(33:15):
you're gonna get the best bangfor your buck with body recomp.
So, for example, those in ourprogram in physique university,
we do weekly check-ins that aremore about the process and the
wins.
And then we want to look attwo, three, four-month phases at
a time to see true progress andthen make big adjustments at
that point if it's still notgoing where you want to go.
(33:36):
But by that point, it should ifyou're doing these things.
And then you could say, look,am I leaner and stronger than I
was three months ago?
If you could answer thatquestion even a little bit, then
you've done something right.
It may not be to the degree youwanted, and in many cases, it's
beyond what you expected,right?
There's often a surprise inthis in this situation because
you're actually focusing on theprocess in the short term.
And then three months down, youactually look at the big
(33:58):
picture.
You step back and say, beforeand after what happened, and
you're kind of shocked.
And then you'll see theprogress.
But if you're always zoomingin, if you're looking at the
day-to-day fluctuations, not theprocess, right?
But if you're looking at theactual day-to-day outcomes,
you're gonna drive yourselfcrazy.
You're gonna quit before theprocess has time to work.
This process is appliedphysiology.
If it had a degree name in acollege, it'd be called a
(34:19):
bachelor's in appliedphysiology.
Okay.
And it works, but it worksslowly.
You have to be patient, youhave to trust the process and
give your body time.
I'm sorry, that is not gonnasell programs.
I know it's not, but it's thetruth.
All right, so we covered thefive, I don't know if they're
the five biggest, but they'refive of the biggest body recomp
mistakes I see.
When you feed your body enoughto grow, when you train for
(34:40):
muscle, when you prioritizerecovery, when you track the
right things, and when you giveit time, the system always
works.
And the neat thing about thisis they are not isolated
mistakes or variables or fixes.
They're interconnected.
Because if you, let's say ifyou don't eat enough, your
recovery is also going tosuffer, suffer, which means your
performance is also going todrop, which means you can't
(35:01):
build muscle.
And then if you're not reallytracking these things, you're
not even gonna see that that'shappening.
Right?
So it's all tied together.
And that's how we can identifyyour weak points.
That's how we can fix them andstop making this feel like a
mystery and start making it feelinevitable.
Like, hey, I have confidence, Iknow this works, it's
inevitable.
Now, last thing I want tomention, if you want help
implementing anything we talkabout on this show, we do a lot
(35:23):
of really cool things insidePhysique University.
And the next cool thing we'redoing just in a few weeks,
starting November 18th, is asix-week strong finish
challenge.
And rather than all the otherchallenges out there that are
designed to like try to lose fator dial in all your habits
during the holidays, which as weknow is pretty close to
impossible for many of us.
This is designed to teach youhow to maintain what you have
(35:47):
with three options.
The optimal option, the onethat, yeah, you can go for it
and maybe you'll get there.
The minimum option, which is,hey, here's the minimum thing
that is still going to give youmost of the results, or option
three is the bailout option.
Now, I know you don't hear alot of coaches talk about this,
but you know, I wasbrainstorming with my assistant
(36:09):
coach, Carol, and others, youknow, some clients, and we're
like, look, what if you can'teven do the minimum?
Like, what if just you knowwhat hits the fan, it's the
holidays, everything's a mess,my schedule's all over the
place, my kids got all theseactivities, and I literally just
can't even do the minimum.
What do I do?
That's where the bailoutstrategy comes in.
That is like, what is the noteven minimum?
(36:30):
What do you call it?
It's like the backup to thebackup plan that still gets you
a win.
And I think psychologically itcan be very powerful.
And that's what we're gonna beteaching in this challenge.
I know it's very different.
It's called the six-week strongfinish challenge.
Starts November 18th, whichmeans it takes you through the
end of the year.
What's cool about the challengeis everybody's gonna be able to
get tons of wins and reallyfeel proud about themselves
(36:50):
going into the end of the yearthat you maintained instead of
backsliding like everyone elseis doing.
And then you're in a reallygood position mentally and
physically, you don't feeldepleted going into the new
year.
And I'm all about New Year'sresolutions if you want to do
them.
I'm sure we're gonna have somesort of challenge or group
cohort or something in the newyear to help people who really
want to get off on the rightfoot.
(37:11):
But let's finish the yearstrong.
So, anyway, if you joinphysique university right now,
you can get a head start becauseyou'll get a custom nutrition
plan.
If you use my code in the shownotes, it's a free plan.
And you'll get access to thecourse library.
You can kind of get thingsrolling with our onboarding and
get your nutrition plan set upand start figuring out the
habits you need to dial in withour help.
And then in a few weeks, thechallenge begins and you'll kind
(37:33):
of be in a good state to justexecute on that and be fairly
low stress through the holidaysrather than trying to run one of
those all-out fat losschallenges at just the wrong
time of year.
So if you want to get in onthat, go to witsandweights.com
slash physique or use the linkin the show notes.
Use the code FREEPLAN, get thefree custom nutrition plan that
(37:54):
I will build for you personally.
Get ready for the strongfinished challenge.
I'll see you there,witsandweights.com slash
physique.
Until next time, keep usingyour wits, lifting those
weights.
And remember that body recompisn't about doing more, it's
about aligning the right inputsso your body can adapt.
I'll talk to you next time hereon the Wits and Weights
podcast.
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