December 15, 2025 • 44 mins
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--
Most people build their nutrition from the top down: calories first, macros second, micronutrients as an afterthought. That approach works from a pure energy balance and weight loss perspective but often collapses during body recomposition when you're trying to lose fat and build muscle.
Discover why the traditional nutrition hierarchy is backward and the 5 specific mistakes that prevent successful body recomp. Learn the bottom-up framework that makes simultaneous fat loss and muscle gain actually work.
You'll understand why micronutrients drive metabolism and energy production, how flexible dieting fails without nutrient anchors, the fiber sweet spot for body recomp, why perfect macros can't overcome poor training performance, and how to use biofeedback instead of just tracking calories.
This episode gives you a practical system to optimize nutrition for strength training, muscle building, and sustainable fat loss without feeling hungry, weak, or stuck on a plateau.
Timestamps:
0:00 - Flipping the nutrition pyramid for body recomposition
2:52 - Micronutrients and body recomp
7:12 - Constraint theory and metabolic bottlenecks
12:16 - Carbs, fat burning, and ATP
17:11 - Building nutrient-dense meal patterns for muscle gain
20:36 - Flexible dieting with nutrient anchors (not just IIFYM)
25:56 - The fiber "sweet spot" for digestion and metabolism
31:20 - Macro targets that support strength training performance
36:12 - Meal timing and tracking gym performance
40:10 - Using biofeedback over blind calorie tracking
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Philip Pape (00:01):
Most people build their nutrition from the top
down.
Calories first, then macros,maybe micronutrients as an
afterthought.
That approach breaks when yourgoal is body recomposition.
You might hit your calorietargets, you might dial in your
protein, macros might be onpoint, but if you're hungry, if
your training feels flat, if themirror isn't changing,
(00:23):
something is obviously off.
Today I'm showing you why thetraditional nutrition hierarchy
is often backward and the fivemistakes that prevent successful
body recomp before it evenbegins.
Welcome to Wits and Weights,the show that helps you build a
(00:48):
strong, healthy physique usingevidence, engineering, and
efficiency.
I'm your host, certifiednutrition coach Philip Pape, and
creator of the Fitness Lab app.
And today we are going to fliparound the nutrition pyramid.
You've probably been told thatthere is a hierarchy where
calories are on the bottom, theymatter the most, then macros,
(01:08):
then everything else.
And in fact, I've createdpyramids just like this because
in many cases they make thepoint that energy balance, if
you're trying to control weight,needs to take precedent, or
else the other things aren'tgoing to matter.
You eat in a deficit to losefat, and then you hit your
protein, and the rest of it isless important.
(01:29):
The problem is what I findpeople doing when they take that
as approach is they go to anextreme.
And then when they're trying tolose fat and they're trying to
build and hold on to theirmuscle, there's cracks in the
model because they are notlooking ahead to the other
things that are actually moreimportant in the moment.
Like, hey, my hunger signalsare telling me I'm always
starving.
(01:49):
What is going on, even though Ihave my calories and macros on
point?
So even if you are great attracking, even if you know how
to induce a deficit or maintainor surplus, even if you know how
to hit and maintain consistentprotein, and yet your body
doesn't cooperate or you feelweak in the gym or you're always
hungry or your recovery isn'tgreat.
And then week after week, monthafter month, things aren't
(02:11):
changing the way you expect.
From a nutrition standpoint, asit impacts your physical
results, something is goingwrong in that process.
And that's because yourphysiology is complicated and it
has to be equipped to handlewhat you are trying to do, your
specific goal, which your goalis not weight loss.
Your goal is fat loss, buildingmuscle, improving your health,
(02:32):
improving all of these things atthe same time.
And your physiology runs onnutrition, aka micronutrients
first, then macros, and thencalories.
And I'm gonna explain whytoday, why that's a different
way to think about it.
It doesn't necessarily up-endthe traditional pyramid, but
it's complementary to it, orit's a different angle on the
same thing that might be morehelpful to people.
(02:55):
So today I'm gonna break downfive mistakes that I believe are
holding back successful bodyrecomposition, not to add
complexity, but about puttingthe right thing first if you're
the type that is struggling whenyou've tried the traditional
approach.
So, mistake number one isthinking that calories and
(03:15):
macros matter more thanmicronutrients, because after
all, they're in the bottom ofmost of these pyramids.
Let me start with constrainttheory.
This is from engineering, and Italk about it all the time in
the context of figuring out yourroot cause.
In any system, performance isgoing to be limited by the
narrowest bottleneck, right?
If you optimize everythingdownstream of that bottleneck,
(03:38):
but haven't addressed theconstraint, nothing improves.
And in fact, you put a lot ofeffort and work into something
for it not to improve, which iseven more frustrating.
Or then you put up your handsand say, this doesn't work, and
that's not really the reason whyit's not working.
And so most people approachnutrition what I'll call
top-down.
You know, you've listened topodcasts, you've read all the
great books, you follow greatevidence-based people like I do,
(04:01):
and then you conclude, okay, Ineed to figure out calories for
my goal.
Am I trying to lose weight,maintain, gain?
Then I need to set my macros tobalance everything out the
right way (04:11):
protein, fats, carbs, and then maybe think about the
types of foods and the qualitiesof food sometimes as an
afterthought, because you mayhave heard people say, well,
once you've got your macro, onceyou're hitting your macros,
you're inevitably going to havethe right foods.
Well, this works for a simpleweight loss approach, but body
(04:33):
recomposition, you know, tryingto lose fat, trying to build
muscle, whether you're doing itat the same time or over the
long term with cuts and bulks,there are a lot more needs and
demands that you have tounderstand metabolically for the
most part.
But that also includes thingslike hormones.
You're asking your body to dotwo things at once.
You're asking it to releasestored energy, but you're also
(04:54):
trying to keep it strong andbuild or maintain muscle.
And they're they're kind of,I'm not gonna say they're
contradictory, right?
Because we do do both at thesame time, but you have to
understand how it all works.
Building muscle, of course,requires protein synthesis.
This is at the crux of both whywe strength train, but also why
we focus so much on proteinwhen we are losing weight so
(05:15):
that we can hold on to thatmuscle.
Losing fat specificallyrequires efficient energy
metabolism, right?
Is what the way the word I liketo use.
It's not just weight loss.
Recovering from trainingrequires that you repair your at
the cellular level, right?
You have to repair your tissueand recover.
All of this actually dependsheavily on your micronutrients,
(05:36):
your B vitamins, your magnesium,zinc, iron, manganese, copper,
and dozens of others.
Without them, your body can'trun the biochemical pathways
needed for recomp or do themefficiently, even when macros
are quote unquote perfect.
So micronutrients aredetermining how you feel,
(05:57):
regardless of your body weight.
You might lose some fat and youmight gain some muscle, but if
you feel terrible, if you areexhausted, if you're irritable,
mood swings, bloated, weak,constantly hungry, your
biochemical foundation isn'tthere.
And I see this at all differenttypes of goals.
In other words, I even ifsomeone's in a muscle-building
(06:18):
phase with a surplus, justbecause they're eating enough
food doesn't mean they haveenough micronutrients.
When that foundation ismissing, then the adherence is
the first thing to go.
That is where you quit or youbinge or you program hop.
It's not because you lackdiscipline, but because your
body is fighting you becauseyou're not giving it what it
needs.
So if we were to flip thisaround and have a bottom-up
(06:40):
model, not a reprioritization,understand, but it but ensuring
that each of these blocks areaccounted for, I think you have
a higher chance of beingsuccessful.
So, what does that look like?
Micronutrients first, buildthat biochemical operating
system, making sure you actuallyhave them in there, because
(07:01):
otherwise a lot of the otherthings are gonna hit a wall
fast.
Then your macros, you're gonnafuel your system with the right
protein, carbs, and fats, andthen your calories, using energy
balance to drive the fat lossor muscle gain.
And the reason I like it inthis order now, where I used to
be very dogmatic about sayingcalories come first, is because
everything downstream will workbetter.
(07:22):
Your hunger will be betterregulated, your training will
improve, you'll you'll recoverfaster, and body recomp becomes
easier and more frictionless,frictionless while you still
have to understand that caloriesare at the foundation of energy
balance, and then macros are atthe foundation of things like
muscle protein synthesis andhormones and energy and recovery
(07:45):
from a macro basis.
So let me give you someexamples because this could be
confusing.
Your body's ability to turncarbohydrates into usable
energy, and by the way, weshould be eating our carbs.
If you found this podcast forthe first time and you're like,
why is he talking about carbs?
Low carb, right?
No.
Should be eating carbs,requires for your body to use it
as energy, it requires Bvitamins, magnesium, and
(08:05):
manganese.
That's those are examples.
If you're low in these, yourbody can't efficiently extract
the energy from carbs, andthat'll make you a little bit
sluggish.
Even if you're eating a lot ofcarbs, that affects your
workouts.
And it also affects yourcravings because down to the
cellular level, mitochondria,right, powerhouse of the cells,
you're not getting what youneed.
Fat, what about fat burning?
Fat oxidation.
(08:26):
Well, you have to have Bvitamins and carnitine and
coenzyme Q10, right?
CoQ10.
And fat oxidation, you know, isa complicated subject because
we're not talking about burningfat in and of itself as being
some superior thing.
We're just talking about yourability to burn fat at all in an
efficient way in the context ofthe energy balance that gives
(08:49):
you that deficit.
Okay.
Protein synthesis requireszinc, magnesium, vitamin D, and
of course protein, but we'retalking at the micronutrient
level.
So if you're deficient in someof these, and most people are
deficient at least in magnesiumand possibly vitamin D, you can
eat a ton of protein and stillstruggle to build muscle as well
as you think because your bodycan't use that muscle, that
protein efficiently.
(09:09):
What about thyroid hormoneconversion, T4 to T3?
You need selenium, iodine,zinc.
We all know that, right?
Like iodine and selenium comeup a lot in thyroid discussions.
And so low levels of thosefoods can then affect your
thyroid conversion and thattanks your metabolic rate.
And then you think you have athyroid issue when in fact you
just have a micronutrient issue,micronutrient issue.
(09:30):
Even if you're eating plenty offood, okay, that's why it's not
just a calorie thing.
Obviously, if you areunder-eating and you can fix
that, it gets that variable outof the way.
But you might have amicronutrient deficiency, which
we've seen in the evidence candrop your resting metabolic rate
by as many as hundreds ofcalories a day, where you might
think you're in a caloriedeficit because you're eating,
(09:52):
you know, quite a low amount offood that's not satiating you.
But if your metabolism is kindof keeping down along with that
low eating, then you're actuallyat maintenance, but you don't
feel like it.
You feel like crap, right?
Like you feel like you're noteating nearly what you should
be.
And that's why people say, youknow, my macros are perfect, but
I'm always hungry.
Or I'm hitting my protein, butI don't feel like I have enough
(10:12):
energy in the gym.
Or I'm eating healthy, but Ifeel terrible, right?
The problem isn't the macros inthat case.
It's that the body doesn't havethe micros to run your, you
know, metabolic pathways asefficiently.
And I'm not one to fear-monger.
I'm not saying everybody hasjust massive nutrient
deficiencies, but we've had somefolks on the show, like Sarah
Ballantine, who do talk aboutthis as super important, right?
(10:34):
For things like gut health,microbiome diversity, satiety,
how you feel, lots of things inyour body doing lots of
different things.
And really, it's aboutdiversity here.
It's not about having to get aspecific food or another,
although certain foods arepowerhouses of certain
nutrients, and it's good to beeducated on that.
So making sure every mealincludes at least one
(10:57):
micronutrient-dense food as apriority is the way to go here.
It's it's actually quitesimple.
You know, fruit, vegetables,nuts, legumes, root vegetables,
whole grains, dairy, eggs, evenorgan meats and shellfish.
You notice it's not just fruitsand vegetables, not just
plants.
All of these things have a lotof nutrition.
And provide and yes, even redmeat.
(11:18):
I've I've had people comment onYouTube videos being like, oh,
did you know red meat?
That causes diabetes.
I'm like, where are thesepeople learning their
information?
Diabetes is caused by excessconsumption and obesity, and not
by sugar or red meat.
So all of these nutrient-densefoods provide the vitamins, the
minerals, and things that arenot on the label, like
phytonutrients, right?
(11:38):
These are compounds and plantsthat your body needs to run
efficiently.
Your metabolism is affected bythese guys.
So even if it's even if it hitsyou as, hey, I want to increase
my metabolism, it could be alack of micronutrients that's
causing you to have a suppressedmetabolism.
Now, that doesn't mean youcan't have flexible foods.
Notice the list I just gave youwas a huge list of foods to
(11:59):
begin with.
It just means you anchor yourdiet with nutrient density and
then build flexibility aroundthat.
And then you're gonna feed thatinto, okay, how does that meet
my macros and my calories?
You see, you see this, you seethat why this approach makes a
lot of sense.
So this brings us to makemistake number two.
Mistake number two is usingflexible dieting, but without
(12:21):
nutrient anchors.
So, what do I what do I mean bythis?
Well, I'm a huge proponent offlexible dieting.
And that's the ability orflexible eating is another way
to call it, the ability to fitfoods that you love into your
plan because that is what makesnutrition sustainable, period.
Like that one rule is near thetop of the list.
It doesn't mean binging onultra-processed foods, it means
(12:44):
having flexibility and nottelling yourself that certain
foods are quote unquote bad whenthey are perfectly fine in some
level of moderation or contextin your dietary pattern.
But flexible dieting only workswhen you build it on nutrient
density.
And I've had episodes in thepast where I compare flexible
dieting, if it fits your macros,to a more flexible, flexible
(13:07):
approach, if that means, whereyou're really expanding what
this definition means, becausemost people do it backward.
They start with, oh, I can eatanything as long as it fits my
macros.
But then they feel terrible,they can't recover, they hit a
wall, their hormones, all thethings, right?
And I would say there are threegaps or three problems with
(13:27):
this approach, thismacro-centric approach only,
that affect fat loss, thataffect recomp.
The first one is that you'rejust not getting enough of the
nutrients, what we just talkedabout.
The second one is that gutissues or low stomach acid,
medications, poor digestion, arepreventing some of the
absorption of the nutrients youdo eat.
So a lot of people have issueswith nutrient absorption.
(13:47):
We don't talk about that a loton the show.
And I'm remiss if I don't, asobviously a nutrition coach.
And then I'll say theutilization gap is the third gap
where the inflammation in yourbody, and I'm talking about
blood marker-based, legitimateinflammation, right?
The cellular response of yourbody to stress, including the
(14:09):
stress itself, and toxins, whichwould be things like, you know,
smoking, alcohol, drugs,potentially some environmental
toxins, although I don't want tooverplay those.
Maybe missing cofactors thatprevent using the nutrients,
even if absorbed.
It could be some genetic thingsas well.
But anyway, the you know,intake, absorption, and
utilization of nutrients.
And so if you have a flexiblediet, but you're not thinking
(14:30):
about nutrients, you're gonnahave big gaps like this.
You might hit your proteinusing just chicken breast and
whey.
And you might hit your carbswith just white rice and bagels,
and you might hit your fatswith just butter and cheese, and
then hit your macros perfectly.
And you know what's ironic hereor not ironic, but you can take
a pizza and make the perfectmacro-friendly pizza.
But think about how you'regonna feel every time if that's
(14:51):
all you ate.
So micronutrient intake isoften very poor in what I see.
And this is why with my ownlike one-on-one clients, I get
all their data.
Most of them use macrofactorand all the nutrition data is in
there, but maybe usechronometer, maybe track
yourself.
Doesn't matter.
The the micronutrient, I willsee things that are way lower
than they need to be.
Potassium, magnesium, zinc, Bvitamins, fiber.
(15:14):
I know fiber is a weird onebecause it's it's a kind of a
macro or it's part, it's a typeof carb, but I consider it a
nutrient as well.
Polyphenols, you can't reallytrack, but if you have diversity
in color, this is why I like, Ido like color.
It sounds like old school, buthaving enough color on your
plate often takes care of someof the polyphenol and compound
concerns.
Everything your body needs tofeel good, to perform well, to
(15:35):
actually build muscle whilelosing fat.
And by the way, this is why faddiets and restrictive diets,
any kind, whether it's vegan andvegetarianism on one hand or
carnivore on the other, arereally missing out.
You're really missing out onall this stuff.
And to claim that you don'tneed them is really shameful and
honestly dangerous.
Because micronutrient status ispoor in this kind of diet, your
(15:55):
metabolism downregulates fromthat.
Your hunger then goes up.
You're you have the low energy,you have the poor training.
You see where I'm going withall this.
It's a repeated pattern.
And then you might be cravingmore of that.
We'll just call it junk food,but you know what I mean,
ultra-processed foods, becauseyour body is literally starving
for nutrients, even thoughyou're eating enough calories.
So you just go for whatever youcan to make up that difference.
(16:16):
So the paradox of flexibledieting done incorrectly is that
you could be overfed oncalories but undernourished down
in your body at the at thecell, down to the cellular
level.
So the solution here isnutrient anchors.
A nutrient anchor.
And I by the way, I think Ilearned this from this phrase, I
think I'm taking it fromVitality Blueprint.
(16:37):
They're the the company Ipartner with for performance
blood work.
I think they, I think thethey've used this phrase.
Okay, but I've also usedanchors before in terms of like
protein and fiber anchors.
But this is a nutrient anchor,a high-quality micronutrient
dense food that you have in mostof your meals.
So even if the rest of yourdiet is flexible, you're always
hitting your micronutrient needsand you're kind of rotating
(16:58):
through these.
So this is actually prettysimple, and a lot of what you
want to eat anyway is gonna matis gonna satisfy you.
So, for example, Greek yogurtinstead of a low-fat processed
form of dairy, or potatoesinstead of rice cakes, or
legumes instead of protein bars,right?
Or red meat or eggs instead ofonly chicken breasts, or fruit
instead of some other dessert.
(17:20):
Now, some of these swaps are alittle, I'll say harder for
folks.
So you're going from like areally yummy processed food like
ice cream, and I'm telling youto eat fruit.
I'm not saying all the time.
I'm just saying think aboutthose kinds of swaps.
It's not that the calories ormacros change, it's that you're
picking something with morenutrients potentially.
And anything processed isprobably just gonna have fewer
nutrients, even if it's quoteunquote clean or has quote
(17:42):
unquote clean ingredients, likesome good protein bar that you
like.
Okay, I get the convenience,but just remember the more that
you have, the less you're gonnahave of the micros.
So protein fat carbs are oftenchecked off, but then where are
the vitamins, the minerals, thefiber?
Right?
So it this is not about cuttingthings out.
Do you see?
This is really anchoring andbeing intentional.
(18:04):
So, what is what does a mealplan for this look like?
Well, simple breakfast, Greekyogurt, berries, granola, maybe
oatmeal, maybe eggs with eggwhites.
A lot of options there.
Lunch, a burrito bowl withrice, beans, chicken, veggies,
cheese.
Snack could be an apple withpeanut butter.
Simple.
I love apples for fiber.
That's your anchor.
Dinner, steak, roastedpotatoes, a salad, right?
(18:26):
Again, you got your potatoes,your salad, your fiber, maybe,
maybe a some sort of cruciferousvegetable.
Dessert, whatever fits yourmacros.
Ah, see what I did there.
That's the flexibility.
So you're getting nutrientdensity at every meal, but you
still have flexibility.
You don't have to eat blandfood like chicken and broccoli.
I mean, chicken and broccolican be delicious.
I don't mean to criticize thosespecifically.
(18:47):
You're not eliminating foodgroups.
You are making sure thefoundation is there, and then
flexible dieting works sobeautifully.
Then you feel good, then yourecover well and train well, and
the body recomp becomes easierbecause your body has what it
needs.
All right, before we get intomistake number three, I want to
tell you about something that Ithink will make this entire
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(19:07):
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(19:29):
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(19:53):
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(20:13):
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(20:34):
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All right, let's talk aboutmistake number three, which is
mismanaging fiber and guthealth.
Okay, fiber deserves its owncategory because too little of
it is a big problem.
And too much of it can be aproblem as well.
Most people don't have thatissue.
I know people who eat a lot offiber and it just is not too
much.
So I don't worry about that asmuch.
Kind of like with protein, youcan almost never have too much.
(21:59):
You can definitely have toolittle, and that's the usual
issue, especially if you're onsomething like carnivore, then
you're not getting any at alland you're somehow believing the
claims, the false claims thatsomehow you don't need fiber.
And you're gonna pay for that,you know, later on.
You're not paying for it thismonth or next year, but you're
gonna pay for it.
So if you're eating as littleas, say, five to 15 grams of
fiber, which is shockinglycommon among this community,
(22:23):
even people that lift weights,who are eating lots of protein
and focusing on this stuff,you're still not getting enough
fiber.
I know this for a fact becausealmost every client that comes
in with me, they could haveeverything else dialed in and
still, they don't have enoughfiber.
And you're gonna have issues.
You're gonna have potentiallypoor digestion.
So if you already do have poordigestion and you add a bunch of
fiber and you might find thatthat takes care of the issue.
(22:44):
You might have a lot of hungerthat you shouldn't have because
a little more fiber will makeyou a lot fuller at your
maintenance calories.
You might have some issues withblood sugar because you're not
balancing your meals, so you getall the energy crashes from
blood sugar.
I'm not saying you need to weara continuous glucose monitor
and keep blood sugar fromspiking.
No, blood sugar spikes arenormal.
It's the crashes that happenbecause you have in unbalanced
(23:08):
meals that then cause yourenergy to energy to fluctuate
and make you crave food.
Okay, and that's really theissue.
And then you eat too manycalories.
On the other hand, if youmassively ramp up your fiber
because you were low and youwent from 10 to 60 grams of
fiber with like the wheat starchbreads or psyllium husk
(23:28):
supplements or something,metamusle, something like that,
be careful.
You might have bloat gas, youmight reduce absorption of key
minerals.
And I sometimes people come seesee people complain who've gone
from a low carb or carnivoretype diet, and then they add in
all this fiber, like, oh, I felthorrible.
It's just all and they did itfor like three days, you know?
Guys, you've got to let yourbody adapt.
You're changing a lot of thingsphysiologically and in your
(23:50):
gut.
All right.
Fiber is so critical.
Research shows that phyticacid, which is found in high
fiber foods like whole grains,legumes, nuts, and seeds, that
can reduce magnesium absorptionby half.
So if you're already low inmagnesium and then you eat a ton
of fibers, you could make thedeficiency worse.
So this is why I say not tojump up so much in fiber.
(24:12):
And this is also some of thecritic, the critique of like,
oh, too much fiber is bad.
No, too much fiber is not bad.
It's you need fiber and youneed other things.
So when you go from a standardAmerican diet or a Western style
diet to quote unquote cleaneating overnight, you could feel
issues, to be honest.
Like you start pounding oatmealand brown rice and whole wheat
bread and beans and vegetables,which are quote unquote
(24:34):
healthier, but then your gutisn't ready.
And that's where the bloat, thelack, the discomfort, the
nutrient depletion comes from.
So take that in mind.
That's that's the reasonable,nuanced approach.
For most people, 20 to 30 gramsa day is the sweet spot.
Women need a little less, menneed a little more, but it's
really based on your size andhow much you're eating.
It's enough to supportdigestion, stable blood sugars,
(24:54):
satiety, gut health.
Those are the big buckets.
And it's not so much that itcauses bloating or mineral
malabsorption.
Now, I know people that eat 60or 70, but they've gotten
adapted to it.
Somebody that really lovesapples, you know who you are.
She will know who I am.
And there's nothing wrong withthat.
It's fine if you can handlethat.
Okay.
So increase it gradually.
If you're at 10 now, you know,add five grams next week every
(25:16):
day, and then five a day again,and just get up there.
And then the other key herereally is getting it from food
and getting it from variety,diverse foods.
Don't just eat the same highfiber foods every day.
Mix it up.
Different fibers feed differentgut bacteria.
Different plant foods havedifferent polyphenols and
phytonutrients.
(25:36):
So there's a really coolframework that you may have
heard of called the 721 rule.
It's seven plant colors a week,two seafood servings a week,
and one organ meat ornutrient-dense alternative a
week.
So the colors are just all thedifferent colors: red, orange,
yellow, green, blue, purple,white, so that you get your
phytonutrients.
The seafoods would be foromega-3s.
(25:57):
So I know a lot of you aretaking a fish oil, but really
having both, you know, havingthose fattier fish like salmon,
uh, it's a great idea.
Selenium, iodine, zinc.
You can look up which foods arehigh in those.
If you eat shellfish and thingslike that, it's great.
And then the one organ meat ornutrient-dense alternative, you
know, like liver, but a lot ofpeople don't like it.
I would say chicken liver ismilder than beef liver, but have
(26:18):
but eggs, shellfish, fortifieddairy are all in that category
too.
And that's very common forpeople looking at protein
anyway, right?
So it's it's that rotation offoods that covers your bases.
And when you get this right,when you're in that 20 to 30
gram range and you have a lot ofvariety, you're probably gonna
find things improve.
You're gonna have betterhunger, better blood sugar,
(26:39):
better digestion, and you'rejust gonna feel better, which
then impacts mistake numberfour, which is macros, macro
targets that don't support yourtraining performance.
All right, so this is settingmacros that look good on paper
because you're following somerubric, including ones that I
(27:00):
might share as like a startingpoint, but then they're not
optimal for you and yourperformance.
And that's frustrating, right?
Because a client will tell me,hey, I'm hitting my macros, my
protein's high, my calories arewhere they need to be, but I
don't feel great in the gym.
I don't have energy.
I'm losing reps.
I I don't, you know, I can'trecover as well.
I'm feeling sore.
And then when I dig into it,I'll I say, okay, you know what?
(27:22):
You are hitting your macrosvery consistently, but it's
really not best for you rightnow.
We're gonna need to tweak them.
And that that's where theself-experimentation and the
biofeedback are so importantbecause it isn't, it is, even if
it were just about macros, itstill has to be the right macros
for you.
Makes sense, right?
Body recomp is highly dependenton your training.
(27:42):
You can't lose fat and buildmuscle without good high-quality
training.
And that requires energy.
Yes, energy.
We we just don't talk aboutthis enough for whatever reason.
I'm not talking about justcalories, although that's
important, but even in a fatloss phase where you're in a
deficit, you could stilloptimize your energy.
And I'm talking about ATP here.
(28:03):
That's the molecule yourmuscles use to contract
adenosine triphosphate,triphosphate, ATP.
You can't efficiently createATP without micronutrients.
Oh, okay.
So here's the pattern.
We're getting back to pat tomistake number one: B vitamins,
magnesium, manganese, iron,copper, alpha lipoic acid.
You don't, again, you don'thave to like be a nutrition
(28:25):
scientist.
It's just understanding thatwithout the right
micronutrients, your body willstruggle to turn the food into
usable energy, and that impactsyour training, right?
That's where you can't hit thereps and you feel like you can't
progress, you can't push hardenough to create the stimulus,
you feel tired in the gym.
And then if you're not creatingthat stimulus, you're not
building muscle.
If you're not building muscle,then you're just potentially
(28:46):
losing weight and not, or youknow, best case, holding on to
your muscle and never quite ableto add more and defeats the
whole purpose.
And you just feel stuck.
And that's why people say, hey,my macros are perfect, but X,
you know, I feel weak orwhatever the thing is they feel.
So that's the bottleneck,right?
If training performance is thething that really pushes the
(29:06):
muscle side of the equation,macronutrients are important and
we want to fix that.
So make sure, first of all,that you're not just hitting
protein, carbs, and fats inisolation, that the foods you
choose are nutrient-dense.
We've already discussed this alot today.
But to break it down by macro,for protein, you want to have a
good variety (29:24):
eggs, red meat, fatty fish, Greek yogurt, not
just chicken, breast, and whey.
And for those of you who aresomehow against red meat or pork
or something like that, justfor health reasons, okay, I'm
taking off the table value-basedreasons, the food supply,
factory farming, all those moraland ethical issues, because
that's outside the scope of whatI'm talking about.
That's up to you.
(29:44):
That's a self-imposedrestriction.
But from a health perspective,all of these animal products are
fantastic, and having a varietyof them is great.
So, those of you who just eatone type of meat, like chicken
breast, heck, try chicken thighand then expand into some, you
know, red meat, turkey, pork,fish, fatty fish, but even white
fishes, and then there's Greekyogurt, there's cottage cheese,
(30:06):
there's things like that.
So that's protein.
For carbs, potatoes, lovepotatoes, fruit, so many fruits.
I mean, you could just go totown rotating through all your
fruits.
Oats, legumes, you know, notjust rice, not just bread,
quinoa, there's so many things.
For fats, oh, there, I mean,pretty much anything you add for
a little extra flavor, youknow, nuts and seeds, avocado,
(30:29):
olive oil, you're probably usingwith your cooking and through
dressings and things like that.
Fatty fish, which also checksoff the protein, checks off your
fats, right?
Not just butter and cheese.
And I have nothing againstbutter and cheese.
Um, you obviously don't want tobe doing bulletproof coffee.
Like if you're still doingthat, why?
You're just consuming tons andtons of saturated fat for no
(30:49):
reason whatsoever.
It doesn't give you anybenefit, and it probably has
negatives in terms of risk forcardiovascular disease.
And yes, that is well supportedby the evidence.
So that's the first one.
Make sure that the foods youchoose, even for the macros, are
nutrient dense and havevariety.
Second, I want you to payattention to meal timing around
your training.
This is the big one.
For some people, this goes atthe top of the list because they
(31:11):
are doing pretty well withtheir food selection, but then
they're timing it really poorly.
And you don't have toovercomplicate this.
If you train fasted or you'reon very low carbs and you're
always not feeling it, that'sprobably a signal that your body
needs more fuel.
Very few people do really welltraining fasted or on low carbs.
That's just the fact of it.
Some people might.
(31:32):
It's just very rare.
And so, a simple pre-workout,my favorite being banana and
protein.
Banana digests well, it haselectrolytes, it's a fruit, has
a little bit of fiber, but nottoo much, lots of nutrients, and
then protein, which could bewhey protein, could be a
food-based protein, depends onhow much time you have.
It's fine.
That can make a massivedifference.
So that's it for the for themeal timing.
(31:54):
Just gonna keep it simple withpre-carbs pre-workout
predominantly, even if you can'tget the protein.
Third, I want you to track yourperformance in the gym.
Are you not doing that, guys?
Are you not doing that?
If you've listened to the showfor a while, you definitely
should have already been doingthat.
Not just your food, but now youhave to track your lifts.
Are they going up?
Are you maintaining reps weekto week?
Are you hitting your volumetargets?
(32:14):
Those kinds of things.
It doesn't have to be in aspreadsheet form.
It could be just the big liftsor the whatever lifts you are
focusing on for your programthat you are indeed progressing.
If performance is dropping,something is off.
Nine times out of 10, it'seither nutrient nutrient density
or recovery, believe it or not.
I mean, it's sometimes also themeal timing, like we talked
(32:37):
about.
And so when you prioritizeperformance, all these other
things we've already talkedabout on the show today are
gonna be important to youbecause that's you're gonna want
to maximize your performance.
And, you know, while, yeah,you're gonna lose fat through a
calorie deficit, but if youcan't train hard enough to
create the mechanical tension tohold on to muscle, you're not
gonna just lose fat, you'regonna lose muscle.
(32:57):
So that's why all this isimportant.
Micronutrients unlock theability to train hard.
Macros fuel the training, andthen calories drive the overall
outcome.
So that's what I mean by bottomup.
Even if on a pyramid, calorieshave the biggest impact, in a
sense, when it comes to theoutcome, you still need the
other things, or the pyramid'sgonna be a lot smaller, if that
(33:19):
makes sense.
All right, let's talk aboutmistake number five: tracking
calories, but ignoringbiofeedback.
This is a good one.
This is a powerful one.
I love tracking.
I track my own food, I teachclients to track, I tell you
guys to track.
I now have my own app whichtracks in a totally innovative
way that works even better whenyou complement it with your
(33:41):
other stuff, especially now thatwe're gonna be able to pull in
data for you guys.
Data is incredibly useful, butdata without context is useless.
Keep that in mind, guys.
Data, lots and lots of data isuseless without the context to
use that data.
You can hit your calorie targetevery single day and still be
(34:02):
in a terrible placephysiologically if your body is
telling you something's wrong.
So biofeedback, that's all wemean by that.
Bio, biology, feedback isinformation from your body.
Is your robot, it's like yourbody's report card on whether
your nutrition is working.
Not just nutrition, buttraining.
But today we're focused onnutrition.
So what are those signals?
Well, if you're constantlyhungry after your meals versus
(34:26):
I'm always pretty satisfied,that's a signal.
What about digestion?
My gut's working fine, or I'mbloated, I'm gassy, I'm
constipated, or the oppositeproblem from constipation that
we're not gonna go into graphicdetail on.
Energy.
What about energy?
Are you energized throughoutthe day?
Now we all have energy fluxes,or I shouldn't use the word flux
(34:47):
in this context.
We have energy variationthroughout the day, right?
Many of us are pretty energizedin the morning, not everybody,
but some people are dragging bythe afternoon.
There are going to be subtledifferences.
The question is to what degreeare you lacking energy that you
feel you should have?
Sleep, oh, huge one.
Are you falling asleep easily?
Are you staying asleep?
Are you waking up a lot duringthe night?
Right?
This is more about quality, butof course, quantity matters
(35:09):
too.
Mood, are you is your moodpretty stable?
Are you pretty positive ingeneral?
Or are you irritable?
You have a lot of anxiety, areyou, you know, in a bad mood all
the time?
And I recognize some of thisisn't relative to your, let's
say, personality, but I dostrongly believe that you can
cultivate an optimism bias.
You can cultivate a positivepsychology by reframing things
(35:33):
in a positive way, notdelusionally so, but in a what
can I do about this?
How can we get better and learnfrom this?
Okay, enough about that.
What about your libido, yoursex drive?
Is it there or is it gone?
What about your trainingprogression?
This is part of biofeedback.
You know, are you progressinglike we just talked about in the
last mistake and maintainingstrength or hitting new PRs?
(35:53):
Or is it going backward?
Are you just stuck?
What about your stressresponse?
And I say it that wayintentionally, not just stress,
period, but your response tostress.
How do you handle it?
How do you perceive it?
Or are you overwhelmed byeverything?
What about fluid retention?
I don't talk about that asmuch.
I do talk about hydration, butare you bloated and puffy?
(36:15):
Are you like peeing out waterin a normal way and retaining it
in a normal way?
And the urine looks good andyour body feels good from a
hydration perspective, right?
So if all of this is good, yournutrition's probably good.
Who cares what the scale'sdoing?
That's a great place to be,from which you can now do the
other things.
If your biofeedback, on theother hand, is the opposite,
(36:36):
it's terrible, something's wrongwith your nutrition.
And if it's in the middle, itcould be a little this, little
that, right?
Even if you're hitting yourcalorie target, even if you're
hitting your macros.
So the the the kicker, as ChatGPT would say, isn't that funny?
Like, we used to say, here'sthe kicker, like as a just
colloquialism.
(36:57):
And now I feel like that's oneof those things that you know AI
would just say.
Micronutrient deficiencies willreveal themselves in your
biofeedback pretty quickly, evenbefore they show up in, let's
say, blood work, which is whichis important too, because a lot
of you are like, well, I got mylabs and magnesium looks good,
but this stuff fluctuates allthe time.
(37:18):
And, you know, if if your sleepisn't great, your stress
response isn't great, you've gotmuscle cramps, you might have
low magnesium, you know,migraines too.
Some people have migrainesbecause of low magnesium.
Uh low zinc might be a signwhere you feel it in, you know,
you get getting sick, right?
And your skin, your sex drive,your recovery, B vitamins
(37:38):
usually affect energy, mooddigestion.
You get the idea, right?
I'm not gonna go through allthe nutrients today, but it's
really important because studiesdo show that micronutrient
insufficiency is a form ofmetabolic adaptation.
Isn't that interesting, right?
It's not just that yourmetabolism slows down because
you're dieting, it's becauseyour body is not as efficiently
producing energy because itdoesn't have those raw
(37:59):
materials.
And by the way, if you do havegood nutrient sufficiency, but
then you go into a diet and youcut your calories, you may
become nutrient insufficientbecause your calories are low as
well.
And you have to be more carefulabout it.
But we look at something likezinc deficiency, that's a big
one.
It can drop your restingmetabolic rate by hundreds of
calories per day, right?
And and that's just zincholding you back.
Crash dieting itself reducesyour metabolic rate by something
(38:23):
like 15 or 20% within weeks,and then that just delays your
fat loss, right?
That that's more on the calorieside, but it's worth
mentioning.
And this is why I like thebottom-up nutrition approach
when we're thinking of bodyrecomposition and we're gonna do
fat, use fat loss phases andset ourselves up for success to
limit how much your metabolismdownregulates, even when your
(38:44):
calorie targets, your macrotargets are on point.
So when it comes tobiofeedback, you track it just
like anything else.
Fitness Lab does this for youevery day.
At the end of the day, you havean evening reflection and it
gives you one to 10 ratingscales.
What I like about those arethey're quick, take like 30
seconds, and it will use thatdata the next day.
You get up and it'll say, Hey,I notice a pattern of stress
(39:05):
being pretty high.
I'm gonna suggest an activityto help you respond better to
your stress.
Which which one do you want todo?
And it'll do things like that.
Anyway, that's just a sidetangent.
You can do it for yourself witha quick mental check in every
day.
How did I sleep?
How's my digestion?
What's my energy like?
How's my mood?
Am I holding extra water?
Things like that.
You can do it on paper.
You can use, we have a trackerin physique university, it does
(39:25):
the same thing.
And one or two days, no bigdeal, that's life.
But if multiple signals areconsistently poor for at least,
let's say, a week or more,right?
Maybe two weeks or more,something needs to change.
Maybe you need more carbs foryour training and your sleep and
your stress.
Maybe you need more fiber foryour digestion and your hunger.
Maybe you need more nutrientdense foods.
(39:46):
You probably do.
We all do for every reason wetalked about in the show,
including energy and yourmetabolism.
Maybe you just need a dietbreak to get everything back to
homeostasis.
Listen to your body, guys.
It's always giving you realtime feedback about.
Whether your nutrition isworking.
So use it.
Use it.
This is not about weight lossand getting skinny.
(40:08):
No.
It's about feeling great,performing our best, having a
good sex drive, being strong,having muscle, living a long,
vibrant life.
Isn't it?
Isn't it?
And so when you have goodbiofeedback, solid training,
smart nutrition managementacross all three things we
talked about today, body recompis going to happen because now
(40:29):
your physiology is super alignedwith what you're doing.
So we've covered the fivemistakes.
Now I want to give you apractical framework real quick.
You could start using today.
I call it the bottom-up recompplate.
This is a nutrition tip.
Yes, from me.
I know I don't do this a lot.
Every meal, every day, includesthree things: a micronutrient
anchor, a protein anchor, and acarb or fat that supports your
(40:51):
training.
So the micronutrient anchor, Iusually simplify this to just
fiber, but I'm expanding that alittle today.
Anything that brings youvitamins, minerals, fiber,
phytonutrients.
And so that includes fruits,vegetables, legumes, root
vegetables, whole grains, eggs,dairy, nuts, seeds, shellfish.
All right.
I definitely think a few ofthose should definitely be fiber
focused, but think of it interms of micronutrients.
(41:14):
The protein anchor, animal orhigh-quality plant protein, if
you don't need animal products,eggs, meat, fish, Greek yogurt,
cottage cheese, tofu, tempeh,legumes, you know the drill.
And then a carb or fat thatsupports your training.
Notice I don't say both.
In general, if you're focusedon hitting macros, you're going
to put them in anyway.
And so this is again more ofthe type you select.
(41:36):
Is it a starchy carb likepotatoes, rice, oats, a fat
source like avocado or nuts orolive oil, or both?
And that's it.
Three components per meal: micronutrient, protein, and carb (41:43):
undefined
or fat.
It's a framework you can use.
Take it or leave it.
Okay.
Maybe it's too much for youright now.
Maybe you do it for one meal aday.
And then at the weekly level,you kind of want to look back at
your food log and ask yourself,did I have enough color?
Did I have seafood?
And did I have nutrient densefoods?
So all the colors, the sevencolors, the two seafoods, the
(42:03):
one nutrient dense food.
Don't overthink it.
If you're if you're closeenough, that's great.
If you're far from it, thatgives you data point.
So try this for just one weekand track your biofeedback
alongside it, see how you feel.
That's kind of the inputoutput.
The input is the plate, thefood, the output is the
biofeedback.
And then I think you're gonnabe surprised if you actually
take action on this.
So let's just recap the fivemistakes real quick.
(42:25):
Mistake number one, thinkingcalories and macros matter more
than micros.
They don't.
Micros are the operating systemwithout them.
Nothing works as efficiently.
Mistake number two, doingflexible dieting without
nutrient anchors.
Okay, it's not if it fits yourmacros.
You have to have the diversityin the nutrients in there.
Mistake number three ismismanaging fiber.
(42:45):
Too little is usually theissue, but too much can cause
problems, especially if you rampup.
Aim for around 20 to 30 gramsper day with tons of variety.
Mistake number four, settingmacro targets that don't support
your training performance.
Your training is the engine ofall of this.
Fuel it properly.
Mistake number five is trackingcalories but ignoring
biofeedback.
Your body is giving you tons ofamazing real-time feedback that
(43:08):
you should be using.
So micronutrients, macros, andcalories, bottom up.
When you do it in that order,everything will become easier.
Hunger will be more manageable.
Your training should improve.
You should have faster recoveryand get what you want.
If you want to help buildingthis system for yourself without
having to think too much aboutit, with a lot less stress, my
app, Fitness Lab, makes it easy.
(43:29):
The app walks you through thisapproach we talked about today.
It analyzes your meal patterns.
You just upload a photo, that'sall you have to do.
You don't even have to log itor look it up in a database.
Just take a photo and it'sgonna identify where you're
missing nutrient density.
It's also gonna adapt yourtraining based on your
biofeedback as well as yournutrition.
It's gonna give youconversational coaching that
(43:49):
feels like having Coach Phillipin your pocket.
It's available now, it's oniPhone, it should be on Android
as well.
If not, it will be very soon.
It should have the Apple Healthintegration turned on.
Again, I'm saying all shouldsbecause I'm recording these
before my surgery, but these arethe timelines.
So don't hold me to it.
But all of these things aregonna be out shortly, if not
already.
(44:09):
It will be 20% off through theend of the year, starting
December 17th through January2nd.
But if you're listening to thisbefore that, use the link in
the show notes.
It's a secret link to get youthe 20% off now ahead of time.
And you can take advantage ofthat.
Use the link in the show notes.
Until next time, keep usingyour wits, lifting those
weights.
And remember, build from thebottom up, and your body will
(44:32):
cooperate.
This is Philip Pape, and I'lltalk to you next time here on
the Wits and Weights podcast.
Most people build their nutrition from the top
down.
Calories first, then macros,maybe micronutrients as an
afterthought.
That approach breaks when yourgoal is body recomposition.
You might hit your calorietargets, you might dial in your
protein, macros might be onpoint, but if you're hungry, if
your training feels flat, if themirror isn't changing,
(00:23):
something is obviously off.
Today I'm showing you why thetraditional nutrition hierarchy
is often backward and the fivemistakes that prevent successful
body recomp before it evenbegins.
Welcome to Wits and Weights,the show that helps you build a
(00:48):
strong, healthy physique usingevidence, engineering, and
efficiency.
I'm your host, certifiednutrition coach Philip Pape, and
creator of the Fitness Lab app.
And today we are going to fliparound the nutrition pyramid.
You've probably been told thatthere is a hierarchy where
calories are on the bottom, theymatter the most, then macros,
(01:08):
then everything else.
And in fact, I've createdpyramids just like this because
in many cases they make thepoint that energy balance, if
you're trying to control weight,needs to take precedent, or
else the other things aren'tgoing to matter.
You eat in a deficit to losefat, and then you hit your
protein, and the rest of it isless important.
(01:29):
The problem is what I findpeople doing when they take that
as approach is they go to anextreme.
And then when they're trying tolose fat and they're trying to
build and hold on to theirmuscle, there's cracks in the
model because they are notlooking ahead to the other
things that are actually moreimportant in the moment.
Like, hey, my hunger signalsare telling me I'm always
starving.
(01:49):
What is going on, even though Ihave my calories and macros on
point?
So even if you are great attracking, even if you know how
to induce a deficit or maintainor surplus, even if you know how
to hit and maintain consistentprotein, and yet your body
doesn't cooperate or you feelweak in the gym or you're always
hungry or your recovery isn'tgreat.
And then week after week, monthafter month, things aren't
(02:11):
changing the way you expect.
From a nutrition standpoint, asit impacts your physical
results, something is goingwrong in that process.
And that's because yourphysiology is complicated and it
has to be equipped to handlewhat you are trying to do, your
specific goal, which your goalis not weight loss.
Your goal is fat loss, buildingmuscle, improving your health,
(02:32):
improving all of these things atthe same time.
And your physiology runs onnutrition, aka micronutrients
first, then macros, and thencalories.
And I'm gonna explain whytoday, why that's a different
way to think about it.
It doesn't necessarily up-endthe traditional pyramid, but
it's complementary to it, orit's a different angle on the
same thing that might be morehelpful to people.
(02:55):
So today I'm gonna break downfive mistakes that I believe are
holding back successful bodyrecomposition, not to add
complexity, but about puttingthe right thing first if you're
the type that is struggling whenyou've tried the traditional
approach.
So, mistake number one isthinking that calories and
(03:15):
macros matter more thanmicronutrients, because after
all, they're in the bottom ofmost of these pyramids.
Let me start with constrainttheory.
This is from engineering, and Italk about it all the time in
the context of figuring out yourroot cause.
In any system, performance isgoing to be limited by the
narrowest bottleneck, right?
If you optimize everythingdownstream of that bottleneck,
(03:38):
but haven't addressed theconstraint, nothing improves.
And in fact, you put a lot ofeffort and work into something
for it not to improve, which iseven more frustrating.
Or then you put up your handsand say, this doesn't work, and
that's not really the reason whyit's not working.
And so most people approachnutrition what I'll call
top-down.
You know, you've listened topodcasts, you've read all the
great books, you follow greatevidence-based people like I do,
(04:01):
and then you conclude, okay, Ineed to figure out calories for
my goal.
Am I trying to lose weight,maintain, gain?
Then I need to set my macros tobalance everything out the
right way (04:11):
protein, fats, carbs, and then maybe think about the
types of foods and the qualitiesof food sometimes as an
afterthought, because you mayhave heard people say, well,
once you've got your macro, onceyou're hitting your macros,
you're inevitably going to havethe right foods.
Well, this works for a simpleweight loss approach, but body
(04:33):
recomposition, you know, tryingto lose fat, trying to build
muscle, whether you're doing itat the same time or over the
long term with cuts and bulks,there are a lot more needs and
demands that you have tounderstand metabolically for the
most part.
But that also includes thingslike hormones.
You're asking your body to dotwo things at once.
You're asking it to releasestored energy, but you're also
(04:54):
trying to keep it strong andbuild or maintain muscle.
And they're they're kind of,I'm not gonna say they're
contradictory, right?
Because we do do both at thesame time, but you have to
understand how it all works.
Building muscle, of course,requires protein synthesis.
This is at the crux of both whywe strength train, but also why
we focus so much on proteinwhen we are losing weight so
(05:15):
that we can hold on to thatmuscle.
Losing fat specificallyrequires efficient energy
metabolism, right?
Is what the way the word I liketo use.
It's not just weight loss.
Recovering from trainingrequires that you repair your at
the cellular level, right?
You have to repair your tissueand recover.
All of this actually dependsheavily on your micronutrients,
(05:36):
your B vitamins, your magnesium,zinc, iron, manganese, copper,
and dozens of others.
Without them, your body can'trun the biochemical pathways
needed for recomp or do themefficiently, even when macros
are quote unquote perfect.
So micronutrients aredetermining how you feel,
(05:57):
regardless of your body weight.
You might lose some fat and youmight gain some muscle, but if
you feel terrible, if you areexhausted, if you're irritable,
mood swings, bloated, weak,constantly hungry, your
biochemical foundation isn'tthere.
And I see this at all differenttypes of goals.
In other words, I even ifsomeone's in a muscle-building
(06:18):
phase with a surplus, justbecause they're eating enough
food doesn't mean they haveenough micronutrients.
When that foundation ismissing, then the adherence is
the first thing to go.
That is where you quit or youbinge or you program hop.
It's not because you lackdiscipline, but because your
body is fighting you becauseyou're not giving it what it
needs.
So if we were to flip thisaround and have a bottom-up
(06:40):
model, not a reprioritization,understand, but it but ensuring
that each of these blocks areaccounted for, I think you have
a higher chance of beingsuccessful.
So, what does that look like?
Micronutrients first, buildthat biochemical operating
system, making sure you actuallyhave them in there, because
(07:01):
otherwise a lot of the otherthings are gonna hit a wall
fast.
Then your macros, you're gonnafuel your system with the right
protein, carbs, and fats, andthen your calories, using energy
balance to drive the fat lossor muscle gain.
And the reason I like it inthis order now, where I used to
be very dogmatic about sayingcalories come first, is because
everything downstream will workbetter.
(07:22):
Your hunger will be betterregulated, your training will
improve, you'll you'll recoverfaster, and body recomp becomes
easier and more frictionless,frictionless while you still
have to understand that caloriesare at the foundation of energy
balance, and then macros are atthe foundation of things like
muscle protein synthesis andhormones and energy and recovery
(07:45):
from a macro basis.
So let me give you someexamples because this could be
confusing.
Your body's ability to turncarbohydrates into usable
energy, and by the way, weshould be eating our carbs.
If you found this podcast forthe first time and you're like,
why is he talking about carbs?
Low carb, right?
No.
Should be eating carbs,requires for your body to use it
as energy, it requires Bvitamins, magnesium, and
(08:05):
manganese.
That's those are examples.
If you're low in these, yourbody can't efficiently extract
the energy from carbs, andthat'll make you a little bit
sluggish.
Even if you're eating a lot ofcarbs, that affects your
workouts.
And it also affects yourcravings because down to the
cellular level, mitochondria,right, powerhouse of the cells,
you're not getting what youneed.
Fat, what about fat burning?
Fat oxidation.
(08:26):
Well, you have to have Bvitamins and carnitine and
coenzyme Q10, right?
CoQ10.
And fat oxidation, you know, isa complicated subject because
we're not talking about burningfat in and of itself as being
some superior thing.
We're just talking about yourability to burn fat at all in an
efficient way in the context ofthe energy balance that gives
(08:49):
you that deficit.
Okay.
Protein synthesis requireszinc, magnesium, vitamin D, and
of course protein, but we'retalking at the micronutrient
level.
So if you're deficient in someof these, and most people are
deficient at least in magnesiumand possibly vitamin D, you can
eat a ton of protein and stillstruggle to build muscle as well
as you think because your bodycan't use that muscle, that
protein efficiently.
(09:09):
What about thyroid hormoneconversion, T4 to T3?
You need selenium, iodine,zinc.
We all know that, right?
Like iodine and selenium comeup a lot in thyroid discussions.
And so low levels of thosefoods can then affect your
thyroid conversion and thattanks your metabolic rate.
And then you think you have athyroid issue when in fact you
just have a micronutrient issue,micronutrient issue.
(09:30):
Even if you're eating plenty offood, okay, that's why it's not
just a calorie thing.
Obviously, if you areunder-eating and you can fix
that, it gets that variable outof the way.
But you might have amicronutrient deficiency, which
we've seen in the evidence candrop your resting metabolic rate
by as many as hundreds ofcalories a day, where you might
think you're in a caloriedeficit because you're eating,
(09:52):
you know, quite a low amount offood that's not satiating you.
But if your metabolism is kindof keeping down along with that
low eating, then you're actuallyat maintenance, but you don't
feel like it.
You feel like crap, right?
Like you feel like you're noteating nearly what you should
be.
And that's why people say, youknow, my macros are perfect, but
I'm always hungry.
Or I'm hitting my protein, butI don't feel like I have enough
(10:12):
energy in the gym.
Or I'm eating healthy, but Ifeel terrible, right?
The problem isn't the macros inthat case.
It's that the body doesn't havethe micros to run your, you
know, metabolic pathways asefficiently.
And I'm not one to fear-monger.
I'm not saying everybody hasjust massive nutrient
deficiencies, but we've had somefolks on the show, like Sarah
Ballantine, who do talk aboutthis as super important, right?
(10:34):
For things like gut health,microbiome diversity, satiety,
how you feel, lots of things inyour body doing lots of
different things.
And really, it's aboutdiversity here.
It's not about having to get aspecific food or another,
although certain foods arepowerhouses of certain
nutrients, and it's good to beeducated on that.
So making sure every mealincludes at least one
(10:57):
micronutrient-dense food as apriority is the way to go here.
It's it's actually quitesimple.
You know, fruit, vegetables,nuts, legumes, root vegetables,
whole grains, dairy, eggs, evenorgan meats and shellfish.
You notice it's not just fruitsand vegetables, not just
plants.
All of these things have a lotof nutrition.
And provide and yes, even redmeat.
(11:18):
I've I've had people comment onYouTube videos being like, oh,
did you know red meat?
That causes diabetes.
I'm like, where are thesepeople learning their
information?
Diabetes is caused by excessconsumption and obesity, and not
by sugar or red meat.
So all of these nutrient-densefoods provide the vitamins, the
minerals, and things that arenot on the label, like
phytonutrients, right?
(11:38):
These are compounds and plantsthat your body needs to run
efficiently.
Your metabolism is affected bythese guys.
So even if it's even if it hitsyou as, hey, I want to increase
my metabolism, it could be alack of micronutrients that's
causing you to have a suppressedmetabolism.
Now, that doesn't mean youcan't have flexible foods.
Notice the list I just gave youwas a huge list of foods to
(11:59):
begin with.
It just means you anchor yourdiet with nutrient density and
then build flexibility aroundthat.
And then you're gonna feed thatinto, okay, how does that meet
my macros and my calories?
You see, you see this, you seethat why this approach makes a
lot of sense.
So this brings us to makemistake number two.
Mistake number two is usingflexible dieting, but without
(12:21):
nutrient anchors.
So, what do I what do I mean bythis?
Well, I'm a huge proponent offlexible dieting.
And that's the ability orflexible eating is another way
to call it, the ability to fitfoods that you love into your
plan because that is what makesnutrition sustainable, period.
Like that one rule is near thetop of the list.
It doesn't mean binging onultra-processed foods, it means
(12:44):
having flexibility and nottelling yourself that certain
foods are quote unquote bad whenthey are perfectly fine in some
level of moderation or contextin your dietary pattern.
But flexible dieting only workswhen you build it on nutrient
density.
And I've had episodes in thepast where I compare flexible
dieting, if it fits your macros,to a more flexible, flexible
(13:07):
approach, if that means, whereyou're really expanding what
this definition means, becausemost people do it backward.
They start with, oh, I can eatanything as long as it fits my
macros.
But then they feel terrible,they can't recover, they hit a
wall, their hormones, all thethings, right?
And I would say there are threegaps or three problems with
(13:27):
this approach, thismacro-centric approach only,
that affect fat loss, thataffect recomp.
The first one is that you'rejust not getting enough of the
nutrients, what we just talkedabout.
The second one is that gutissues or low stomach acid,
medications, poor digestion, arepreventing some of the
absorption of the nutrients youdo eat.
So a lot of people have issueswith nutrient absorption.
(13:47):
We don't talk about that a loton the show.
And I'm remiss if I don't, asobviously a nutrition coach.
And then I'll say theutilization gap is the third gap
where the inflammation in yourbody, and I'm talking about
blood marker-based, legitimateinflammation, right?
The cellular response of yourbody to stress, including the
(14:09):
stress itself, and toxins, whichwould be things like, you know,
smoking, alcohol, drugs,potentially some environmental
toxins, although I don't want tooverplay those.
Maybe missing cofactors thatprevent using the nutrients,
even if absorbed.
It could be some genetic thingsas well.
But anyway, the you know,intake, absorption, and
utilization of nutrients.
And so if you have a flexiblediet, but you're not thinking
(14:30):
about nutrients, you're gonnahave big gaps like this.
You might hit your proteinusing just chicken breast and
whey.
And you might hit your carbswith just white rice and bagels,
and you might hit your fatswith just butter and cheese, and
then hit your macros perfectly.
And you know what's ironic hereor not ironic, but you can take
a pizza and make the perfectmacro-friendly pizza.
But think about how you'regonna feel every time if that's
(14:51):
all you ate.
So micronutrient intake isoften very poor in what I see.
And this is why with my ownlike one-on-one clients, I get
all their data.
Most of them use macrofactorand all the nutrition data is in
there, but maybe usechronometer, maybe track
yourself.
Doesn't matter.
The the micronutrient, I willsee things that are way lower
than they need to be.
Potassium, magnesium, zinc, Bvitamins, fiber.
(15:14):
I know fiber is a weird onebecause it's it's a kind of a
macro or it's part, it's a typeof carb, but I consider it a
nutrient as well.
Polyphenols, you can't reallytrack, but if you have diversity
in color, this is why I like, Ido like color.
It sounds like old school, buthaving enough color on your
plate often takes care of someof the polyphenol and compound
concerns.
Everything your body needs tofeel good, to perform well, to
(15:35):
actually build muscle whilelosing fat.
And by the way, this is why faddiets and restrictive diets,
any kind, whether it's vegan andvegetarianism on one hand or
carnivore on the other, arereally missing out.
You're really missing out onall this stuff.
And to claim that you don'tneed them is really shameful and
honestly dangerous.
Because micronutrient status ispoor in this kind of diet, your
(15:55):
metabolism downregulates fromthat.
Your hunger then goes up.
You're you have the low energy,you have the poor training.
You see where I'm going withall this.
It's a repeated pattern.
And then you might be cravingmore of that.
We'll just call it junk food,but you know what I mean,
ultra-processed foods, becauseyour body is literally starving
for nutrients, even thoughyou're eating enough calories.
So you just go for whatever youcan to make up that difference.
(16:16):
So the paradox of flexibledieting done incorrectly is that
you could be overfed oncalories but undernourished down
in your body at the at thecell, down to the cellular
level.
So the solution here isnutrient anchors.
A nutrient anchor.
And I by the way, I think Ilearned this from this phrase, I
think I'm taking it fromVitality Blueprint.
(16:37):
They're the the company Ipartner with for performance
blood work.
I think they, I think thethey've used this phrase.
Okay, but I've also usedanchors before in terms of like
protein and fiber anchors.
But this is a nutrient anchor,a high-quality micronutrient
dense food that you have in mostof your meals.
So even if the rest of yourdiet is flexible, you're always
hitting your micronutrient needsand you're kind of rotating
(16:58):
through these.
So this is actually prettysimple, and a lot of what you
want to eat anyway is gonna matis gonna satisfy you.
So, for example, Greek yogurtinstead of a low-fat processed
form of dairy, or potatoesinstead of rice cakes, or
legumes instead of protein bars,right?
Or red meat or eggs instead ofonly chicken breasts, or fruit
instead of some other dessert.
(17:20):
Now, some of these swaps are alittle, I'll say harder for
folks.
So you're going from like areally yummy processed food like
ice cream, and I'm telling youto eat fruit.
I'm not saying all the time.
I'm just saying think aboutthose kinds of swaps.
It's not that the calories ormacros change, it's that you're
picking something with morenutrients potentially.
And anything processed isprobably just gonna have fewer
nutrients, even if it's quoteunquote clean or has quote
(17:42):
unquote clean ingredients, likesome good protein bar that you
like.
Okay, I get the convenience,but just remember the more that
you have, the less you're gonnahave of the micros.
So protein fat carbs are oftenchecked off, but then where are
the vitamins, the minerals, thefiber?
Right?
So it this is not about cuttingthings out.
Do you see?
This is really anchoring andbeing intentional.
(18:04):
So, what is what does a mealplan for this look like?
Well, simple breakfast, Greekyogurt, berries, granola, maybe
oatmeal, maybe eggs with eggwhites.
A lot of options there.
Lunch, a burrito bowl withrice, beans, chicken, veggies,
cheese.
Snack could be an apple withpeanut butter.
Simple.
I love apples for fiber.
That's your anchor.
Dinner, steak, roastedpotatoes, a salad, right?
(18:26):
Again, you got your potatoes,your salad, your fiber, maybe,
maybe a some sort of cruciferousvegetable.
Dessert, whatever fits yourmacros.
Ah, see what I did there.
That's the flexibility.
So you're getting nutrientdensity at every meal, but you
still have flexibility.
You don't have to eat blandfood like chicken and broccoli.
I mean, chicken and broccolican be delicious.
I don't mean to criticize thosespecifically.
(18:47):
You're not eliminating foodgroups.
You are making sure thefoundation is there, and then
flexible dieting works sobeautifully.
Then you feel good, then yourecover well and train well, and
the body recomp becomes easierbecause your body has what it
needs.
All right, before we get intomistake number three, I want to
tell you about something that Ithink will make this entire
process easier becauseeverything we're discussing
(19:07):
today micros, macros, trainingperformance, biofeedback, it all
comes together in one place,and that is my new app, Fitness
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Fitness Lab is an AI-poweredfitness coaching app.
But, guys, it's nothing likeyou've seen before when it comes
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And yes, even my personality,I've given a lot of guidance on
(19:29):
how to convey things and how tobe compassionate and empathetic.
If you can believe that or not,AI is able to do that.
It's now available on iPhone.
And if if it's not already,shortly it'll be out on Android
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It's like having a coach inyour pocket who understands this
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(19:53):
It doesn't just tell you eatless or track your macros, it's
a lot more intuitive and nuancedand helps you.
Build a system.
It'll look at your specificmeals and look for color and
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It looks for all these thingsand gives you feedback so you
can nudge your diet in the rightdirection.
And as we continue to integratewith Apple Health, it'll be
(20:13):
able to pull in things like yoursleep metrics and even your
nutrition metrics if you useanother logger like my
macrofactor or my fitness pal.
You get conversationalcoaching.
If you've never done thatbefore, it's it's incredible.
People are writing in saying, Ican't believe it like
understands me and can answer myquestions.
It's like I'm talking to you,Philip.
It gives you analysis of yourmeal patterns.
(20:34):
What are you missingnutrient-wise?
Training guidance.
It could either give you yourprogram and form checks, or it
can help you reflect on aprogram that you're already
following.
So all of this stuff, it's soadaptable and it evolves every
day.
You can tell it what you'd likeit to focus on or not, and it
will follow that.
Right now, through the end ofthe year, you can get 20% off
(20:55):
with our holiday promotion.
Now, I think this episode comesout a couple days before
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(21:37):
All right, let's talk aboutmistake number three, which is
mismanaging fiber and guthealth.
Okay, fiber deserves its owncategory because too little of
it is a big problem.
And too much of it can be aproblem as well.
Most people don't have thatissue.
I know people who eat a lot offiber and it just is not too
much.
So I don't worry about that asmuch.
Kind of like with protein, youcan almost never have too much.
(21:59):
You can definitely have toolittle, and that's the usual
issue, especially if you're onsomething like carnivore, then
you're not getting any at alland you're somehow believing the
claims, the false claims thatsomehow you don't need fiber.
And you're gonna pay for that,you know, later on.
You're not paying for it thismonth or next year, but you're
gonna pay for it.
So if you're eating as littleas, say, five to 15 grams of
fiber, which is shockinglycommon among this community,
(22:23):
even people that lift weights,who are eating lots of protein
and focusing on this stuff,you're still not getting enough
fiber.
I know this for a fact becausealmost every client that comes
in with me, they could haveeverything else dialed in and
still, they don't have enoughfiber.
And you're gonna have issues.
You're gonna have potentiallypoor digestion.
So if you already do have poordigestion and you add a bunch of
fiber and you might find thatthat takes care of the issue.
(22:44):
You might have a lot of hungerthat you shouldn't have because
a little more fiber will makeyou a lot fuller at your
maintenance calories.
You might have some issues withblood sugar because you're not
balancing your meals, so you getall the energy crashes from
blood sugar.
I'm not saying you need to weara continuous glucose monitor
and keep blood sugar fromspiking.
No, blood sugar spikes arenormal.
It's the crashes that happenbecause you have in unbalanced
(23:08):
meals that then cause yourenergy to energy to fluctuate
and make you crave food.
Okay, and that's really theissue.
And then you eat too manycalories.
On the other hand, if youmassively ramp up your fiber
because you were low and youwent from 10 to 60 grams of
fiber with like the wheat starchbreads or psyllium husk
(23:28):
supplements or something,metamusle, something like that,
be careful.
You might have bloat gas, youmight reduce absorption of key
minerals.
And I sometimes people come seesee people complain who've gone
from a low carb or carnivoretype diet, and then they add in
all this fiber, like, oh, I felthorrible.
It's just all and they did itfor like three days, you know?
Guys, you've got to let yourbody adapt.
You're changing a lot of thingsphysiologically and in your
(23:50):
gut.
All right.
Fiber is so critical.
Research shows that phyticacid, which is found in high
fiber foods like whole grains,legumes, nuts, and seeds, that
can reduce magnesium absorptionby half.
So if you're already low inmagnesium and then you eat a ton
of fibers, you could make thedeficiency worse.
So this is why I say not tojump up so much in fiber.
(24:12):
And this is also some of thecritic, the critique of like,
oh, too much fiber is bad.
No, too much fiber is not bad.
It's you need fiber and youneed other things.
So when you go from a standardAmerican diet or a Western style
diet to quote unquote cleaneating overnight, you could feel
issues, to be honest.
Like you start pounding oatmealand brown rice and whole wheat
bread and beans and vegetables,which are quote unquote
(24:34):
healthier, but then your gutisn't ready.
And that's where the bloat, thelack, the discomfort, the
nutrient depletion comes from.
So take that in mind.
That's that's the reasonable,nuanced approach.
For most people, 20 to 30 gramsa day is the sweet spot.
Women need a little less, menneed a little more, but it's
really based on your size andhow much you're eating.
It's enough to supportdigestion, stable blood sugars,
(24:54):
satiety, gut health.
Those are the big buckets.
And it's not so much that itcauses bloating or mineral
malabsorption.
Now, I know people that eat 60or 70, but they've gotten
adapted to it.
Somebody that really lovesapples, you know who you are.
She will know who I am.
And there's nothing wrong withthat.
It's fine if you can handlethat.
Okay.
So increase it gradually.
If you're at 10 now, you know,add five grams next week every
(25:16):
day, and then five a day again,and just get up there.
And then the other key herereally is getting it from food
and getting it from variety,diverse foods.
Don't just eat the same highfiber foods every day.
Mix it up.
Different fibers feed differentgut bacteria.
Different plant foods havedifferent polyphenols and
phytonutrients.
(25:36):
So there's a really coolframework that you may have
heard of called the 721 rule.
It's seven plant colors a week,two seafood servings a week,
and one organ meat ornutrient-dense alternative a
week.
So the colors are just all thedifferent colors: red, orange,
yellow, green, blue, purple,white, so that you get your
phytonutrients.
The seafoods would be foromega-3s.
(25:57):
So I know a lot of you aretaking a fish oil, but really
having both, you know, havingthose fattier fish like salmon,
uh, it's a great idea.
Selenium, iodine, zinc.
You can look up which foods arehigh in those.
If you eat shellfish and thingslike that, it's great.
And then the one organ meat ornutrient-dense alternative, you
know, like liver, but a lot ofpeople don't like it.
I would say chicken liver ismilder than beef liver, but have
(26:18):
but eggs, shellfish, fortifieddairy are all in that category
too.
And that's very common forpeople looking at protein
anyway, right?
So it's it's that rotation offoods that covers your bases.
And when you get this right,when you're in that 20 to 30
gram range and you have a lot ofvariety, you're probably gonna
find things improve.
You're gonna have betterhunger, better blood sugar,
(26:39):
better digestion, and you'rejust gonna feel better, which
then impacts mistake numberfour, which is macros, macro
targets that don't support yourtraining performance.
All right, so this is settingmacros that look good on paper
because you're following somerubric, including ones that I
(27:00):
might share as like a startingpoint, but then they're not
optimal for you and yourperformance.
And that's frustrating, right?
Because a client will tell me,hey, I'm hitting my macros, my
protein's high, my calories arewhere they need to be, but I
don't feel great in the gym.
I don't have energy.
I'm losing reps.
I I don't, you know, I can'trecover as well.
I'm feeling sore.
And then when I dig into it,I'll I say, okay, you know what?
(27:22):
You are hitting your macrosvery consistently, but it's
really not best for you rightnow.
We're gonna need to tweak them.
And that that's where theself-experimentation and the
biofeedback are so importantbecause it isn't, it is, even if
it were just about macros, itstill has to be the right macros
for you.
Makes sense, right?
Body recomp is highly dependenton your training.
(27:42):
You can't lose fat and buildmuscle without good high-quality
training.
And that requires energy.
Yes, energy.
We we just don't talk aboutthis enough for whatever reason.
I'm not talking about justcalories, although that's
important, but even in a fatloss phase where you're in a
deficit, you could stilloptimize your energy.
And I'm talking about ATP here.
(28:03):
That's the molecule yourmuscles use to contract
adenosine triphosphate,triphosphate, ATP.
You can't efficiently createATP without micronutrients.
Oh, okay.
So here's the pattern.
We're getting back to pat tomistake number one: B vitamins,
magnesium, manganese, iron,copper, alpha lipoic acid.
You don't, again, you don'thave to like be a nutrition
(28:25):
scientist.
It's just understanding thatwithout the right
micronutrients, your body willstruggle to turn the food into
usable energy, and that impactsyour training, right?
That's where you can't hit thereps and you feel like you can't
progress, you can't push hardenough to create the stimulus,
you feel tired in the gym.
And then if you're not creatingthat stimulus, you're not
building muscle.
If you're not building muscle,then you're just potentially
(28:46):
losing weight and not, or youknow, best case, holding on to
your muscle and never quite ableto add more and defeats the
whole purpose.
And you just feel stuck.
And that's why people say, hey,my macros are perfect, but X,
you know, I feel weak orwhatever the thing is they feel.
So that's the bottleneck,right?
If training performance is thething that really pushes the
(29:06):
muscle side of the equation,macronutrients are important and
we want to fix that.
So make sure, first of all,that you're not just hitting
protein, carbs, and fats inisolation, that the foods you
choose are nutrient-dense.
We've already discussed this alot today.
But to break it down by macro,for protein, you want to have a
good variety (29:24):
eggs, red meat, fatty fish, Greek yogurt, not
just chicken, breast, and whey.
And for those of you who aresomehow against red meat or pork
or something like that, justfor health reasons, okay, I'm
taking off the table value-basedreasons, the food supply,
factory farming, all those moraland ethical issues, because
that's outside the scope of whatI'm talking about.
That's up to you.
(29:44):
That's a self-imposedrestriction.
But from a health perspective,all of these animal products are
fantastic, and having a varietyof them is great.
So, those of you who just eatone type of meat, like chicken
breast, heck, try chicken thighand then expand into some, you
know, red meat, turkey, pork,fish, fatty fish, but even white
fishes, and then there's Greekyogurt, there's cottage cheese,
(30:06):
there's things like that.
So that's protein.
For carbs, potatoes, lovepotatoes, fruit, so many fruits.
I mean, you could just go totown rotating through all your
fruits.
Oats, legumes, you know, notjust rice, not just bread,
quinoa, there's so many things.
For fats, oh, there, I mean,pretty much anything you add for
a little extra flavor, youknow, nuts and seeds, avocado,
(30:29):
olive oil, you're probably usingwith your cooking and through
dressings and things like that.
Fatty fish, which also checksoff the protein, checks off your
fats, right?
Not just butter and cheese.
And I have nothing againstbutter and cheese.
Um, you obviously don't want tobe doing bulletproof coffee.
Like if you're still doingthat, why?
You're just consuming tons andtons of saturated fat for no
(30:49):
reason whatsoever.
It doesn't give you anybenefit, and it probably has
negatives in terms of risk forcardiovascular disease.
And yes, that is well supportedby the evidence.
So that's the first one.
Make sure that the foods youchoose, even for the macros, are
nutrient dense and havevariety.
Second, I want you to payattention to meal timing around
your training.
This is the big one.
For some people, this goes atthe top of the list because they
(31:11):
are doing pretty well withtheir food selection, but then
they're timing it really poorly.
And you don't have toovercomplicate this.
If you train fasted or you'reon very low carbs and you're
always not feeling it, that'sprobably a signal that your body
needs more fuel.
Very few people do really welltraining fasted or on low carbs.
That's just the fact of it.
Some people might.
(31:32):
It's just very rare.
And so, a simple pre-workout,my favorite being banana and
protein.
Banana digests well, it haselectrolytes, it's a fruit, has
a little bit of fiber, but nottoo much, lots of nutrients, and
then protein, which could bewhey protein, could be a
food-based protein, depends onhow much time you have.
It's fine.
That can make a massivedifference.
So that's it for the for themeal timing.
(31:54):
Just gonna keep it simple withpre-carbs pre-workout
predominantly, even if you can'tget the protein.
Third, I want you to track yourperformance in the gym.
Are you not doing that, guys?
Are you not doing that?
If you've listened to the showfor a while, you definitely
should have already been doingthat.
Not just your food, but now youhave to track your lifts.
Are they going up?
Are you maintaining reps weekto week?
Are you hitting your volumetargets?
(32:14):
Those kinds of things.
It doesn't have to be in aspreadsheet form.
It could be just the big liftsor the whatever lifts you are
focusing on for your programthat you are indeed progressing.
If performance is dropping,something is off.
Nine times out of 10, it'seither nutrient nutrient density
or recovery, believe it or not.
I mean, it's sometimes also themeal timing, like we talked
(32:37):
about.
And so when you prioritizeperformance, all these other
things we've already talkedabout on the show today are
gonna be important to youbecause that's you're gonna want
to maximize your performance.
And, you know, while, yeah,you're gonna lose fat through a
calorie deficit, but if youcan't train hard enough to
create the mechanical tension tohold on to muscle, you're not
gonna just lose fat, you'regonna lose muscle.
(32:57):
So that's why all this isimportant.
Micronutrients unlock theability to train hard.
Macros fuel the training, andthen calories drive the overall
outcome.
So that's what I mean by bottomup.
Even if on a pyramid, calorieshave the biggest impact, in a
sense, when it comes to theoutcome, you still need the
other things, or the pyramid'sgonna be a lot smaller, if that
(33:19):
makes sense.
All right, let's talk aboutmistake number five: tracking
calories, but ignoringbiofeedback.
This is a good one.
This is a powerful one.
I love tracking.
I track my own food, I teachclients to track, I tell you
guys to track.
I now have my own app whichtracks in a totally innovative
way that works even better whenyou complement it with your
(33:41):
other stuff, especially now thatwe're gonna be able to pull in
data for you guys.
Data is incredibly useful, butdata without context is useless.
Keep that in mind, guys.
Data, lots and lots of data isuseless without the context to
use that data.
You can hit your calorie targetevery single day and still be
(34:02):
in a terrible placephysiologically if your body is
telling you something's wrong.
So biofeedback, that's all wemean by that.
Bio, biology, feedback isinformation from your body.
Is your robot, it's like yourbody's report card on whether
your nutrition is working.
Not just nutrition, buttraining.
But today we're focused onnutrition.
So what are those signals?
Well, if you're constantlyhungry after your meals versus
(34:26):
I'm always pretty satisfied,that's a signal.
What about digestion?
My gut's working fine, or I'mbloated, I'm gassy, I'm
constipated, or the oppositeproblem from constipation that
we're not gonna go into graphicdetail on.
Energy.
What about energy?
Are you energized throughoutthe day?
Now we all have energy fluxes,or I shouldn't use the word flux
(34:47):
in this context.
We have energy variationthroughout the day, right?
Many of us are pretty energizedin the morning, not everybody,
but some people are dragging bythe afternoon.
There are going to be subtledifferences.
The question is to what degreeare you lacking energy that you
feel you should have?
Sleep, oh, huge one.
Are you falling asleep easily?
Are you staying asleep?
Are you waking up a lot duringthe night?
Right?
This is more about quality, butof course, quantity matters
(35:09):
too.
Mood, are you is your moodpretty stable?
Are you pretty positive ingeneral?
Or are you irritable?
You have a lot of anxiety, areyou, you know, in a bad mood all
the time?
And I recognize some of thisisn't relative to your, let's
say, personality, but I dostrongly believe that you can
cultivate an optimism bias.
You can cultivate a positivepsychology by reframing things
(35:33):
in a positive way, notdelusionally so, but in a what
can I do about this?
How can we get better and learnfrom this?
Okay, enough about that.
What about your libido, yoursex drive?
Is it there or is it gone?
What about your trainingprogression?
This is part of biofeedback.
You know, are you progressinglike we just talked about in the
last mistake and maintainingstrength or hitting new PRs?
(35:53):
Or is it going backward?
Are you just stuck?
What about your stressresponse?
And I say it that wayintentionally, not just stress,
period, but your response tostress.
How do you handle it?
How do you perceive it?
Or are you overwhelmed byeverything?
What about fluid retention?
I don't talk about that asmuch.
I do talk about hydration, butare you bloated and puffy?
(36:15):
Are you like peeing out waterin a normal way and retaining it
in a normal way?
And the urine looks good andyour body feels good from a
hydration perspective, right?
So if all of this is good, yournutrition's probably good.
Who cares what the scale'sdoing?
That's a great place to be,from which you can now do the
other things.
If your biofeedback, on theother hand, is the opposite,
(36:36):
it's terrible, something's wrongwith your nutrition.
And if it's in the middle, itcould be a little this, little
that, right?
Even if you're hitting yourcalorie target, even if you're
hitting your macros.
So the the the kicker, as ChatGPT would say, isn't that funny?
Like, we used to say, here'sthe kicker, like as a just
colloquialism.
(36:57):
And now I feel like that's oneof those things that you know AI
would just say.
Micronutrient deficiencies willreveal themselves in your
biofeedback pretty quickly, evenbefore they show up in, let's
say, blood work, which is whichis important too, because a lot
of you are like, well, I got mylabs and magnesium looks good,
but this stuff fluctuates allthe time.
(37:18):
And, you know, if if your sleepisn't great, your stress
response isn't great, you've gotmuscle cramps, you might have
low magnesium, you know,migraines too.
Some people have migrainesbecause of low magnesium.
Uh low zinc might be a signwhere you feel it in, you know,
you get getting sick, right?
And your skin, your sex drive,your recovery, B vitamins
(37:38):
usually affect energy, mooddigestion.
You get the idea, right?
I'm not gonna go through allthe nutrients today, but it's
really important because studiesdo show that micronutrient
insufficiency is a form ofmetabolic adaptation.
Isn't that interesting, right?
It's not just that yourmetabolism slows down because
you're dieting, it's becauseyour body is not as efficiently
producing energy because itdoesn't have those raw
(37:59):
materials.
And by the way, if you do havegood nutrient sufficiency, but
then you go into a diet and youcut your calories, you may
become nutrient insufficientbecause your calories are low as
well.
And you have to be more carefulabout it.
But we look at something likezinc deficiency, that's a big
one.
It can drop your restingmetabolic rate by hundreds of
calories per day, right?
And and that's just zincholding you back.
Crash dieting itself reducesyour metabolic rate by something
(38:23):
like 15 or 20% within weeks,and then that just delays your
fat loss, right?
That that's more on the calorieside, but it's worth
mentioning.
And this is why I like thebottom-up nutrition approach
when we're thinking of bodyrecomposition and we're gonna do
fat, use fat loss phases andset ourselves up for success to
limit how much your metabolismdownregulates, even when your
(38:44):
calorie targets, your macrotargets are on point.
So when it comes tobiofeedback, you track it just
like anything else.
Fitness Lab does this for youevery day.
At the end of the day, you havean evening reflection and it
gives you one to 10 ratingscales.
What I like about those arethey're quick, take like 30
seconds, and it will use thatdata the next day.
You get up and it'll say, Hey,I notice a pattern of stress
(39:05):
being pretty high.
I'm gonna suggest an activityto help you respond better to
your stress.
Which which one do you want todo?
And it'll do things like that.
Anyway, that's just a sidetangent.
You can do it for yourself witha quick mental check in every
day.
How did I sleep?
How's my digestion?
What's my energy like?
How's my mood?
Am I holding extra water?
Things like that.
You can do it on paper.
You can use, we have a trackerin physique university, it does
(39:25):
the same thing.
And one or two days, no bigdeal, that's life.
But if multiple signals areconsistently poor for at least,
let's say, a week or more,right?
Maybe two weeks or more,something needs to change.
Maybe you need more carbs foryour training and your sleep and
your stress.
Maybe you need more fiber foryour digestion and your hunger.
Maybe you need more nutrientdense foods.
(39:46):
You probably do.
We all do for every reason wetalked about in the show,
including energy and yourmetabolism.
Maybe you just need a dietbreak to get everything back to
homeostasis.
Listen to your body, guys.
It's always giving you realtime feedback about.
Whether your nutrition isworking.
So use it.
Use it.
This is not about weight lossand getting skinny.
(40:08):
No.
It's about feeling great,performing our best, having a
good sex drive, being strong,having muscle, living a long,
vibrant life.
Isn't it?
Isn't it?
And so when you have goodbiofeedback, solid training,
smart nutrition managementacross all three things we
talked about today, body recompis going to happen because now
(40:29):
your physiology is super alignedwith what you're doing.
So we've covered the fivemistakes.
Now I want to give you apractical framework real quick.
You could start using today.
I call it the bottom-up recompplate.
This is a nutrition tip.
Yes, from me.
I know I don't do this a lot.
Every meal, every day, includesthree things: a micronutrient
anchor, a protein anchor, and acarb or fat that supports your
(40:51):
training.
So the micronutrient anchor, Iusually simplify this to just
fiber, but I'm expanding that alittle today.
Anything that brings youvitamins, minerals, fiber,
phytonutrients.
And so that includes fruits,vegetables, legumes, root
vegetables, whole grains, eggs,dairy, nuts, seeds, shellfish.
All right.
I definitely think a few ofthose should definitely be fiber
focused, but think of it interms of micronutrients.
(41:14):
The protein anchor, animal orhigh-quality plant protein, if
you don't need animal products,eggs, meat, fish, Greek yogurt,
cottage cheese, tofu, tempeh,legumes, you know the drill.
And then a carb or fat thatsupports your training.
Notice I don't say both.
In general, if you're focusedon hitting macros, you're going
to put them in anyway.
And so this is again more ofthe type you select.
(41:36):
Is it a starchy carb likepotatoes, rice, oats, a fat
source like avocado or nuts orolive oil, or both?
And that's it.
Three components per meal: micronutrient, protein, and carb (41:43):
undefined
or fat.
It's a framework you can use.
Take it or leave it.
Okay.
Maybe it's too much for youright now.
Maybe you do it for one meal aday.
And then at the weekly level,you kind of want to look back at
your food log and ask yourself,did I have enough color?
Did I have seafood?
And did I have nutrient densefoods?
So all the colors, the sevencolors, the two seafoods, the
(42:03):
one nutrient dense food.
Don't overthink it.
If you're if you're closeenough, that's great.
If you're far from it, thatgives you data point.
So try this for just one weekand track your biofeedback
alongside it, see how you feel.
That's kind of the inputoutput.
The input is the plate, thefood, the output is the
biofeedback.
And then I think you're gonnabe surprised if you actually
take action on this.
So let's just recap the fivemistakes real quick.
(42:25):
Mistake number one, thinkingcalories and macros matter more
than micros.
They don't.
Micros are the operating systemwithout them.
Nothing works as efficiently.
Mistake number two, doingflexible dieting without
nutrient anchors.
Okay, it's not if it fits yourmacros.
You have to have the diversityin the nutrients in there.
Mistake number three ismismanaging fiber.
(42:45):
Too little is usually theissue, but too much can cause
problems, especially if you rampup.
Aim for around 20 to 30 gramsper day with tons of variety.
Mistake number four, settingmacro targets that don't support
your training performance.
Your training is the engine ofall of this.
Fuel it properly.
Mistake number five is trackingcalories but ignoring
biofeedback.
Your body is giving you tons ofamazing real-time feedback that
(43:08):
you should be using.
So micronutrients, macros, andcalories, bottom up.
When you do it in that order,everything will become easier.
Hunger will be more manageable.
Your training should improve.
You should have faster recoveryand get what you want.
If you want to help buildingthis system for yourself without
having to think too much aboutit, with a lot less stress, my
app, Fitness Lab, makes it easy.
(43:29):
The app walks you through thisapproach we talked about today.
It analyzes your meal patterns.
You just upload a photo, that'sall you have to do.
You don't even have to log itor look it up in a database.
Just take a photo and it'sgonna identify where you're
missing nutrient density.
It's also gonna adapt yourtraining based on your
biofeedback as well as yournutrition.
It's gonna give youconversational coaching that
(43:49):
feels like having Coach Phillipin your pocket.
It's available now, it's oniPhone, it should be on Android
as well.
If not, it will be very soon.
It should have the Apple Healthintegration turned on.
Again, I'm saying all shouldsbecause I'm recording these
before my surgery, but these arethe timelines.
So don't hold me to it.
But all of these things aregonna be out shortly, if not
already.
(44:09):
It will be 20% off through theend of the year, starting
December 17th through January2nd.
But if you're listening to thisbefore that, use the link in
the show notes.
It's a secret link to get youthe 20% off now ahead of time.
And you can take advantage ofthat.
Use the link in the show notes.
Until next time, keep usingyour wits, lifting those
weights.
And remember, build from thebottom up, and your body will
(44:32):
cooperate.
This is Philip Pape, and I'lltalk to you next time here on
the Wits and Weights podcast.
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