April 7, 2025 • 29 mins
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--
Is your metabolism REALLY low?
If you've been doing everything right... strength training consistently, eating well, walking 8-10K steps daily, managing stress and sleep...
Yet your metabolism seems stubbornly slower than everyone else's...
This episode will help you create a successful fat loss plan that works with your unique metabolic constraints rather than fighting against them.
Main Takeaways:
- Some people genuinely have lower metabolisms due to factors beyond their control
- Your body's "calories out" equation can vary dramatically between individuals
- Strategic food choices can maximize satiety even on lower calorie budgets
- The psychological approach to a slower metabolism matters as much as tactics
- Success comes from designing around constraints rather than fighting against them
Timestamps:
3:10 - The key factors behind metabolic variation
10:32 - Systems thinking
11:29 - Food satiety/volume
14:13 - Nutrient quality
15:44 - Protein considerations
16:46 - Calorie cycling
19:46 - Meal timing
22:27 - Food environment
23:24 - Training-recovery balance with limited energy
24:26 - Daily movement
25:22 - Expectations
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Philip Pape (00:01):
If you've been doing everything right strength
training, consistently eating,well walking, 8-10,000 steps
daily, managing your stress andsleep yet your metabolism seems
stubbornly slower than everyoneelse's.
You're not alone and you're notimagining it.
Some people genuinely havelower metabolic rates, despite
doing everything by the book.
The truth is that traditionalcalorie deficit approaches that
(00:24):
work for most people might beleaving you feeling miserable,
hungry and watching yourstrength plummet when you're
already eating what feels likenext to nothing.
Today, we're going tounderstand why some people have
inherently lower energyexpenditure and how to design
around this metabolic constraint.
You'll learn how to create afat loss system that works
specifically for your uniquephysiology without requiring
(00:47):
extreme restriction or endlesscardio.
Welcome to Wits and Weights,the show that helps you build a
strong, healthy physique usingevidence, engineering and
efficiency.
I'm your host, philip Pape, andtoday we're talking about a
(01:09):
situation that frustrates manyof my clients and listeners, and
that is having a genuinelylower-than-average metabolism,
despite following all the righthabits.
So this isn't about metabolismmyths or misconceptions, or also
how to support your metabolismwhen you haven't done all the
things.
We actually covered that inepisode 302, the one right
(01:32):
before this, about why yourmetabolism declines with age and
what to do about it, and thatis a very good foundational
episode if you're kind of new tothis and wondering where to
start, but today is okay.
You've done the things and Istill have a much lower than
average metabolism, and so whatthis is about is acknowledging
that there are significantgenetic and physiological
(01:54):
variations between human beings.
Right, that just genetics alonewill cause differences, and
some people simply burn fewercalories at rest and during
activity than others, even whencontrolling for body size,
muscle mass, what they callfat-free mass and activity
levels.
What is pretty exciting, though, is that once you acknowledge
(02:14):
the reality right, facts arefacts, and once we analyze it
like an engineer we analyze itsystematically, understand
what's going on we can designfat loss approaches that work
with your body's uniqueconstraints, instead of fighting
against them, like I've helpedmany clients do who've had this
exact issue Before we get intoit.
Of course, if you want to takethat first step toward
(02:35):
understanding your metabolismand how to accurately track and
adjust your nutrition for yourunique needs, again, this
episode is really a moreadvanced topic, but if you're
trying to take that first stepor you want a refresher,
download my free Nutrition 101Guide for Body Composition.
The link is in the show notes.
Totally free, it gives you thefoundation you need to implement
(02:56):
even the basic two advancedstrategies that we'll discuss
today.
It's a game changer.
So go to witsandweightscom,slash free or just click the
link in the show notes todownload my Flexible Dieting
Nutrition 101 for BodyComposition Guide.
All right, so let's start bytalking about why some people
have lower metabolic ratesdespite what I'll call optimal
(03:18):
habits.
And this is crucial because,assuming you've got all the
habits in place and that's a bigassumption, right?
Sometimes people have done allthe things and yet they haven't.
They still have a lot ofchronic stress and they don't
realize it.
Or the way they respond tostress is really causing their
cortisol to go haywire, and thatis what's preventing them from
losing fat.
Assuming you've optimizedeverything, understanding the
(03:41):
why behind the remainingconstraints will no-transcript
(04:11):
episode.
I've identified the five primaryreasons why your metabolism
might be genuinely lower thanaverage, despite following the
advice.
First and foremost is justgenetics, and it's not something
we can control, right?
Research shows that as much asa 10 to 20% difference can be
found in resting metabolic ratebetween individuals of similar
(04:33):
size, age and body composition,and that's not a small variance,
right?
That's not nothing.
That's the difference betweensomeone needing 1,800 calories
for maintenance versus, say,2,200 calories for maintenance
versus, say, 2200 calories formaintenance.
And these are encoded in ourDNA.
It affects a lot of things.
It affects our mitochondrialefficiency, which I talked about
on the last episode.
It affects our hormonesensitivity, meaning like you
(04:57):
might metabolically adapt moreaggressively as soon as you
start going on a diet because ofhow sensitive your hormones are
.
And if your parents, if yoursiblings, also struggle with
similar issues, there definitelycould be a genetic component at
play.
Not always right.
A lot of us just have familywho they don't know what to do
and they've kind of letthemselves go.
They're sedentary, they don'ttrain all of that and don't
(05:19):
always read genetics into that.
But you do know that there aredifferences between individuals
just doing the same things andat the same body size.
The second factor is adaptivethermogenesis, or metabolic
adaptation, we call it, and thisis history-based.
What I mean by that is, ifyou've been through periods of
(05:42):
significant dieting and calorierestriction in the past,
especially chronicallyrestrictive diets or yo-yo
dieting your body may havedeveloped a I'll call it
persistent, not permanent,that's.
That's I gotta be careful of mywords, but kind of a persistent
, long-term, deeply embedded anddeveloped metabolic adaptation.
Right, and we know this fromthe extremes, like the Biggest
(06:05):
Loser show.
That was a game show wherecontestants lost a ton of weight
really fast and theirmetabolisms adapted and when
they went back to eating thenormal amount of food for their
maintenance, their maintenancecalories were way lower than
they were before and theypersisted for years after the
diet ended.
And so your body essentiallybecomes more efficient at
(06:27):
conserving energy, which isgreat for survival when there's
a famine, right, but it'sfrustrating when you're trying
to get a certain bodycomposition in the modern
environment.
So it's good to understand thatyour history is going to play
into this.
You can't change history, it iswhat it is, but just understand
that.
The third factor out of five isphysiological efficiency, and
(06:47):
this means this this is alsokind of a genetic thing, right?
Some people, um, just extractmore energy from food and then
they conserve more energy whenthey're active.
Your body might have moreefficient digestive enzymes,
more efficient mitochondria andless energy wasted as heat.
Okay, so that means you're like.
(07:09):
It sounds great, except theproblem is it means you're not
going to burn very many calories.
It is great for survival.
It's an advantage.
It's a disadvantage when you'retrying to lose fat, when you're
trying to get rid of energy.
So I guess the positive reframeon that is you're an efficient
beast, but unfortunately itmakes it a little harder to lose
fat.
I get it.
The fourth factor is hormonalfactors.
Right, we never want to blamehormones, but we do want to
(07:32):
understand there are variationsin people's thyroid function,
their insulin sensitivity, theirsex hormone levels.
Some of these are because ofyour history and because of your
lifestyle.
Others are simply geneticdifferences.
And remember that the normalclinical range is not always the
best indicator of the optimalrange, right, and the optimal
(07:53):
range for you might also bedifferent than someone else's
optimal range, and that cancause differences in energy
expenditure.
So if someone, for example,who's at the lower end of normal
thyroid function might burnsignificantly fewer calories
than someone at the upper end,whether that means you need
treatment or not, that's amedical decision that you want
to find a competent expert totalk to about, but it may be
(08:15):
genetics as well.
And then, finally, your bodysize is going to matter.
If you're smaller framed,you're going to burn fewer
calories, like you might havesmaller bones, smaller organs
just be small in general as aperson.
So this is like petite women.
Okay, I've had clients or womenthey tend to be a little bit
more challenging clients justbecause everything is at a
smaller level of change.
(08:38):
Um, the sensitivity is is kindof, I guess, smaller in a way,
uh, in that they're already in alight body weight and sometimes
a lean body fat, and so, uh,any standard approach or
standard calorie recommendationmight be completely off the wall
for them and have nothing to dowith what they really need.
And you got to be careful andnot say, oh, you're at 1100
(08:59):
calories in your diet, that'sreally, I've heard, that's
really low.
Well, if you're 110 poundfemale five, five, two that
might be more than enoughcalories for you at maintenance.
I don't know Right, and insociety where we eat food and we
have certain amounts of mealsand food, you know, meals are a
certain size and all this it canbe frustrating for them because
they feel like they're eatingway less than other people, but
(09:21):
really they're eating what theirbody says they need and it's
the size they were born with.
So we have to deal with that.
Now I want to address a commonobjection I hear when discussing
this topic because often peoplewill say you know, people say,
but that violates the laws ofthermodynamics, right?
Or calories in calories outstill applies, and I'm I'm the
biggest advocate foracknowledging that energy
(09:43):
balance is reality.
Right, and both thosestatements are true that energy
balance governs weight loss.
But the key uh insight here isthat your body's calories
outside of the equation is whatcan be dramatically different
from person to person, and itcan change a lot even when all
observable behaviors areidentical.
(10:04):
Right, and people get hung upon calories in calories out as
if it's fixed Obviously caloriesin is what you eat, but
calories out is vastly variable,based on a lot of factors.
Right, so it's not like energyis appearing or disappearing
magically.
Right, conservation of energythermodynamics it's recognizing
that the, the system, the bodysystem efficiency varies
(10:27):
significantly between people.
Okay, so hopefully I've gottenthat message through without
rambling too much on it.
But this is where asystems-based approach becomes
even more invaluable.
The thing that we teach hereand that I offer clients and
what we work through it is notjust cookie cutter diets and
just random programs and YouTubeinfluencers and all that that.
None of that stuff works formost people, especially people
(10:49):
who have to really dial in dueto a lower metabolism.
And if you think of a system,right, systems have constraints.
They have efficiencies.
When we can't change the coreefficiency of the system, which
is your metabolism, when wecan't change that, like the core
level of it right, I'm nottalking about your overall TDE,
(11:09):
the things we can change butwhen you can't change the core,
we want to design around that,we want to acknowledge that and
we optimize the other variablesand then create what I'll call
like redundant systems thatdon't rely exclusively on the
constrained component.
And you're like what the hellare you talking about?
Okay, let me get into it.
So let me get into how we applythis.
All right, we're going to createa fat loss system for someone
(11:32):
with a lower metabolism, and forsome reason this is the week of
eights, because on the lastepisode, I talked about eight
strategies for preventingmetabolism decline with age.
Today, we're going to talkabout eight strategies for a fat
loss system for a lowmetabolism.
All right, the first four aregoing to focus on optimizing
nutrition without requiringextreme calorie restriction.
(11:54):
This is a really importanttopic because what most people
do is they just feel like theyjust have to cut calories to a
ridiculous level when they havea low metabolism.
You don't have to.
Strategy number one is highsatiety, high volume, low energy
density foods.
I know for some of you thatsounds obvious, but a lot of you
are not doing this.
(12:15):
Even if you don't have a lowmetabolism, this is a game
changer.
This means building your dietaround foods that create the
maximum fullness signal with theminimum calorie input Lean
proteins think chicken breast,white fish, egg whites, shrimp,
tuna, those kinds of things,lean pork, et cetera.
Even very lean beef are up onthis list.
(12:38):
High fiber vegetables andfruits.
High resistant starch foodslike white potatoes.
One of the most high satietyfruits is orange.
When you eat the whole orangenot the rind, obviously, but
don't have orange juice, eat theorange.
The goal is strategicallyincrease your food volume
without increasing calorieintake.
Think of large salads,vegetables, soups, stews, stir
(13:00):
fries you know dishes that takeup a lot of stomach space
relative to their caloriecontent.
I did an episode on thatrecently.
Go hunt for it.
It's in the last few weeks orreach out to me.
It was all about that.
It was all about it wasactually called um when eat
eating less.
Sorry, let me think about thisEating more to lose weight
actually works.
That's what it was, and it wasthe idea that you're actually
(13:22):
eating more volume, you're noteating more calories.
So I have I have several clientsI can think of who are kind of
struggling with that lowmaintenance intake, even after
we've bumped it up a bit.
They're building weight,they're, you know, walking,
they're doing all the things,and what we had to do is just
acknowledge they needed a lotmore high satiety and high fiber
foods, a lot more protein aswell relative to the normal
(13:45):
recommendation.
And then they and by they Imean men and women.
I can think of one woman inparticular who was actually on
the podcast recently, melanie,you could go check out her
episode we're able to and bythey I mean men and women.
I can think of one woman inparticular who was actually on
the podcast recently Melanie,you could go check out her
episode we're able to createthis modest deficit and not feel
deprived.
We can't necessarily create anaggressive deficit because of
the calorie levels, or else youget into that point of where the
hunger signals really gettriggered a lot, but we could at
(14:07):
least have a modest deficit andslowly lose fat over time and
still feel satisfied, all right.
So you can start your meal with,for example, a large volume of
vegetables and then follow it bylean protein and then have the
starchy carbs and fats at theend of the meal, for example.
The sequence of how you eat canbe really helpful.
So that's strategy number one.
Strategy number two is nutrientdensity, maximizing nutrient
(14:30):
density.
So this might sound the same asvolume and there is
mathematically a similarity.
But you've got to think aboutit this way when your calorie
budget's limited, you want everycalorie to work harder for you.
So when I say nutrients, I'mactually talking about
micronutrients, right, and so ifyou can select foods rich in
micronutrients and high qualityprotein, it's going to support
(14:53):
your training performance, yourmuscle retention, your cravings,
your satiety, just having morenutrients in your diet, because
your body kind of knows whenit's deficient.
It's not as precise andtargeted as people think like,
oh, I crave vitamin E orwhatever.
Evidence doesn't quite supportthat, whatever Evidence doesn't
(15:16):
quite support that.
But you do get more satisfiedand support many of these hunger
signals with morenutrient-dense foods, and that
might be introducing things likeorgan meats, fatty fish, leafy
greens, berries, cruciferousvegetables, eggs.
All of these are what somepeople call superfoods I don't
like that term because there'sno good or bad foods, but they
are super in terms of theirnutrient density.
So actually, somebody I had onthe show, dr Sarah Ballantyne,
wrote a book called Nutrivorgreat book, and she actually
(15:39):
ranks a lot of foods based ontheir nutrient score.
So that could be another way tolook at it.
All right, strategy number threeis I alluded to this already
but slightly higher or a lothigher protein intake than the
standard recommendation.
So my standard recommendationand what the evidence shows is
0.7 to 1 gram per pound of bodyweight.
(16:00):
I would shoot that up to maybe1.2, as much as 1.5.
Now the problem with going toohigh is you leave very few
calories for carbs and fats.
So it really is a fine dancebetween the macros.
And again, all of this is forsomebody who knows what they're
doing, who's tracking, who canbe pretty consistent with this.
Otherwise you're going to driveyourself crazy and you really
have to go back to the basicsfirst and not even try to lose
(16:22):
fat potentially until you'vedialed those in.
So we know protein is thehighest dermic effect of food.
Your body burns more caloriesdigesting it.
We know that higher proteinintake enhances muscle retention
.
We know it promotes greatersatiety.
All the things you got to getwith protein.
I feel like I've talked aboutthis so much recently.
If you're listening to even twoepisodes, you'll get plenty of
it.
So increasing protein above thenormal could be helpful.
(16:46):
Strategy number four is caloriecycling and refeeds.
So normally I would notrecommend calorie cycling, carb
cycling, even refeeds to newerpeople following a fat loss plan
.
Refeeds I might like makingSaturday and Sunday a little bit
higher days than the other days, but I mean strategic refeeds,
like bringing up your carbs soyour calories are all the way to
(17:08):
your maintenance right, notjust a little bit higher, but
like a lot higher, literallytaking a break, um.
But you could also have caloriecycling within the week and
kind of line it up with yourtraining, line it up with your
hunger signals.
I've definitely had clients whohave to do that just to,
because the calories are so lowthat their body really feels the
difference.
And if you can support yourtraining and recovery the most,
(17:32):
the rest of it kind of works out, if you will.
It doesn't work for everyone.
Some people need the samecalorie intake every day, but
others can alternate between lowand high calorie days, usually
by changing carbs, and it willminimize I don't want to say it
minimizes metabolic adaptation.
It's going to slow the rate offat loss down right, unless your
(17:52):
low days are even lower, whichI don't recommend.
But it's going to feel evenmore sustainable and you'll be
consistent and be able tocontinue getting the result
without just feeling like you'rekind of crashing all the time.
Because the alternative, ifyou're going to have the same
calories every day might be likeyou're not quite in a big
(18:12):
enough deficit but you're alsonot quite at maintenance and so
you're kind of shooting yourselfin the foot by not getting
movement.
You know your body adapts tothe food and you feel like
you're dieting but you're notgetting the result.
It makes sense.
So sometimes having the lowerand the higher, where the lower
is more aggressive and thehigher is closer to a refeed or
somewhere in between, it'sreally going to depend.
You've got to experiment withit.
It's going to really help youpush forward sustainably.
(18:35):
It might look like four to fivedays at a deficit and then two
to three days of maintenance.
It might be three days in anaggressive deficit and four days
of maintenance or no days ofmaintenance.
Maybe they're all dieting days,but some are just more
aggressive than others.
And again, usually where thecarbs are placed around training
sessions.
(18:57):
Kind of related to this,actually, as part of the
strategy, is structured dietbreaks.
So hold on, let me look at mylist, my notes here.
Yeah, so I'm including this.
I'm including this here.
So diet breaks are like anentire week, or even an entire
month, every six weeks, 12 weeks, whatever you need to just
recover from the stress ofdieting mentally and physically
before you continue, just tokeep it sustainable.
(19:18):
It's not going to change yourmetabolism in any way, but you
might have.
You know, you're going to havesome improvements in your
hormones, your energy, yourtraining performance during that
phase.
So if you can hit it a littlebit harder, you actually do get
a net benefit for the overallfat loss phase.
So that's the nutrition side,the first four strategies.
The next four are going to beabout activity and recovery and
(19:41):
some of the psychologicalfactors, so I'm kind of lumping
them all together into the finalfour.
So this gives us a strategynumber five and that is meal
frequency and timing.
So when you are on thesetighter calories with a lower
metabolism, the meal pattern isgoing to really have to line
with your natural hunger signalsand your energy needs.
This is a form of intuition,but combined with tracking and
(20:05):
measuring that intuition, ifthat makes sense, right?
So in other words, you need tounderstand when and why you get
hunger.
You need to understand when andwhy you have high or low energy
.
It's not just I feel this wayand so I'm going to kind of uh,
wing it, right You're, you wantto journal it, track it, write
it down, check it off, whatevermakes sense for you.
Use a number scale.
(20:25):
It's a form of tracking for you.
When you have the lowermetabolism, to compliment your
tracking of food in yourtraining, right, my clients all
track a lot of this stuff anyway.
So, again, if you just wantsomebody to help you do that and
give you a plan and say here'swhat you need to do that's why
somebody would work with me orjoin our Physique University.
But look, when you have a lowermetabolic rate, you've got to
(20:46):
get more creative you might findthat you need some form of a
feeding fasting window.
I've never, ever saidintermittent fasting can't work
for somebody.
I hope you know that.
I do say that it's notnecessary for most people and it
creates no different resultfrom a calorie perspective than
any other feeding window, butfrom a hunger signal,
satisfaction and consistencyperspective, you might need a
(21:08):
tighter feeding window becausethe calories are lower.
So then you might have, like,your first meal at 11 am and
your last meal at 5 pm, with ameal in between.
Each of those meals can then bebigger.
Your body adapts to having thefasting window and it's more
sustainable.
So fewer, larger meals feelmore satisfied, trigger the
fullness hormones and so on, andyou're able to maintain your
(21:30):
calorie level and feel goodabout it.
Having said that, the fastingwindow needs to be intelligently
aligned with your training, soyou're not training fasted.
That's my biggest caveat onthat.
Now you might be on theopposite extreme and you might
benefit from more frequentsmaller meals to maintain stable
energy throughout the day right, and this is more of the blood
(21:50):
sugar control and you might needthat little bit of a hit of the
meal to kind of just staysatisfied all day.
What did I want to go with this?
So I'm telling you a lot ofstuff, but the main thing here
is experiment.
You can't just track your food,but you have to track hunger,
energy, mood, training,performance, right and connect
(22:12):
them to your meal patterns toidentify what works best.
You know some clients that havelower metabolisms use fasting
and others hate it.
Right, so, like it depends onwhat works for you, all right.
Strategy number six this isabout diet quality and your food
environment.
So when you have a lowermetabolic rate, you have a
(22:35):
smaller margin for error when itcomes to the highly palatable,
ultra processed, the caloriedense foods that can easily lead
to over consuming those foods,and so creating an environment
that supports adhering to thefat loss phase becomes even more
paramount.
Right, meal prepping, limitingthe availability of foods that
(22:55):
would tempt you in your house or, at least in eyesight, having a
plan for social situationswhere you're going to have a lot
of calorie dense options.
Notice, I'm not telling you tonot enjoy those foods.
I'm telling you that you needto be creative with setting
yourself up for yourenvironmental success and
reducing decision fatigue so youcan enjoy those foods on
(23:16):
occasion, knowing the ultimatequantity is not gonna be as high
as someone else with a highermetabolism.
It's just the state of things.
All right.
Strategy number seven has to dowith your recovery and training
volume.
So when your calories are lowand I know this from personal
experience right now because I'min a fat loss phase and totally
understand my calories arestill higher than the people
(23:38):
we're talking about in thisepisode.
You can get wiped.
You've got to balance yourtraining stimulus with a
recovery capacity, and itdoesn't mean training less or
less frequently, but it doesmean making sure that every
training session has a clearpurpose, gives you a very
precise outcome and that yourrecovery between sessions is
(24:00):
prioritized right.
What you don't want isexcessive fatigue building up
from overtraining, which thenreduces your other activity
levels and then decreases yourexpenditure even further.
You might have to reduce yes,you might have to reduce some
volume, but it might be moreabout focusing on the intensity
of that training, the load ofthe training, the progression.
Maybe you need to do threeinstead of four days.
(24:23):
Maybe you need to do sixinstead of three, you know and
spread out the recovery.
It's really going to depend onyou at creative ways to increase
your need even further.
And I know you're like oh,really Like even if you're
(24:44):
already getting eight to 10,000steps every day, can you add
another two or three or four insome achievable, sustainable way
?
Right, that you're not alreadytaking advantage of Now.
If you're getting eight to10,000, that's a meaningful
amount, but I know you couldpush to 12 or 14 with a little
extra effort, unless you justabsolutely don't have time and
no capability to do that, inwhich case you've got to
evaluate whether you should bein a fat loss phase or even
trying to do it as aggressivelyas you are.
(25:05):
But we're talking short walksafter meals, using a standing
desk, taking movement breaksduring work, even finding ways
to be less efficient with yourtask right, multiple trips to
carry groceries instead ofcarrying everything at once.
I mean little hacks like thatsometimes work.
So those are the eightstrategies, and I think the
(25:26):
thing that's going to be thecrucial glue that binds it all
together is your mindset towardthis process.
It has to be.
It has to be so.
I've worked with severalclients who have very, very low
metabolic rates and I found thattheir psychological approach is
going to determine theirsuccess way more than any of the
tactics, because sometimesyou're doing all the tactics and
(25:48):
very little moves on the needleand then it slowly starts to
move right and it's like youhave to have that.
I don't want to call itdiscipline, but I want to call
it a positive mindset that theprocess is the most important
thing and the outcome is goingto come from the process, and so
this means you have to adjustyour expectations.
I'm sorry, you just have toadjust your expectations and be
(26:09):
realistic, right?
You need to recognize thathaving a lower expenditure does
not indicate poor health.
It doesn't indicate you're afailure.
It just requires you to be morestrategic.
And so any common fat lossadvice out there to cut X number
of calories and lose a pound aweek or whatever, it might mean
an unbearably low intake for youand that's not for you.
(26:31):
So you might have to accept amore modest deficit, a slower
rate of fat loss, and thenyou're still going to have
better long-term outcomes whenyou do that.
Go listen to the podcast withMelanie.
She dropped eight and a halfpercent body fat.
The actual pounds loss wasn'tthat much, but she built muscle
at the same time.
If we were just thinking aboutweight loss, man, that would
have been so frustrating.
I would have not wanted to keepworking with her as a coach
(26:53):
because I would have thought Iwas a total failure.
But because we were trackingall the different things and
focusing on the process, we gotincredible results for what you
wanted, right, and it takes time.
It takes time.
So think about all the thingswe talked about today Embracing
the process instead of theoutcome.
Right, don't just fixate on thescale.
Build your system.
Are you being consistent?
(27:14):
You know at least 80% with thethings that you care about,
whether that's protein, training, recovery, whatever.
Those are the things in yourcontrol.
Right, the outcome is not inyour control.
It will result from the thingsyou're in control, but that's
what's in your control.
All right, let's recap the mainpoints.
Yes, some people genuinely havelower metabolic rates, even
when you're doing everything.
Right, you are not a failure.
(27:35):
It is a physiologicalconstraint period.
It is just the facts, ma'am.
And if you implement the eightstrategies we've discussed high
satiety foods, nutrient density,protein higher than average,
calorie cycling if needed, mealtiming, your food environment,
balancing your training andrecovery and finding ways to
move even more you can createthe system that works with you.
(27:59):
So, remember, the mental pieceis probably as important as all
these.
It kind of puts them alltogether.
Adjust your expectations,embrace a sustainable, lasting
approach and focus onprocess-oriented goals instead
of outcomes.
Right, it's not a life sentence.
I mean, no matter who you are.
We don't want to spend thatmuch time fat loss dieting, and
(28:19):
by not much time it's going todepend.
It might mean six months, itmight mean three months, it
might be nine months the firsttime, and then, once you get
there, you can maintain yourleanness and focus on energy
performance, building muscle.
You're going to you're going toachieve your goals.
You're going to achieve yourexcuse me body composition goals
.
You just have to have athoughtful, personalized
strategy that is more creativethan what might work for, say,
(28:42):
the average metabolism.
All right.
So if you enjoyed today'sepisode and you want to start
implementing the basics beforeyou get to the more advanced
strategies, download my freeguide Nutrition 101 for Body
Composition.
It's going to help youestablish the foundational
habits that make thesestrategies even more effective.
Go to whatsoeightscom or clickthe link in the show notes to
get your copy.
(29:02):
Until next time, keep usingyour wits lifting those weights
and remember your uniquemetabolism isn't something to
fight against, but a keyconstraint to design around in
your personalized physiquesystem.
I'll talk to you next time hereon the Wits and Weights
Constraint to Design Around inyour Personalized Physique
System.
I'll talk to you next time hereon the Wits and Weights Podcast
(29:28):
.
If you've been doing everything right strength
training, consistently eating,well walking, 8-10,000 steps
daily, managing your stress andsleep yet your metabolism seems
stubbornly slower than everyoneelse's.
You're not alone and you're notimagining it.
Some people genuinely havelower metabolic rates, despite
doing everything by the book.
The truth is that traditionalcalorie deficit approaches that
(00:24):
work for most people might beleaving you feeling miserable,
hungry and watching yourstrength plummet when you're
already eating what feels likenext to nothing.
Today, we're going tounderstand why some people have
inherently lower energyexpenditure and how to design
around this metabolic constraint.
You'll learn how to create afat loss system that works
specifically for your uniquephysiology without requiring
(00:47):
extreme restriction or endlesscardio.
Welcome to Wits and Weights,the show that helps you build a
strong, healthy physique usingevidence, engineering and
efficiency.
I'm your host, philip Pape, andtoday we're talking about a
(01:09):
situation that frustrates manyof my clients and listeners, and
that is having a genuinelylower-than-average metabolism,
despite following all the righthabits.
So this isn't about metabolismmyths or misconceptions, or also
how to support your metabolismwhen you haven't done all the
things.
We actually covered that inepisode 302, the one right
(01:32):
before this, about why yourmetabolism declines with age and
what to do about it, and thatis a very good foundational
episode if you're kind of new tothis and wondering where to
start, but today is okay.
You've done the things and Istill have a much lower than
average metabolism, and so whatthis is about is acknowledging
that there are significantgenetic and physiological
(01:54):
variations between human beings.
Right, that just genetics alonewill cause differences, and
some people simply burn fewercalories at rest and during
activity than others, even whencontrolling for body size,
muscle mass, what they callfat-free mass and activity
levels.
What is pretty exciting, though, is that once you acknowledge
(02:14):
the reality right, facts arefacts, and once we analyze it
like an engineer we analyze itsystematically, understand
what's going on we can designfat loss approaches that work
with your body's uniqueconstraints, instead of fighting
against them, like I've helpedmany clients do who've had this
exact issue Before we get intoit.
Of course, if you want to takethat first step toward
(02:35):
understanding your metabolismand how to accurately track and
adjust your nutrition for yourunique needs, again, this
episode is really a moreadvanced topic, but if you're
trying to take that first stepor you want a refresher,
download my free Nutrition 101Guide for Body Composition.
The link is in the show notes.
Totally free, it gives you thefoundation you need to implement
(02:56):
even the basic two advancedstrategies that we'll discuss
today.
It's a game changer.
So go to witsandweightscom,slash free or just click the
link in the show notes todownload my Flexible Dieting
Nutrition 101 for BodyComposition Guide.
All right, so let's start bytalking about why some people
have lower metabolic ratesdespite what I'll call optimal
(03:18):
habits.
And this is crucial because,assuming you've got all the
habits in place and that's a bigassumption, right?
Sometimes people have done allthe things and yet they haven't.
They still have a lot ofchronic stress and they don't
realize it.
Or the way they respond tostress is really causing their
cortisol to go haywire, and thatis what's preventing them from
losing fat.
Assuming you've optimizedeverything, understanding the
(03:41):
why behind the remainingconstraints will no-transcript
(04:11):
episode.
I've identified the five primaryreasons why your metabolism
might be genuinely lower thanaverage, despite following the
advice.
First and foremost is justgenetics, and it's not something
we can control, right?
Research shows that as much asa 10 to 20% difference can be
found in resting metabolic ratebetween individuals of similar
(04:33):
size, age and body composition,and that's not a small variance,
right?
That's not nothing.
That's the difference betweensomeone needing 1,800 calories
for maintenance versus, say,2,200 calories for maintenance
versus, say, 2200 calories formaintenance.
And these are encoded in ourDNA.
It affects a lot of things.
It affects our mitochondrialefficiency, which I talked about
on the last episode.
It affects our hormonesensitivity, meaning like you
(04:57):
might metabolically adapt moreaggressively as soon as you
start going on a diet because ofhow sensitive your hormones are
.
And if your parents, if yoursiblings, also struggle with
similar issues, there definitelycould be a genetic component at
play.
Not always right.
A lot of us just have familywho they don't know what to do
and they've kind of letthemselves go.
They're sedentary, they don'ttrain all of that and don't
(05:19):
always read genetics into that.
But you do know that there aredifferences between individuals
just doing the same things andat the same body size.
The second factor is adaptivethermogenesis, or metabolic
adaptation, we call it, and thisis history-based.
What I mean by that is, ifyou've been through periods of
(05:42):
significant dieting and calorierestriction in the past,
especially chronicallyrestrictive diets or yo-yo
dieting your body may havedeveloped a I'll call it
persistent, not permanent,that's.
That's I gotta be careful of mywords, but kind of a persistent
, long-term, deeply embedded anddeveloped metabolic adaptation.
Right, and we know this fromthe extremes, like the Biggest
(06:05):
Loser show.
That was a game show wherecontestants lost a ton of weight
really fast and theirmetabolisms adapted and when
they went back to eating thenormal amount of food for their
maintenance, their maintenancecalories were way lower than
they were before and theypersisted for years after the
diet ended.
And so your body essentiallybecomes more efficient at
(06:27):
conserving energy, which isgreat for survival when there's
a famine, right, but it'sfrustrating when you're trying
to get a certain bodycomposition in the modern
environment.
So it's good to understand thatyour history is going to play
into this.
You can't change history, it iswhat it is, but just understand
that.
The third factor out of five isphysiological efficiency, and
(06:47):
this means this this is alsokind of a genetic thing, right?
Some people, um, just extractmore energy from food and then
they conserve more energy whenthey're active.
Your body might have moreefficient digestive enzymes,
more efficient mitochondria andless energy wasted as heat.
Okay, so that means you're like.
(07:09):
It sounds great, except theproblem is it means you're not
going to burn very many calories.
It is great for survival.
It's an advantage.
It's a disadvantage when you'retrying to lose fat, when you're
trying to get rid of energy.
So I guess the positive reframeon that is you're an efficient
beast, but unfortunately itmakes it a little harder to lose
fat.
I get it.
The fourth factor is hormonalfactors.
Right, we never want to blamehormones, but we do want to
(07:32):
understand there are variationsin people's thyroid function,
their insulin sensitivity, theirsex hormone levels.
Some of these are because ofyour history and because of your
lifestyle.
Others are simply geneticdifferences.
And remember that the normalclinical range is not always the
best indicator of the optimalrange, right, and the optimal
(07:53):
range for you might also bedifferent than someone else's
optimal range, and that cancause differences in energy
expenditure.
So if someone, for example,who's at the lower end of normal
thyroid function might burnsignificantly fewer calories
than someone at the upper end,whether that means you need
treatment or not, that's amedical decision that you want
to find a competent expert totalk to about, but it may be
(08:15):
genetics as well.
And then, finally, your bodysize is going to matter.
If you're smaller framed,you're going to burn fewer
calories, like you might havesmaller bones, smaller organs
just be small in general as aperson.
So this is like petite women.
Okay, I've had clients or womenthey tend to be a little bit
more challenging clients justbecause everything is at a
smaller level of change.
(08:38):
Um, the sensitivity is is kindof, I guess, smaller in a way,
uh, in that they're already in alight body weight and sometimes
a lean body fat, and so, uh,any standard approach or
standard calorie recommendationmight be completely off the wall
for them and have nothing to dowith what they really need.
And you got to be careful andnot say, oh, you're at 1100
(08:59):
calories in your diet, that'sreally, I've heard, that's
really low.
Well, if you're 110 poundfemale five, five, two that
might be more than enoughcalories for you at maintenance.
I don't know Right, and insociety where we eat food and we
have certain amounts of mealsand food, you know, meals are a
certain size and all this it canbe frustrating for them because
they feel like they're eatingway less than other people, but
(09:21):
really they're eating what theirbody says they need and it's
the size they were born with.
So we have to deal with that.
Now I want to address a commonobjection I hear when discussing
this topic because often peoplewill say you know, people say,
but that violates the laws ofthermodynamics, right?
Or calories in calories outstill applies, and I'm I'm the
biggest advocate foracknowledging that energy
(09:43):
balance is reality.
Right, and both thosestatements are true that energy
balance governs weight loss.
But the key uh insight here isthat your body's calories
outside of the equation is whatcan be dramatically different
from person to person, and itcan change a lot even when all
observable behaviors areidentical.
(10:04):
Right, and people get hung upon calories in calories out as
if it's fixed Obviously caloriesin is what you eat, but
calories out is vastly variable,based on a lot of factors.
Right, so it's not like energyis appearing or disappearing
magically.
Right, conservation of energythermodynamics it's recognizing
that the, the system, the bodysystem efficiency varies
(10:27):
significantly between people.
Okay, so hopefully I've gottenthat message through without
rambling too much on it.
But this is where asystems-based approach becomes
even more invaluable.
The thing that we teach hereand that I offer clients and
what we work through it is notjust cookie cutter diets and
just random programs and YouTubeinfluencers and all that that.
None of that stuff works formost people, especially people
(10:49):
who have to really dial in dueto a lower metabolism.
And if you think of a system,right, systems have constraints.
They have efficiencies.
When we can't change the coreefficiency of the system, which
is your metabolism, when wecan't change that, like the core
level of it right, I'm nottalking about your overall TDE,
(11:09):
the things we can change butwhen you can't change the core,
we want to design around that,we want to acknowledge that and
we optimize the other variablesand then create what I'll call
like redundant systems thatdon't rely exclusively on the
constrained component.
And you're like what the hellare you talking about?
Okay, let me get into it.
So let me get into how we applythis.
All right, we're going to createa fat loss system for someone
(11:32):
with a lower metabolism, and forsome reason this is the week of
eights, because on the lastepisode, I talked about eight
strategies for preventingmetabolism decline with age.
Today, we're going to talkabout eight strategies for a fat
loss system for a lowmetabolism.
All right, the first four aregoing to focus on optimizing
nutrition without requiringextreme calorie restriction.
(11:54):
This is a really importanttopic because what most people
do is they just feel like theyjust have to cut calories to a
ridiculous level when they havea low metabolism.
You don't have to.
Strategy number one is highsatiety, high volume, low energy
density foods.
I know for some of you thatsounds obvious, but a lot of you
are not doing this.
(12:15):
Even if you don't have a lowmetabolism, this is a game
changer.
This means building your dietaround foods that create the
maximum fullness signal with theminimum calorie input Lean
proteins think chicken breast,white fish, egg whites, shrimp,
tuna, those kinds of things,lean pork, et cetera.
Even very lean beef are up onthis list.
(12:38):
High fiber vegetables andfruits.
High resistant starch foodslike white potatoes.
One of the most high satietyfruits is orange.
When you eat the whole orangenot the rind, obviously, but
don't have orange juice, eat theorange.
The goal is strategicallyincrease your food volume
without increasing calorieintake.
Think of large salads,vegetables, soups, stews, stir
(13:00):
fries you know dishes that takeup a lot of stomach space
relative to their caloriecontent.
I did an episode on thatrecently.
Go hunt for it.
It's in the last few weeks orreach out to me.
It was all about that.
It was all about it wasactually called um when eat
eating less.
Sorry, let me think about thisEating more to lose weight
actually works.
That's what it was, and it wasthe idea that you're actually
(13:22):
eating more volume, you're noteating more calories.
So I have I have several clientsI can think of who are kind of
struggling with that lowmaintenance intake, even after
we've bumped it up a bit.
They're building weight,they're, you know, walking,
they're doing all the things,and what we had to do is just
acknowledge they needed a lotmore high satiety and high fiber
foods, a lot more protein aswell relative to the normal
(13:45):
recommendation.
And then they and by they Imean men and women.
I can think of one woman inparticular who was actually on
the podcast recently, melanie,you could go check out her
episode we're able to and bythey I mean men and women.
I can think of one woman inparticular who was actually on
the podcast recently Melanie,you could go check out her
episode we're able to createthis modest deficit and not feel
deprived.
We can't necessarily create anaggressive deficit because of
the calorie levels, or else youget into that point of where the
hunger signals really gettriggered a lot, but we could at
(14:07):
least have a modest deficit andslowly lose fat over time and
still feel satisfied, all right.
So you can start your meal with,for example, a large volume of
vegetables and then follow it bylean protein and then have the
starchy carbs and fats at theend of the meal, for example.
The sequence of how you eat canbe really helpful.
So that's strategy number one.
Strategy number two is nutrientdensity, maximizing nutrient
(14:30):
density.
So this might sound the same asvolume and there is
mathematically a similarity.
But you've got to think aboutit this way when your calorie
budget's limited, you want everycalorie to work harder for you.
So when I say nutrients, I'mactually talking about
micronutrients, right, and so ifyou can select foods rich in
micronutrients and high qualityprotein, it's going to support
(14:53):
your training performance, yourmuscle retention, your cravings,
your satiety, just having morenutrients in your diet, because
your body kind of knows whenit's deficient.
It's not as precise andtargeted as people think like,
oh, I crave vitamin E orwhatever.
Evidence doesn't quite supportthat, whatever Evidence doesn't
(15:16):
quite support that.
But you do get more satisfiedand support many of these hunger
signals with morenutrient-dense foods, and that
might be introducing things likeorgan meats, fatty fish, leafy
greens, berries, cruciferousvegetables, eggs.
All of these are what somepeople call superfoods I don't
like that term because there'sno good or bad foods, but they
are super in terms of theirnutrient density.
So actually, somebody I had onthe show, dr Sarah Ballantyne,
wrote a book called Nutrivorgreat book, and she actually
(15:39):
ranks a lot of foods based ontheir nutrient score.
So that could be another way tolook at it.
All right, strategy number threeis I alluded to this already
but slightly higher or a lothigher protein intake than the
standard recommendation.
So my standard recommendationand what the evidence shows is
0.7 to 1 gram per pound of bodyweight.
(16:00):
I would shoot that up to maybe1.2, as much as 1.5.
Now the problem with going toohigh is you leave very few
calories for carbs and fats.
So it really is a fine dancebetween the macros.
And again, all of this is forsomebody who knows what they're
doing, who's tracking, who canbe pretty consistent with this.
Otherwise you're going to driveyourself crazy and you really
have to go back to the basicsfirst and not even try to lose
(16:22):
fat potentially until you'vedialed those in.
So we know protein is thehighest dermic effect of food.
Your body burns more caloriesdigesting it.
We know that higher proteinintake enhances muscle retention
.
We know it promotes greatersatiety.
All the things you got to getwith protein.
I feel like I've talked aboutthis so much recently.
If you're listening to even twoepisodes, you'll get plenty of
it.
So increasing protein above thenormal could be helpful.
(16:46):
Strategy number four is caloriecycling and refeeds.
So normally I would notrecommend calorie cycling, carb
cycling, even refeeds to newerpeople following a fat loss plan
.
Refeeds I might like makingSaturday and Sunday a little bit
higher days than the other days, but I mean strategic refeeds,
like bringing up your carbs soyour calories are all the way to
(17:08):
your maintenance right, notjust a little bit higher, but
like a lot higher, literallytaking a break, um.
But you could also have caloriecycling within the week and
kind of line it up with yourtraining, line it up with your
hunger signals.
I've definitely had clients whohave to do that just to,
because the calories are so lowthat their body really feels the
difference.
And if you can support yourtraining and recovery the most,
(17:32):
the rest of it kind of works out, if you will.
It doesn't work for everyone.
Some people need the samecalorie intake every day, but
others can alternate between lowand high calorie days, usually
by changing carbs, and it willminimize I don't want to say it
minimizes metabolic adaptation.
It's going to slow the rate offat loss down right, unless your
(17:52):
low days are even lower, whichI don't recommend.
But it's going to feel evenmore sustainable and you'll be
consistent and be able tocontinue getting the result
without just feeling like you'rekind of crashing all the time.
Because the alternative, ifyou're going to have the same
calories every day might be likeyou're not quite in a big
(18:12):
enough deficit but you're alsonot quite at maintenance and so
you're kind of shooting yourselfin the foot by not getting
movement.
You know your body adapts tothe food and you feel like
you're dieting but you're notgetting the result.
It makes sense.
So sometimes having the lowerand the higher, where the lower
is more aggressive and thehigher is closer to a refeed or
somewhere in between, it'sreally going to depend.
You've got to experiment withit.
It's going to really help youpush forward sustainably.
(18:35):
It might look like four to fivedays at a deficit and then two
to three days of maintenance.
It might be three days in anaggressive deficit and four days
of maintenance or no days ofmaintenance.
Maybe they're all dieting days,but some are just more
aggressive than others.
And again, usually where thecarbs are placed around training
sessions.
(18:57):
Kind of related to this,actually, as part of the
strategy, is structured dietbreaks.
So hold on, let me look at mylist, my notes here.
Yeah, so I'm including this.
I'm including this here.
So diet breaks are like anentire week, or even an entire
month, every six weeks, 12 weeks, whatever you need to just
recover from the stress ofdieting mentally and physically
before you continue, just tokeep it sustainable.
(19:18):
It's not going to change yourmetabolism in any way, but you
might have.
You know, you're going to havesome improvements in your
hormones, your energy, yourtraining performance during that
phase.
So if you can hit it a littlebit harder, you actually do get
a net benefit for the overallfat loss phase.
So that's the nutrition side,the first four strategies.
The next four are going to beabout activity and recovery and
(19:41):
some of the psychologicalfactors, so I'm kind of lumping
them all together into the finalfour.
So this gives us a strategynumber five and that is meal
frequency and timing.
So when you are on thesetighter calories with a lower
metabolism, the meal pattern isgoing to really have to line
with your natural hunger signalsand your energy needs.
This is a form of intuition,but combined with tracking and
(20:05):
measuring that intuition, ifthat makes sense, right?
So in other words, you need tounderstand when and why you get
hunger.
You need to understand when andwhy you have high or low energy
.
It's not just I feel this wayand so I'm going to kind of uh,
wing it, right You're, you wantto journal it, track it, write
it down, check it off, whatevermakes sense for you.
Use a number scale.
(20:25):
It's a form of tracking for you.
When you have the lowermetabolism, to compliment your
tracking of food in yourtraining, right, my clients all
track a lot of this stuff anyway.
So, again, if you just wantsomebody to help you do that and
give you a plan and say here'swhat you need to do that's why
somebody would work with me orjoin our Physique University.
But look, when you have a lowermetabolic rate, you've got to
(20:46):
get more creative you might findthat you need some form of a
feeding fasting window.
I've never, ever saidintermittent fasting can't work
for somebody.
I hope you know that.
I do say that it's notnecessary for most people and it
creates no different resultfrom a calorie perspective than
any other feeding window, butfrom a hunger signal,
satisfaction and consistencyperspective, you might need a
(21:08):
tighter feeding window becausethe calories are lower.
So then you might have, like,your first meal at 11 am and
your last meal at 5 pm, with ameal in between.
Each of those meals can then bebigger.
Your body adapts to having thefasting window and it's more
sustainable.
So fewer, larger meals feelmore satisfied, trigger the
fullness hormones and so on, andyou're able to maintain your
(21:30):
calorie level and feel goodabout it.
Having said that, the fastingwindow needs to be intelligently
aligned with your training, soyou're not training fasted.
That's my biggest caveat onthat.
Now you might be on theopposite extreme and you might
benefit from more frequentsmaller meals to maintain stable
energy throughout the day right, and this is more of the blood
(21:50):
sugar control and you might needthat little bit of a hit of the
meal to kind of just staysatisfied all day.
What did I want to go with this?
So I'm telling you a lot ofstuff, but the main thing here
is experiment.
You can't just track your food,but you have to track hunger,
energy, mood, training,performance, right and connect
(22:12):
them to your meal patterns toidentify what works best.
You know some clients that havelower metabolisms use fasting
and others hate it.
Right, so, like it depends onwhat works for you, all right.
Strategy number six this isabout diet quality and your food
environment.
So when you have a lowermetabolic rate, you have a
(22:35):
smaller margin for error when itcomes to the highly palatable,
ultra processed, the caloriedense foods that can easily lead
to over consuming those foods,and so creating an environment
that supports adhering to thefat loss phase becomes even more
paramount.
Right, meal prepping, limitingthe availability of foods that
(22:55):
would tempt you in your house or, at least in eyesight, having a
plan for social situationswhere you're going to have a lot
of calorie dense options.
Notice, I'm not telling you tonot enjoy those foods.
I'm telling you that you needto be creative with setting
yourself up for yourenvironmental success and
reducing decision fatigue so youcan enjoy those foods on
(23:16):
occasion, knowing the ultimatequantity is not gonna be as high
as someone else with a highermetabolism.
It's just the state of things.
All right.
Strategy number seven has to dowith your recovery and training
volume.
So when your calories are lowand I know this from personal
experience right now because I'min a fat loss phase and totally
understand my calories arestill higher than the people
(23:38):
we're talking about in thisepisode.
You can get wiped.
You've got to balance yourtraining stimulus with a
recovery capacity, and itdoesn't mean training less or
less frequently, but it doesmean making sure that every
training session has a clearpurpose, gives you a very
precise outcome and that yourrecovery between sessions is
(24:00):
prioritized right.
What you don't want isexcessive fatigue building up
from overtraining, which thenreduces your other activity
levels and then decreases yourexpenditure even further.
You might have to reduce yes,you might have to reduce some
volume, but it might be moreabout focusing on the intensity
of that training, the load ofthe training, the progression.
Maybe you need to do threeinstead of four days.
(24:23):
Maybe you need to do sixinstead of three, you know and
spread out the recovery.
It's really going to depend onyou at creative ways to increase
your need even further.
And I know you're like oh,really Like even if you're
(24:44):
already getting eight to 10,000steps every day, can you add
another two or three or four insome achievable, sustainable way
?
Right, that you're not alreadytaking advantage of Now.
If you're getting eight to10,000, that's a meaningful
amount, but I know you couldpush to 12 or 14 with a little
extra effort, unless you justabsolutely don't have time and
no capability to do that, inwhich case you've got to
evaluate whether you should bein a fat loss phase or even
trying to do it as aggressivelyas you are.
(25:05):
But we're talking short walksafter meals, using a standing
desk, taking movement breaksduring work, even finding ways
to be less efficient with yourtask right, multiple trips to
carry groceries instead ofcarrying everything at once.
I mean little hacks like thatsometimes work.
So those are the eightstrategies, and I think the
(25:26):
thing that's going to be thecrucial glue that binds it all
together is your mindset towardthis process.
It has to be.
It has to be so.
I've worked with severalclients who have very, very low
metabolic rates and I found thattheir psychological approach is
going to determine theirsuccess way more than any of the
tactics, because sometimesyou're doing all the tactics and
(25:48):
very little moves on the needleand then it slowly starts to
move right and it's like youhave to have that.
I don't want to call itdiscipline, but I want to call
it a positive mindset that theprocess is the most important
thing and the outcome is goingto come from the process, and so
this means you have to adjustyour expectations.
I'm sorry, you just have toadjust your expectations and be
(26:09):
realistic, right?
You need to recognize thathaving a lower expenditure does
not indicate poor health.
It doesn't indicate you're afailure.
It just requires you to be morestrategic.
And so any common fat lossadvice out there to cut X number
of calories and lose a pound aweek or whatever, it might mean
an unbearably low intake for youand that's not for you.
(26:31):
So you might have to accept amore modest deficit, a slower
rate of fat loss, and thenyou're still going to have
better long-term outcomes whenyou do that.
Go listen to the podcast withMelanie.
She dropped eight and a halfpercent body fat.
The actual pounds loss wasn'tthat much, but she built muscle
at the same time.
If we were just thinking aboutweight loss, man, that would
have been so frustrating.
I would have not wanted to keepworking with her as a coach
(26:53):
because I would have thought Iwas a total failure.
But because we were trackingall the different things and
focusing on the process, we gotincredible results for what you
wanted, right, and it takes time.
It takes time.
So think about all the thingswe talked about today Embracing
the process instead of theoutcome.
Right, don't just fixate on thescale.
Build your system.
Are you being consistent?
(27:14):
You know at least 80% with thethings that you care about,
whether that's protein, training, recovery, whatever.
Those are the things in yourcontrol.
Right, the outcome is not inyour control.
It will result from the thingsyou're in control, but that's
what's in your control.
All right, let's recap the mainpoints.
Yes, some people genuinely havelower metabolic rates, even
when you're doing everything.
Right, you are not a failure.
(27:35):
It is a physiologicalconstraint period.
It is just the facts, ma'am.
And if you implement the eightstrategies we've discussed high
satiety foods, nutrient density,protein higher than average,
calorie cycling if needed, mealtiming, your food environment,
balancing your training andrecovery and finding ways to
move even more you can createthe system that works with you.
(27:59):
So, remember, the mental pieceis probably as important as all
these.
It kind of puts them alltogether.
Adjust your expectations,embrace a sustainable, lasting
approach and focus onprocess-oriented goals instead
of outcomes.
Right, it's not a life sentence.
I mean, no matter who you are.
We don't want to spend thatmuch time fat loss dieting, and
(28:19):
by not much time it's going todepend.
It might mean six months, itmight mean three months, it
might be nine months the firsttime, and then, once you get
there, you can maintain yourleanness and focus on energy
performance, building muscle.
You're going to you're going toachieve your goals.
You're going to achieve yourexcuse me body composition goals
.
You just have to have athoughtful, personalized
strategy that is more creativethan what might work for, say,
(28:42):
the average metabolism.
All right.
So if you enjoyed today'sepisode and you want to start
implementing the basics beforeyou get to the more advanced
strategies, download my freeguide Nutrition 101 for Body
Composition.
It's going to help youestablish the foundational
habits that make thesestrategies even more effective.
Go to whatsoeightscom or clickthe link in the show notes to
get your copy.
(29:02):
Until next time, keep usingyour wits lifting those weights
and remember your uniquemetabolism isn't something to
fight against, but a keyconstraint to design around in
your personalized physiquesystem.
I'll talk to you next time hereon the Wits and Weights
Constraint to Design Around inyour Personalized Physique
System.
I'll talk to you next time hereon the Wits and Weights Podcast
(29:28):
.
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