November 24, 2025 • 34 mins
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--
The holidays don't have to wreck your gains!
Most fitness plans collapse the moment your routine gets disrupted (travel, family meals, late nights, packed gyms, etc.). You skip workouts because you can't do the "full session." You avoid holiday meals because there are no "clean options." One bad day becomes three weeks off track, and by January you're starting over again.
We break down a simple, resilient system called The Flex Framework that helps you keep muscle, strength, and momentum when your routine gets slammed by travel, late nights, and meals you didn’t cook.
Instead of betting on perfect conditions, we map 3 tiers for every pillar (training, nutrition, etc.):
- Optimal for routine days
- Minimum for busy days
- Bailout for disasters
This multi-gear approach limits decision fatigue, preserves your habits, and keeps you out of the all-or-nothing trap.
Learn practical strategies for Thanksgiving, travel days, and holiday dinners.
By January, you'll pick up right where you left off instead of starting over.
Timestamps
0:00 - Why your plan fails during the holidays
2:45 - The Flex Framework
6:55 - The all-or-nothing trap
10:15 - How to build your anti-fragile fitness system
12:05 - The 3 levels: optimal, minimum, and bailout protocols
15:15 - Strength training and muscle building
20:30 - Recovery and sleep
22:35 - Nutrition and protein
28:45 - Reframe from "I can't" to "what level can I operate at?"
31:45 - Setting up your framework and finishing the year strong
👉 Save your spot for the challenge!
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🎓 Try Physique University - Evidence-based nutrition coaching and strength training to help you lose fat, build muscle, and master your metabolism with support and accountability (free custom nutrition plan with code FREEPLAN).
👥 Join our Facebook community - Free fat loss, muscle building, and body recomposition strategies for adults over 40 who want practical, science-backed fitness guidance.
👋 Ask a question or find Philip Pape on Instagram
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Philip Pape (00:00):
It's that time of year.
Thanksgiving is this year inthe US, and that means travel,
family meals you didn't cook,late nights, early mornings with
relative stain at your house.
If you have a rigid plan, it'sprobably gonna break.
You might skip a workout, youmight avoid certain meals or
foods, a bad day might become abad weekend, a bad weekend
becomes three weeks off, andthen by January you're starting
(00:23):
over yet again.
The problem isn't you, it'sthat your system might only have
one gear, and it's built forperfect conditions.
Today I'm showing you how toupgrade your system so you can
maintain strength and musclethrough any holiday, even if
everyone else is backsliding.
I'm your host, certifiednutrition coach, Philip Pape,
(00:58):
and today we're gonna talk aboutsomething that's probably on
your mind as Thanksgivingapproaches in just a few days
here in the US.
And honestly, this applies toanyone going through any holiday
or time like this.
How do you keep your progressgoing when your routine gets
completely disrupted?
This is a general principle ofany time of year, but it really
(01:19):
comes up during the holidaysbecause most of us approach this
time of year with one of twostrategies.
Either you try to maintain yourexact routine and then
inevitably fail when lifedoesn't cooperate, or you
completely give up and you planto start fresh in January.
Both approaches have the sameresult, right?
You lose your trainingprogress, maybe you gain some
(01:42):
fat that you didn't want, maybeyou feel like you're back at
square one or falling back,regressing when the new year
rolls around.
Now you're kind of reset morethan you'd like to be.
So what I'm sharing today isdifferent.
Something I came up with overthe last few weeks.
We talked about it in physiqueuniversity recently, and it's
called the flex framework.
Very simple, based on a simpleprinciple that a system with
(02:04):
multiple gears, right, just toput the engineering hat on, can
survive tolerance or variabilitybetter than a system that has
only one setting, right?
So we're talking about havingflexibility in your system, but
we're gonna be very uh concreteabout it today and give you very
specific ways to do this.
So you're gonna learn how tocreate three versions of what
you're doing, of your plan (02:23):
an optimal version, a minimum
version, and what I'm calling abailout version, so that you can
adapt to whatever the holidaysthrow at you without losing your
progress.
And of course, this appliesbeyond the holidays, as I
mentioned.
Anytime life gets chaotic, thatcould be work travel, that
could be family emergencies, youknow, just those weeks where
(02:43):
everything seems to be goingwrong.
We know what those are, right?
But real quick, I just want toshare a couple quotes from our
clients in Physique Universitywho always like to share their
wins.
And it's super inspiring tothose listening to the podcast.
You said you want to heardirectly from people who are
doing this.
So the first one says, My DEXAscan.
Looks like heavy barbelltraining is paying off.
(03:03):
Check out the spine increase.
That's awesome, right?
Because we've been talkingabout osteoporosis recently.
So love to hear that.
Another one, and this is Iwould file this under small but
monumentous wins.
I completed week one of thestrength template I selected.
That's a massive win to getthrough your first week of
trained strength trainingsessions, excuse me, is
(03:25):
phenomenal.
And then one more says, I wastraveling for work this past
week, but I was able to get acouple workouts in, lots of
meetings and late nights.
Lifting seemed to have given megiven me a bit of energy,
embracing the new lifestyle.
And the last one I'm going toshare today is actually from one
of many of the users whodownloaded Fitness Lab, which is
now out for Black Friday.
It's 20% off for Black Friday.
Just came out, our new AIcoaching app.
(03:47):
And this user says, I have itand I'm loving it so far,
especially the AI feature.
It feels like you are coachingme.
Apple Health will be excellentonce integrated, which this is
Philip talking here, will be outwithin days, if not already,
when you hear this podcast.
But honestly, I like what it'smaking me do by not having it.
I want to let you know this isexactly what I've been looking
(04:08):
for.
Good stuff.
So the reason I share all theseis because I'm super proud of
what all of you are achievingevery day, whether it's through
the podcast, through PhysiqueUniversity, or now through the
Fitness Lab app.
You could check out all thoseresources in the podcast show
notes.
But now let's get into thetopic.
And the first thing I want totalk about is why having a plan
that's a little bit too rigid oreven very rigid, of course, why
(04:30):
it collapses under pressure.
And this is a lot more of ahead thing, a psychology thing
than anything else.
And if we put it in context ofthis week, at least here in the
US, where you've gotThanksgiving in just three days,
if you're listening to thiswhen it comes out on Monday, and
then it's only a few weeksuntil Christmas and New Year's,
and you're already stressed outabout how you're gonna handle
(04:53):
all of that stuff, familydinners, travel, the gyms are
probably gonna be packed, youmight have hosting duties,
you're wondering about thingslike, you know, how do I deal
with alcohol and stuff likethat?
And saying, hey, should I justaccept that things are gonna be
perfect and therefore I'm gonnabackslide and then plan to get
serious again in January?
Well, I'm here to tell you thatthat those aren't the only
(05:14):
options.
Okay.
No, things are not gonna beperfect.
They never will.
So that we just throw off thetable.
That's a fact.
But the fact that you'll blackbackslide isn't a given.
But I get it because thetraditional approach to fitness
in this industry can come acrossas very rigid.
It's like, here are the sevenpillars you have to follow.
You've got to do your trainingfor three, four, five days a
(05:35):
week.
You've got to have, you know,the these calories and macros.
You've got to hit your energybalance and your sleep is being
locked in.
Got to keep your stress low, bythe way.
Make sure you get your stepsin.
All of that, all of that isfine, but it it really only
works when the conditions areperfect.
In other words, hitting a 10out of 10 on all of those
things.
(05:55):
You know, when you're at home,when you're prepping your own
food, when you've got yournormal gym every day, when you
control your environment, etc.
But the holidays are maximumvariability with minimum
control, right?
The travel schedules change.
Family members have their ownplans for meal times and what to
serve at the meals.
And, you know, you don't wantto offend your relatives because
(06:16):
they're gonna make all thisgreat food that that's part of a
tradition.
The gym, maybe you're visitingand you try to go to a gym and
now it's different and itdoesn't have the equipment you
need.
And you normally try to get tobed at 9 or 10 p.m.
Now it becomes midnight becauseeveryone's still talking in the
kitchen, right?
So this is life, guys.
And so your rigid plan is ofcourse not gonna have an answer
for this.
So it breaks, and then when itbreaks, you feel like you
(06:38):
failed, and then you quit, andthat's the all or nothing trap,
right?
We it's it's worth it's worthrevisiting that because we all
fall into that, even if it'sit's small in a small scope.
You know, I do as well.
I fall into sometimes thisthought of like, okay, here's my
routine.
I'm gonna lock it in, and thensomething happens, I'm like, ah,
I get frustrated because I'mnot, I can't quite hit that
routine like I wanted.
And by the way, I'm gonna haverotator cuff surgery coming up.
(07:00):
So I could easily fall intothat trap of, oh no, this guy's
falling.
I'm not gonna be able to train,I'm not gonna be able to this,
not gonna be able to that.
And I have to just and say,okay, that's the reality.
What do I do?
Like a good stoic, what do Ido?
And it's why January, when wetalk about the holidays, why
January is the busiest month atevery gym.
Because everyone's startingover, New Year's resolutions,
(07:20):
after completely abandoningabandoning their routine for six
weeks, if they even had one.
And so the real problem here ofwhy things break is because
they're one-dimensional.
They have one gear, they workunder certain conditions, not
necessarily perfect conditions,but let's say close to them,
right?
Nor quote unquote normalconditions.
And so, what you need is asystem with multiple gears that
(07:42):
can adapt to imperfect and farimperfect conditions while
keeping you move forward.
Now, this does this might belike common sense, like, oh,
okay, Philip's talking aboutflexibility, great.
But I want to be very, I wantto give you gears here.
I want to give you three gearsthat are very specific steps
that you can step down to ifneeded and think ahead for
yourself what that looks like.
(08:03):
Okay, and this is somethingthat I'm introducing called the
Flex Framework.
Now, we talked about this in aworkshop, or I should say, our
monthly coaching call inPhysique University.
We just talked about it.
And on that call, we wentthrough, I'll say a lot more
detail than I'm gonna covertoday, although you're gonna get
a good amount of it today.
And we did a lot of QA andthere's a guide and all this
other stuff.
And the community is workingwith it to get accountability
(08:27):
along the way as we head intoThanksgiving.
So if you want to get in forall of that, as well as the
community support and theability to say, hey, what do you
guys think of my flexframework?
Is it gonna work?
How do I execute it?
Join physiqueuniversity,physique.wits and weights.com.
You could also go to wits andweights.com slash physique.
Sorry to confuse you.
The link is in the show notes.
So go to witsandwaits.com slashphysique.
(08:48):
There's a special code in theshow notes to get a free
nutrition plan when you joinusing that code.
And then you can get a headstart on this flex framework.
But it is built on a principlefrom I'll say reliability
engineering.
And that's the principle ofredundancy.
Right?
When we design a system likethe ones that keep airplanes in
the sky or nuclear power plantsrunning safely, they're super
(09:09):
complex, just like life iscomplex, just like your body is
complex, and they don't rely ona single component or gear.
They're multiple levels ofredundancy.
So if things fail and multiplethings fail, and sometimes
multiple things fail at the sametime, which seems unlikely, but
it can happen in certain cases.
Can things keep functioning orgracefully step down or
gracefully shut down orwhatever?
And so your fitness system,your life system for your
(09:31):
nutrition and training need thesame approach.
And I like to think of this inthrees, three versions of all
the important elements (09:39):
an optimal version, a minimum
version, and a bailout.
So let me define each of these.
Optimal is what you do whenconditions are perfect for you.
Nothing's ever perfect, butbasically your normal week to
week to week, the kind of boringlife, hopefully, you have.
Well, boring in the way thatI'm defining it here, where it's
(10:00):
predictable, somewhatpredictable.
That's where you have fullaccess to your routine, plenty
of time, energy, and resourcesavailable that you need, you
know, within your givenconstraints.
That's like your best casescenario, and which you're
probably doing before you get tothe holidays for the most part,
if you haven't been travelingor something.
That's optimal.
Okay, not not optimal is notperfect for anybody.
(10:20):
Optimal is good enough, closeto perfect for you.
Then minimum is yournon-negotiable floor.
Now, I talk about minimums inthe past of like, okay, this is
the bottom, but stay tunedbecause it's not going to be the
bottom bottom.
This is what you cannot skipwithout starting to lose
progress in one of those areas,right?
So this is the consistencypiece.
(10:41):
This is that, you know, theidea that maintaining what
you've built actually does takefar less effort than building it
in the first place.
We know this for volume when itcomes to training.
About an eighth to a quartervolume is necessary to maintain
what you have.
So your minimum maintainsyou've built and typically takes
a lot less of your optimaleffort, let's say 20 to 30%.
So this is when we say no zerodays, or being consistent, or
(11:04):
making sure you have micro winsthat you can do every day that
are the minimum, but they'llstill compound and give you
progress as opposed to skippingit altogether.
And then bailout, this is thenew thing I'm in, I'm talking
about today.
This is your emergencyprotocol, is your lifeboat.
What you do when everythinggoes wrong, right?
You're sick when your scheduleimplodes, when you have zero
(11:26):
control over your environment.
You know, in my case, like Ihave surgery coming up.
There's bailout protocols I'mgoing to be putting in place for
things.
Although when you can plan farenough ahead, you still could
have a minimum, if that makessense.
But your bailout's whatprevents total collapse more in
your head than anything else.
Let's be honest, more in yourhead than anything else.
(11:47):
Meaning it's better thannothing, but it's not even your
minimum, and it takes even lesseffort.
So I'm adding an extra gearhere to give yourself permission
from a psychological standpointto still do something that gets
you a win that keeps you goingso that the next time you can
(12:07):
strive for the minimum or theoptimal.
Does that make sense?
It's kind of like a bridge win.
And the power of this frameworkis the mindset shift, the
psychology.
Instead of thinking, I can't domy full workout, so I won't do
anything.
It's, well, I can't do my fullworkout.
What's my minimum?
Okay, I can do three out of myfive exercises.
Well, can I not even do that?
What is my bailout?
(12:29):
My bailout might be oneexercise.
It might be not even going tothe gym, but doing something at
home, like running up the stairand down the stairs for 10
minutes.
Something that psychologicallygives you that, dare I say it,
checkbox on the streak that youyou've now bridged to the next
day or the next point where youdo your normal habit.
(12:50):
So in this case, you're notlowering your standards.
You're actually building onemore gear of standard that gives
you an anti-fragile system thatsurvives the most obliterated
imperfect conditions that comeacross.
That makes sense.
All right.
So having that in place, nowwhat do we do?
All right, let's apply the flexflamework framework to the big
(13:15):
areas that we care about here,like nutrition and training.
So with training, let's say usethe holidays as the example,
but this can work for anyroutine work that gets
disrupted.
Optimal, even during theholidays, it's just your normal
workout.
You have maybe still haveaccess to your gym, maybe you're
still at home, you know, andyou're you're just you've got
some different schedules andstuff going on, and you can
still work in your normal fulltraining sessions.
(13:38):
You might have to shift thedays around, but you're still
getting all the volume and thefrequency and the intensity in,
right?
Maybe it's at home, maybeyou're visiting somewhere with a
good gym and you can do it aswell and still hit some optimal
days.
Remember, optimal doesn't meanevery day has to be optimal.
It's just on a given day, areyou doing the optimal thing?
And you don't have to be doingeverything optimal.
Remember, you're doing, youhave different pillars that
(14:00):
you're hitting, training,nutrition, steps, whatever.
Each one of those can be attheir a different level.
All right.
So just give yourself, it'slike flexibility within
flexibility.
So just because it's theholidays doesn't mean you can't
keep on with your optimalroutine, right?
And then minimum training isgonna focus on something like
let me just do the main lifts,the big lifts, the compound
movements.
I've been doing this morelately because of all this
(14:22):
medical stuff I've been dealingwith, having appointments and
extra meetings and having todrive places.
It's cut into my time, but I'vesaid, you know, I'm still gonna
train, but instead of doing allfive movements, I'm gonna do
three or even two.
And I'm gonna go really, reallyhard on them.
I did that this morning.
I did weighted pull-ups,neutral grip, I did T-bar rows,
and I did a superset oflengthened partial lat raises
(14:46):
and bicep curls on a cablemachine.
Now, though that last one,obviously it's not main lifts,
but it does support my goals tosupport my shoulder health and
also keep my biceps a littlepumped.
Okay.
I just it's something I enjoy.
So I decided what that was forme, my main lift.
But the, but the but the mainlifts today, which didn't
include massive lifts like thesquat or deadlift today,
(15:08):
particularly for me, I stillfocused on the main ones.
And there were a couple othersmall things that I didn't do,
right?
I think I don't know if it waslike high rep shrugs or
something that I cut out.
All right, so you're cuttingout the accessories, maybe you
abbreviate the warm-up necessaryas needed, but to still do it
safely, and then hit your mainlifts and get out, right?
So main lifts could be all thevariants of the main movement
(15:30):
pattern, squat bench, deadlift,rowing, whatever your core
movements are depending on yourprogram.
And you could even cut a set.
You could even get just themain lifts, and instead of
doing, say, three sets, you dotwo, and maybe do a top set back
off set, right?
Because at the very minimum,you're maintaining what you
have, and surprisingly, youmight find that you needed the
extra little rest, and it mightgive you a little boost in
(15:52):
performance.
You never know.
So I don't see this as a badstrategy at all.
This is pretty good.
That's a minimum.
Now, bailout.
Let's talk about bailout.
So to me, bailout is movementbased, not performance-based.
Might sound sacrilegious, butthat's why it's a bailout.
This is not about hitting newnumbers on your list.
This is not even aboutprogressive overload.
(16:13):
If your bailout strategy is,damn, I can't even get to the
gym.
I can't even get to any of thisstuff right now.
I don't have a home gym.
I just need to move my body andget some sort of stimulus on my
muscles.
This is beyond beyond walking.
And this could be body weightstuff.
I mentioned running up and downthe stairs, you know, for your
legs.
This could be a brisk walk withweight on your back, like a
(16:36):
rucksack or weight vests orsomething like this.
It could be just push-ups, youknow what I mean?
All you're doing is justbridging the gap with some bare
minimum.
And psychologically, more thananything, it gives you that
boost that, like, I did it.
And that means next time I'mgonna keep making progress when
I go back to my minimum or myoptimal.
All right.
That's all we're talking about.
Now, notice what's happeningpsychologically.
(16:58):
You have options.
On a perfect day, you hitoptimal, on a chaotic day, you
fall back to minimum.
Usually it ends there.
But now on a disaster day, youcan at least do your bailout.
You're not stuck in the all ornothing trap at any of those
levels.
And that's how you maintainyour routine through the
holidays at some level.
(17:18):
You may not try to make gainsor PRs, but at least maintain
what you've built, feel goodabout yourself, keep going, keep
yourself in the mode of I'mdoing this thing on a regular
basis.
And throughout all of this,recovery is gonna be super
important, right?
It a lot of it does come downto stimulus versus recovery.
And if you're stressed becauseof the holidays, recovery is
(17:40):
gonna be impeded as well.
Now, for me, you guys know Ilove to talk about sleep a lot
because it's something I ampersonally working on.
And it's probably the biggestpillar of recovery.
And when you're traveling, whenyou're staying in different
beds, when you're dealing withfamily stress, irregular
schedules, I would say qualitysleep becomes even more
important and often harder toget.
(18:01):
And so, shout out to thesponsor of this episode, Cozy
Earth.
They have incredible beddingthat I own personally, that I
use.
It is my favorite bedding ofall.
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If you could take your sheetswith you.
That's my tip for you rightnow.
Okay.
(18:21):
If you could take your sheetswith you, you know how everybody
has like their favorite pillow,it's kind of like that.
If you could have your ownsheets with you, which then you
know they're clean as well, andyou're not dealing with any of
that stuff, and you could takethem with you.
I've been using the Cozy Earthsheets now for quite a few
months, and the difference insleep quality is definitely
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scores, uh, my sleep qualityscores, it just feels like
(18:44):
something I want to, you know,drift away in.
It just feels so good.
I mean, sometimes I just wantto get in the sheets just to
like read a book.
And so when you're dealing withholiday stress schedule
changes, having something likethat to anchor you when it comes
to an important pillar likesleep, and that could be
bedding.
It could also be their pajamasand other things, other products
that they have made with thebamboo-derived material that
(19:07):
regulates the temperature.
It's just one less thing thatworks against you and to worry
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If you want to get better sleepduring the holidays and beyond,
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(19:27):
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(19:50):
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Wits of weights.com slash cozyearth.
Check them out.
All right, so that's training.
Now let's talk about nutrition,because this is where most
people really derail during theholidays.
And I don't even like the wordderail because I've said before
I don't believe there is a railif you have a flexible
framework.
Okay.
But we're gonna assume that therail is your general direction
(20:12):
that you're trying to go.
Maybe it's fat loss, maybe it'smuscle building, maybe it's
just maintenance.
And for many of you who knowme, I definitely recommend
against fat loss during theholidays, unless you're using it
as a test.
You're using it to kind of pushyour comfort zone further
during the hardest time of yearso that you can handle any time
of year.
That's all that's up to you.
But whatever it is, thesituation changes quite a bit
(20:35):
this time of year because youoften go to family dinners or
you visit family and you didn'tcook the food, or there's a
potluck, right?
Or you bring one thing and theycook everything else.
Or you're just cooking otherthings because it's the
holidays, right?
The pecan pie.
I know people who have like 10pies, okay?
This is like an Americantradition to have all these
pies (20:52):
apple pie, pumpkin pie, blueberry pie, cherry pie, you
name it.
And you're probably atrestaurants a little more,
you're getting out, you're goingon parties, you're visiting
friends, you might be traveling.
Like the usual meal preproutine sometimes goes
completely out the window.
So optimal, minimum bailout.
Let's look at them.
Optimal nutrition during theholidays is just your normal
(21:14):
plan.
(21:43):
You're hitting your macros andcalories, you're hitting your
hunger signals, you're, youknow, using the same meal
timing, good food quality forwhat you like to eat, you're
cooking most of your meals or atleast controlling what goes on
your plate in the same way thatyou always have been.
It's just your routine.
This is very realistic on thedays when you're at home, when
you're cooking for yourself oryour immediate family, when you
(22:03):
have control over things, right?
That's optimum.
And by the way, if you're noteven at optimum yet, don't beat
yourself up.
So the one of the missions ofthis podcast is to help you find
that.
And that doesn't mean perfect.
It just means at a good placeto make progress and to be
sustainable.
All right.
Minimum, I will say minimumnutrition is about simplifying
(22:25):
the tracking and the choice, thedecision framework so you don't
have as much cognitive stress.
So I would the way I wouldsimplify this is protein.
Like your only non-negotiableis protein.
Hit your protein target.
And it doesn't even have to bein calculating the grams per se.
If you have any experience atall tracking protein, you know
that having like five servingsthroughout the day, you know, or
(22:49):
having protein, a decent amountof protein at every meal or
snack is going to get you whereyou need to be.
And again, this assumes you'vedone this before.
If you've never done it before,I still recommend trying to
track the grams just to seewhere you stand.
Have a rough awareness ofcalories so you're not massively
overshooting, right?
But but what that means is youshould kind of feel good about
(23:11):
yourself, like you're roughly inmaintenance world, right?
You're not getting stuffed allthe time.
Obviously, you're probably noton the other side of always
feeling hungry during theholidays.
Although, although I could bewrong, some of you were you're
really stressed and you'reshopping and you're doing all
the things and you forget toeat.
That's its own challenge.
I get it.
You know, the food timing heremaybe doesn't matter as much
(23:31):
because things are a little bitless predictable.
Your carbs and fats can alwaysflex depending on the situation.
So the rule's simple (23:37):
just prioritize protein all the time
at every time you eat, and don'tworry about the rest.
And that's a good minimum.
You may decide something elseis your minimum.
Like, I'm always gonna havefruits and vegetables, you know,
fiber.
It could be something else, butI would go with protein for
most people.
So at Thanksgiving dinner,that's easy.
Turkey baby.
All right.
Like I actually findThanksgiving kind of interesting
(24:00):
because I feel like a lot ofThanksgiving dinners are
actually pretty decent foodoptions compared to maybe other
parties and holidays, if youknow what I mean.
Like it tends to be a lot ofhome-cooked food for a lot of
families.
Now, that's if you celebrateit, that's if you cook it
yourself.
You know, some people go out toChinese food for Thanksgiving,
whatever, or don't celebrate it,let's say, or different
country.
But, you know, you want toenjoy the meal.
(24:22):
You want to enjoy theexperience and the family time.
You don't want to stresswhether mashed potatoes have the
butter, the green beans arecooked in oil, all those little
details, really.
Just get enough protein, whichusually comes from Turkey.
And I love dark meatpersonally, but you might like
the breast meat.
And then all the other things,the sides, you know, have a
little bit of everything thatyou enjoy.
There's nothing wrong withthat.
If you're at a restaurant,always order protein forward
(24:42):
meals, right?
Steak, vegetables, chicken andrice, fish and potatoes, simple
stuff like that.
So that would be the minimum.
The bailout is even simpler.
It's like one anchor meal a dayto keep your brain connected to
the fact that there's this ideaof nutritious,
performance-enhancing,supportive foods that you'd like
(25:04):
to eat.
And you're gonna have that oneexperience every day that's
yours and everything else ischaos, and you accept it.
Maybe you're traveling all day,maybe you're dealing with a
family crisis, maybe you'recompletely overwhelmed.
Don't skip eating.
Just make sure you make sureyou get at least one great hit
of protein in a fairlywell-balanced meal.
(25:25):
And if you can't even do that,your minute your bailout might
be a protein shake.
Okay.
Some jerky in a protein bar.
The other day I was in a hurryand I had forgotten to bring my
prepped food.
I stopped at a gas station andthey had the barbells brand
protein bar.
I'm like, you know what?
This is a good bailout comparedto the alternatives.
I'm gonna try it out.
And by the way, it's prettydelicious, like cookies and
(25:46):
cream.
Now, I don't eat that stuff allthe time, but it's pretty cool.
And I couldn't pass up the factthat it said barbells, right?
And I'm aware of that brand.
I just was surprised they hadit in the gas station.
And then you get back to yourminimum tomorrow or your
optimal, whatever makes sense.
So the psychological shift hereis the same as with training.
You have multiple gears.
On days you have control, or Ishould say on days you have some
control, but not all, you hitthe minimum.
(26:08):
And days where you have lots ofcontrol, you push toward
optimal.
And then on those disastercatastrophe days, you got your
bailout and you don't feelguilty about it because at least
you're not a zero.
Don't be a zero, be a hero.
All right.
And here's the thing aboutprotein specifically: we know
how important it is.
It's also very satiating and ithelps you not overeat.
So even on the bailout days,that strategy is really
(26:30):
important.
And again, if it's not protein,maybe it's fiber.
Both things can help with thehunger signals.
I went out to dinner with afriend of mine the other night,
and we went to this place wherethey used to have this big
barbecue plate, and I was sodisappointed they didn't have
anymore.
They had a new owner.
The barbecue plate was like sixdifferent types of meat and all
these great sides, but theystill have the same chefs, the
(26:50):
same cooks, and the cooks doeverything from scratch, even
like blue cheese dressing,things like that.
Which, when when something ismade with love like that, with
pretty fresh ingredients, younotice a difference, you enjoy
it, and all that.
Anyway, we we each ordered asalad along with some wings and
some other things, and thesewere the biggest salads I've
ever freaking seen.
They were massive.
(27:11):
They were probably theequivalent of like six garden
salads.
Now it was mostly just rawvegetables.
It was like iceberg and romainelettuce, some carrots, some
cucumbers, maybe peppers, maybetomatoes, right?
Just just like that.
And then, of course, dressingon the side.
I'll tell you what though,halfway through that salad, I
really didn't want to eat muchmore of anything else.
And I know I hardly had anycalories.
(27:33):
And the ironic thing was at theend of the day, I said, you
know what, I had planned to eatlike almost 2,000 calories
because of the barbecue dish.
And I probably ate like 900 or1,000 because of the salad.
So it's just, it's just aninteresting idea of how you can
almost like trick your body,let's say.
You're tricking it with eatinggood food.
I get it, but fiber can behelpful, protein can be helpful.
(27:55):
Okay, enough rambling.
Let's talk about the it's justsetting this up very simply.
It's more about reframing thananything.
So the old way that you wouldthink is I can't do my full
workout, so I'm not gonna do it.
And maybe you'd say in yourhead, maybe I'll do it tomorrow.
Maybe I'll shift out, maybe Icould skip this one.
You get all these maybes inyour head, and then of course
you end up going for the worstchoice because you don't have a
(28:15):
plan.
The new way, the new way tothink about it is I can't do the
optimal.
That was my plan.
What is my minimum?
And then let your brain figureit out.
Nope, can't do that either.
Can I at least do my bailout?
And that way you have a secondgear and a third gear.
Or I should say, uh, if you golike in a car, you're going down
to second gear and first gear.
Okay.
In this case, first gear is thebailout, you get it.
(28:36):
Okay.
Now you might be thinking, oh,but if I just do a bailout, like
what's the point?
Am I still aren't I stilllosing progress?
Two things.
First, the the minimum isdesigned to maintain progress,
and the bailout is designed tobe better than zero.
And the idea is not tobackslide.
So psychologically, it keepspushing you forward and keeping
(28:58):
the routine in place.
The goal is not to come offyour habit.
That's that's the goal.
So, how do you set this up?
It's very simple.
You're gonna write down youroptimal for the different
buckets.
And I just talked abouttraining and nutrition.
We talked about a few otherbuckets on the workshop in
physique university, and youcould add your own buckets as
you need, right?
Sleep, stress, recovery,whatever.
(29:19):
And then identify your minimum.
What's the least you can dowithout losing progress?
So for training, we alreadytalked, we already talked about
that stuff.
And then define your bailout,which I would say, what can you
do in less than 10 minutes wheneverything else is just chaos?
What can you do in less than 10minutes?
Have that in your backup plan.
Write it down, put it in anotes app, send yourself an
email, put it on post-note,whatever makes sense.
Write them down.
(29:40):
Please, write them down.
Don't just let this fly by youin your ears as you're
multitasking right now,listening to this podcast.
Or, Jonathan, you know who I'mtalking to.
You just got your home gym,buddy.
You reported how the home gymnow gives you extra time and you
control the environment.
Now you can listen to a podcastwhile you live.
Love it.
Anyway, shout out to you,Jonathan.
When chaos hits, you have toknow your options.
(30:02):
So this is still having a plan.
This is still a plan.
That's the cool thing about it.
It's kind of like you'retricking yourself into doing
something that's a plan anyway,that doesn't even feel like a
plan because it's a bailout.
Right.
So, like for nutrition, whatdoes that look like in
Thanksgiving?
Load up on your turkey, takereasonable portions of sides.
You're not tracking macros,you're just prioritizing
protein.
You get full.
That's the minimum.
There you go.
(30:23):
It works.
All right.
So if you're thinking, okay,this makes sense.
I really want help implementingit and coming up for.
Myself, what all this lookslike for all the different
pieces.
That's what we did insidephysique university, and we
continue to do with ourstudents.
We taught the Flex framework inour last coaching call, and
we're actually going to connectthat to a challenge at the end
of the year.
It's going to start December10th and go right to the end of
(30:44):
the year.
It's a three-week strong finishchallenge.
Now you're probably listeningto this episode a little before
around Thanksgiving, which is acouple weeks before the
challenge starts.
Totally up to you if you wantto come on in and get caught up
on the flex framework ahead oftime, because we did give
everyone a six-week roadmap.
And the second half of thatroadmap is the challenge.
So the challenge is going torun through the hardest three
(31:05):
weeks of the year.
And that's designed to help youpractice pivoting and
maintaining that floor, thatbailout floor through this
maximum chaos.
And we did create some trainingprograms for travel that you
can use, some trainingtemplates, I should say, body
weight, as well as if you haveaccess to some basic hotel
equipment.
We will be posting dailycheck-ins to keep you
(31:27):
accountable.
And we have a ton of resources.
A lot of them Coach Carol puttogether.
We have decision trees for yourtraining.
Carol put together what to doat a gas station, at an airport,
a hotel, a visual meal guide.
What else?
There's a lot of stuff inthere.
So when it's that time of year,you could literally go to the
(31:48):
reference during the challengeand say, what do I do for this?
So you can join now.
I would encourage it and getcaught up on the flex framework
and start doing our onboardingand then meeting the community,
meeting me and Coach Carroll,and really starting to build
momentum now before it gets toocrazy.
Or, you know, I get it, noteverybody wants to do that.
You want to just do thechallenge?
The challenge, we're going totalk about it some more as we
(32:10):
get closer.
But it starts December 10th.
We're going to kick off onDecember 8th.
So that's a Monday.
Monday, December 8th, we'regoing to kick off.
Anybody who joins PhysiqueUniversity or joins through the
challenge link, which islive.wits and weights.com.
Live.wits and weights.com.
You can join anytime now untilthen.
You will immediately get accessto physique university, become
a member, and be part of thechallenge and get all those
(32:32):
resources.
And for those of you who joinat live.witsandwaits.com, I
always throw in a free customnutrition plan when you join as
well, which accelerates theprocess even further for you.
So again, the challenge kickoffis December 8th.
It starts a couple days afterthat.
If you want to finish the yearstrong, instead of starting over
in January and use and learnthis flex framework, go to
live.wits and weights.com rightnow.
(32:53):
Link is also in the show notes.
So whether you join us or not,take today's episode and start
setting up your framework rightnow.
Define your optimal, yourminimum, and your bailout at a
minimum for nutrition andtraining.
But also think of the otherbuckets that you care about.
Write them down, test them ifyou have to before you need
them.
And then when Thanksgiving hitsin a couple days, you're ready
for that.
When Christmas chaos comes in afew weeks, you're ready for
(33:14):
that.
If you join physiqueuniversity, you'll be in a
challenge.
You'll get super accountabilityand support there.
And then by January, whileeveryone else is starting over,
you're going to be at leastwhere you left off, if not
better.
And if you didn't make gains,that is fine.
It's still far beyond wheremost people are because you
didn't lose ground either.
Maintained your strength, yourmuscle, your momentum.
That's how you build lastingprogress.
(33:36):
That's how you make thissustainable over the long term,
over the 12-month period.
Because if the holidays aregenerally the worst time for you
and you're maintaining now,that's a huge win, isn't it?
Because now the rest of theyear, you're going to make a ton
of gains and then keep themyear after year after year.
All right, that's it for today.
Go set up your flex framework,define those three levels.
Have your strongest holidayseason yet.
Enjoy your holidays if you'recelebrating Thanksgiving.
(33:58):
I know we will.
We're going to be enjoying allof the delicious food and the
family and being grateful.
I am grateful to you.
I'm grateful for this platformto be able to share and have
these conversations.
Until next time, keep usingyour wits, lifting those
weights.
And remember, the best systemsdo have multiple years.
I'm Philip Pape, and this isWits and Weights.
Talk to you next time.
It's that time of year.
Thanksgiving is this year inthe US, and that means travel,
family meals you didn't cook,late nights, early mornings with
relative stain at your house.
If you have a rigid plan, it'sprobably gonna break.
You might skip a workout, youmight avoid certain meals or
foods, a bad day might become abad weekend, a bad weekend
becomes three weeks off, andthen by January you're starting
(00:23):
over yet again.
The problem isn't you, it'sthat your system might only have
one gear, and it's built forperfect conditions.
Today I'm showing you how toupgrade your system so you can
maintain strength and musclethrough any holiday, even if
everyone else is backsliding.
I'm your host, certifiednutrition coach, Philip Pape,
(00:58):
and today we're gonna talk aboutsomething that's probably on
your mind as Thanksgivingapproaches in just a few days
here in the US.
And honestly, this applies toanyone going through any holiday
or time like this.
How do you keep your progressgoing when your routine gets
completely disrupted?
This is a general principle ofany time of year, but it really
(01:19):
comes up during the holidaysbecause most of us approach this
time of year with one of twostrategies.
Either you try to maintain yourexact routine and then
inevitably fail when lifedoesn't cooperate, or you
completely give up and you planto start fresh in January.
Both approaches have the sameresult, right?
You lose your trainingprogress, maybe you gain some
(01:42):
fat that you didn't want, maybeyou feel like you're back at
square one or falling back,regressing when the new year
rolls around.
Now you're kind of reset morethan you'd like to be.
So what I'm sharing today isdifferent.
Something I came up with overthe last few weeks.
We talked about it in physiqueuniversity recently, and it's
called the flex framework.
Very simple, based on a simpleprinciple that a system with
(02:04):
multiple gears, right, just toput the engineering hat on, can
survive tolerance or variabilitybetter than a system that has
only one setting, right?
So we're talking about havingflexibility in your system, but
we're gonna be very uh concreteabout it today and give you very
specific ways to do this.
So you're gonna learn how tocreate three versions of what
you're doing, of your plan (02:23):
an optimal version, a minimum
version, and what I'm calling abailout version, so that you can
adapt to whatever the holidaysthrow at you without losing your
progress.
And of course, this appliesbeyond the holidays, as I
mentioned.
Anytime life gets chaotic, thatcould be work travel, that
could be family emergencies, youknow, just those weeks where
(02:43):
everything seems to be goingwrong.
We know what those are, right?
But real quick, I just want toshare a couple quotes from our
clients in Physique Universitywho always like to share their
wins.
And it's super inspiring tothose listening to the podcast.
You said you want to heardirectly from people who are
doing this.
So the first one says, My DEXAscan.
Looks like heavy barbelltraining is paying off.
(03:03):
Check out the spine increase.
That's awesome, right?
Because we've been talkingabout osteoporosis recently.
So love to hear that.
Another one, and this is Iwould file this under small but
monumentous wins.
I completed week one of thestrength template I selected.
That's a massive win to getthrough your first week of
trained strength trainingsessions, excuse me, is
(03:25):
phenomenal.
And then one more says, I wastraveling for work this past
week, but I was able to get acouple workouts in, lots of
meetings and late nights.
Lifting seemed to have given megiven me a bit of energy,
embracing the new lifestyle.
And the last one I'm going toshare today is actually from one
of many of the users whodownloaded Fitness Lab, which is
now out for Black Friday.
It's 20% off for Black Friday.
Just came out, our new AIcoaching app.
(03:47):
And this user says, I have itand I'm loving it so far,
especially the AI feature.
It feels like you are coachingme.
Apple Health will be excellentonce integrated, which this is
Philip talking here, will be outwithin days, if not already,
when you hear this podcast.
But honestly, I like what it'smaking me do by not having it.
I want to let you know this isexactly what I've been looking
(04:08):
for.
Good stuff.
So the reason I share all theseis because I'm super proud of
what all of you are achievingevery day, whether it's through
the podcast, through PhysiqueUniversity, or now through the
Fitness Lab app.
You could check out all thoseresources in the podcast show
notes.
But now let's get into thetopic.
And the first thing I want totalk about is why having a plan
that's a little bit too rigid oreven very rigid, of course, why
(04:30):
it collapses under pressure.
And this is a lot more of ahead thing, a psychology thing
than anything else.
And if we put it in context ofthis week, at least here in the
US, where you've gotThanksgiving in just three days,
if you're listening to thiswhen it comes out on Monday, and
then it's only a few weeksuntil Christmas and New Year's,
and you're already stressed outabout how you're gonna handle
(04:53):
all of that stuff, familydinners, travel, the gyms are
probably gonna be packed, youmight have hosting duties,
you're wondering about thingslike, you know, how do I deal
with alcohol and stuff likethat?
And saying, hey, should I justaccept that things are gonna be
perfect and therefore I'm gonnabackslide and then plan to get
serious again in January?
Well, I'm here to tell you thatthat those aren't the only
(05:14):
options.
Okay.
No, things are not gonna beperfect.
They never will.
So that we just throw off thetable.
That's a fact.
But the fact that you'll blackbackslide isn't a given.
But I get it because thetraditional approach to fitness
in this industry can come acrossas very rigid.
It's like, here are the sevenpillars you have to follow.
You've got to do your trainingfor three, four, five days a
(05:35):
week.
You've got to have, you know,the these calories and macros.
You've got to hit your energybalance and your sleep is being
locked in.
Got to keep your stress low, bythe way.
Make sure you get your stepsin.
All of that, all of that isfine, but it it really only
works when the conditions areperfect.
In other words, hitting a 10out of 10 on all of those
things.
(05:55):
You know, when you're at home,when you're prepping your own
food, when you've got yournormal gym every day, when you
control your environment, etc.
But the holidays are maximumvariability with minimum
control, right?
The travel schedules change.
Family members have their ownplans for meal times and what to
serve at the meals.
And, you know, you don't wantto offend your relatives because
(06:16):
they're gonna make all thisgreat food that that's part of a
tradition.
The gym, maybe you're visitingand you try to go to a gym and
now it's different and itdoesn't have the equipment you
need.
And you normally try to get tobed at 9 or 10 p.m.
Now it becomes midnight becauseeveryone's still talking in the
kitchen, right?
So this is life, guys.
And so your rigid plan is ofcourse not gonna have an answer
for this.
So it breaks, and then when itbreaks, you feel like you
(06:38):
failed, and then you quit, andthat's the all or nothing trap,
right?
We it's it's worth it's worthrevisiting that because we all
fall into that, even if it'sit's small in a small scope.
You know, I do as well.
I fall into sometimes thisthought of like, okay, here's my
routine.
I'm gonna lock it in, and thensomething happens, I'm like, ah,
I get frustrated because I'mnot, I can't quite hit that
routine like I wanted.
And by the way, I'm gonna haverotator cuff surgery coming up.
(07:00):
So I could easily fall intothat trap of, oh no, this guy's
falling.
I'm not gonna be able to train,I'm not gonna be able to this,
not gonna be able to that.
And I have to just and say,okay, that's the reality.
What do I do?
Like a good stoic, what do Ido?
And it's why January, when wetalk about the holidays, why
January is the busiest month atevery gym.
Because everyone's startingover, New Year's resolutions,
(07:20):
after completely abandoningabandoning their routine for six
weeks, if they even had one.
And so the real problem here ofwhy things break is because
they're one-dimensional.
They have one gear, they workunder certain conditions, not
necessarily perfect conditions,but let's say close to them,
right?
Nor quote unquote normalconditions.
And so, what you need is asystem with multiple gears that
(07:42):
can adapt to imperfect and farimperfect conditions while
keeping you move forward.
Now, this does this might belike common sense, like, oh,
okay, Philip's talking aboutflexibility, great.
But I want to be very, I wantto give you gears here.
I want to give you three gearsthat are very specific steps
that you can step down to ifneeded and think ahead for
yourself what that looks like.
(08:03):
Okay, and this is somethingthat I'm introducing called the
Flex Framework.
Now, we talked about this in aworkshop, or I should say, our
monthly coaching call inPhysique University.
We just talked about it.
And on that call, we wentthrough, I'll say a lot more
detail than I'm gonna covertoday, although you're gonna get
a good amount of it today.
And we did a lot of QA andthere's a guide and all this
other stuff.
And the community is workingwith it to get accountability
(08:27):
along the way as we head intoThanksgiving.
So if you want to get in forall of that, as well as the
community support and theability to say, hey, what do you
guys think of my flexframework?
Is it gonna work?
How do I execute it?
Join physiqueuniversity,physique.wits and weights.com.
You could also go to wits andweights.com slash physique.
Sorry to confuse you.
The link is in the show notes.
So go to witsandwaits.com slashphysique.
(08:48):
There's a special code in theshow notes to get a free
nutrition plan when you joinusing that code.
And then you can get a headstart on this flex framework.
But it is built on a principlefrom I'll say reliability
engineering.
And that's the principle ofredundancy.
Right?
When we design a system likethe ones that keep airplanes in
the sky or nuclear power plantsrunning safely, they're super
(09:09):
complex, just like life iscomplex, just like your body is
complex, and they don't rely ona single component or gear.
They're multiple levels ofredundancy.
So if things fail and multiplethings fail, and sometimes
multiple things fail at the sametime, which seems unlikely, but
it can happen in certain cases.
Can things keep functioning orgracefully step down or
gracefully shut down orwhatever?
And so your fitness system,your life system for your
(09:31):
nutrition and training need thesame approach.
And I like to think of this inthrees, three versions of all
the important elements (09:39):
an optimal version, a minimum
version, and a bailout.
So let me define each of these.
Optimal is what you do whenconditions are perfect for you.
Nothing's ever perfect, butbasically your normal week to
week to week, the kind of boringlife, hopefully, you have.
Well, boring in the way thatI'm defining it here, where it's
(10:00):
predictable, somewhatpredictable.
That's where you have fullaccess to your routine, plenty
of time, energy, and resourcesavailable that you need, you
know, within your givenconstraints.
That's like your best casescenario, and which you're
probably doing before you get tothe holidays for the most part,
if you haven't been travelingor something.
That's optimal.
Okay, not not optimal is notperfect for anybody.
(10:20):
Optimal is good enough, closeto perfect for you.
Then minimum is yournon-negotiable floor.
Now, I talk about minimums inthe past of like, okay, this is
the bottom, but stay tunedbecause it's not going to be the
bottom bottom.
This is what you cannot skipwithout starting to lose
progress in one of those areas,right?
So this is the consistencypiece.
(10:41):
This is that, you know, theidea that maintaining what
you've built actually does takefar less effort than building it
in the first place.
We know this for volume when itcomes to training.
About an eighth to a quartervolume is necessary to maintain
what you have.
So your minimum maintainsyou've built and typically takes
a lot less of your optimaleffort, let's say 20 to 30%.
So this is when we say no zerodays, or being consistent, or
(11:04):
making sure you have micro winsthat you can do every day that
are the minimum, but they'llstill compound and give you
progress as opposed to skippingit altogether.
And then bailout, this is thenew thing I'm in, I'm talking
about today.
This is your emergencyprotocol, is your lifeboat.
What you do when everythinggoes wrong, right?
You're sick when your scheduleimplodes, when you have zero
(11:26):
control over your environment.
You know, in my case, like Ihave surgery coming up.
There's bailout protocols I'mgoing to be putting in place for
things.
Although when you can plan farenough ahead, you still could
have a minimum, if that makessense.
But your bailout's whatprevents total collapse more in
your head than anything else.
Let's be honest, more in yourhead than anything else.
(11:47):
Meaning it's better thannothing, but it's not even your
minimum, and it takes even lesseffort.
So I'm adding an extra gearhere to give yourself permission
from a psychological standpointto still do something that gets
you a win that keeps you goingso that the next time you can
(12:07):
strive for the minimum or theoptimal.
Does that make sense?
It's kind of like a bridge win.
And the power of this frameworkis the mindset shift, the
psychology.
Instead of thinking, I can't domy full workout, so I won't do
anything.
It's, well, I can't do my fullworkout.
What's my minimum?
Okay, I can do three out of myfive exercises.
Well, can I not even do that?
What is my bailout?
(12:29):
My bailout might be oneexercise.
It might be not even going tothe gym, but doing something at
home, like running up the stairand down the stairs for 10
minutes.
Something that psychologicallygives you that, dare I say it,
checkbox on the streak that youyou've now bridged to the next
day or the next point where youdo your normal habit.
(12:50):
So in this case, you're notlowering your standards.
You're actually building onemore gear of standard that gives
you an anti-fragile system thatsurvives the most obliterated
imperfect conditions that comeacross.
That makes sense.
All right.
So having that in place, nowwhat do we do?
All right, let's apply the flexflamework framework to the big
(13:15):
areas that we care about here,like nutrition and training.
So with training, let's say usethe holidays as the example,
but this can work for anyroutine work that gets
disrupted.
Optimal, even during theholidays, it's just your normal
workout.
You have maybe still haveaccess to your gym, maybe you're
still at home, you know, andyou're you're just you've got
some different schedules andstuff going on, and you can
still work in your normal fulltraining sessions.
(13:38):
You might have to shift thedays around, but you're still
getting all the volume and thefrequency and the intensity in,
right?
Maybe it's at home, maybeyou're visiting somewhere with a
good gym and you can do it aswell and still hit some optimal
days.
Remember, optimal doesn't meanevery day has to be optimal.
It's just on a given day, areyou doing the optimal thing?
And you don't have to be doingeverything optimal.
Remember, you're doing, youhave different pillars that
(14:00):
you're hitting, training,nutrition, steps, whatever.
Each one of those can be attheir a different level.
All right.
So just give yourself, it'slike flexibility within
flexibility.
So just because it's theholidays doesn't mean you can't
keep on with your optimalroutine, right?
And then minimum training isgonna focus on something like
let me just do the main lifts,the big lifts, the compound
movements.
I've been doing this morelately because of all this
(14:22):
medical stuff I've been dealingwith, having appointments and
extra meetings and having todrive places.
It's cut into my time, but I'vesaid, you know, I'm still gonna
train, but instead of doing allfive movements, I'm gonna do
three or even two.
And I'm gonna go really, reallyhard on them.
I did that this morning.
I did weighted pull-ups,neutral grip, I did T-bar rows,
and I did a superset oflengthened partial lat raises
(14:46):
and bicep curls on a cablemachine.
Now, though that last one,obviously it's not main lifts,
but it does support my goals tosupport my shoulder health and
also keep my biceps a littlepumped.
Okay.
I just it's something I enjoy.
So I decided what that was forme, my main lift.
But the, but the but the mainlifts today, which didn't
include massive lifts like thesquat or deadlift today,
(15:08):
particularly for me, I stillfocused on the main ones.
And there were a couple othersmall things that I didn't do,
right?
I think I don't know if it waslike high rep shrugs or
something that I cut out.
All right, so you're cuttingout the accessories, maybe you
abbreviate the warm-up necessaryas needed, but to still do it
safely, and then hit your mainlifts and get out, right?
So main lifts could be all thevariants of the main movement
(15:30):
pattern, squat bench, deadlift,rowing, whatever your core
movements are depending on yourprogram.
And you could even cut a set.
You could even get just themain lifts, and instead of
doing, say, three sets, you dotwo, and maybe do a top set back
off set, right?
Because at the very minimum,you're maintaining what you
have, and surprisingly, youmight find that you needed the
extra little rest, and it mightgive you a little boost in
(15:52):
performance.
You never know.
So I don't see this as a badstrategy at all.
This is pretty good.
That's a minimum.
Now, bailout.
Let's talk about bailout.
So to me, bailout is movementbased, not performance-based.
Might sound sacrilegious, butthat's why it's a bailout.
This is not about hitting newnumbers on your list.
This is not even aboutprogressive overload.
(16:13):
If your bailout strategy is,damn, I can't even get to the
gym.
I can't even get to any of thisstuff right now.
I don't have a home gym.
I just need to move my body andget some sort of stimulus on my
muscles.
This is beyond beyond walking.
And this could be body weightstuff.
I mentioned running up and downthe stairs, you know, for your
legs.
This could be a brisk walk withweight on your back, like a
(16:36):
rucksack or weight vests orsomething like this.
It could be just push-ups, youknow what I mean?
All you're doing is justbridging the gap with some bare
minimum.
And psychologically, more thananything, it gives you that
boost that, like, I did it.
And that means next time I'mgonna keep making progress when
I go back to my minimum or myoptimal.
All right.
That's all we're talking about.
Now, notice what's happeningpsychologically.
(16:58):
You have options.
On a perfect day, you hitoptimal, on a chaotic day, you
fall back to minimum.
Usually it ends there.
But now on a disaster day, youcan at least do your bailout.
You're not stuck in the all ornothing trap at any of those
levels.
And that's how you maintainyour routine through the
holidays at some level.
(17:18):
You may not try to make gainsor PRs, but at least maintain
what you've built, feel goodabout yourself, keep going, keep
yourself in the mode of I'mdoing this thing on a regular
basis.
And throughout all of this,recovery is gonna be super
important, right?
It a lot of it does come downto stimulus versus recovery.
And if you're stressed becauseof the holidays, recovery is
(17:40):
gonna be impeded as well.
Now, for me, you guys know Ilove to talk about sleep a lot
because it's something I ampersonally working on.
And it's probably the biggestpillar of recovery.
And when you're traveling, whenyou're staying in different
beds, when you're dealing withfamily stress, irregular
schedules, I would say qualitysleep becomes even more
important and often harder toget.
(18:01):
And so, shout out to thesponsor of this episode, Cozy
Earth.
They have incredible beddingthat I own personally, that I
use.
It is my favorite bedding ofall.
I'm glad I found them becauseit regulates temperature.
You sleep cooler, you sleepmore comfortably even when
you're not in your own bed.
If you could take your sheetswith you.
That's my tip for you rightnow.
Okay.
(18:21):
If you could take your sheetswith you, you know how everybody
has like their favorite pillow,it's kind of like that.
If you could have your ownsheets with you, which then you
know they're clean as well, andyou're not dealing with any of
that stuff, and you could takethem with you.
I've been using the Cozy Earthsheets now for quite a few
months, and the difference insleep quality is definitely
noticeable, both qualitativelyand in my numbers, in my HRV
scores, uh, my sleep qualityscores, it just feels like
(18:44):
something I want to, you know,drift away in.
It just feels so good.
I mean, sometimes I just wantto get in the sheets just to
like read a book.
And so when you're dealing withholiday stress schedule
changes, having something likethat to anchor you when it comes
to an important pillar likesleep, and that could be
bedding.
It could also be their pajamasand other things, other products
that they have made with thebamboo-derived material that
(19:07):
regulates the temperature.
It's just one less thing thatworks against you and to worry
about.
So go to witsandweights.comslash cozy earth.
Use my code Wits and Waits for20% off.
They have an incrediblewarranty and money-back
guarantee.
So you could try it.
If you don't like it, returnit.
If you want to get better sleepduring the holidays and beyond,
this would be, in fact, this isa great birth Christmas gift,
(19:27):
guys.
Cozy earth.
Sheets.
If you're struggling to figureout a really nice, luxurious
Christmas gift for yoursignificant other, for a friend,
for somebody who's in thisspace who cares about sleep, go
to wits of weights.com slashcozy earth, 20% off.
And trust me, the sleep isgoing to vastly improve.
And that means better recovery,better training, more energy to
(19:50):
enjoy the holidays and helpyour metabolism and all this
other stuff.
Wits of weights.com slash cozyearth.
Check them out.
All right, so that's training.
Now let's talk about nutrition,because this is where most
people really derail during theholidays.
And I don't even like the wordderail because I've said before
I don't believe there is a railif you have a flexible
framework.
Okay.
But we're gonna assume that therail is your general direction
(20:12):
that you're trying to go.
Maybe it's fat loss, maybe it'smuscle building, maybe it's
just maintenance.
And for many of you who knowme, I definitely recommend
against fat loss during theholidays, unless you're using it
as a test.
You're using it to kind of pushyour comfort zone further
during the hardest time of yearso that you can handle any time
of year.
That's all that's up to you.
But whatever it is, thesituation changes quite a bit
(20:35):
this time of year because youoften go to family dinners or
you visit family and you didn'tcook the food, or there's a
potluck, right?
Or you bring one thing and theycook everything else.
Or you're just cooking otherthings because it's the
holidays, right?
The pecan pie.
I know people who have like 10pies, okay?
This is like an Americantradition to have all these
pies (20:52):
apple pie, pumpkin pie, blueberry pie, cherry pie, you
name it.
And you're probably atrestaurants a little more,
you're getting out, you're goingon parties, you're visiting
friends, you might be traveling.
Like the usual meal preproutine sometimes goes
completely out the window.
So optimal, minimum bailout.
Let's look at them.
Optimal nutrition during theholidays is just your normal
(21:14):
plan.
(21:43):
You're hitting your macros andcalories, you're hitting your
hunger signals, you're, youknow, using the same meal
timing, good food quality forwhat you like to eat, you're
cooking most of your meals or atleast controlling what goes on
your plate in the same way thatyou always have been.
It's just your routine.
This is very realistic on thedays when you're at home, when
you're cooking for yourself oryour immediate family, when you
(22:03):
have control over things, right?
That's optimum.
And by the way, if you're noteven at optimum yet, don't beat
yourself up.
So the one of the missions ofthis podcast is to help you find
that.
And that doesn't mean perfect.
It just means at a good placeto make progress and to be
sustainable.
All right.
Minimum, I will say minimumnutrition is about simplifying
(22:25):
the tracking and the choice, thedecision framework so you don't
have as much cognitive stress.
So I would the way I wouldsimplify this is protein.
Like your only non-negotiableis protein.
Hit your protein target.
And it doesn't even have to bein calculating the grams per se.
If you have any experience atall tracking protein, you know
that having like five servingsthroughout the day, you know, or
(22:49):
having protein, a decent amountof protein at every meal or
snack is going to get you whereyou need to be.
And again, this assumes you'vedone this before.
If you've never done it before,I still recommend trying to
track the grams just to seewhere you stand.
Have a rough awareness ofcalories so you're not massively
overshooting, right?
But but what that means is youshould kind of feel good about
(23:11):
yourself, like you're roughly inmaintenance world, right?
You're not getting stuffed allthe time.
Obviously, you're probably noton the other side of always
feeling hungry during theholidays.
Although, although I could bewrong, some of you were you're
really stressed and you'reshopping and you're doing all
the things and you forget toeat.
That's its own challenge.
I get it.
You know, the food timing heremaybe doesn't matter as much
(23:31):
because things are a little bitless predictable.
Your carbs and fats can alwaysflex depending on the situation.
So the rule's simple (23:37):
just prioritize protein all the time
at every time you eat, and don'tworry about the rest.
And that's a good minimum.
You may decide something elseis your minimum.
Like, I'm always gonna havefruits and vegetables, you know,
fiber.
It could be something else, butI would go with protein for
most people.
So at Thanksgiving dinner,that's easy.
Turkey baby.
All right.
Like I actually findThanksgiving kind of interesting
(24:00):
because I feel like a lot ofThanksgiving dinners are
actually pretty decent foodoptions compared to maybe other
parties and holidays, if youknow what I mean.
Like it tends to be a lot ofhome-cooked food for a lot of
families.
Now, that's if you celebrateit, that's if you cook it
yourself.
You know, some people go out toChinese food for Thanksgiving,
whatever, or don't celebrate it,let's say, or different
country.
But, you know, you want toenjoy the meal.
(24:22):
You want to enjoy theexperience and the family time.
You don't want to stresswhether mashed potatoes have the
butter, the green beans arecooked in oil, all those little
details, really.
Just get enough protein, whichusually comes from Turkey.
And I love dark meatpersonally, but you might like
the breast meat.
And then all the other things,the sides, you know, have a
little bit of everything thatyou enjoy.
There's nothing wrong withthat.
If you're at a restaurant,always order protein forward
(24:42):
meals, right?
Steak, vegetables, chicken andrice, fish and potatoes, simple
stuff like that.
So that would be the minimum.
The bailout is even simpler.
It's like one anchor meal a dayto keep your brain connected to
the fact that there's this ideaof nutritious,
performance-enhancing,supportive foods that you'd like
(25:04):
to eat.
And you're gonna have that oneexperience every day that's
yours and everything else ischaos, and you accept it.
Maybe you're traveling all day,maybe you're dealing with a
family crisis, maybe you'recompletely overwhelmed.
Don't skip eating.
Just make sure you make sureyou get at least one great hit
of protein in a fairlywell-balanced meal.
(25:25):
And if you can't even do that,your minute your bailout might
be a protein shake.
Okay.
Some jerky in a protein bar.
The other day I was in a hurryand I had forgotten to bring my
prepped food.
I stopped at a gas station andthey had the barbells brand
protein bar.
I'm like, you know what?
This is a good bailout comparedto the alternatives.
I'm gonna try it out.
And by the way, it's prettydelicious, like cookies and
(25:46):
cream.
Now, I don't eat that stuff allthe time, but it's pretty cool.
And I couldn't pass up the factthat it said barbells, right?
And I'm aware of that brand.
I just was surprised they hadit in the gas station.
And then you get back to yourminimum tomorrow or your
optimal, whatever makes sense.
So the psychological shift hereis the same as with training.
You have multiple gears.
On days you have control, or Ishould say on days you have some
control, but not all, you hitthe minimum.
(26:08):
And days where you have lots ofcontrol, you push toward
optimal.
And then on those disastercatastrophe days, you got your
bailout and you don't feelguilty about it because at least
you're not a zero.
Don't be a zero, be a hero.
All right.
And here's the thing aboutprotein specifically: we know
how important it is.
It's also very satiating and ithelps you not overeat.
So even on the bailout days,that strategy is really
(26:30):
important.
And again, if it's not protein,maybe it's fiber.
Both things can help with thehunger signals.
I went out to dinner with afriend of mine the other night,
and we went to this place wherethey used to have this big
barbecue plate, and I was sodisappointed they didn't have
anymore.
They had a new owner.
The barbecue plate was like sixdifferent types of meat and all
these great sides, but theystill have the same chefs, the
(26:50):
same cooks, and the cooks doeverything from scratch, even
like blue cheese dressing,things like that.
Which, when when something ismade with love like that, with
pretty fresh ingredients, younotice a difference, you enjoy
it, and all that.
Anyway, we we each ordered asalad along with some wings and
some other things, and thesewere the biggest salads I've
ever freaking seen.
They were massive.
(27:11):
They were probably theequivalent of like six garden
salads.
Now it was mostly just rawvegetables.
It was like iceberg and romainelettuce, some carrots, some
cucumbers, maybe peppers, maybetomatoes, right?
Just just like that.
And then, of course, dressingon the side.
I'll tell you what though,halfway through that salad, I
really didn't want to eat muchmore of anything else.
And I know I hardly had anycalories.
(27:33):
And the ironic thing was at theend of the day, I said, you
know what, I had planned to eatlike almost 2,000 calories
because of the barbecue dish.
And I probably ate like 900 or1,000 because of the salad.
So it's just, it's just aninteresting idea of how you can
almost like trick your body,let's say.
You're tricking it with eatinggood food.
I get it, but fiber can behelpful, protein can be helpful.
(27:55):
Okay, enough rambling.
Let's talk about the it's justsetting this up very simply.
It's more about reframing thananything.
So the old way that you wouldthink is I can't do my full
workout, so I'm not gonna do it.
And maybe you'd say in yourhead, maybe I'll do it tomorrow.
Maybe I'll shift out, maybe Icould skip this one.
You get all these maybes inyour head, and then of course
you end up going for the worstchoice because you don't have a
(28:15):
plan.
The new way, the new way tothink about it is I can't do the
optimal.
That was my plan.
What is my minimum?
And then let your brain figureit out.
Nope, can't do that either.
Can I at least do my bailout?
And that way you have a secondgear and a third gear.
Or I should say, uh, if you golike in a car, you're going down
to second gear and first gear.
Okay.
In this case, first gear is thebailout, you get it.
(28:36):
Okay.
Now you might be thinking, oh,but if I just do a bailout, like
what's the point?
Am I still aren't I stilllosing progress?
Two things.
First, the the minimum isdesigned to maintain progress,
and the bailout is designed tobe better than zero.
And the idea is not tobackslide.
So psychologically, it keepspushing you forward and keeping
(28:58):
the routine in place.
The goal is not to come offyour habit.
That's that's the goal.
So, how do you set this up?
It's very simple.
You're gonna write down youroptimal for the different
buckets.
And I just talked abouttraining and nutrition.
We talked about a few otherbuckets on the workshop in
physique university, and youcould add your own buckets as
you need, right?
Sleep, stress, recovery,whatever.
(29:19):
And then identify your minimum.
What's the least you can dowithout losing progress?
So for training, we alreadytalked, we already talked about
that stuff.
And then define your bailout,which I would say, what can you
do in less than 10 minutes wheneverything else is just chaos?
What can you do in less than 10minutes?
Have that in your backup plan.
Write it down, put it in anotes app, send yourself an
email, put it on post-note,whatever makes sense.
Write them down.
(29:40):
Please, write them down.
Don't just let this fly by youin your ears as you're
multitasking right now,listening to this podcast.
Or, Jonathan, you know who I'mtalking to.
You just got your home gym,buddy.
You reported how the home gymnow gives you extra time and you
control the environment.
Now you can listen to a podcastwhile you live.
Love it.
Anyway, shout out to you,Jonathan.
When chaos hits, you have toknow your options.
(30:02):
So this is still having a plan.
This is still a plan.
That's the cool thing about it.
It's kind of like you'retricking yourself into doing
something that's a plan anyway,that doesn't even feel like a
plan because it's a bailout.
Right.
So, like for nutrition, whatdoes that look like in
Thanksgiving?
Load up on your turkey, takereasonable portions of sides.
You're not tracking macros,you're just prioritizing
protein.
You get full.
That's the minimum.
There you go.
(30:23):
It works.
All right.
So if you're thinking, okay,this makes sense.
I really want help implementingit and coming up for.
Myself, what all this lookslike for all the different
pieces.
That's what we did insidephysique university, and we
continue to do with ourstudents.
We taught the Flex framework inour last coaching call, and
we're actually going to connectthat to a challenge at the end
of the year.
It's going to start December10th and go right to the end of
(30:44):
the year.
It's a three-week strong finishchallenge.
Now you're probably listeningto this episode a little before
around Thanksgiving, which is acouple weeks before the
challenge starts.
Totally up to you if you wantto come on in and get caught up
on the flex framework ahead oftime, because we did give
everyone a six-week roadmap.
And the second half of thatroadmap is the challenge.
So the challenge is going torun through the hardest three
(31:05):
weeks of the year.
And that's designed to help youpractice pivoting and
maintaining that floor, thatbailout floor through this
maximum chaos.
And we did create some trainingprograms for travel that you
can use, some trainingtemplates, I should say, body
weight, as well as if you haveaccess to some basic hotel
equipment.
We will be posting dailycheck-ins to keep you
(31:27):
accountable.
And we have a ton of resources.
A lot of them Coach Carol puttogether.
We have decision trees for yourtraining.
Carol put together what to doat a gas station, at an airport,
a hotel, a visual meal guide.
What else?
There's a lot of stuff inthere.
So when it's that time of year,you could literally go to the
(31:48):
reference during the challengeand say, what do I do for this?
So you can join now.
I would encourage it and getcaught up on the flex framework
and start doing our onboardingand then meeting the community,
meeting me and Coach Carroll,and really starting to build
momentum now before it gets toocrazy.
Or, you know, I get it, noteverybody wants to do that.
You want to just do thechallenge?
The challenge, we're going totalk about it some more as we
(32:10):
get closer.
But it starts December 10th.
We're going to kick off onDecember 8th.
So that's a Monday.
Monday, December 8th, we'regoing to kick off.
Anybody who joins PhysiqueUniversity or joins through the
challenge link, which islive.wits and weights.com.
Live.wits and weights.com.
You can join anytime now untilthen.
You will immediately get accessto physique university, become
a member, and be part of thechallenge and get all those
(32:32):
resources.
And for those of you who joinat live.witsandwaits.com, I
always throw in a free customnutrition plan when you join as
well, which accelerates theprocess even further for you.
So again, the challenge kickoffis December 8th.
It starts a couple days afterthat.
If you want to finish the yearstrong, instead of starting over
in January and use and learnthis flex framework, go to
live.wits and weights.com rightnow.
(32:53):
Link is also in the show notes.
So whether you join us or not,take today's episode and start
setting up your framework rightnow.
Define your optimal, yourminimum, and your bailout at a
minimum for nutrition andtraining.
But also think of the otherbuckets that you care about.
Write them down, test them ifyou have to before you need
them.
And then when Thanksgiving hitsin a couple days, you're ready
for that.
When Christmas chaos comes in afew weeks, you're ready for
(33:14):
that.
If you join physiqueuniversity, you'll be in a
challenge.
You'll get super accountabilityand support there.
And then by January, whileeveryone else is starting over,
you're going to be at leastwhere you left off, if not
better.
And if you didn't make gains,that is fine.
It's still far beyond wheremost people are because you
didn't lose ground either.
Maintained your strength, yourmuscle, your momentum.
That's how you build lastingprogress.
(33:36):
That's how you make thissustainable over the long term,
over the 12-month period.
Because if the holidays aregenerally the worst time for you
and you're maintaining now,that's a huge win, isn't it?
Because now the rest of theyear, you're going to make a ton
of gains and then keep themyear after year after year.
All right, that's it for today.
Go set up your flex framework,define those three levels.
Have your strongest holidayseason yet.
Enjoy your holidays if you'recelebrating Thanksgiving.
(33:58):
I know we will.
We're going to be enjoying allof the delicious food and the
family and being grateful.
I am grateful to you.
I'm grateful for this platformto be able to share and have
these conversations.
Until next time, keep usingyour wits, lifting those
weights.
And remember, the best systemsdo have multiple years.
I'm Philip Pape, and this isWits and Weights.
Talk to you next time.
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