December 22, 2025 • 28 mins
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--
You cannot be in a true calorie deficit and still not lose weight. It's physiologically impossible.
If you're eating less than you're burning but fat loss is not happening, something's disconnected between what you think is true and what's actually happening in your body.
Discover the 3 possible reasons behind every "I can't lose weight" plateau and how to identify which one you're in.
Plus, get a simple calorie strategy that lets you enjoy weekends without sabotaging your fat loss.
Stop guessing and finally understand what's really holding you back so you can make consistent progress toward your body composition goals.
Episode Resources:
- Try Fitness Lab (20% off through January 2nd)
- Episode mentioned: How the "Weekend Diet" Accelerates Fat Loss and Preserves More Muscle (Strategic Refeeds)
Timestamps:
0:00 - Why being in a deficit but not losing weight is impossible
4:31 - Reason #1: Tracking accuracy and measurement errors
14:00 - Reason #2: Water retention and body recomp masking fat loss
21:00 - Reason #3: Your deficit disappears after metabolic adaptation
24:28 - Bonus: The simple calorie strategy for weekend flexibility
📱 Get Fitness Lab - Philip’s science-based AI app for fat loss, muscle building, and strength training for people over 40. It adapts to your nutrition, recovery, and training to improve body composition without guesswork.
🎓 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
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Philip Pape (00:02):
You cannot be in a true calorie deficit and still
fail to lose body fat over time.
It's physiologicallyimpossible.
So if you're convinced you'reeating less than you're burning
and nothing's happening, one ofthree things is going on.
Either you're not actually inthe deficit you think you are,
you are losing fat but thescale's hiding it, or your
(00:22):
deficit disappeared because yourbody adapted.
Today we're identifying exactlywhich bucket you're in, why it
matters, and the specific fixfor your situation.
Welcome to Wits and Weights,the show that helps you build a
(00:45):
strong, healthy physique usingevidence, engineering, and
efficiency.
I'm your host, certifiednutrition coach Philip Pape, and
today we're tackling one ofthose very frustrating
statements that I hear often.
Quote, I am in a caloriedeficit, but I'm not losing
weight.
This phrase gets thrown aroundall the time on social media,
and it creates confusion becauseon the surface, it seems to
(01:08):
defy basic physics.
But what is actually true isthat you cannot maintain a
genuine calorie deficit and notlose fat.
It's impossible.
And the problem isn't thatthermodynamics suddenly stops
working.
It's that somewhere in thechain from what you think you're
eating to what your body isdoing, there is a disconnect.
(01:30):
When someone tells me they'rein a deficit but not losing
weight, I approach it like adetective.
I want to debug the system foryou.
I want to trace the inputs.
I want to look at the outputs.
I want to find where the datadoesn't match reality because
that's going to give you thepower you need to push through
and to break through that issue.
And then the fix becomesobvious.
So today we're going tosystematically work through each
(01:52):
scenario so you can identifyyours and then exactly what to
do about it.
And I want you to stick aroundto the end because I'm going to
show you a simple weekly caloriestrategy that will let you
enjoy your weekends and make fatloss so much easier.
So again, I'll share that atthe end of the episode.
All right, when someone saysthat I'm in a calorie deficit
and not losing weight, they'remaking a claim about energy
(02:14):
balance.
And I love how people on socialmedia they make assumptions or
they immediately go to thegaslighting, like, well, you're
not tracking your food andyou're not actually eating the
calories you think you'reeating.
And I'm gonna give you morecredit than that.
I'm gonna give you credit as anintelligent person who has
thought through this at least tosome extent.
Maybe you've listened to thisshow, maybe you haven't, but you
(02:35):
know that there's more nuanceto any of these things.
And after working with hundredsof people stuck at this kind of
plateau, I found that everysingle case seems to fall into
one of three buckets.
Just three buckets.
Okay, I'm gonna simplify thisfor you today.
And they are mutuallyexclusive.
So you're probably in one ofthem, not multiple.
And even if there is someoverlap, focusing on the biggest
(02:56):
one for you right now isprobably gonna help you get
unstuck.
So bucket one, and we're gonnago into these in detail, but
just at a high level, bucket oneis that the claimed deficit
doesn't actually exist, right?
The numbers you think you realaren't think are real are not
matching reality.
And it's not about, again,saying that it's your fault.
It's more of an accuracy issuethat we're gonna get into.
(03:17):
Bucket two is that the deficitis real and fat loss is
happening, but you may not thinkit's happening.
It may be masked by otherthings.
And then bucket three is thatyou were in a deficit, but the
deficit has disappeared becauseyou've adapted and your
expenditure has reduced to matchyour intake.
And that's it.
Those are the three buckets.
But obviously, there's a lot ofdetail under the surface.
(03:38):
So everyone who says I'm in adeficit but not losing weight is
probably in one of these.
No one person is maintaining atrue deficit long term without
losing fat.
That's impossible.
And that's empowering as well.
So that's a good thing to know.
And you know what?
Let's just before I continue,the extreme of this would be if
you just stopped eatingaltogether, where you're
(03:59):
absolutely in a deficit and youstarve yourself, you would
eventually die.
Now, I hate to I hate to use anextreme like that, but it's
it's evidence, I guess, uh thatthat thermodynamics exists
between where you are now andwhere the extreme is, and we're
trying to find that middleground that actually works for
you.
So let's work through each ofthe three buckets, and we're
gonna start with the most commonone where probably 70 to 80% of
(04:22):
people land.
And this is basically that youthink you're in a deficit and
you're just not in a deficit.
And it's not about yourwillpower, you're not trying
hard enough.
It's really measurementprecision, and it's also a lot
of human psychology around foodtracking.
The average person is going tounderestimate their calorie
(04:44):
intake a lot, 20 to 40%.
And I a long time ago, Ilearned that even nutrition
experts, nutritionists,dietitians, people who've
tracked for a long time, if theywere to just estimate on their
own, they would still be off by20%, even with lots and lots of
training.
And that's well documented inthe research.
It's not that you'reintentionally lying to yourself,
it's just the cumulative effectof tracking errors that add up
(05:08):
and just the human's brain'sinability to estimate this
stuff.
So even if you are loggingcalories, but you're not, say,
weighing your food, or you know,if you're estimating, or you
are using, let's say, cups andteaspoons and tablespoons
instead of grams, you arelogging what you think you're
(05:29):
eating, but your intake ishigher.
And there's a lot of ways thatthis happens.
Even when you're tracking withsomething like macrofactor,
chronometer, whatever, you know,if you don't weigh the peanut
butter, but instead you use aspoon and you call it a
tablespoon, but it ends up beingtwo tablespoons, right?
Or if you put oil in the pan tohook up some vegetables and you
eyeball it, or here's a mistakeI see people make the spray oil
(05:51):
will say zero calories becauseit falls under the threshold for
rounding errors.
But if you use enough of it,you actually have 20, 30, 40
calories.
Or you graze or you eathandfuls of this or that
throughout the day, handful ofalmonds here, a bite of your
kid's plate over here, or youforgot the third glass of wine.
You get what I'm saying, right?
And this is not, again, this isnot that we're doing it
(06:13):
intentionally.
This is something we all do,and it's easy to get wrapped up
in it.
And then there's an error thataccumulates.
And if it's like a 50 calorieday error, that's not a big
deal.
But if it's five or six hundredcalories, which I have seen a
lot with folks, here's anotherexample.
You do log, you do weigh, butthe entry that you select in
your food app is not the rightentry.
(06:33):
You selected, let's say, aturkey burrito instead of a
chorizo burrito.
And maybe that's too far off,but something close to that
where there's a lot more fat inwhat you're actually eating than
what you actually than what youlogged.
Or you do a raw versus cookedversion or what have you.
And I see this all the time.
And then what happens is youcut is you copy and paste and
you just keep propounding theerror over time.
(06:55):
And so you might be off by afew thousand calories for the
week, right?
And a fat, a fat's worth ofenergy, a pound of fat's worth
of energy is 3,500 calories.
So if you're off by, you know,half of that for the week,
that's a half pound that you'reoff, where if you thought you
were at maintenance, you'reactually gaining a half pound.
Or if you thought you were in ahalf pound deficit, you're just
(07:15):
maintaining.
So it can easily happen to anyof us, to the best of us.
Okay.
And if you add in the fact thatmost people also overestimate
how much how many calories areburning.
And if they're not usingsomething like Macrofactor,
they're just thinking they'rethey're using estimators or
calculators, or they think theyburn more than they are.
(07:36):
And maybe you eat back some ofthose calories, even, which is
an awful thing to do.
I would never recommend that.
But a lot of people are in thatmindset of like, oh, I just
burned 500 calories according tothe treadmill machine in the
gym.
And so I can eat that 500calories, but you're actually
compensating for a lot of thatactivity and not burning nearly
as much as it says.
At the end of the day, whatmatters is your total calories
for the day, right?
(07:57):
Not all these little activitythings that you have going on.
And then the airs, the air addsup on that side as well.
And I know some apps, I thinklike MyFitnessPanel and others,
actually allow you to eat backyour activity, which is, again,
a terrible, terrible precedentbecause they shouldn't be
linked.
The two things shouldn't haveanything to do with each other.
I do get questions all thetime, like, does my app use
activity to calculate yourcalories?
(08:18):
No, because you don't want itto.
All you want to do is say, hey,am I gaining weight or am I
losing weight over time?
Or fat, I should say, but scaleweight is the easiest way to
tell.
Am I gaining or losing overtime?
If so, I'm either in a surplusor deficit, and now we could
adjust how much we eataccordingly.
So, how do you know if you'rein bucket one?
Well, you're gonna have toaudit your tracking and think
(08:38):
about the things I've justmentioned today.
Are you weighing and measuringeverything?
I would do that.
Weigh and measure everythingwith grams on a scale.
Don't use ounces, don't usetablespoons, don't use cups,
just use a food scale, logeverything, including if it's a
spray oil, condiments, everybite that goes in your mouth.
And what's what's nice aboutthis is sometimes it will get
(08:59):
you into an awareness modewhere, well, let's say you have
kids and you tend to graze andyou're thinking, I need to log
this, you're gonna start eithernot eating those extra things
because you really realize youdon't need them, or you'll put
them in a little bowl and you'lllog them and then you'll start
controlling your portions aswell.
Same thing, you know, if youhave alcohol, if you have just
random snacks.
So that's the first thing is toreally audit and start weighing
(09:19):
and measuring everything ifyou're not already doing that.
I'm also as part of that auditas you weigh and measure and
then log it, is double check theentries in your food app to
make sure it passes the snifftest.
You know, reach out, use AI,use my app, go to our our
Facebook group and just ask thequestion like, does this make
sense?
So that's the first thing isreally just auditing all of that
(09:41):
for at least seven days, if nottwo weeks.
The second thing is don't useexercise calories from wearables
at all as part of this wholecalculation.
Okay, first of all, the erroris tremendously large, up to 80
or 90%.
So it's not even trustworthydata, but also it's not
something you eat back anyway,and it shouldn't be part of that
connection.
The third thing is I want youto be tracking your weight every
(10:04):
day and looking at the averageover time.
I like a 20-day moving average,which takes three weeks to get
to, but even after a week ortwo, if you are truly not
actually dropping body fat ordropping even scale weight over
time, okay, not the day-to-day.
It's gonna go up and down alot, but over time, then you
aren't in a deficit.
(10:25):
That's just the fact of it.
That's more like yourmaintenance.
Okay.
So the fix for bucket one isstraightforward.
Tighten your trackingprecision, stop guessing things,
guessing, double check, youknow, what you're logging, be
honest about what you put inyour mouth and track everything.
Because if you if you don'ttrack certain things, that's the
problem right there.
And a lot of you do that, Iknow, uh, including your
weekends, including youralcohol, all this stuff.
(10:46):
And just double check it all.
And if you find out that, hey,I've been tracking 1800 calories
a day on average, and now Idouble checked everything, and
it's guess what?
It's still 1800 a day onaverage, then that's not your
issue.
The issue isn't the caloriesitself, but what but what that
lets you do is confirm, oh, I'mtracking 1800 calories and I'm
not losing or gaining weight.
(11:06):
So I actually am burning 1800calories then, right?
And now you know to go in adeficit, you would just have to
eat less than that.
All right, bucket two, sothat's bucket one.
Bucket two, let's say that youare tracking accurately and all
that's good.
You've done the audit, yournumbers are tight, and you now
know that to be in a deficit,you have to eat, you know, 300
(11:26):
calories less than thatmaintenance value.
And or let's say 500 caloriesif you want to lose a pound a
week, but the scale isn'tmoving.
All right, this is bucket two,where you are in a deficit and
fat loss may be happening, butit's being massed.
Now, when I say the scale isn'tmoving, I'm talking short term,
okay, because over a three orlonger week period, it will be
(11:51):
dropping by a pound a week onaverage if you're in a
500-calorie deficit, going backto bucket one, or just the
general principle of thisepisode.
What I'm talking about here isin the short term, we get a lot
of issues that are happeningwith water retention.
Water retention can mask asmany as two to four pounds of
fat loss.
If you're a woman, hormonalfluctuations during your cycle
can swing a water weight by fivepounds or more.
(12:12):
If you started a new trainingprogram or you increased your
volume, your muscles are holdingwater and glycogen for
recovery.
If you had a high sodium meal,if you're stressed and your
cortisol's up, if you didn'tsleep well, if you're
dehydrated, all of these drivewater retention that hides fat
loss on the scale.
So over two weeks, let's sayyou might have legitimately lost
two pounds of fat, but thenyou're holding three pounds of
(12:33):
extra water and the scale showsa one-pound gain, you think
nothing's working, but it is,and it just isn't showing up
yet.
So this is more of a timefactor.
Okay.
Now, that's that's just if youwere purely losing fat.
Now, body comp recomposition isthe other major factor as part
of this bucket because you know,if you're lifting weights,
you're eating enough protein,especially if you're newer to
(12:55):
training or you're really doingthis right for the first time
with progressive overload, youcan simultaneously lose fat and
gain muscle.
And again, the scale's notgonna move.
So, what's weird here is thatyou may start to eat less to try
to induce, you know, you'reyou're like, here's my
maintenance, I'm gonna eat lessto lose fat.
But then you also starttraining at the same time, and
now you start to build muscle.
The muscle offsets the fatloss, the scale doesn't move.
(13:18):
That's super frustratingbecause you're looking at the
scale, you're like, okay, thisPhillips line, like energy
balance doesn't work.
But what what you have to dohere now is look at other
things.
How do you your clothes fit?
Is your waist going down?
Is your strength going up?
Are you able to infer your bodyfat percentage from these to
see that it's actually droppingeven while the scale stays the
(13:39):
same?
And I have this challenge witha lot of clients who come to me
and they want to lose weight,they want to lose that 20
pounds.
And at the end of four or sixmonths working together, they've
lost, let's say, 14 pounds, butit looks like, but they've
actually gained like five or sixpounds of muscle.
And so they've actually dropped20 pounds of fat, but they've
gained five or six pounds ofmuscle.
So their net loss is only 14.
(14:00):
But they're thrilled becausethey look great, they feel
great, they're stronger.
That's the whole point of notbeing fixated on the scale
because you're gonna miss all ofthose wonderful wins.
Now, how do you know if you'rein this bucket?
Well, first you've got to betracking things beyond the
scale.
You've got to take your bodycircumference measurements, take
your photos, track yourstrength.
If all of these are improving,but the scale is flat, then
(14:23):
you're probably in a recompphase and we're not as worried
about the calorie deficit, atleast right now.
Now, this is usually not gonnahappen to such an extreme that
you just directly offset fat andmuscle.
If you're in a big enoughdeficit, you should still have a
gradual trend down, but itmight appear like you're not
burning as many calories becauseyour scale is being offset, and
(14:45):
then eventually you shouldbreak through that over time as
your body adapts to that and youno longer have such massive
muscle gains and the scale willstart dropping.
Now, also you want to look atthis over time.
You want to look at your trendover four or six weeks, not day
to day, and not even over, say,two weeks.
We really have to go past that.
And this all assumes thatyou've done your audit from
(15:05):
bucket one, and now you'refocused on, okay, over time, is
this actually working?
Because the water fluctuationsare gonna smooth out, and the
trend will show fat loss ifyou're in fat loss.
And it might come in weirdbursts.
You might have a drop of likethree pounds one week and then
it flatlines for two weeks andthen drops again.
The third thing here is yourbiofeedback because the
(15:26):
biofeedback can change the wholeequation of how many calories
you're burning and how your bodyutilizes your nutrients.
Are you recovering well?
Is your energy stable?
Are you sleeping okay?
If yes, you're probably in alegitimate deficit.
You just need the patience forthe scale to catch up.
But if not, any one of thosethings could have just slowed
you down, which is actuallygonna be related more to bucket
three, we're gonna get to in asecond.
(15:47):
So the fix for bucket two isguess what?
It's patience and it's bettermetrics, like more metrics.
Something that, for example,Fitness Lab can help you with.
That's my app.
I'm always gonna plug itbecause I've designed it with
all these things in mind.
And I think it could be reallyhelpful for you if you're
looking to do that.
There's a weekly check-in whereyou calculate and enter these
things.
And then it helps you figureout, okay, this is what's really
(16:08):
happening.
Like, hey, your scale might beflat for the last couple of
weeks, but guess what?
Your waste has gone down aninch.
That's awesome.
Like that's what you want.
So stop obsessing over thedaily scale weight, even though
you want to track it and youwant to track the trend of the
weight, and then trust theprocess, keep doing what you're
doing, keep lifting, gettingyour protein, and give it like
four to six weeks, and the scalewill reflect what's happening
(16:28):
underneath.
All right, just a quickreminder.
I want you to stick around tothe end because I've got a
really practical tip on how tobuild weekend flexibility into
your deficit, which I know isone of the biggest challenges
for many of you.
That way you don't have towhite knuckle it.
It's one of the most powerfultools that I've found people are
using to make their fat lossphase so much easier so they can
(16:49):
stick with it.
All right, bucket three.
This is this is where thingsget interesting from a
physiological perspective,right?
What's happening in your body?
Let's say you were in a realdeficit, you were losing fat,
the scale was moving, but nowyou hit a plateau.
It's stalled for several weeks,and nothing is budging despite
all the other things we talkedabout being solid, right?
(17:10):
You're adhering to everything,you're tracking everything, and
you know, lifts are going up,all of that.
Well, this is probablyadaptation going on, metabolic
adaptation, which we've talkedabout on the show quite a few
times, and it often getsmisconstrued, but it's a
completely normal thing.
Your body doesn't want to losefat, it wants to hold on to fat
(17:30):
because it's a nice reserve ofenergy.
It's stored energy, and yourbody's directive in existence is
to survive, right?
You're a you're a living beingwho wants to survive.
So when you reduce food intake,when you increase energy demand
with your training, with yourwalking, with everything else,
your body essentially fightsback by compensating, by
reducing your energyexpenditure.
(17:52):
It sucks, right?
Because it's like just whenyou're trying to take advantage
of energy balance, your body isgonna make it harder.
Well, it does this through acombination of mechanisms.
One is the fact that you'rejust losing weight.
When you lose weight, yourbasal metabolic rate, your BMR,
right, that's like your restingor your baseline metabolism that
represents roughly two-thirdsof your metabolism every day.
(18:14):
It's just gonna be lowerbecause you need fewer calories
just to exist.
It's it's it's one of thoselike harsh realities of if you
lose 20 pounds and now you'regonna be lighter for the rest of
your life, you're just gonnaburn slightly few calories from
that.
Beyond that, however, yournon-exercise activity
thermogenesis, your neat, alsodrops unconsciously.
You fidget less, you might makeunconscious choices, like
(18:38):
taking the elevator instead ofthe stairs because you feel a
little more tired.
Maybe you sit more, maybe youmove less throughout the day
without realizing it.
And a lot of people argue thisand like, well, but I increased
my step count, right?
I increase my step count.
The step count is a pretty goodproxy, but it doesn't
necessarily capture everything.
It's pretty good, though.
I mean, it is pretty good.
So I definitely agree with thatstrategy, but there's so many
(18:58):
other ways internally, evenwithin your body, where you're
just doing less.
You're that's so that's thesecond one.
Now, your body also becomesmore efficient at exercise, at
training, right?
And this happens in general.
This happens in general, butjust keep in mind that as you're
getting into a routine, ifyou're also coinciding that with
fat loss, you may start burninga fewer calories because you've
(19:21):
adapted to the moving movementpattern.
Now, this is not an excuse tohop around and to constantly
change the way you move.
It is an interesting phenomenonthough, because there are
things like if you're doing alittle extra cardio, I I've
talked before, I think BrianBorstein introduced this concept
of you know rotating throughsome different modalities of
cardio to make your body alittle bit less efficient so it
(19:42):
burns a few more calories.
I don't know how big of animpact that has, but it's an
interesting thought.
And then there's the fact, andthis is the big one prolonged
dieting, especially aggressivedieting, can suppress your
thyroid function.
It reduces your sex hormones,it increases your cortisol, it
of course affects your hungerhormones as well.
But all of those, the Thyroid,the reproductive hormones, and
your cortisol, this is going toreduce your metabolic rate.
(20:04):
And this could be the biggestfactor for a lot of people,
especially if it's a veryaggressive diet.
And the result is that thedeficit you had four weeks ago
when you started doesn't existanymore because your calorie
intake is the same, but yourexpenditure has dropped to match
it.
And now you're at a newmaintenance level and you
haven't changed your diet ortraining.
(20:25):
And it's awful.
I know people don't like it.
It's one of those things youhave to deal with and
understand.
But when you understand it,then you can make a choice, a
fork in the road, let's say.
So how do you know if you're inthis bucket?
Well, the first way you know isyou have a history of fat loss.
You know, the last few weeks,let's say, I don't mean like
years ago, the last few weeksyou've been losing fat, but then
(20:46):
it's stalled for a few weeksand you haven't really changed
anything.
Like biofeedback's good,everything's the same, right?
That's a good way to know.
Secondly, your biofeedback isoff.
So this is where yourbiofeedback is the effect of the
diet, not the cause.
In other words, your dietitself is now making you a
little more tired, giving youlower energy, maybe interfering
(21:06):
with your sleep a bit.
It's causing you to lose someabsolute strength in the gym.
Maybe you're feeling more cold.
I find this when I'm dieting,I'm cold, right?
I don't, I'm hot when I'meating in a surplus and I'm
colder when I'm not.
And and so that's a really goodsign of adaptation.
And third, your activity levelshave dropped without you
noticing, and your step countmight be down if you're not
(21:28):
intentionally trying to keep itup.
The fix for so those are threethings, right?
That you can tell.
Really, hunger is is probablyone of the biggest ones for for
many.
The fix for this is to get backto the deficit you need to be
at.
But the problem is, how do youdo that?
Do you do it by eating evenless?
(21:48):
Well, maybe, maybe, if you'renot already in an aggressive
deficit, if you're, let's say,300 calorie deficit and you
increase it to 500 or 600, oryou're already at five or six
and you go to seven.
As long as you're not goingpast the 1% body weight per
week, you might be okay eatingless, depending on where the
total calories are.
And that depends on yourmetabolism.
Because if you're down at like800 calories, that could be a
(22:09):
problem in general for anyone.
But if you're still up at like1800, it may not be a big deal.
However, for a lot of people,eating less is gonna dig you
deeper into adaptation and makeit go faster.
So I would say you have twoprimary options here besides
that.
The first one is just take adiet break, raise your calories
back up to maintenance for oneto two weeks, let your
metabolism recover, yourhormones normalize somewhat.
(22:32):
Again, it's not maybe not allthe way.
Your neat might come back up,you're just gonna feel better,
and then you go back into adeficit.
Okay.
Now, people are like, people,people think this is magic.
It's not magic.
It's not like you're gonnaraise your whole metabolism, but
psychologically you're gonnahelp yourself out.
And then there will be somephysiological recovery that
probably allows you to, youknow, push a little bit further
(22:54):
into your deficit when you getback to it.
Option two is to increase youractivity.
And I always hesitate on thisone because there's some of you
out there where you're alreadydoing a lot and you're trying to
do a lot of cardio and runningand hiking and just tons and
tons of activity, especially infat loss.
And that could be a problem andmake it harder and actually
(23:15):
make you compensate, make youmore stress.
I'm talking about adding somemore steps.
Let's say two to three thousandsteps a day.
So if you're getting eight, goto 10.
If you're getting 10, go to 12.
That can be really helpful.
That can burn an extra 50, 100,150 calories a day, which could
be just enough to take the edgeoff and help you get back into
that deficit.
So walking more, moving more,getting off your chair more,
(23:35):
this is gonna increase yourexpenditure without adding
stress.
Now, you can also optimizerecovery.
If your biofeedback is lowbecause it's just on you, right?
Remember, I mentioned thatbiofeedback could be an effect,
but it could also be a cause.
If it's the cause, like you'rejust not sleeping enough, or you
don't have a good sleep ritual,or are not managing or reacting
to stress very well, these arethe kind of things that can
(23:58):
restore some of that energy,right?
And hormonal balance and yourimprove your metabolic rate.
So the key here for bucketthree is it's not permanent
damage.
It's not a broken metabolism.
It is a normal adaptiveresponse that can be recovered
by removing the stressor, whichis chronic dieting and restoring
(24:19):
homeostasis equilibrium.
And if you don't want to removeit because you want to keep
losing fat, that is a trade-offyou make.
And then you have to take intoaccount the various factors we
just discussed.
Now, if you're trying to figureout which bucket you're in and
you want some coaching in yourpocket that adapts to your real
life and all these things, checkout my lab, my app called
Fitness Lab.
(24:39):
It's an AI-powered coachingapp.
It's trained on all my content.
Almost it's trained on mypersonality, honestly.
And it helps you navigate fatloss without guessing on a daily
basis.
So whatever's happening in yourlife, you can talk to it and
say, this is what's happening,and it's gonna adjust.
I just had surgery and I toldthe app, hey, I'm having
surgery.
And every day after surgery,it's focused on recovery and
(24:59):
like taking things in just theright measure to get back to it.
So right now through January2nd, you can get 20% off at wits
and weights.com slash app.
You just go straight to thatlink and the discount's gonna be
there.
It's a holiday new yearpromotion, wits and weights.com
slash app.
And with Fitness Lab, you getpersonalized guidance on
everything, on your nutrition,your training, your recovery,
(25:21):
mindset, sleep, stress,movement.
You can tell it what you needand it will create new
activities for what you need.
It is incredible, all in oneplace, like having a coach in
your pocket for far less, whoactually understands your
schedule, your lifestyle, yourgoals, totally on demand.
Go to witsandweights.com slashapp.
All right, before I let you go,I promised you that simple
(25:42):
weekly calorie strategy to giveyou weekend freedom without
killing your deficit, withoutkilling your deficit.
And I want to show you how thisworks.
Instead of trying to hit theexact same calorie target every
single day, think in terms ofweekly averages.
So let's say your daily deficittarget, okay, your target is
2,000 calories.
(26:03):
I don't care what the deficitis, but that's your target.
And so that's 14,000 caloriesfor the week.
Now, the strategy I recommendstarting with is called a
weekend diet.
You simply eat slightly lowerMonday through Friday.
So maybe you're eating 1,850calories instead of 2,000.
That's 150 calories per day forfive days that you're
effectively banking up for theweekends.
(26:25):
And that gives you 750 caloriesfor the weekend.
And then you split that acrossSaturday and Sunday, and now
you've got an extra 375 calorieseach day to enjoy your meals
out.
You know, if you enjoydrinking, whatever makes your
weekend feel normal to you whilestaying in your deficit.
An alternative for this is togo all the way to maintenance
(26:47):
calories on the weekend and thensee how many calories are left
and distribute those across fivedays.
This is a little bit moreextreme strategy, but it
actually might feel less extremebecause you are totally
refueling on the weekend.
So either of those strategiescan work.
You'll still be at your targetfor the week, which in this
example was, for example, 14,000calories.
There's a little math to bedone, but it's not that big a
(27:08):
deal.
You figure out what you want onthe weekends, you give the rest
of the weekdays.
And I actually covered theweekend diet strategy in episode
324, where you can learn allabout this.
Because I don't thinkflexibility has to mean that you
have a cheap meal or yousabotage yourself or you make it
unfettered access to food.
You actually plan it in.
(27:28):
And again, if you wantpersonalized guidance on
implementing strategies likethis, along with training,
recovery, everything else, checkout Fitness Lab at wits and
weights.com slash app.
Until next time, keep usingyour wits, lifting those
weights.
And remember, your body isn'tlying to you, but your
assumptions might be.
So figure out which of thethree buckets you're in, and
you'll be successful.
This is Philip Payne, andyou're listening to Wits and
(27:50):
Weights.
I'll talk to you next time.
You cannot be in a true calorie deficit and still
fail to lose body fat over time.
It's physiologicallyimpossible.
So if you're convinced you'reeating less than you're burning
and nothing's happening, one ofthree things is going on.
Either you're not actually inthe deficit you think you are,
you are losing fat but thescale's hiding it, or your
(00:22):
deficit disappeared because yourbody adapted.
Today we're identifying exactlywhich bucket you're in, why it
matters, and the specific fixfor your situation.
Welcome to Wits and Weights,the show that helps you build a
(00:45):
strong, healthy physique usingevidence, engineering, and
efficiency.
I'm your host, certifiednutrition coach Philip Pape, and
today we're tackling one ofthose very frustrating
statements that I hear often.
Quote, I am in a caloriedeficit, but I'm not losing
weight.
This phrase gets thrown aroundall the time on social media,
and it creates confusion becauseon the surface, it seems to
(01:08):
defy basic physics.
But what is actually true isthat you cannot maintain a
genuine calorie deficit and notlose fat.
It's impossible.
And the problem isn't thatthermodynamics suddenly stops
working.
It's that somewhere in thechain from what you think you're
eating to what your body isdoing, there is a disconnect.
(01:30):
When someone tells me they'rein a deficit but not losing
weight, I approach it like adetective.
I want to debug the system foryou.
I want to trace the inputs.
I want to look at the outputs.
I want to find where the datadoesn't match reality because
that's going to give you thepower you need to push through
and to break through that issue.
And then the fix becomesobvious.
So today we're going tosystematically work through each
(01:52):
scenario so you can identifyyours and then exactly what to
do about it.
And I want you to stick aroundto the end because I'm going to
show you a simple weekly caloriestrategy that will let you
enjoy your weekends and make fatloss so much easier.
So again, I'll share that atthe end of the episode.
All right, when someone saysthat I'm in a calorie deficit
and not losing weight, they'remaking a claim about energy
(02:14):
balance.
And I love how people on socialmedia they make assumptions or
they immediately go to thegaslighting, like, well, you're
not tracking your food andyou're not actually eating the
calories you think you'reeating.
And I'm gonna give you morecredit than that.
I'm gonna give you credit as anintelligent person who has
thought through this at least tosome extent.
Maybe you've listened to thisshow, maybe you haven't, but you
(02:35):
know that there's more nuanceto any of these things.
And after working with hundredsof people stuck at this kind of
plateau, I found that everysingle case seems to fall into
one of three buckets.
Just three buckets.
Okay, I'm gonna simplify thisfor you today.
And they are mutuallyexclusive.
So you're probably in one ofthem, not multiple.
And even if there is someoverlap, focusing on the biggest
(02:56):
one for you right now isprobably gonna help you get
unstuck.
So bucket one, and we're gonnago into these in detail, but
just at a high level, bucket oneis that the claimed deficit
doesn't actually exist, right?
The numbers you think you realaren't think are real are not
matching reality.
And it's not about, again,saying that it's your fault.
It's more of an accuracy issuethat we're gonna get into.
(03:17):
Bucket two is that the deficitis real and fat loss is
happening, but you may not thinkit's happening.
It may be masked by otherthings.
And then bucket three is thatyou were in a deficit, but the
deficit has disappeared becauseyou've adapted and your
expenditure has reduced to matchyour intake.
And that's it.
Those are the three buckets.
But obviously, there's a lot ofdetail under the surface.
(03:38):
So everyone who says I'm in adeficit but not losing weight is
probably in one of these.
No one person is maintaining atrue deficit long term without
losing fat.
That's impossible.
And that's empowering as well.
So that's a good thing to know.
And you know what?
Let's just before I continue,the extreme of this would be if
you just stopped eatingaltogether, where you're
(03:59):
absolutely in a deficit and youstarve yourself, you would
eventually die.
Now, I hate to I hate to use anextreme like that, but it's
it's evidence, I guess, uh thatthat thermodynamics exists
between where you are now andwhere the extreme is, and we're
trying to find that middleground that actually works for
you.
So let's work through each ofthe three buckets, and we're
gonna start with the most commonone where probably 70 to 80% of
(04:22):
people land.
And this is basically that youthink you're in a deficit and
you're just not in a deficit.
And it's not about yourwillpower, you're not trying
hard enough.
It's really measurementprecision, and it's also a lot
of human psychology around foodtracking.
The average person is going tounderestimate their calorie
(04:44):
intake a lot, 20 to 40%.
And I a long time ago, Ilearned that even nutrition
experts, nutritionists,dietitians, people who've
tracked for a long time, if theywere to just estimate on their
own, they would still be off by20%, even with lots and lots of
training.
And that's well documented inthe research.
It's not that you'reintentionally lying to yourself,
it's just the cumulative effectof tracking errors that add up
(05:08):
and just the human's brain'sinability to estimate this
stuff.
So even if you are loggingcalories, but you're not, say,
weighing your food, or you know,if you're estimating, or you
are using, let's say, cups andteaspoons and tablespoons
instead of grams, you arelogging what you think you're
(05:29):
eating, but your intake ishigher.
And there's a lot of ways thatthis happens.
Even when you're tracking withsomething like macrofactor,
chronometer, whatever, you know,if you don't weigh the peanut
butter, but instead you use aspoon and you call it a
tablespoon, but it ends up beingtwo tablespoons, right?
Or if you put oil in the pan tohook up some vegetables and you
eyeball it, or here's a mistakeI see people make the spray oil
(05:51):
will say zero calories becauseit falls under the threshold for
rounding errors.
But if you use enough of it,you actually have 20, 30, 40
calories.
Or you graze or you eathandfuls of this or that
throughout the day, handful ofalmonds here, a bite of your
kid's plate over here, or youforgot the third glass of wine.
You get what I'm saying, right?
And this is not, again, this isnot that we're doing it
(06:13):
intentionally.
This is something we all do,and it's easy to get wrapped up
in it.
And then there's an error thataccumulates.
And if it's like a 50 calorieday error, that's not a big
deal.
But if it's five or six hundredcalories, which I have seen a
lot with folks, here's anotherexample.
You do log, you do weigh, butthe entry that you select in
your food app is not the rightentry.
(06:33):
You selected, let's say, aturkey burrito instead of a
chorizo burrito.
And maybe that's too far off,but something close to that
where there's a lot more fat inwhat you're actually eating than
what you actually than what youlogged.
Or you do a raw versus cookedversion or what have you.
And I see this all the time.
And then what happens is youcut is you copy and paste and
you just keep propounding theerror over time.
(06:55):
And so you might be off by afew thousand calories for the
week, right?
And a fat, a fat's worth ofenergy, a pound of fat's worth
of energy is 3,500 calories.
So if you're off by, you know,half of that for the week,
that's a half pound that you'reoff, where if you thought you
were at maintenance, you'reactually gaining a half pound.
Or if you thought you were in ahalf pound deficit, you're just
(07:15):
maintaining.
So it can easily happen to anyof us, to the best of us.
Okay.
And if you add in the fact thatmost people also overestimate
how much how many calories areburning.
And if they're not usingsomething like Macrofactor,
they're just thinking they'rethey're using estimators or
calculators, or they think theyburn more than they are.
(07:36):
And maybe you eat back some ofthose calories, even, which is
an awful thing to do.
I would never recommend that.
But a lot of people are in thatmindset of like, oh, I just
burned 500 calories according tothe treadmill machine in the
gym.
And so I can eat that 500calories, but you're actually
compensating for a lot of thatactivity and not burning nearly
as much as it says.
At the end of the day, whatmatters is your total calories
for the day, right?
(07:57):
Not all these little activitythings that you have going on.
And then the airs, the air addsup on that side as well.
And I know some apps, I thinklike MyFitnessPanel and others,
actually allow you to eat backyour activity, which is, again,
a terrible, terrible precedentbecause they shouldn't be
linked.
The two things shouldn't haveanything to do with each other.
I do get questions all thetime, like, does my app use
activity to calculate yourcalories?
(08:18):
No, because you don't want itto.
All you want to do is say, hey,am I gaining weight or am I
losing weight over time?
Or fat, I should say, but scaleweight is the easiest way to
tell.
Am I gaining or losing overtime?
If so, I'm either in a surplusor deficit, and now we could
adjust how much we eataccordingly.
So, how do you know if you'rein bucket one?
Well, you're gonna have toaudit your tracking and think
(08:38):
about the things I've justmentioned today.
Are you weighing and measuringeverything?
I would do that.
Weigh and measure everythingwith grams on a scale.
Don't use ounces, don't usetablespoons, don't use cups,
just use a food scale, logeverything, including if it's a
spray oil, condiments, everybite that goes in your mouth.
And what's what's nice aboutthis is sometimes it will get
(08:59):
you into an awareness modewhere, well, let's say you have
kids and you tend to graze andyou're thinking, I need to log
this, you're gonna start eithernot eating those extra things
because you really realize youdon't need them, or you'll put
them in a little bowl and you'lllog them and then you'll start
controlling your portions aswell.
Same thing, you know, if youhave alcohol, if you have just
random snacks.
So that's the first thing is toreally audit and start weighing
(09:19):
and measuring everything ifyou're not already doing that.
I'm also as part of that auditas you weigh and measure and
then log it, is double check theentries in your food app to
make sure it passes the snifftest.
You know, reach out, use AI,use my app, go to our our
Facebook group and just ask thequestion like, does this make
sense?
So that's the first thing isreally just auditing all of that
(09:41):
for at least seven days, if nottwo weeks.
The second thing is don't useexercise calories from wearables
at all as part of this wholecalculation.
Okay, first of all, the erroris tremendously large, up to 80
or 90%.
So it's not even trustworthydata, but also it's not
something you eat back anyway,and it shouldn't be part of that
connection.
The third thing is I want youto be tracking your weight every
(10:04):
day and looking at the averageover time.
I like a 20-day moving average,which takes three weeks to get
to, but even after a week ortwo, if you are truly not
actually dropping body fat ordropping even scale weight over
time, okay, not the day-to-day.
It's gonna go up and down alot, but over time, then you
aren't in a deficit.
(10:25):
That's just the fact of it.
That's more like yourmaintenance.
Okay.
So the fix for bucket one isstraightforward.
Tighten your trackingprecision, stop guessing things,
guessing, double check, youknow, what you're logging, be
honest about what you put inyour mouth and track everything.
Because if you if you don'ttrack certain things, that's the
problem right there.
And a lot of you do that, Iknow, uh, including your
weekends, including youralcohol, all this stuff.
(10:46):
And just double check it all.
And if you find out that, hey,I've been tracking 1800 calories
a day on average, and now Idouble checked everything, and
it's guess what?
It's still 1800 a day onaverage, then that's not your
issue.
The issue isn't the caloriesitself, but what but what that
lets you do is confirm, oh, I'mtracking 1800 calories and I'm
not losing or gaining weight.
(11:06):
So I actually am burning 1800calories then, right?
And now you know to go in adeficit, you would just have to
eat less than that.
All right, bucket two, sothat's bucket one.
Bucket two, let's say that youare tracking accurately and all
that's good.
You've done the audit, yournumbers are tight, and you now
know that to be in a deficit,you have to eat, you know, 300
(11:26):
calories less than thatmaintenance value.
And or let's say 500 caloriesif you want to lose a pound a
week, but the scale isn'tmoving.
All right, this is bucket two,where you are in a deficit and
fat loss may be happening, butit's being massed.
Now, when I say the scale isn'tmoving, I'm talking short term,
okay, because over a three orlonger week period, it will be
(11:51):
dropping by a pound a week onaverage if you're in a
500-calorie deficit, going backto bucket one, or just the
general principle of thisepisode.
What I'm talking about here isin the short term, we get a lot
of issues that are happeningwith water retention.
Water retention can mask asmany as two to four pounds of
fat loss.
If you're a woman, hormonalfluctuations during your cycle
can swing a water weight by fivepounds or more.
(12:12):
If you started a new trainingprogram or you increased your
volume, your muscles are holdingwater and glycogen for
recovery.
If you had a high sodium meal,if you're stressed and your
cortisol's up, if you didn'tsleep well, if you're
dehydrated, all of these drivewater retention that hides fat
loss on the scale.
So over two weeks, let's sayyou might have legitimately lost
two pounds of fat, but thenyou're holding three pounds of
(12:33):
extra water and the scale showsa one-pound gain, you think
nothing's working, but it is,and it just isn't showing up
yet.
So this is more of a timefactor.
Okay.
Now, that's that's just if youwere purely losing fat.
Now, body comp recomposition isthe other major factor as part
of this bucket because you know,if you're lifting weights,
you're eating enough protein,especially if you're newer to
(12:55):
training or you're really doingthis right for the first time
with progressive overload, youcan simultaneously lose fat and
gain muscle.
And again, the scale's notgonna move.
So, what's weird here is thatyou may start to eat less to try
to induce, you know, you'reyou're like, here's my
maintenance, I'm gonna eat lessto lose fat.
But then you also starttraining at the same time, and
now you start to build muscle.
The muscle offsets the fatloss, the scale doesn't move.
(13:18):
That's super frustratingbecause you're looking at the
scale, you're like, okay, thisPhillips line, like energy
balance doesn't work.
But what what you have to dohere now is look at other
things.
How do you your clothes fit?
Is your waist going down?
Is your strength going up?
Are you able to infer your bodyfat percentage from these to
see that it's actually droppingeven while the scale stays the
(13:39):
same?
And I have this challenge witha lot of clients who come to me
and they want to lose weight,they want to lose that 20
pounds.
And at the end of four or sixmonths working together, they've
lost, let's say, 14 pounds, butit looks like, but they've
actually gained like five or sixpounds of muscle.
And so they've actually dropped20 pounds of fat, but they've
gained five or six pounds ofmuscle.
So their net loss is only 14.
(14:00):
But they're thrilled becausethey look great, they feel
great, they're stronger.
That's the whole point of notbeing fixated on the scale
because you're gonna miss all ofthose wonderful wins.
Now, how do you know if you'rein this bucket?
Well, first you've got to betracking things beyond the
scale.
You've got to take your bodycircumference measurements, take
your photos, track yourstrength.
If all of these are improving,but the scale is flat, then
(14:23):
you're probably in a recompphase and we're not as worried
about the calorie deficit, atleast right now.
Now, this is usually not gonnahappen to such an extreme that
you just directly offset fat andmuscle.
If you're in a big enoughdeficit, you should still have a
gradual trend down, but itmight appear like you're not
burning as many calories becauseyour scale is being offset, and
(14:45):
then eventually you shouldbreak through that over time as
your body adapts to that and youno longer have such massive
muscle gains and the scale willstart dropping.
Now, also you want to look atthis over time.
You want to look at your trendover four or six weeks, not day
to day, and not even over, say,two weeks.
We really have to go past that.
And this all assumes thatyou've done your audit from
(15:05):
bucket one, and now you'refocused on, okay, over time, is
this actually working?
Because the water fluctuationsare gonna smooth out, and the
trend will show fat loss ifyou're in fat loss.
And it might come in weirdbursts.
You might have a drop of likethree pounds one week and then
it flatlines for two weeks andthen drops again.
The third thing here is yourbiofeedback because the
(15:26):
biofeedback can change the wholeequation of how many calories
you're burning and how your bodyutilizes your nutrients.
Are you recovering well?
Is your energy stable?
Are you sleeping okay?
If yes, you're probably in alegitimate deficit.
You just need the patience forthe scale to catch up.
But if not, any one of thosethings could have just slowed
you down, which is actuallygonna be related more to bucket
three, we're gonna get to in asecond.
(15:47):
So the fix for bucket two isguess what?
It's patience and it's bettermetrics, like more metrics.
Something that, for example,Fitness Lab can help you with.
That's my app.
I'm always gonna plug itbecause I've designed it with
all these things in mind.
And I think it could be reallyhelpful for you if you're
looking to do that.
There's a weekly check-in whereyou calculate and enter these
things.
And then it helps you figureout, okay, this is what's really
(16:08):
happening.
Like, hey, your scale might beflat for the last couple of
weeks, but guess what?
Your waste has gone down aninch.
That's awesome.
Like that's what you want.
So stop obsessing over thedaily scale weight, even though
you want to track it and youwant to track the trend of the
weight, and then trust theprocess, keep doing what you're
doing, keep lifting, gettingyour protein, and give it like
four to six weeks, and the scalewill reflect what's happening
(16:28):
underneath.
All right, just a quickreminder.
I want you to stick around tothe end because I've got a
really practical tip on how tobuild weekend flexibility into
your deficit, which I know isone of the biggest challenges
for many of you.
That way you don't have towhite knuckle it.
It's one of the most powerfultools that I've found people are
using to make their fat lossphase so much easier so they can
(16:49):
stick with it.
All right, bucket three.
This is this is where thingsget interesting from a
physiological perspective,right?
What's happening in your body?
Let's say you were in a realdeficit, you were losing fat,
the scale was moving, but nowyou hit a plateau.
It's stalled for several weeks,and nothing is budging despite
all the other things we talkedabout being solid, right?
(17:10):
You're adhering to everything,you're tracking everything, and
you know, lifts are going up,all of that.
Well, this is probablyadaptation going on, metabolic
adaptation, which we've talkedabout on the show quite a few
times, and it often getsmisconstrued, but it's a
completely normal thing.
Your body doesn't want to losefat, it wants to hold on to fat
(17:30):
because it's a nice reserve ofenergy.
It's stored energy, and yourbody's directive in existence is
to survive, right?
You're a you're a living beingwho wants to survive.
So when you reduce food intake,when you increase energy demand
with your training, with yourwalking, with everything else,
your body essentially fightsback by compensating, by
reducing your energyexpenditure.
(17:52):
It sucks, right?
Because it's like just whenyou're trying to take advantage
of energy balance, your body isgonna make it harder.
Well, it does this through acombination of mechanisms.
One is the fact that you'rejust losing weight.
When you lose weight, yourbasal metabolic rate, your BMR,
right, that's like your restingor your baseline metabolism that
represents roughly two-thirdsof your metabolism every day.
(18:14):
It's just gonna be lowerbecause you need fewer calories
just to exist.
It's it's it's one of thoselike harsh realities of if you
lose 20 pounds and now you'regonna be lighter for the rest of
your life, you're just gonnaburn slightly few calories from
that.
Beyond that, however, yournon-exercise activity
thermogenesis, your neat, alsodrops unconsciously.
You fidget less, you might makeunconscious choices, like
(18:38):
taking the elevator instead ofthe stairs because you feel a
little more tired.
Maybe you sit more, maybe youmove less throughout the day
without realizing it.
And a lot of people argue thisand like, well, but I increased
my step count, right?
I increase my step count.
The step count is a pretty goodproxy, but it doesn't
necessarily capture everything.
It's pretty good, though.
I mean, it is pretty good.
So I definitely agree with thatstrategy, but there's so many
(18:58):
other ways internally, evenwithin your body, where you're
just doing less.
You're that's so that's thesecond one.
Now, your body also becomesmore efficient at exercise, at
training, right?
And this happens in general.
This happens in general, butjust keep in mind that as you're
getting into a routine, ifyou're also coinciding that with
fat loss, you may start burninga fewer calories because you've
(19:21):
adapted to the moving movementpattern.
Now, this is not an excuse tohop around and to constantly
change the way you move.
It is an interesting phenomenonthough, because there are
things like if you're doing alittle extra cardio, I I've
talked before, I think BrianBorstein introduced this concept
of you know rotating throughsome different modalities of
cardio to make your body alittle bit less efficient so it
(19:42):
burns a few more calories.
I don't know how big of animpact that has, but it's an
interesting thought.
And then there's the fact, andthis is the big one prolonged
dieting, especially aggressivedieting, can suppress your
thyroid function.
It reduces your sex hormones,it increases your cortisol, it
of course affects your hungerhormones as well.
But all of those, the Thyroid,the reproductive hormones, and
your cortisol, this is going toreduce your metabolic rate.
(20:04):
And this could be the biggestfactor for a lot of people,
especially if it's a veryaggressive diet.
And the result is that thedeficit you had four weeks ago
when you started doesn't existanymore because your calorie
intake is the same, but yourexpenditure has dropped to match
it.
And now you're at a newmaintenance level and you
haven't changed your diet ortraining.
(20:25):
And it's awful.
I know people don't like it.
It's one of those things youhave to deal with and
understand.
But when you understand it,then you can make a choice, a
fork in the road, let's say.
So how do you know if you're inthis bucket?
Well, the first way you know isyou have a history of fat loss.
You know, the last few weeks,let's say, I don't mean like
years ago, the last few weeksyou've been losing fat, but then
(20:46):
it's stalled for a few weeksand you haven't really changed
anything.
Like biofeedback's good,everything's the same, right?
That's a good way to know.
Secondly, your biofeedback isoff.
So this is where yourbiofeedback is the effect of the
diet, not the cause.
In other words, your dietitself is now making you a
little more tired, giving youlower energy, maybe interfering
(21:06):
with your sleep a bit.
It's causing you to lose someabsolute strength in the gym.
Maybe you're feeling more cold.
I find this when I'm dieting,I'm cold, right?
I don't, I'm hot when I'meating in a surplus and I'm
colder when I'm not.
And and so that's a really goodsign of adaptation.
And third, your activity levelshave dropped without you
noticing, and your step countmight be down if you're not
(21:28):
intentionally trying to keep itup.
The fix for so those are threethings, right?
That you can tell.
Really, hunger is is probablyone of the biggest ones for for
many.
The fix for this is to get backto the deficit you need to be
at.
But the problem is, how do youdo that?
Do you do it by eating evenless?
(21:48):
Well, maybe, maybe, if you'renot already in an aggressive
deficit, if you're, let's say,300 calorie deficit and you
increase it to 500 or 600, oryou're already at five or six
and you go to seven.
As long as you're not goingpast the 1% body weight per
week, you might be okay eatingless, depending on where the
total calories are.
And that depends on yourmetabolism.
Because if you're down at like800 calories, that could be a
(22:09):
problem in general for anyone.
But if you're still up at like1800, it may not be a big deal.
However, for a lot of people,eating less is gonna dig you
deeper into adaptation and makeit go faster.
So I would say you have twoprimary options here besides
that.
The first one is just take adiet break, raise your calories
back up to maintenance for oneto two weeks, let your
metabolism recover, yourhormones normalize somewhat.
(22:32):
Again, it's not maybe not allthe way.
Your neat might come back up,you're just gonna feel better,
and then you go back into adeficit.
Okay.
Now, people are like, people,people think this is magic.
It's not magic.
It's not like you're gonnaraise your whole metabolism, but
psychologically you're gonnahelp yourself out.
And then there will be somephysiological recovery that
probably allows you to, youknow, push a little bit further
(22:54):
into your deficit when you getback to it.
Option two is to increase youractivity.
And I always hesitate on thisone because there's some of you
out there where you're alreadydoing a lot and you're trying to
do a lot of cardio and runningand hiking and just tons and
tons of activity, especially infat loss.
And that could be a problem andmake it harder and actually
(23:15):
make you compensate, make youmore stress.
I'm talking about adding somemore steps.
Let's say two to three thousandsteps a day.
So if you're getting eight, goto 10.
If you're getting 10, go to 12.
That can be really helpful.
That can burn an extra 50, 100,150 calories a day, which could
be just enough to take the edgeoff and help you get back into
that deficit.
So walking more, moving more,getting off your chair more,
(23:35):
this is gonna increase yourexpenditure without adding
stress.
Now, you can also optimizerecovery.
If your biofeedback is lowbecause it's just on you, right?
Remember, I mentioned thatbiofeedback could be an effect,
but it could also be a cause.
If it's the cause, like you'rejust not sleeping enough, or you
don't have a good sleep ritual,or are not managing or reacting
to stress very well, these arethe kind of things that can
(23:58):
restore some of that energy,right?
And hormonal balance and yourimprove your metabolic rate.
So the key here for bucketthree is it's not permanent
damage.
It's not a broken metabolism.
It is a normal adaptiveresponse that can be recovered
by removing the stressor, whichis chronic dieting and restoring
(24:19):
homeostasis equilibrium.
And if you don't want to removeit because you want to keep
losing fat, that is a trade-offyou make.
And then you have to take intoaccount the various factors we
just discussed.
Now, if you're trying to figureout which bucket you're in and
you want some coaching in yourpocket that adapts to your real
life and all these things, checkout my lab, my app called
Fitness Lab.
(24:39):
It's an AI-powered coachingapp.
It's trained on all my content.
Almost it's trained on mypersonality, honestly.
And it helps you navigate fatloss without guessing on a daily
basis.
So whatever's happening in yourlife, you can talk to it and
say, this is what's happening,and it's gonna adjust.
I just had surgery and I toldthe app, hey, I'm having
surgery.
And every day after surgery,it's focused on recovery and
(24:59):
like taking things in just theright measure to get back to it.
So right now through January2nd, you can get 20% off at wits
and weights.com slash app.
You just go straight to thatlink and the discount's gonna be
there.
It's a holiday new yearpromotion, wits and weights.com
slash app.
And with Fitness Lab, you getpersonalized guidance on
everything, on your nutrition,your training, your recovery,
(25:21):
mindset, sleep, stress,movement.
You can tell it what you needand it will create new
activities for what you need.
It is incredible, all in oneplace, like having a coach in
your pocket for far less, whoactually understands your
schedule, your lifestyle, yourgoals, totally on demand.
Go to witsandweights.com slashapp.
All right, before I let you go,I promised you that simple
(25:42):
weekly calorie strategy to giveyou weekend freedom without
killing your deficit, withoutkilling your deficit.
And I want to show you how thisworks.
Instead of trying to hit theexact same calorie target every
single day, think in terms ofweekly averages.
So let's say your daily deficittarget, okay, your target is
2,000 calories.
(26:03):
I don't care what the deficitis, but that's your target.
And so that's 14,000 caloriesfor the week.
Now, the strategy I recommendstarting with is called a
weekend diet.
You simply eat slightly lowerMonday through Friday.
So maybe you're eating 1,850calories instead of 2,000.
That's 150 calories per day forfive days that you're
effectively banking up for theweekends.
(26:25):
And that gives you 750 caloriesfor the weekend.
And then you split that acrossSaturday and Sunday, and now
you've got an extra 375 calorieseach day to enjoy your meals
out.
You know, if you enjoydrinking, whatever makes your
weekend feel normal to you whilestaying in your deficit.
An alternative for this is togo all the way to maintenance
(26:47):
calories on the weekend and thensee how many calories are left
and distribute those across fivedays.
This is a little bit moreextreme strategy, but it
actually might feel less extremebecause you are totally
refueling on the weekend.
So either of those strategiescan work.
You'll still be at your targetfor the week, which in this
example was, for example, 14,000calories.
There's a little math to bedone, but it's not that big a
(27:08):
deal.
You figure out what you want onthe weekends, you give the rest
of the weekdays.
And I actually covered theweekend diet strategy in episode
324, where you can learn allabout this.
Because I don't thinkflexibility has to mean that you
have a cheap meal or yousabotage yourself or you make it
unfettered access to food.
You actually plan it in.
(27:28):
And again, if you wantpersonalized guidance on
implementing strategies likethis, along with training,
recovery, everything else, checkout Fitness Lab at wits and
weights.com slash app.
Until next time, keep usingyour wits, lifting those
weights.
And remember, your body isn'tlying to you, but your
assumptions might be.
So figure out which of thethree buckets you're in, and
you'll be successful.
This is Philip Payne, andyou're listening to Wits and
(27:50):
Weights.
I'll talk to you next time.
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