Episode Transcript
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Speaker 0 (00:00):
Hey everyone, philip
here with a quick Sunday bonus
episode because I want to talkabout body recomposition.
I get asked about this all thetime.
Probably one of the most commonquestions is can I build muscle
and lose fat at the same time?
And it comes from, sometimes, afear of not wanting to gain too
much weight, but it also comesfrom the idea that you don't
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wanna be in a big caloriedeficit and a big fat loss phase
either and you want to kind ofwalk the line of both.
And so if you've ever askedyourself the question can I do
this, can I lose fat and buildmuscle at the same time?
The answer is yes if you do itthe right way.
But most people miss thisbecause they either think you
only have to cut or bulk or,more likely, they're bouncing
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back and forth and never reallyliking how they look or feel in
either one, and then they say,okay, I want to recomp.
Can we do that?
Let's do that one.
So the answer is yes.
I'm going to come from it fromthe positive lens of how you
would do it, because true bodyrecomp or body recomposition
happens when you are fuelingenough to recover and build
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muscle while training in a waythat signals your body to hold
on to or and here's what we wanteven add a little bit of lean
mass, at the same time droppingfat.
And for some people it kind ofsounds impossible.
Or you might have heardinfluencers say you know that
takes a long time, only certainpeople can do it.
So I want to bust some mythsreally quickly.
The first one is that you canonly recomp if you're a beginner
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, and that's nonsense.
I've worked with intermediatelifters who've had incredible
body recomp results and I thinkthe evidence supports that there
is a broader range of traininglevels that can do this.
Second, you need to eat in abig surplus or a big deficit and
actually still do a bulk or cut.
It's just slower, also wrong.
I think you could do this whilepretty much being at
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maintenance.
And then, third, the scale isthe best way to measure progress
.
A lot of you who listen to theshow know I already advocate
that you use other measuresbeyond the scale.
And when it comes to bodyrecomp, you can't use the scale
really other than to avoidsignificant weight gain or
significant weight loss.
And what actually happensduring successful body recomp is
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you might maintain the sameweight or even gain a tiny bit
of weight, but you're completelytransforming the physical
dimensions of your body.
So it's how you look and alsohow you feel, because there's a
recovery aspect to this, there'sa metabolic aspect to it.
Your clothes will fit better,you're stronger in the gym, you
have more energy, and so youreally can't be looking at the
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scale for that, even though thatis one tiny measure that
supports the overall picture.
Now I've had clients who arekind of all over the place and
get the result they want, andwhat I mean by that is I've had
clients who gained three poundson the scale during a recomp and
they might be freaking out alittle bit, thinking they're
gaining fat, but theirmeasurements show that, you know
, they lost two inches off theirwaist, they gained an inch on
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their arm and they actually, youknow, gained four pounds of
muscle.
So for that three pounds ofscale weight, they gained four
pounds of muscle and they musthave lost a pound of fat, right,
that's where it gets confusing,because most people are doing
one of the specific things Ijust mentioned, wrong or not
doing it, and they getfrustrated, right, they're
either under eating, so theycan't build muscle because their
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metabolism is kind of lagging.
They're doing maybe too much,too much cardio.
They don't have enough recoveryand remember, you're not in a
surplus here, so your recoveryis limited to an extent.
It's not as bad as in a deficit, but it's not as full as when
you're in a surplus.
Or they're chasing scale weightright, even even at the expense
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of chasing um maintenance, scaleweight instead of body
composition, meaning it.
You don't necessarily want tojust hold your weight, that is,
I'll say, in the ballpark ofwhere you want to be, but it's
okay to drift a little bit ifthe other things that you care
about are moving in the rightdirection, right.
And then the other big petpeeve of mine is people who just
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train randomly, don't follow agood program, don't use
progressive overload.
So the result of that approachis lots and lots of frustration
because, okay, I don't want tobulk, I don't want to cut, but
then I don't know how to recompproperly either.
So if this sounds familiar,then you've come to the right
place, because what I teachinstead on this show in Physique
University is what I callaggressive maintenance.
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It's slightly above your normalmaintenance calories to support
recovery and muscle growth, butstill allow for fat loss,
because the muscle gain is goingto drive your metabolism up a
little bit, and so the fat losskind of happens under the
surface.
The math is hard to understand,but it's happening.
And so this is where havingenough protein and, you know,
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balancing your fats and carbs,supporting your training demands
eating what you like to fatsand carbs.
Supporting your trainingdemands eating what you like to
eat and being flexible about it.
Right, there's nothing magicabout all of that.
The when people, I think, gowrong here is they don't track
the right things.
They don't track the right data, and that's what we're all
about here.
That's why I created a trackercalled the Physique and
Biofeedback Tracker.
We use that with our groupprogram and that calculates lots
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of things.
That calculates body fat andlean mass, muscle to fat ratio.
I even have an advanced trackerthat calculates how much of
your lean mass is muscle tissuespecifically, helps you track
your measurements for context,helps you monitor your feedback
like sleep, energy recovery andso on.
All of that stuff tells you ifyour approach is working, in
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conjunction, of course, with aproper training and nutrition
plan.
So when body recomp is happening, you are going to see lean body
mass going up, fat mass goingdown over time, the scale might
drift a little bit or it mightstay the same.
It really depends.
Your biofeedback stays mostlypositive, right.
There are some places where youcould have challenges.
If you're, for example, noteating enough food volume, you
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might have hunger where someoneelse wouldn't, even if you're
not in a deficit, right.
So there's lots of littlelevers that we can turn and the
whole thing needs to besustainable.
Now compare that to traditional, you know, just going after fat
loss or going after bulking,where there's more challenges to
deal with, depending on whatyou're doing Like, you might be
more tired, hungry, miserable.
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When you're cutting right orwhen you're in a surplus, you're
dealing with the fears ofgaining fat and trying to avoid
gaining too quickly.
So I'm actually going to divedeeper into this topic tomorrow.
On Monday's episode.
I'm going to break down thescience behind how body recomp
works without a traditionalcalorie deficit, some of the
mechanisms that make it happenfrom that kind of nerdy
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engineering perspective, like inthe body, what's going on, and
then some details on thataggressive maintenance approach
approach I mentioned and that.
So that's kind of the podcastvariety of this.
And then, if you want toimplement this, if you want a
training plan, if you want tounderstand how to set up your
nutrition and phase this outover 90 days, I'm doing a live
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workshop Tuesday this Tuesday,august 19th.
It's at noon Eastern.
The replay will be included ifcan't make it, and I'm going to
walk you through a 90 dayroadmap for body recomp.
You're going to get the trackerI mentioned.
Training template I'm going toactually propose a very specific
template that I think is reallygood for 12 weeks of body
recomp.
You're going to get by byjoining the workshop you're
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effectively in physiqueuniversity at the same time for
no extra cost.
So you're going to get a customnutrition plan and your first
month in Physique University allfor that price, so for 27 bucks
.
And if you don't think that's asteal, then maybe you know.
Go listen to another podcast,because I'm practically giving
this stuff away.
Anyway, if this sounds likewhat you're looking for, go to
livewitsandweightscom or clickin the show notes.
(07:35):
Go to livewitsandweightscom.
You can sign up If you'realready in physique you.
You're going to get it for freeanyway as part of being in the
program.
But if you want to do theworkshop on the 90 day body
recomp workshop this Tuesday,august 19th and get the replay.
If you can't make it,no-transcript.