August 27, 2025 • 31 mins
Get your FFMI calculated automatically with the Physique & Biofeedback Tracker in Physique University to track your actual muscle development over time and understand exactly what phase of training you should focus on next. This special link also gets you a FREE custom nutrition plan:
bit.ly/wwpu-free-plan
--
Is your strength training actually building muscle?
Scale weight fluctuates, body fat measurements are inconsistent, and progress photos depend on lighting and angles.
There's one metric that cuts through all this noise:
Fat-Free Mass Index (FFMI)
It shows your actual muscle development regardless of whether you're carrying extra fat or feeling bloated, and once you understand yours, it changes everything about setting goals and how to focus your training.
Most lifters have never heard of FFMI. Unlike body weight or even body fat percentage, FFMI isolates your actual muscular development from everything else, giving you clarity about your progress that no other measurement can.
Main Takeaways:
- FFMI measures your muscularity independent of body fat percentage
- Two people with the same training experience can have vastly different FFMI numbers, requiring completely different approaches
- Building muscle takes years, while losing fat takes months, so you need a more precise way to track this
- Your FFMI determines whether you should prioritize muscle building or fat loss (vs. your feelings or the mirror)
Episode Resources:
- Chef's Foundry non-toxic ceramic cookware (50% off): witsandweights.com/chefsfoundry
- Body Recomp Workshop replay and bonuses at live.witsandweights.com (includes free custom nutrition plan)
Timestamps:
0:00 - What is FFMI and why it's a game changer
5:06 - 2 scenarios that reveal everything about your training focus
8:16 - FFMI values explained (what your number actually means)
11:15 - How FFMI determines whether you should cut vs. bulk
17:12 - Natural vs. enhanced FFMI limit
19:45 - Why low FFMI means muscle building is your priority
22:14 - How the fitness industry gets muscle vs. fat loss backward
25:29 - Tracking FFMI over time to validate objective progress
27:03 - Muscle development vs. body composition
🎓 Join Physique University for just $27/mo + get a FREE custom nutrition plan with this special link: bit.ly/wwpu-free-plan
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Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Philip Pape (00:01):
you've been training for two years.
Some days you feel jacked,other days you feel small.
You're stronger than ever, butyou can't tell if you're
actually building muscle or justgetting better at lifting.
What if I told you there is anumber that cuts through all the
noise, a metric that shows youractual muscle development,
regardless of whether you'recarrying extra fat or feeling
bloated or lean.
(00:22):
It's called fat-free mass indexand most lifters haven't heard
of it, but once you understandyour FFMI, it changes how you
think about progress, goalsetting and whether you should
be cutting or bulking.
Today we're exploring themuscle metric that might be more
important than anything elseyou're currently tracking.
(00:51):
Welcome to wits and weights, theshow that helps you build a
strong, healthy physique usingevidence, engineering and
efficiency.
I'm your host, philip pape, andtoday we're going to talk about
a number that could reframe howyou view your physique progress
.
Picture this you're looking inthe mirror after a training
session, after a workout, yourpump's gone, the lighting's bad.
(01:11):
You're questioning whether allthese months of consistent
training have actually built anymuscle.
Or maybe you're carrying aroundsome extra body fat and you're
wondering if there's muscleunderneath that is worth
revealing.
This is a mental game when itcomes to physique versus body
fat versus muscle in the contextof our training and it happens
(01:32):
to all of us because we're oftentracking the wrong things or
failing to track things thatwill better validate what we're
trying to measure.
Scale weight fluctuates daily.
Body fat measurements areinconsistent and only part of
the equation.
Progress photos are also highlysubjective and they depend on
lighting and angles.
(01:52):
But there is a metric that cutsthrough a lot of this and can
show you something morefundamental how much muscle
you've actually built relativeto your frame.
Now, before we get into thismetric, this FFMI metric, I want
to share a message from Matt inPhysique University.
He says Philip Pape's amazing.
You've got questions abouthealth.
(02:14):
He's got answers.
It's not diet and exercise, butalso the mental side of losing
weight.
I've recently been dealing withmore stress than normal and we
figured out a way.
The membership is a no brainerfor anyone on the fence.
He will help you in any way hecan.
Thanks for everything, philip.
So I'm sharing more of thesetestimonials directly from folks
in Physique University, so youget a sense of what we have in
(02:36):
there, right, because it's notjust about information and
education like on the podcast,it is.
How do we implement that?
How do we personalize it?
What specific ideas can we comeup with to help you look like
you, lift and deal with stressand increase your metabolism and
find a flexible way to eat soyou no longer feel restricted,
and all of those things?
So if you want access to thetools in there that also help
(03:00):
you calculate and track yourFFMI that we're going to talk
about today, alongside other keymetrics that matter for
building muscle For example, ourmuscle gain efficiency tracker,
or our body, our physique andbiofeedback tracker all of that
stuff and how to implement it,like Matt mentioned, head to
witsandweightscom.
Slash physique to join PhysiqueUniversity.
(03:22):
We will help you.
Take all of these tools, putthem together to understand.
This is what's actuallyhappening and this is what I
need to do now.
All right, so let's talk aboutFFMI and why it is such a game
changer, why I'm focusing onthis more now, why I added it to
our Physique Tracker inPhysique University.
It stands for Fat-free massindex.
(03:42):
It is your lean body mass.
It is everything that is notfat divided by your height
squared.
So it's a simple formula.
There are adjusted versions ofthat for gender and for extreme
heights and all of that, butvery simple.
It is a way to normalize yourmuscularity for your height.
(04:03):
So if you think of your muscles, your bones, your organs, your
water, all of that structuralstuff that makes up your body is
your lean mass, and so it looksat that because it's not your
fat mass, so it's independent ofhow much body fat you have and
normalizes it for your height,and that's what makes this
powerful.
Ffmi is completely independentof your body fat percentage, and
(04:27):
we're going to talk about whythat's helpful and why that's
important.
Because whether you're 10% bodyfat, super lean, or you're 25
or 30 or 40% body fat, you havea little extra body fat maybe to
lose.
Your FFMI is going to stay thesame as long as your muscle mass
stays the same, so it gets ridof the variable of body fat for
this analysis, which is helpful,for in a lot of ways, this
(04:50):
means it can show you somethingthat most other metrics cannot
your actual muscular development, separated from everything else
.
That is the power behind it.
Now, why this changeseverything about progress and
how you view and track it, aswell as your goals.
I'm going to give you a couplescenarios.
Right, that happen all the time.
I see this with our students.
(05:10):
Scenario one let's say you're aguy who's been lifting for a
year.
You're sitting at 20% body fat.
You're feeling a little bitsoft.
That's maybe a little bit morethan you want.
Maybe you're 25% body fat.
You're wondering if you shouldcut or keep bulking.
And some of you are wonderinglike, well, why wouldn't you
just cut at that point?
Well, a lot of you guys careabout your strength, you care
(05:32):
about building muscle, youunderstand the value of eating
enough and sleeping enough andtraining hard and getting PRs,
and you don't want to sacrificethat just for the sake of
leanness.
So you go ahead and youcalculate your FFmi and it's
19.5.
Well, that tells you thatunderneath the layer of fat
you've built a recreationallevel of muscle mass.
Right, there's a bit of musclethere, maybe more than somebody
(05:54):
who is skinny, fat or hasn'ttrained at all, and you just
need to reveal it.
So that's one scenario.
Scenario two maybe you're lean,maybe you're 12% body fat and
again, I'm using males here forthe body fat.
You can add about eight to 10%of that for females.
So you're lean, 12% body fat.
People say, hey, you look goodbut you feel kind of small.
(06:14):
You're FFMI, you calculate itand it's 17.
Okay, now that's kind of skinnyor skinny fat, right, it
depends.
And again, we don't care aboutthe fat for this calculation,
but that's may what it presentsitself as.
And now you understand, okay,that's why I kind of feel kind
of small and not very muscular,despite being lean, despite
being in a low body fat.
You just haven't built muchmuscle yet, right?
(06:36):
Those are two common scenarios.
I guess a third one that justcomes to mind, and I've seen
this as well, as guys who'vebeen lifting or men who've been
lift, women, I'm sorry who'vebeen lifting for, let's say,
three to five years or longer,and they're carrying a lot of
extra weight on their framebecause they really never have
gone through a fat loss phase.
But the FFMI can tell them hey,I actually do have a lot of
(06:58):
muscle under there and I justhave to reveal it.
So it's kind of similar to thefirst scenario.
And then, if so, if you're likeskinny fat, right, cutting
anymore is not going to changeanything, you're just going to
get skinnier, fatter, or just,you know, skinnier, without any
definition.
Same training experience,different scenarios here,
different next steps.
(07:18):
When you think about FFMI,independent of fat, so what it
means is is as follows.
I'm actually going to gothrough the different FFMI
levels and what they mean.
And, by the way, one of theinspirations for this episode
was a recent Jeff NippardYouTube video about, natty or
not, how FFMI is often used as acutoff, like if you're over 25,
(07:41):
you're on drugs, if not, you'renot, and there's some truth to
that.
But that's kind of where itcame from.
For practical, everydaypurposes, my audience you guys
listening and our students inphysique you, you know, don't
care about that distinction.
They care more about how.
What do I need to do next?
What do I need to focus on?
How muscular am I?
Is this important?
So there are different tablesthat we have for comparing men
(08:03):
to men and women to women, butI'm just going to go with the
male side of things.
And then for women, it tends tobe less because women carry
more body fat and less muscle,and it is what it is right, but
we do have comparison tables forboth.
So if you're around 17, 18 FFMI,this is the low end.
This is the beginner territory.
This might be the lean guy wholooks okay in clothes but then
(08:25):
feels small, or the higher bodyfat guy who's just starting to
build a base.
So a lot of us in our forties,fifties, who are just we're kind
of sedentary most of our lifeand hadn't lifted or are
detrained and have some extrabody fat, still don't have much
muscle right now.
So that's 17 or 18 FFMI.
Then we get up to 19 to 20.
You're a recreational lifter atthat point and, by the way, the
(08:51):
FFMI is a kind of narrow range.
I mean we're talking 17 to like24.
For the vast majority of peoplethat's a small range of numbers
.
I almost wish when they came upwith this they were able to,
you know, scale it up so it hasmore resolution.
But it is what it is.
So back to what we're talkingabout 19 or 20, recreational
lifter.
You have some noticeable musclemass.
If you're lean, people probablycan tell hey, you're kind of
fit, you lift.
You know, maybe at the earlierstages not big and jack, but you
(09:13):
lift.
If you're carrying some fat ontop of that, then there's
something underneath that couldbe worth revealing, depending on
how much fat you have to loseand how defined you want to look
and all that.
Then we move up a little bitmore 21 to 22.
This is where you get into whatI'll call a serious lifter.
Somebody who has dedicatedthemselves for a bit maybe a
year or more, maybe two years,doing it the right way, has
(09:35):
developed some muscle.
That is obvious, regardless ofbody fat levels.
And I say that becauseobviously, if you have too much
body fat it's going to be hardto tell, but even then, guys who
have a lot of muscle can carrya lot of body fat and you can
still tell they're muscular.
You know they're not going tohave six pack, but if they're
wearing a shirt you can see thebig traps, big shoulders, the
back, the taper and all thatstuff.
Okay.
(09:55):
And then we get to 23 to 24 andI've been lifting now for
officially, seriously, for aboutfour years, four to five years,
and I'm around 23.
And honestly that I have a longway to go, but this is somebody
who is getting along with theirdevelopment as a natural lifter
.
It represents several years ofconsistent training and honestly
(10:18):
, the difference between 20, 22,23, 24 can be really big.
So if you're, if you're 22 or23, that you've, you've worked
hard to build muscle and that'sa lot of you out there.
Be proud of that.
To get to 24 is quite advancedand quite muscular, and then
again 25 is kind of the peak.
So 23 to 24 is years ofconsistent training.
(10:40):
Maybe some solid genetics Again, I don't buy into that too much
being a deal breaker for people.
And then we get to 25 and up andthis is the natural ceiling
based on decades of research ondrug-free bodybuilders versus
steroids.
Most of us listening don't haveto worry about that.
If you're enhanced, great, youmight then crack that ceiling,
but it's not something we haveto worry about.
So hopefully this sets a goodframe for where you want to be
(11:04):
or where you are right now.
And then for women, just shiftthese down about three to four
points.
What I just said.
That's really all you have todo.
So FFMI becomes very powerfulfor decisions.
Most people get caught up inkind of endlessly cutting and
bulking, not knowing when theyshould do both.
It's one of the most commonquestions I get when should I
cut, when should I bulk?
(11:24):
I've done episodes about thatand even then there's not like a
universal principle.
But if I were to get asuniversal as I could, I think
FFMI is a great metric for that.
Now, because FFMI isindependent of fat.
If you have 40% body fat, eventhough you're super muscular,
I'm probably going to say youneed to lose some fat for health
reasons, right, but those arekind of I'll call it the
(11:47):
outliers or on the edge.
Usually, a lot of guys I workwith, or even women who have a
lot of weight to lose, it's notthat they're carrying like this
massive amount of muscleunderneath with some exceptions,
right, I do have clients thatare like look, I have built
muscle, I am muscular.
I just don't know how to dealor dial in my nutrition.
Okay, that makes sense.
So if your FFMI is really lowlet's say 17 or 18 for a guy to
(12:09):
me, no matter what, yourpriority should be to build
muscle.
Now, again, if you carry a lotof extra weight because we're
trying to separate the twovariables you can still build a
lot of muscle while being in aslight deficit.
Perhaps we just went over allof this when we talked about
body recomp on a recent episode,as well as in the workshop we
had, which you can still grabthat replay.
(12:30):
You can grab the plan.
You can grab the nutrition plan, all the guidance on how to set
up your next 12 weeks to bodyrecomp that is available at
livewitsandweightscom link inthe show notes.
But if you are on the low endof this scale, build muscle
please.
Unless you're very, very highbody fat, I want you to build
muscle and what that means is atleast body recomp, but ideally
(12:52):
in a surplus.
You need more muscle massbefore you worry about getting
leaner to reveal the muscleAgain, unless we're talking
health reasons and then you'rekind of doing both at the same
time.
If we move up the scale andyour FFMI is pretty solid, let's
say in the 21 to 22 range, thenit's going to depend more on
the body fat at that point, andcutting at that point to reveal
(13:13):
what you have makes completesense if you're not as lean as
you want to be because you'vedone the hard work of building
the muscle.
Hey, this is Philip, and beforewe continue I want to talk about
cookware.
We all love to make our ownfood.
I love nonstick pans.
The problem is I've avoidedthem for years because when they
get scratched, when they getheated, they can release
microplastics, pfas, smallparticles that can accumulate
(13:35):
over time in the body and somestudies have shown them to be
linked to health issues.
If you're optimizing yournutrition and making lots of
food for you and your family athome.
It doesn't make sense tocompromise that with
questionable cookware.
So that's why I was interestedwhen Chef's Foundry, who is
sponsoring this episode, showedme their ceramic cookware.
It's called the P600 and usesSwiss-engineered ceramic coating
(13:59):
which has no Teflon, no PFAS,no plastic components, it is
nonstick, it works on allstovetops, it goes straight into
the oven.
All the things you need ifyou're trying to cook a lot of
your meals at home.
Right now you can get the p600at 50 off by going to
witsandweightscom slash chef'sfoundry.
You'll also get a bunch ofaccessories with that.
(14:20):
There's a whole page thatexplains what you'll get for
that discounted 50 off.
Go to witsandweightscom slashchef's foundry or click the link
in the show notes.
All right, let's get back tothe show Now.
Building muscle takes time andit takes longer than you think.
It takes years, especially asyou advance.
I will say the first year is ahuge step change for people who
(14:42):
do it right.
So you can definitely get akind of a quick win in that
first year or two, um, and thencouple it with a fat loss phase
to to reveal that.
But then you're going toprobably spend, you know, three
to five years of consistenttraining to go from an 18 to
like a 22 FFMI, which makessense, cause, again, I'm, I'm
around there 22, 23, and I'vebeen lifting for four or five
(15:04):
years.
If you've been lifting for like10 years and you've done it
consistently and you have decentgenetics, you're probably
pushing 23, 24 at this point.
Right, and a lot of people aresurprised by that because most
people are not competitors.
Most people are not posing andoiling up and, and you know,
trying to be a bodybuilder onstage or get like 8% lean.
But I have clients who are notcompetitors and when they do
(15:27):
take the time to really lean outwhich, again, is an extreme
thing it's not the best thingfor your health.
I'm just going to say that it'snot the best.
But getting super shredded, youend up looking like somebody
who maybe can go on stage atleast in an amateur competition,
right?
So it's, it's achievable is mypoint and my show Whits and
(15:47):
Weights.
The show is not about.
It's not about physique for itsown sake.
The reason I care about allthis is for the muscle side of
things.
But a lot of people have vanitygoals.
They have physique goals aswell and they both align
physique and health, as long asyou are not pushing an extreme
or doing it for very long.
So back to FFMI three to fiveyears of consistent training to
(16:08):
get to that 21, 22 range andcompare that to how fast you can
lose fat.
You know, if you want to drop8% of body fat, it takes about
three to four months for mostpeople.
Yeah, you can drop five to 8%body fat in three to four months
.
I can help you do it.
We do it all the time and Iknow a lot of you are like, yeah
, but that's really what I want.
But the time and I know a lotof you are like, yeah, but
(16:31):
that's really what I want.
But no, that's not what youwant.
You want to look and feelbetter, you want to be stronger,
you want to be fitter, you wantto have better health.
That comes through buildingmuscle and then losing fat is
kind of the easy part and itactually gets easier when you
build muscle.
But fat-free mass index,depending on the number you are
today, is going to help youunderstand the timeline you're
operating on.
So you have realisticexpectations and we just did a
survey of like 130 intakes inour what do you call it?
(16:54):
In our Physique University.
We did a survey of the intakeassessments and found that the
vast majority of people who joinour program are looking to
build muscle and lose fat andthey understand the value of
building muscle for all thethings that are important as we
get older.
That's why I care about this.
Okay, now let's get a littlenerdy here and look at the
(17:15):
science and history behind thesenumbers, which I think are
fascinating, and then stickaround for the end when we're
going to talk.
We're going to tie this alltogether on really how to use
them in terms of tracking andmaking progress and setting
goals.
So the landmark research onthis comes from Khoury and
colleagues back in 1995.
They measured FFMI in naturalbodybuilders versus steroid
(17:37):
users.
They found a clear cutoff thatnatural guys rarely, very, very
rarely, exceed 25 FFMI, whereasenhanced athletes easily
surpassed it.
Now you could be enhanced andnot above FMI if you're not
genetically gifted, if you'renot working consistently.
I mean, a guy who's sedentaryand takes drugs isn't gonna be a
high FFMI, but if you arenatural, you're definitely not
(18:00):
gonna get above 25, 99.999% ofthe time is the point.
And what's fascinating is thisresearch coincided with this
transition period inbodybuilding.
If you look at classicbodybuilders from the
pre-steroid era guys like SteveReeves and there's an asterisk
on him Some people think, ohwell, yeah, he had access to the
(18:20):
earliest steroids before eventhe Soviets knew about it.
I don't think so, but anyway,steve Reeves, john Grimmick, reg
Park their FFMIs typically fellright around that 25 mark and
then in the 1960s, steroidsbecame widespread.
Suddenly, we saw physiques thatwere off the charts of what we
think of as an enhancedbodybuilder today, and the
(18:42):
research at that time was afoundation for the natty or not
movement.
Okay, people then started touse FFMI calculations to analyze
modern physiques and to callout impossible claims.
And even though I kind of mypremise of this episode is you
haven't heard of this or you'renot using this metric, I do
think that that's a truestatement.
With most people, they reallydon't know what this is.
(19:03):
It's just social media andfitness influencers that are
trying to talk about Natty ornot.
And okay, this guy has a 27FFMI, he has to be on steroids,
whatever.
So when we talk about thatlimit of 25 for natural it's,
it's based on a lot of data and,again, that Jeff Knippard video
is really good at showing theclustering around that and we
(19:26):
know from competitive naturalbodybuilders versus the genetic
elite who are natural, who'veoptimized everything and this is
like the ceiling right.
So I think it's helpful.
That little tangent was helpfulto talk about where this came
from.
Now let's get back to us.
Why do we care?
I think once you know yourfat-free mass index, your
(19:47):
training focus can becomeclearer, because if you have a
low FFMI, your job is to buildmuscle.
Strength and muscle I shouldsay they go hand in hand and
this might mean you have to gointo a bulking phase or maybe
stop undercutting your nutrition, stop underfueling.
It could be as simple as thatthat you're just under eating
Women ladies this is often theissue Under eating food, under
(20:10):
eating carbs, but men face thisissue too.
It could mean that you need togo into a bulking phase and
prioritize that hard trainingand building your base, building
your peak, and not worryingabout getting a little bit of
fat in the process, becausethat's going to come off fairly
easily and the muscle has to bea priority and has to come first
.
Now, if you have a more solidFFMI you know somewhere over 20,
(20:33):
but then you have higher bodyfat, well, that's a very
enviable position to be.
We have a guy in our group Ijust thought about who was
confused on this number becausehis FFMI was reasonably high but
he carries extra body fat.
He's like how can I be like anathlete?
I'm like the athlete'sunderneath it.
That's what it is.
You've built muscle, which iscool.
Like other people have a longerpath because they haven't even
(20:57):
built the muscle yet, and you'rein the enviable position of
having that muscle to reveal,and so a proper cut will
transform your physique becausethere's actually something
substantial underneath.
Now, if you have a high FFMIbecause you've been training
well, now you're playing adifferent game because your
gains are going to be slower.
You're closer to your geneticpotential and it's more
(21:17):
important to maintain what youhave than try to aggressively
push for more muscle.
And you're more in the bodyrecomp slash fat loss regime or
you're really gonna have to dialit in with the surplus when you
are trying to continue to buildon top of that high level of
muscle you already have.
Now, if we think about this inthe context of our goals and the
(21:39):
fitness industry, we've beenconditioned to focus on body fat
first, on body fat percentage,and I talk about it a lot.
I talk about leanness.
I talk about body composition,yes, but we put it first to an
extreme where it's all aboutgetting lean all the time and
forgetting that leannessinvolves muscle as well.
(21:59):
That body composition istwo-sided, it's not just the
leanness.
So if you have like, let's say,20 or 30 pounds to lose which
is kind of a subjectivestatement, but you know what I
mean A lot of times we do a fatloss phase first because of the
psychological win.
It's like Dave Ramsey and hissnowball effect.
Anybody who ever followed himwhen it comes to debt in his you
(22:20):
know the way he explains it isthe logical thing to do would be
to pay off your highestinterest rate debt, but the
psychological thing to do as ahuman might be to pay off your
smallest debt.
So you get rid of it, then yournext one, then your next one.
So I think of like peoplehaving a little extra weight
being a little fluffy and theyhaven't really lifted.
I get them lifting, but then wemight do a fat loss phase
(22:46):
fairly early just to get thatpsychological win, to get that
leanness, even though there'snot much muscle there.
If anything, it could also helpprove to yourself that you need
to build muscle because, hey, Ididn't quite get the physique I
wanted yet, even though I'velost some of that fat and I get
the value of building muscle.
So that's my point of all this.
And I think the FFMI is anotherreally solid metric to show us
why the building muscle side isimportant.
Because if you're a 150 poundguy at 15% body fat but you have
(23:11):
an abysmally low FFMI of 16,cutting to 10% body fat's not
going to create the physique youwant.
It's not going to do it.
It's just going to make youlook smaller, scrawnier,
skinnier, weaker.
That's it.
You're going to be a smallerversion of the same thing.
(23:31):
Right, it's strength and muscleover skinniness.
Because even if you want thephysique we think of as, I guess
, skinny, skinny, muscular,whatever you still have to have
the muscle.
That's really the point.
You still have to have that,right?
This is also especially relevantfor women who've been told to
do all the cardio and to moveand eat 1200 calories or a
thousand or 800 or whatever.
I'm going to do an episode verysoon, I think next week, about
those low calorie levels.
Are they safe or not?
What's the narrative around it?
(23:52):
What should you be thinking ofin the context of calorie intake
, but I do think a lot of womenare under eating and do so to
try to get lean, but then theyhave a very low muscularity
right, it's like 14, which isthe equivalent of like a 16 or
17 for a man, and then you'renot going to have that shape or
the tone or the definition thatyou're looking for.
You're just not.
(24:12):
You've got to build the muscle.
So the real power of FFMI comesfrom tracking it over time and
watching it change, just like alot of the other things we talk
about During a proper musclebuilding phase.
You should see FFMI graduallyincreasing.
(24:33):
In our 90-day body recompworkshop I walked through the
tracker and I gave an example ofa very conservative body recomp
phase over three months.
Okay, by body recomp again, Imean building muscle, losing fat
at the same time Veryconservative.
Lost a tiny bit in the waist,you know, gained a little bit in
the neck.
This was for a male, but forwomen same thing could apply.
You can use the hips as welland when you look at the numbers
(24:53):
you notice that by just fuelingyourself appropriately and not
dieting, and you lose a tiny bitof fat and you gain a little
bit of muscle, your FFMI startsto climb up, and that's a really
good validation that even ashort period of training
effectively and fueling yourselfpays off.
It will pay off.
(25:14):
So if you're afraid of gainingtoo much fat and you don't want
to go bulk and go into a surplus, that's okay.
You can body recomp.
If you're afraid of restrictingand trying to diet to lose fat,
you don't have to do thateither.
You can body recomp.
That's my point.
So you know.
If you're in a cut, by the way,your FFMI should hold steady
while your body fat drops.
(25:34):
That is important to understandas well, because that tells us
we're holding on to our leanmass, right, because it's just a
function of lean mass,normalized by your height.
So both of those should holdsteady.
They go hand in hand.
Now, if your FFMI is droppingduring a cut, then you are
losing muscle, right?
If it's increasing during abulk, you're gaining.
(25:55):
No, if it's not increasingduring a bulk, then you're
gaining mostly fat and notmuscle.
So again, it's just another wayto objectively tell whether
your training and nutrition areworking, and it is a nice simple
number to normalize against.
Now let's talk about the mentalside.
Let's talk about psychology.
There's something veryliberating about this number,
about FFMI the more I've thoughtabout this, because it
(26:17):
separates your muscledevelopment from your body
composition and that means youcan actually feel good about
your progress.
You have a win there, even whenyou're not at your leanest.
Because people always ask howdo I focus on other stuff when
I'm gaining this extra fat?
And one of the things I'll sayis hey, have a couple sets of
clothes one for when you'rebulking, one for when you're
(26:37):
leaning and wear your biggerclothes.
That's one way to feel better.
Great.
Also, focus on the process ofbuilding strength.
Also, focus on yourmeasurements.
But a lot of those are a littlebit kind of buried in the weeds
.
If you have this one numberFFMI you can and you just ignore
everything else.
It's kind of liberating in thatyou know are you building
muscle or not, because that'sthe goal.
(26:57):
That is the goal right.
So you know, regardless of howmuch body fat you have.
Now the power lifter sitting at22 FMI and 25 or 30% body fat,
he's built impressive musclemass.
He's not fat, he's very strongwith a layer of fat over the
muscle.
I think that's a very differentmindset.
There are guys that carry a lotof extra fat, but they have a
(27:19):
lot of muscle under there.
They're in a much healthierstate than the average person
who doesn't have that muscle.
The skinny, fat guy who thinkshe's in decent shape because
he's not fat well, his 16 FFMIjust shows that he is lacking
one of the most important piecesof tissue on his body and has
to build muscle.
He doesn't have to lose weightanymore.
He really doesn't.
(27:40):
So I think what really makesFFMI really transformative is
how it changes the relationshipwith physique development.
Most people are trapped in thisreactive thinking you know, I
feel fat, so I need to cut, or Ifeel small, so I need to bulk.
But then they're making thesedecisions based on feelings,
based on the mirror, not basedon data.
And you know how much I lovedata, know how much I love data.
(28:06):
Ffmi gives you objectiveclarity and tells you whether
your feelings match reality orwhether you're focused on the
wrong variable.
And it reveals that building animpressive physique is primarily
about one thing accumulatingmuscle mass.
Over time, it really isEverything else.
Getting lean, looking bigger,feeling confident becomes much
easier when you have substantialmuscle mass to work with.
(28:27):
I'm going to keep hammeringthat home time and again.
And this changes how youapproach training as well,
because instead of hoppingaround and switching between
programs and switching betweencutting and bulking cycles based
on how you feel that week, youdevelop a longer term
perspective.
You understand that buildingmuscle is the foundation.
Everything else is justrevealing or optimizing what
(28:50):
you've built.
And so here's the thing Ifyou're listening to this podcast
, have you been spending yearsspinning your wheels because
you're trying to optimize bodycomposition without enough
muscle mass to optimize?
Or even just you've been tryingto lose weight?
And now you realize it's aboutmuch more than that.
Well, ffmi is a really goodnumber to tell you which side of
that equation needs yourattention, all right.
(29:12):
So FFMI fat-free mass index atthe end of the day, it's just
going to tell you reality andthen you can act on it.
You know whether you discoveryou have more muscle than you
thought hiding under some fat.
(29:40):
No-transcript.
And it's not about body fatpercentage in and of itself.
Right, because body fatpercentage is tricky.
It can be the same at differentbody weights because you have
more or less muscle, and so themore muscle you have, the less
you're concerned about body fatpercentage, if that makes sense.
(30:01):
Right, because you can be leanat a higher scale weight.
We want to build that musclemass first and then optimize how
you present that muscle.
That's the way I would put it.
Okay, so start tracking yourFFMI.
You can take the formula that Imentioned today, you can look
it up or join us in Physique U.
We have a way to track thatautomatically, based on your
measurements, where itautomatically gives you your
(30:22):
lean mass, your fat mass, yourmuscle to fat ratio, your
fat-free mass index, thecomparison tables, all of that
stuff, so you know what'shappening over time, even if
you're doing something veryprecise like body recomp.
So if you wanna do that, joinus in Physique U.
If you wanna go straight to getthe replay and the bonuses from
the body recomp workshop,there's a special link for that.
(30:43):
It's livewitsandweightscom and,by the way, you get another
bonus in there, which is a freecustom nutrition plan.
So you'll have everything youneed.
I gave it all away in thatworkshop.
Go to livewitsandweightscom orclick the link in the show notes
and you're gonna get access toall of those tools, made clear
on how to use them All madeclear on how to use them All.
Right, until next time.
Keep using your wits liftingthose weights, and remember that
(31:06):
building an impressive physiquestarts with understanding what
you're working with.
This is Philip Pape, and you'vebeen listening to Wits and
Weights.
Talk to you next time.
you've been training for two years.
Some days you feel jacked,other days you feel small.
You're stronger than ever, butyou can't tell if you're
actually building muscle or justgetting better at lifting.
What if I told you there is anumber that cuts through all the
noise, a metric that shows youractual muscle development,
regardless of whether you'recarrying extra fat or feeling
bloated or lean.
(00:22):
It's called fat-free mass indexand most lifters haven't heard
of it, but once you understandyour FFMI, it changes how you
think about progress, goalsetting and whether you should
be cutting or bulking.
Today we're exploring themuscle metric that might be more
important than anything elseyou're currently tracking.
(00:51):
Welcome to wits and weights, theshow that helps you build a
strong, healthy physique usingevidence, engineering and
efficiency.
I'm your host, philip pape, andtoday we're going to talk about
a number that could reframe howyou view your physique progress
.
Picture this you're looking inthe mirror after a training
session, after a workout, yourpump's gone, the lighting's bad.
(01:11):
You're questioning whether allthese months of consistent
training have actually built anymuscle.
Or maybe you're carrying aroundsome extra body fat and you're
wondering if there's muscleunderneath that is worth
revealing.
This is a mental game when itcomes to physique versus body
fat versus muscle in the contextof our training and it happens
(01:32):
to all of us because we're oftentracking the wrong things or
failing to track things thatwill better validate what we're
trying to measure.
Scale weight fluctuates daily.
Body fat measurements areinconsistent and only part of
the equation.
Progress photos are also highlysubjective and they depend on
lighting and angles.
(01:52):
But there is a metric that cutsthrough a lot of this and can
show you something morefundamental how much muscle
you've actually built relativeto your frame.
Now, before we get into thismetric, this FFMI metric, I want
to share a message from Matt inPhysique University.
He says Philip Pape's amazing.
You've got questions abouthealth.
(02:14):
He's got answers.
It's not diet and exercise, butalso the mental side of losing
weight.
I've recently been dealing withmore stress than normal and we
figured out a way.
The membership is a no brainerfor anyone on the fence.
He will help you in any way hecan.
Thanks for everything, philip.
So I'm sharing more of thesetestimonials directly from folks
in Physique University, so youget a sense of what we have in
(02:36):
there, right, because it's notjust about information and
education like on the podcast,it is.
How do we implement that?
How do we personalize it?
What specific ideas can we comeup with to help you look like
you, lift and deal with stressand increase your metabolism and
find a flexible way to eat soyou no longer feel restricted,
and all of those things?
So if you want access to thetools in there that also help
(03:00):
you calculate and track yourFFMI that we're going to talk
about today, alongside other keymetrics that matter for
building muscle For example, ourmuscle gain efficiency tracker,
or our body, our physique andbiofeedback tracker all of that
stuff and how to implement it,like Matt mentioned, head to
witsandweightscom.
Slash physique to join PhysiqueUniversity.
(03:22):
We will help you.
Take all of these tools, putthem together to understand.
This is what's actuallyhappening and this is what I
need to do now.
All right, so let's talk aboutFFMI and why it is such a game
changer, why I'm focusing onthis more now, why I added it to
our Physique Tracker inPhysique University.
It stands for Fat-free massindex.
(03:42):
It is your lean body mass.
It is everything that is notfat divided by your height
squared.
So it's a simple formula.
There are adjusted versions ofthat for gender and for extreme
heights and all of that, butvery simple.
It is a way to normalize yourmuscularity for your height.
(04:03):
So if you think of your muscles, your bones, your organs, your
water, all of that structuralstuff that makes up your body is
your lean mass, and so it looksat that because it's not your
fat mass, so it's independent ofhow much body fat you have and
normalizes it for your height,and that's what makes this
powerful.
Ffmi is completely independentof your body fat percentage, and
(04:27):
we're going to talk about whythat's helpful and why that's
important.
Because whether you're 10% bodyfat, super lean, or you're 25
or 30 or 40% body fat, you havea little extra body fat maybe to
lose.
Your FFMI is going to stay thesame as long as your muscle mass
stays the same, so it gets ridof the variable of body fat for
this analysis, which is helpful,for in a lot of ways, this
(04:50):
means it can show you somethingthat most other metrics cannot
your actual muscular development, separated from everything else
.
That is the power behind it.
Now, why this changeseverything about progress and
how you view and track it, aswell as your goals.
I'm going to give you a couplescenarios.
Right, that happen all the time.
I see this with our students.
(05:10):
Scenario one let's say you're aguy who's been lifting for a
year.
You're sitting at 20% body fat.
You're feeling a little bitsoft.
That's maybe a little bit morethan you want.
Maybe you're 25% body fat.
You're wondering if you shouldcut or keep bulking.
And some of you are wonderinglike, well, why wouldn't you
just cut at that point?
Well, a lot of you guys careabout your strength, you care
(05:32):
about building muscle, youunderstand the value of eating
enough and sleeping enough andtraining hard and getting PRs,
and you don't want to sacrificethat just for the sake of
leanness.
So you go ahead and youcalculate your FFmi and it's
19.5.
Well, that tells you thatunderneath the layer of fat
you've built a recreationallevel of muscle mass.
Right, there's a bit of musclethere, maybe more than somebody
(05:54):
who is skinny, fat or hasn'ttrained at all, and you just
need to reveal it.
So that's one scenario.
Scenario two maybe you're lean,maybe you're 12% body fat and
again, I'm using males here forthe body fat.
You can add about eight to 10%of that for females.
So you're lean, 12% body fat.
People say, hey, you look goodbut you feel kind of small.
(06:14):
You're FFMI, you calculate itand it's 17.
Okay, now that's kind of skinnyor skinny fat, right, it
depends.
And again, we don't care aboutthe fat for this calculation,
but that's may what it presentsitself as.
And now you understand, okay,that's why I kind of feel kind
of small and not very muscular,despite being lean, despite
being in a low body fat.
You just haven't built muchmuscle yet, right?
(06:36):
Those are two common scenarios.
I guess a third one that justcomes to mind, and I've seen
this as well, as guys who'vebeen lifting or men who've been
lift, women, I'm sorry who'vebeen lifting for, let's say,
three to five years or longer,and they're carrying a lot of
extra weight on their framebecause they really never have
gone through a fat loss phase.
But the FFMI can tell them hey,I actually do have a lot of
(06:58):
muscle under there and I justhave to reveal it.
So it's kind of similar to thefirst scenario.
And then, if so, if you're likeskinny fat, right, cutting
anymore is not going to changeanything, you're just going to
get skinnier, fatter, or just,you know, skinnier, without any
definition.
Same training experience,different scenarios here,
different next steps.
(07:18):
When you think about FFMI,independent of fat, so what it
means is is as follows.
I'm actually going to gothrough the different FFMI
levels and what they mean.
And, by the way, one of theinspirations for this episode
was a recent Jeff NippardYouTube video about, natty or
not, how FFMI is often used as acutoff, like if you're over 25,
(07:41):
you're on drugs, if not, you'renot, and there's some truth to
that.
But that's kind of where itcame from.
For practical, everydaypurposes, my audience you guys
listening and our students inphysique you, you know, don't
care about that distinction.
They care more about how.
What do I need to do next?
What do I need to focus on?
How muscular am I?
Is this important?
So there are different tablesthat we have for comparing men
(08:03):
to men and women to women, butI'm just going to go with the
male side of things.
And then for women, it tends tobe less because women carry
more body fat and less muscle,and it is what it is right, but
we do have comparison tables forboth.
So if you're around 17, 18 FFMI,this is the low end.
This is the beginner territory.
This might be the lean guy wholooks okay in clothes but then
(08:25):
feels small, or the higher bodyfat guy who's just starting to
build a base.
So a lot of us in our forties,fifties, who are just we're kind
of sedentary most of our lifeand hadn't lifted or are
detrained and have some extrabody fat, still don't have much
muscle right now.
So that's 17 or 18 FFMI.
Then we get up to 19 to 20.
You're a recreational lifter atthat point and, by the way, the
(08:51):
FFMI is a kind of narrow range.
I mean we're talking 17 to like24.
For the vast majority of peoplethat's a small range of numbers
.
I almost wish when they came upwith this they were able to,
you know, scale it up so it hasmore resolution.
But it is what it is.
So back to what we're talkingabout 19 or 20, recreational
lifter.
You have some noticeable musclemass.
If you're lean, people probablycan tell hey, you're kind of
fit, you lift.
You know, maybe at the earlierstages not big and jack, but you
(09:13):
lift.
If you're carrying some fat ontop of that, then there's
something underneath that couldbe worth revealing, depending on
how much fat you have to loseand how defined you want to look
and all that.
Then we move up a little bitmore 21 to 22.
This is where you get into whatI'll call a serious lifter.
Somebody who has dedicatedthemselves for a bit maybe a
year or more, maybe two years,doing it the right way, has
(09:35):
developed some muscle.
That is obvious, regardless ofbody fat levels.
And I say that becauseobviously, if you have too much
body fat it's going to be hardto tell, but even then, guys who
have a lot of muscle can carrya lot of body fat and you can
still tell they're muscular.
You know they're not going tohave six pack, but if they're
wearing a shirt you can see thebig traps, big shoulders, the
back, the taper and all thatstuff.
Okay.
(09:55):
And then we get to 23 to 24 andI've been lifting now for
officially, seriously, for aboutfour years, four to five years,
and I'm around 23.
And honestly that I have a longway to go, but this is somebody
who is getting along with theirdevelopment as a natural lifter
.
It represents several years ofconsistent training and honestly
(10:18):
, the difference between 20, 22,23, 24 can be really big.
So if you're, if you're 22 or23, that you've, you've worked
hard to build muscle and that'sa lot of you out there.
Be proud of that.
To get to 24 is quite advancedand quite muscular, and then
again 25 is kind of the peak.
So 23 to 24 is years ofconsistent training.
(10:40):
Maybe some solid genetics Again, I don't buy into that too much
being a deal breaker for people.
And then we get to 25 and up andthis is the natural ceiling
based on decades of research ondrug-free bodybuilders versus
steroids.
Most of us listening don't haveto worry about that.
If you're enhanced, great, youmight then crack that ceiling,
but it's not something we haveto worry about.
So hopefully this sets a goodframe for where you want to be
(11:04):
or where you are right now.
And then for women, just shiftthese down about three to four
points.
What I just said.
That's really all you have todo.
So FFMI becomes very powerfulfor decisions.
Most people get caught up inkind of endlessly cutting and
bulking, not knowing when theyshould do both.
It's one of the most commonquestions I get when should I
cut, when should I bulk?
(11:24):
I've done episodes about thatand even then there's not like a
universal principle.
But if I were to get asuniversal as I could, I think
FFMI is a great metric for that.
Now, because FFMI isindependent of fat.
If you have 40% body fat, eventhough you're super muscular,
I'm probably going to say youneed to lose some fat for health
reasons, right, but those arekind of I'll call it the
(11:47):
outliers or on the edge.
Usually, a lot of guys I workwith, or even women who have a
lot of weight to lose, it's notthat they're carrying like this
massive amount of muscleunderneath with some exceptions,
right, I do have clients thatare like look, I have built
muscle, I am muscular.
I just don't know how to dealor dial in my nutrition.
Okay, that makes sense.
So if your FFMI is really lowlet's say 17 or 18 for a guy to
(12:09):
me, no matter what, yourpriority should be to build
muscle.
Now, again, if you carry a lotof extra weight because we're
trying to separate the twovariables you can still build a
lot of muscle while being in aslight deficit.
Perhaps we just went over allof this when we talked about
body recomp on a recent episode,as well as in the workshop we
had, which you can still grabthat replay.
(12:30):
You can grab the plan.
You can grab the nutrition plan, all the guidance on how to set
up your next 12 weeks to bodyrecomp that is available at
livewitsandweightscom link inthe show notes.
But if you are on the low endof this scale, build muscle
please.
Unless you're very, very highbody fat, I want you to build
muscle and what that means is atleast body recomp, but ideally
(12:52):
in a surplus.
You need more muscle massbefore you worry about getting
leaner to reveal the muscleAgain, unless we're talking
health reasons and then you'rekind of doing both at the same
time.
If we move up the scale andyour FFMI is pretty solid, let's
say in the 21 to 22 range, thenit's going to depend more on
the body fat at that point, andcutting at that point to reveal
(13:13):
what you have makes completesense if you're not as lean as
you want to be because you'vedone the hard work of building
the muscle.
Hey, this is Philip, and beforewe continue I want to talk about
cookware.
We all love to make our ownfood.
I love nonstick pans.
The problem is I've avoidedthem for years because when they
get scratched, when they getheated, they can release
microplastics, pfas, smallparticles that can accumulate
(13:35):
over time in the body and somestudies have shown them to be
linked to health issues.
If you're optimizing yournutrition and making lots of
food for you and your family athome.
It doesn't make sense tocompromise that with
questionable cookware.
So that's why I was interestedwhen Chef's Foundry, who is
sponsoring this episode, showedme their ceramic cookware.
It's called the P600 and usesSwiss-engineered ceramic coating
(13:59):
which has no Teflon, no PFAS,no plastic components, it is
nonstick, it works on allstovetops, it goes straight into
the oven.
All the things you need ifyou're trying to cook a lot of
your meals at home.
Right now you can get the p600at 50 off by going to
witsandweightscom slash chef'sfoundry.
You'll also get a bunch ofaccessories with that.
(14:20):
There's a whole page thatexplains what you'll get for
that discounted 50 off.
Go to witsandweightscom slashchef's foundry or click the link
in the show notes.
All right, let's get back tothe show Now.
Building muscle takes time andit takes longer than you think.
It takes years, especially asyou advance.
I will say the first year is ahuge step change for people who
(14:42):
do it right.
So you can definitely get akind of a quick win in that
first year or two, um, and thencouple it with a fat loss phase
to to reveal that.
But then you're going toprobably spend, you know, three
to five years of consistenttraining to go from an 18 to
like a 22 FFMI, which makessense, cause, again, I'm, I'm
around there 22, 23, and I'vebeen lifting for four or five
(15:04):
years.
If you've been lifting for like10 years and you've done it
consistently and you have decentgenetics, you're probably
pushing 23, 24 at this point.
Right, and a lot of people aresurprised by that because most
people are not competitors.
Most people are not posing andoiling up and, and you know,
trying to be a bodybuilder onstage or get like 8% lean.
But I have clients who are notcompetitors and when they do
(15:27):
take the time to really lean outwhich, again, is an extreme
thing it's not the best thingfor your health.
I'm just going to say that it'snot the best.
But getting super shredded, youend up looking like somebody
who maybe can go on stage atleast in an amateur competition,
right?
So it's, it's achievable is mypoint and my show Whits and
(15:47):
Weights.
The show is not about.
It's not about physique for itsown sake.
The reason I care about allthis is for the muscle side of
things.
But a lot of people have vanitygoals.
They have physique goals aswell and they both align
physique and health, as long asyou are not pushing an extreme
or doing it for very long.
So back to FFMI three to fiveyears of consistent training to
(16:08):
get to that 21, 22 range andcompare that to how fast you can
lose fat.
You know, if you want to drop8% of body fat, it takes about
three to four months for mostpeople.
Yeah, you can drop five to 8%body fat in three to four months
.
I can help you do it.
We do it all the time and Iknow a lot of you are like, yeah
, but that's really what I want.
But the time and I know a lotof you are like, yeah, but
(16:31):
that's really what I want.
But no, that's not what youwant.
You want to look and feelbetter, you want to be stronger,
you want to be fitter, you wantto have better health.
That comes through buildingmuscle and then losing fat is
kind of the easy part and itactually gets easier when you
build muscle.
But fat-free mass index,depending on the number you are
today, is going to help youunderstand the timeline you're
operating on.
So you have realisticexpectations and we just did a
survey of like 130 intakes inour what do you call it?
(16:54):
In our Physique University.
We did a survey of the intakeassessments and found that the
vast majority of people who joinour program are looking to
build muscle and lose fat andthey understand the value of
building muscle for all thethings that are important as we
get older.
That's why I care about this.
Okay, now let's get a littlenerdy here and look at the
(17:15):
science and history behind thesenumbers, which I think are
fascinating, and then stickaround for the end when we're
going to talk.
We're going to tie this alltogether on really how to use
them in terms of tracking andmaking progress and setting
goals.
So the landmark research onthis comes from Khoury and
colleagues back in 1995.
They measured FFMI in naturalbodybuilders versus steroid
(17:37):
users.
They found a clear cutoff thatnatural guys rarely, very, very
rarely, exceed 25 FFMI, whereasenhanced athletes easily
surpassed it.
Now you could be enhanced andnot above FMI if you're not
genetically gifted, if you'renot working consistently.
I mean, a guy who's sedentaryand takes drugs isn't gonna be a
high FFMI, but if you arenatural, you're definitely not
(18:00):
gonna get above 25, 99.999% ofthe time is the point.
And what's fascinating is thisresearch coincided with this
transition period inbodybuilding.
If you look at classicbodybuilders from the
pre-steroid era guys like SteveReeves and there's an asterisk
on him Some people think, ohwell, yeah, he had access to the
(18:20):
earliest steroids before eventhe Soviets knew about it.
I don't think so, but anyway,steve Reeves, john Grimmick, reg
Park their FFMIs typically fellright around that 25 mark and
then in the 1960s, steroidsbecame widespread.
Suddenly, we saw physiques thatwere off the charts of what we
think of as an enhancedbodybuilder today, and the
(18:42):
research at that time was afoundation for the natty or not
movement.
Okay, people then started touse FFMI calculations to analyze
modern physiques and to callout impossible claims.
And even though I kind of mypremise of this episode is you
haven't heard of this or you'renot using this metric, I do
think that that's a truestatement.
With most people, they reallydon't know what this is.
(19:03):
It's just social media andfitness influencers that are
trying to talk about Natty ornot.
And okay, this guy has a 27FFMI, he has to be on steroids,
whatever.
So when we talk about thatlimit of 25 for natural it's,
it's based on a lot of data and,again, that Jeff Knippard video
is really good at showing theclustering around that and we
(19:26):
know from competitive naturalbodybuilders versus the genetic
elite who are natural, who'veoptimized everything and this is
like the ceiling right.
So I think it's helpful.
That little tangent was helpfulto talk about where this came
from.
Now let's get back to us.
Why do we care?
I think once you know yourfat-free mass index, your
(19:47):
training focus can becomeclearer, because if you have a
low FFMI, your job is to buildmuscle.
Strength and muscle I shouldsay they go hand in hand and
this might mean you have to gointo a bulking phase or maybe
stop undercutting your nutrition, stop underfueling.
It could be as simple as thatthat you're just under eating
Women ladies this is often theissue Under eating food, under
(20:10):
eating carbs, but men face thisissue too.
It could mean that you need togo into a bulking phase and
prioritize that hard trainingand building your base, building
your peak, and not worryingabout getting a little bit of
fat in the process, becausethat's going to come off fairly
easily and the muscle has to bea priority and has to come first
.
Now, if you have a more solidFFMI you know somewhere over 20,
(20:33):
but then you have higher bodyfat, well, that's a very
enviable position to be.
We have a guy in our group Ijust thought about who was
confused on this number becausehis FFMI was reasonably high but
he carries extra body fat.
He's like how can I be like anathlete?
I'm like the athlete'sunderneath it.
That's what it is.
You've built muscle, which iscool.
Like other people have a longerpath because they haven't even
(20:57):
built the muscle yet, and you'rein the enviable position of
having that muscle to reveal,and so a proper cut will
transform your physique becausethere's actually something
substantial underneath.
Now, if you have a high FFMIbecause you've been training
well, now you're playing adifferent game because your
gains are going to be slower.
You're closer to your geneticpotential and it's more
(21:17):
important to maintain what youhave than try to aggressively
push for more muscle.
And you're more in the bodyrecomp slash fat loss regime or
you're really gonna have to dialit in with the surplus when you
are trying to continue to buildon top of that high level of
muscle you already have.
Now, if we think about this inthe context of our goals and the
(21:39):
fitness industry, we've beenconditioned to focus on body fat
first, on body fat percentage,and I talk about it a lot.
I talk about leanness.
I talk about body composition,yes, but we put it first to an
extreme where it's all aboutgetting lean all the time and
forgetting that leannessinvolves muscle as well.
(21:59):
That body composition istwo-sided, it's not just the
leanness.
So if you have like, let's say,20 or 30 pounds to lose which
is kind of a subjectivestatement, but you know what I
mean A lot of times we do a fatloss phase first because of the
psychological win.
It's like Dave Ramsey and hissnowball effect.
Anybody who ever followed himwhen it comes to debt in his you
(22:20):
know the way he explains it isthe logical thing to do would be
to pay off your highestinterest rate debt, but the
psychological thing to do as ahuman might be to pay off your
smallest debt.
So you get rid of it, then yournext one, then your next one.
So I think of like peoplehaving a little extra weight
being a little fluffy and theyhaven't really lifted.
I get them lifting, but then wemight do a fat loss phase
(22:46):
fairly early just to get thatpsychological win, to get that
leanness, even though there'snot much muscle there.
If anything, it could also helpprove to yourself that you need
to build muscle because, hey, Ididn't quite get the physique I
wanted yet, even though I'velost some of that fat and I get
the value of building muscle.
So that's my point of all this.
And I think the FFMI is anotherreally solid metric to show us
why the building muscle side isimportant.
Because if you're a 150 poundguy at 15% body fat but you have
(23:11):
an abysmally low FFMI of 16,cutting to 10% body fat's not
going to create the physique youwant.
It's not going to do it.
It's just going to make youlook smaller, scrawnier,
skinnier, weaker.
That's it.
You're going to be a smallerversion of the same thing.
(23:31):
Right, it's strength and muscleover skinniness.
Because even if you want thephysique we think of as, I guess
, skinny, skinny, muscular,whatever you still have to have
the muscle.
That's really the point.
You still have to have that,right?
This is also especially relevantfor women who've been told to
do all the cardio and to moveand eat 1200 calories or a
thousand or 800 or whatever.
I'm going to do an episode verysoon, I think next week, about
those low calorie levels.
Are they safe or not?
What's the narrative around it?
(23:52):
What should you be thinking ofin the context of calorie intake
, but I do think a lot of womenare under eating and do so to
try to get lean, but then theyhave a very low muscularity
right, it's like 14, which isthe equivalent of like a 16 or
17 for a man, and then you'renot going to have that shape or
the tone or the definition thatyou're looking for.
You're just not.
(24:12):
You've got to build the muscle.
So the real power of FFMI comesfrom tracking it over time and
watching it change, just like alot of the other things we talk
about During a proper musclebuilding phase.
You should see FFMI graduallyincreasing.
(24:33):
In our 90-day body recompworkshop I walked through the
tracker and I gave an example ofa very conservative body recomp
phase over three months.
Okay, by body recomp again, Imean building muscle, losing fat
at the same time Veryconservative.
Lost a tiny bit in the waist,you know, gained a little bit in
the neck.
This was for a male, but forwomen same thing could apply.
You can use the hips as welland when you look at the numbers
(24:53):
you notice that by just fuelingyourself appropriately and not
dieting, and you lose a tiny bitof fat and you gain a little
bit of muscle, your FFMI startsto climb up, and that's a really
good validation that even ashort period of training
effectively and fueling yourselfpays off.
It will pay off.
(25:14):
So if you're afraid of gainingtoo much fat and you don't want
to go bulk and go into a surplus, that's okay.
You can body recomp.
If you're afraid of restrictingand trying to diet to lose fat,
you don't have to do thateither.
You can body recomp.
That's my point.
So you know.
If you're in a cut, by the way,your FFMI should hold steady
while your body fat drops.
(25:34):
That is important to understandas well, because that tells us
we're holding on to our leanmass, right, because it's just a
function of lean mass,normalized by your height.
So both of those should holdsteady.
They go hand in hand.
Now, if your FFMI is droppingduring a cut, then you are
losing muscle, right?
If it's increasing during abulk, you're gaining.
(25:55):
No, if it's not increasingduring a bulk, then you're
gaining mostly fat and notmuscle.
So again, it's just another wayto objectively tell whether
your training and nutrition areworking, and it is a nice simple
number to normalize against.
Now let's talk about the mentalside.
Let's talk about psychology.
There's something veryliberating about this number,
about FFMI the more I've thoughtabout this, because it
(26:17):
separates your muscledevelopment from your body
composition and that means youcan actually feel good about
your progress.
You have a win there, even whenyou're not at your leanest.
Because people always ask howdo I focus on other stuff when
I'm gaining this extra fat?
And one of the things I'll sayis hey, have a couple sets of
clothes one for when you'rebulking, one for when you're
(26:37):
leaning and wear your biggerclothes.
That's one way to feel better.
Great.
Also, focus on the process ofbuilding strength.
Also, focus on yourmeasurements.
But a lot of those are a littlebit kind of buried in the weeds
.
If you have this one numberFFMI you can and you just ignore
everything else.
It's kind of liberating in thatyou know are you building
muscle or not, because that'sthe goal.
(26:57):
That is the goal right.
So you know, regardless of howmuch body fat you have.
Now the power lifter sitting at22 FMI and 25 or 30% body fat,
he's built impressive musclemass.
He's not fat, he's very strongwith a layer of fat over the
muscle.
I think that's a very differentmindset.
There are guys that carry a lotof extra fat, but they have a
(27:19):
lot of muscle under there.
They're in a much healthierstate than the average person
who doesn't have that muscle.
The skinny, fat guy who thinkshe's in decent shape because
he's not fat well, his 16 FFMIjust shows that he is lacking
one of the most important piecesof tissue on his body and has
to build muscle.
He doesn't have to lose weightanymore.
He really doesn't.
(27:40):
So I think what really makesFFMI really transformative is
how it changes the relationshipwith physique development.
Most people are trapped in thisreactive thinking you know, I
feel fat, so I need to cut, or Ifeel small, so I need to bulk.
But then they're making thesedecisions based on feelings,
based on the mirror, not basedon data.
And you know how much I lovedata, know how much I love data.
(28:06):
Ffmi gives you objectiveclarity and tells you whether
your feelings match reality orwhether you're focused on the
wrong variable.
And it reveals that building animpressive physique is primarily
about one thing accumulatingmuscle mass.
Over time, it really isEverything else.
Getting lean, looking bigger,feeling confident becomes much
easier when you have substantialmuscle mass to work with.
(28:27):
I'm going to keep hammeringthat home time and again.
And this changes how youapproach training as well,
because instead of hoppingaround and switching between
programs and switching betweencutting and bulking cycles based
on how you feel that week, youdevelop a longer term
perspective.
You understand that buildingmuscle is the foundation.
Everything else is justrevealing or optimizing what
(28:50):
you've built.
And so here's the thing Ifyou're listening to this podcast
, have you been spending yearsspinning your wheels because
you're trying to optimize bodycomposition without enough
muscle mass to optimize?
Or even just you've been tryingto lose weight?
And now you realize it's aboutmuch more than that.
Well, ffmi is a really goodnumber to tell you which side of
that equation needs yourattention, all right.
(29:12):
So FFMI fat-free mass index atthe end of the day, it's just
going to tell you reality andthen you can act on it.
You know whether you discoveryou have more muscle than you
thought hiding under some fat.
(29:40):
No-transcript.
And it's not about body fatpercentage in and of itself.
Right, because body fatpercentage is tricky.
It can be the same at differentbody weights because you have
more or less muscle, and so themore muscle you have, the less
you're concerned about body fatpercentage, if that makes sense.
(30:01):
Right, because you can be leanat a higher scale weight.
We want to build that musclemass first and then optimize how
you present that muscle.
That's the way I would put it.
Okay, so start tracking yourFFMI.
You can take the formula that Imentioned today, you can look
it up or join us in Physique U.
We have a way to track thatautomatically, based on your
measurements, where itautomatically gives you your
(30:22):
lean mass, your fat mass, yourmuscle to fat ratio, your
fat-free mass index, thecomparison tables, all of that
stuff, so you know what'shappening over time, even if
you're doing something veryprecise like body recomp.
So if you wanna do that, joinus in Physique U.
If you wanna go straight to getthe replay and the bonuses from
the body recomp workshop,there's a special link for that.
(30:43):
It's livewitsandweightscom and,by the way, you get another
bonus in there, which is a freecustom nutrition plan.
So you'll have everything youneed.
I gave it all away in thatworkshop.
Go to livewitsandweightscom orclick the link in the show notes
and you're gonna get access toall of those tools, made clear
on how to use them All madeclear on how to use them All.
Right, until next time.
Keep using your wits liftingthose weights, and remember that
(31:06):
building an impressive physiquestarts with understanding what
you're working with.
This is Philip Pape, and you'vebeen listening to Wits and
Weights.
Talk to you next time.
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