December 29, 2025 • 32 mins
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--
Every January, millions start cutting calories. By March, most have quit... frustrated, tired, and no leaner than before. The problem isn't discipline. It's that they're trying to diet their way into a body they never built.
Learn why muscle is an asset while cutting is just maintenance, how chronic dieting destroys your metabolism and body composition over time, and why people who build muscle first end up needing to diet less often for the rest of their lives. Discover the structural advantage that strength training provides, not just for how you look, but for glucose disposal, nutrient partitioning, and long-term metabolic health.
Whether you're stuck in the yo-yo dieting cycle, considering GLP-1 medications, or simply want to lose fat without grinding through months of restriction, this episode gives you a step-by-step framework for designing a muscle-first year.
Plus, learn about the Mini-Cut Accelerator, a counterintuitive approach that lets you lose fat faster while protecting more muscle.
Episode Resources:
- Join Physique University to prep for the "Get Lean in 45 Days" workshop on January 20: https://witsandweights.com/physique
- Try Fitness Lab AI-powered coaching for 20% off through January 2nd: https://witsandweights.com/app
Timestamps:
0:00 - Why your 2026 fat loss goal will probably fail unless you do THIS
2:23 - The cutting-first trap
5:45 - How muscle improves metabolism, insulin sensitivity, and nutrient partitioning
12:20 - Why short cuts beat long diets for body recomp
17:02 - How to design 2026 for a muscle-first approach
24:10 - The Mini-Cut Accelerator to lose fat faster without losing muscle
📱 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 (00:00):
Every January, millions of people start cutting
calories to lose fat.
By March, most have quit.
Frustrated, tired, no leanerthan before.
And the problem isn'tdiscipline, it's that they're
trying to diet their way into abody they never built.
Today I am flipping the scripton how you approach 2026.
You'll learn why muscle is anasset, while cutting is just
(00:24):
maintaining what you have.
How to escape the cycle ofchronic dieting, and why people
who build muscle first end upneeding to diet less often for
the rest of their lives.
Welcome to Wits and Weights,the show that helps you build a
(00:46):
strong, healthy physique usingevidence, engineering, and
efficiency.
I'm your host, certifiednutrition coach, Philip Cape,
also the creator of Fitness Lab.
And as we head into a new year,into 2026, I want to challenge
the default mode that mostpeople are operating from.
The assumption that fat loss isthe goal, that cutting is the
(01:07):
strategy to get there, and thateverything else falls second
behind that.
Today's episode is about afundamental shift in thinking.
The idea that muscle is theasset and cutting is just
maintenance.
I want to kind of flip aroundhow you think about both cutting
and bulking.
The goal is not to get betterat dieting, it's to build a body
(01:30):
that requires dieting lessoften.
So we're going to cover threethings.
First, why cutting alone keepsfailing you, even when you do it
right.
Second, the structuraladvantage that muscle provides
for your metabolism, your fatloss, your long-term physique,
and your longevity.
And third, how to design 2026so that fat loss becomes short,
(01:52):
infrequent, and almosteffortless compared to what
you've experienced before.
And then I want you to stickaround until the end because I'm
going to share a specific ruleabout cutting that most people
get backward that will let youlose fat faster while protecting
more muscle.
It's counterintuitive, but itcould change how you approach
(02:12):
all of your fat loss phases fromhere on out.
So stick around to the end forthat.
All right, let's start with theproblem with this cut first
mentality, this fat loss firstmentality.
And it's a pattern that I'veseen hundreds of times where
someone decides, hey, I need tolose that 10, 20, 30 pounds of
fat, and I'm gonna go in acalorie deficit.
Then you start seeing someresults, then progress stalls,
(02:34):
then you cut calories more,maybe you add some cardio,
progress stalls again.
Eventually you're eating verylittle, exercising a ton, maybe
exhausted a lot, and then barelylosing anything.
And this is men, women, allages, all sizes, all hormonal
situations, right?
I see it time and again.
And so then you take a break,then you tend to regain the
weight because you're nottracking, or it just was too
(02:57):
restrictive.
And then the cycle starts againnext year.
And you know, we see a patternthroughout the year as well
between the seasons, especiallyas we get toward the holidays,
which we're just finishing now.
So this is a great time toreset this pattern.
And for some people, this hasbeen going on for decades,
right?
People in their 50s and 60swho've been doing it since their
20s.
We know that on average, womentry over 100 diets in their
(03:19):
lifestyle, for example.
And then you're just losing andregaining, I'll say the same 20
pounds, but it's not even thesame 20 pounds.
It's you're losing muscle andgaining fat in addition to the
fat that you've lost and gained,if that makes sense.
So you're actually gettingworse and worse body composition
over time.
And then the frustrating thingis these are often very
disciplined, smart people.
They listen to this podcast.
(03:39):
They're not, you know, failingbecause of uh willpower, as
we've talked about before.
It's because of the system andthe structure.
And I call this the cuttingfirst trap.
You guys, not you guys, but alot of you listening fall into
this.
A lot of you are desperate tolose weight, are so obsessed
with the scale, and that's thething holding you back.
And understanding this requireslooking at what dieting
(04:02):
actually does and what itdoesn't do, right?
So the core problem here iswhen you cut calories and you
just don't have enough musclemass, yes, you're reducing your
body weight, but you're notimproving your body's capacity
to handle the energy coming in,the food that's coming in.
You're not building metabolicresilience, right?
You are not creating a moreefficient machine.
(04:25):
What you're doing is gettingsmaller, which you might say,
well, that was my goal.
But then you're getting weakerand you're actually getting
worse body composition.
The research on this is prettyclear that energy deficits
absolutely are gonna reduce yourbody mass, that's
thermodynamics, but they don'timprove your strength.
They don't improve your workcapacity, they don't improve
your metabolic health on theirown.
Now, I've I've given the caveatbefore that if you have a lot
(04:47):
of weight to lose, if you'relike three, 400 pounds and you
lose 100 pounds by almost anymeans, you're probably gonna
have a net improvement in yourhealth, but you could have a
much better improvement in yourhealth and the ability to
sustain that health with whatwe're gonna talk about today,
which is resistance training,sufficient muscle, so that
dieting does not lead to losingthat lean mass, reducing your
(05:09):
training performance, lowerenergy flux, worse body
composition just because thescale is lower, because the the
end goal is not to have a lowerscale weight, is it?
And if you think it is, keeplistening to this episode.
Two people can lose the sameamount of weight and end up with
radically different physiquesdepending on how much muscle
they started with and how muchthey held on to.
One person can look very lean,very defined, very athletic.
(05:33):
The other looks smaller butstill soft, what people call
skinny fat.
We've talked about that before.
And many of you have lostweight and then you're not
happy, and then you think theanswer is to lose more weight.
Stop, stop.
That's not gonna get you there,right?
It's not the weight loss.
This is why cutting alone isnot gonna work.
Not because cutting itselfisn't useful, it's very useful,
(05:53):
but cutting without thestructural foundation of muscle
is extremely inefficient.
And you're somebody put it bestthat you can't sculpt a pebble,
right?
You can sculpt a nice slab ofmarble, but you can't sculpt a
pebble.
So the first shift here is stopthinking of fat loss as the
primary goal.
As much as I talk about fatloss on this episode as a goal,
(06:15):
don't think of it as the primarygoal.
Start thinking of muscle as theasset, the thing you're
building, the thing that you'regonna keep around for a long
time that's gonna makeeverything easier.
And then cutting is this littletask to maintain that asset
from a better state, whetherthat state is better muscle
(06:35):
definition, physique, health,what have you.
You've got to have the musclethere.
So that leads me to the nextpoint I want to talk about,
which is muscle as thisinfrastructure for your body,
not just for the for aesthetics,even though that's a wonderful
side effect for many of us,right?
It's not just about lookinglike you lift, even though
that's a great selling point.
Muscle is not just cosmetic,right?
(06:58):
It's a major aspect of yourhealth and of making fat loss
easier.
From a physiology standpoint,skeletal muscle, this is a major
site, for example, of glucosedisposal.
When you eat carbs, muscletissue absorbs a significant
portion of that glucose.
More muscle means betterglucose handling, which means
better insulin sensitivity.
(07:19):
This is why strength trainingis probably the number one
recommendation for people withblood sugar issues.
I go on diabetes podcasts, Italk about pre-diabetes, type 2
diabetes, and people ask me,like, what's what's the first
recommendation you have, orwhat's the highest priority?
And I usually say it's strengthtraining because a lot of
people with blood sugar issuesknow about walking.
Walking is also important,sleep is also important.
(07:40):
But if you're not strengthtraining, that could be the
biggest issue because muscle isa metabolic sink.
It has somewhere to put thatglucose instead of storing it as
fat.
And the insulin-triggereduptake of glucose, the first
place it's going to go isskeletal muscle, or I should say
80% of it's gonna go toskeletal muscle.
So if you have more of thatmuscle, you're able to dispose
more of it.
Another thing muscle does isreleases compounds called
(08:03):
myokines that influence your fattissue and your liver, also
other organs like your pancreasand your brain.
These are signaling moleculesthat improve your metabolic
flexibility.
And that's your ability to burndifferent sources of energy,
right?
Carbs and fats, whatever,depending on how you're
consuming your food and movingat the time.
The metabolic value of muscleis far less about how many more
(08:24):
calories it burns and more aboutthings like nutrient
partitioning and tolerance forwhat you're eating, how much
you're eating, the types of foodyou're eating.
People love to talk about howmuscle burns more calories at
rest, and it does maybe six tonine calories per day extra,
which matters over time.
It's not nothing, but it's notthe main benefit.
The real benefit is that youcan eat more food with fewer
(08:46):
negative downstream effects.
You can have your carbs go moretoward muscle glycogen instead
of fat storage, your proteingoing toward muscle repair
instead of oxidation, right?
And so if I see this withclients, I see this with a lot
of you listeners who are doingthis the right way.
You focus on building muscle,you build, let's say, 10 pounds
of muscle over a year.
Totally doable for men andwomen, right?
Men could probably build alittle more, but doesn't matter.
(09:08):
And their scale weight might bethe same, might be a little
higher, depending on how theyapproached it.
Did they do a bulk?
Did they do it closer tomaintenance?
But they're probably eatingmore food.
Their metabolism has gone up,their energy is better, they're
training stronger, they lookleaner.
That's the power of nutrientpartitioning without even having
to do a fat loss phase.
And that's why two people caneat the same diet and have
(09:29):
different body compositions.
And that's why you see peoplecomplain that, you know, I can't
eat as much as this otherperson.
Now, we shouldn't compareourselves to each other because
some people just havegenetically lower metabolisms on
average, but they can stillmove the needle, right?
It's the people with moremuscle are gonna be able to
handle the fuel a lot better.
And it's gonna affect all theseother things, which then become
more critical as we age.
(09:51):
Think about sarcopenic obesity.
This is the combination of lowmuscle mass, high body fat,
reduced functional capacity aswe age.
This is a phenotype, right?
Low muscle and high fat.
That is probably the mostassociated with the worse health
outcomes, than either of themalone.
Meaning, if you have a lot ofmuscle mass, you're gonna
(10:11):
significantly blunt that effect.
If you have low body fat, evenif you don't have a lot of
muscle, that's gonna be abenefit as well.
But having both is extremelybeneficial.
It affects your mobility, yourmetabolic health, your
longevity.
And then chronic dieting allthe time, especially without
resistance training, acceleratesthis phenotype again of high
body fat and low muscle mass.
(10:32):
Where even when you loseweight, you're losing the wrong
kind of weight.
You're losing muscle and thenfat comes back, muscle doesn't
come back because you're notdoing anything to bring it back.
So from this lens, cuttingwithout first building muscle,
it's not just a matter of beinginefficient.
It is highly counterproductive.
You're setting yourself up forthis awful phenotype of aging,
(10:55):
of sick aging, I'll call it,that creates the most problems
down the road.
So muscle's not optional, guys.
Like anytime I hear someonesay, Yeah, I'm not resistance
training, maybe I'll do it.
It's not my focus right now.
I'm like, what are you doing?
Get your act together.
We have to resistance train.
Doesn't mean lifting weights ina very specific way, but it
does mean following theprinciples of resistance
(11:16):
training to build strength ofmuscle, which we're gonna touch
on a little bit later, right?
It's not a nice to have.
Muscle's the foundation thatmakes all of this work together.
Now, before we move on totalking about how and when you
should cut, if you're planningout your year, if you want
personalized guidance onbuilding muscle and optimizing
nutrition and knowing when andhow to cut and what to do on a
(11:39):
daily basis.
You want to wake up and knowhere are the few things that I
should do to continue moving theneedle.
The Fitness Lab app is what Ibuilt to do exactly that.
It's an AI-powered coaching appthat is a game changer.
It gives you daily briefings,it gives you daily activities
based on your data, based onyour training and your nutrition
patterns, your biofeedback.
(12:00):
It's not generic advice.
It's highly adaptable andpersonalized to you.
You don't have to go to ChatGPTand figure stuff out.
It will literally tell youhere's what to do today, and
here and then tomorrow it'lltell you what to do tomorrow
based on what happened today.
So it adapts to what'shappening to you in your body.
And through January 2nd, just afew days left, you can get 20%
off as part of our holidaypromotion.
(12:20):
Just go to wits and weights.comslash app.
The link is also in the shownotes.
That's witsandweights.com slashapp.
All right.
Now let's get into the partmost people miss, which is why
short, infrequent cuts areprobably the best approach for
most people.
And then quick reminder at theend of this episode, I'm going
to share what I call the minicut accelerator.
(12:41):
All right, this is a specificapproach that lets you lose fat
faster than conventional cutsand still protect your muscle.
And it's counterintuitive, butit's a nice balance between
speed and sustainability.
So stick around after for thattoward the end of the episode.
All right.
So let's talk about cutting.
If you're cutting most of theyear, you're probably doing it
(13:04):
wrong.
If you're cutting most of theyear, you're probably doing it
wrong.
Now, this doesn't, this is notspeaking to someone who has like
50 or 100 pounds or more tolose and is doing this slowly
over a long time because that istheir priority.
This is the vast majority ofyou who are more concerned with
10, 20, 30 pounds of fat tolose.
Muscle is slow to build, butit's very durable once you have
(13:24):
it.
It's actually kind of easy tomaintain.
Fat is actually pretty easy tocut off.
You might hear that and say, Ohyeah, right.
Get in my body and tell methat.
But it's it's relatively easyto cut off when you've built the
muscle.
This is my point.
With reasonable training andnutrition, you can maintain
muscle mass with as little as aneighth of the effort that it
took to build it.
So that's what I mean by it'san asset, it compounds.
(13:46):
It's like once you've got it,it's pretty easy to hold on to
it.
Even if you lose it because youstop training for six months,
it'll come back very fast.
Amazing how the body works.
Fat loss is different.
It's very fast, it's a lotfaster than muscle building, but
it's kind of fragile, right?
It's easy to reverse and it'shard to maintain without ongoing
effort.
The moment you stop a deficit,the body is going to return to
(14:07):
its previous state.
I don't mean you're gonna gainall the fat back, but it's going
to want to get to some level ofhomeostasis.
If you're not careful, thatcould then also mean creep up in
weight.
And then the deficitsaccumulate a lot of costs to you
and your body and your psyche.
Diet fatigue, physical fatigue,reduced performance, hormonal
disruption, downregulation,increased hunger, decreased
(14:29):
motivation.
It's not great to be in a dietfor very long.
Let's just be honest.
There's no, there's no likegood diet in terms of a dieting
phase.
So if your default state isthat level of restriction, then
something structurally is notgoing to work long term.
It's off.
You're paying these costs inyou're paying costs to try to
maintain something that youdon't even have yet, instead of
(14:52):
being in a more fueled state andbuilding something that's then
going to allow you to cutwithout the same level of cost.
So it's I to me it's a win-winto do it this other way.
So, what does that look like?
What does a well-designed yearlook like for most people?
In my opinion, rule of thumb,80% or more of your time is
(15:12):
spent at maintenance or a slightsurplus, focused on building
strength, on you know, buildingmuscle mass, on recovering, on
enjoying food, on living life tothe fullest and not worrying
about dieting at all.
In fact, I just had a clientreach out to me who's been in
maintenance for a while now.
She's getting stronger, and shelost she lost a bunch of fat
(15:33):
initially together, and then wewent back to maintenance.
And a little doubt in her mindwas like, I feel like I have to
lose another couple pounds, butI'm loving what I'm doing.
And people say I look great.
And and then, and it was like,look, you answered your own
question.
Like, this is not the time tocut.
If you have, if you want to cuttwo or three pounds at some
point in the future, we could doit very strategically.
But let's be honest, you'reloving this life, and that's
(15:53):
where I want most of you to be,dear listener.
That's where I want you to be.
So 80% or more of your timespent in maintenance or slight
surplus, and then maybe six to10 weeks at most, either two
short phases or one medium tolong phase at most, and some of
you just a very short phase ofintentional cutting to remove
any accumulated fat for whatevergoal you have, which for many
people is like in the springleading to summer, get a little
(16:16):
bit shredded.
I hate to use the word shreddedbecause it implies extreme
leanness, just to get a littleget a little bit more muscle
definition when you, you know,have your shirt off or you're
wearing a bathing suit,whatever.
And that's it.
Shortcuts, infrequent cuts, therest of the time you're
building or maintaining whatyou've built.
Now, what kind of lifestyle isthat?
It's that's an awesome one.
And compare the style mostpeople operate, where they try
(16:37):
to cut for four to six months orindefinitely, let's be honest,
and then they might break thecut for a few weeks to recover
or because they just can't do itanymore, and then they keep
going and they're always in astate of metabolic adaptation.
They're always restricting,spending 70, 80% of the year in
restricting, restricting,restricting, wondering why they
never actually look better andget the result they want, and
(16:58):
thinking this stuff just doesn'twork, or even that calorie
deficits don't work.
Here's why the muscle firstapproach works so much better.
I mean, guys, this is myopinion, but I think it's very
well supported by evidence andwhat I see with my own clients,
those using my app, those in thegroup program.
Physiologically, short cuts,okay, doing a cut for a short
(17:22):
period of time, what's it gonnado?
It's gonna limit how much leanmass you lose, how much muscle
mass you lose, if any, becausethe longer a cut goes, the
greater risk you have for losingmuscle mass.
Your body adapts to thatrestriction also, right?
Your metabolism will slow downslightly.
This just is gonna happen.
It's totally normal.
Your hunger is gonna go up,your training performance is
gonna drop.
And again, shortcuts are gonnaminimize this.
(17:44):
I don't want to call it damage,but this not so great living
state of you know, low energybecause you're not giving your
body time to adapt to it in ashortcut, which is a good thing,
right?
Like a shortcut is gonna maybedip into that regime a little
bit, but then you're done beforeyou know it.
Psychologically, living mostlyoutside a deficit is gonna
(18:06):
reduce burnout.
It's gonna improve youradherence over the long term.
The S-word, sustainability.
It's gonna reinforce also youridentity as a lifter, as an
athlete, someone who's building,someone who's operating at a
high level of performance, notas someone who's always dieting
and saying no and restrictingand feeling, you know,
emotionally stressed by all ofthis.
(18:27):
And then here's acounterintuitive observation
that I've seen repeatedly withclients.
Many people with sufficientmuscle mass just naturally lose
fat over time while they're inmaintenance phases for a long
time.
And they're not evenintentionally doing it, they're
not restricting.
It's just because that higherenergy flux, they're eating
more, they're training hard,they're moving more, they're not
(18:50):
packing on a bunch of fat frombeing in a big surplus, but
they're just slowly recompingover time.
And that creates an environmentwhere the body naturally wants
to be leaner, right?
That's recomposition.
Now, the the most optimal orquickest way to build muscle is
to go into a slight surplus.
And by slight, I mean reallyslight.
But for many of you, just beingat maintenance, living with
(19:12):
enough muscle that your bodyhandles the energy more
efficiently can get the jobdone.
So, the goal I want you tointernalize here is not to
become a better dieter.
I think a lot of you are tryingto develop this skill of
dieting, which to be fair, wegive you the tools here on the
show to try to do that becauseat some point you do go through
a cut and there's tools forthat.
But what I want you tointernalize is building a body
(19:36):
that requires dieting lessoften.
Then fat loss is just thesebrief, almost routine
maintenance tasks.
And I see it all the time.
People I've worked with for awhile who've spent the time to
build the muscle, they're like,yeah, I'm just gonna do a quick
fat loss phase, gonna take fouror five weeks, cut a few pounds,
boom, then get back to it.
That's far better than thisexhausting year or years long
(19:57):
struggle that most peopleexperience.
So I went.
briefly connect this to theGLP1 era we're in now as well.
Stick with me.
Okay.
I don't think this is going tobe controversial.
I'm going to I'm going to applysome nuance to this.
Medications like semaglatide orzepitide, you know, are wake
are making rapid weight lossvery accessible to millions of
people.
And many of you are probablytaking these.
(20:18):
And I have clients who takethese.
All good.
For some people, they aregenuinely helpful tools that
address real physiologicalchallenges with appetite
regulation.
Okay.
We had Jamie Selzeron talkedabout that exact thing and he's
doing it the right way.
Love it.
I'm not anti-medication.
Okay.
The concern is this that rapidweight loss without the
resistance training is whatcreates the scenario I've
(20:41):
already described.
And it tends to accelerate itthe reduced muscle mass, the
lower metabolic capacity, aphysique that is lower on the
scale but may not be improved orfeel different the way you want
it to be.
And many people are takingthese medications need to lose
weight for health reasons.
And so it's an independentgoal, let's say.
And then when you stop themedication or when your body
(21:03):
adapts, then you, you know, youget back where you're started.
And many people on thesemedications then are worse off
and they end up gaining theweight back and they're gaining
more body fat.
And then it's kind of thisvicious cycle to the extreme.
And that's why I think themuscle first philosophy matters
today more than ever, to behonest.
So whatever tool you use tomanage appetite, which we're
going to have a whole series onappetite starting next week
(21:25):
throughout January, we're goingto talk about lifestyle-based
appetite management, naturalappetite suppressants,
pharmacological, we're going totalk about all those tools.
Whatever tool you use to dothat or to create a deficit, the
strength training piece isstill non-negotiable.
The solution is the same nomatter what tool you're using.
Resistance training, adequateprotein to preserve and build
muscle during weight loss.
(21:47):
Right.
So this again this is just thecut side of the equation.
So if you're already if you'reyou know considering using these
meds or you're already on them,make sure to double down on
strength training.
I don't mean do double thestrength training I mean double
down as in do it, make it apriority, make muscle and
strength a priority.
Let the medication handle theappetite piece and those two can
work together really, reallywell because the goal isn't just
(22:09):
weight loss.
It's building the physiquethat's durable, that's
functional, that's sustainableand that requires muscle.
All right so how do we design2026 as your muscle first year
and not worry about things likegetting too bulky or gaining too
much fat.
All right.
How do you do this?
I would first assess whereyou're starting from how much
muscle do you have?
Have you never lifted before orhave you lifted for two
(22:31):
decades?
Two different populations,right?
How well do you recover?
What is your training age?
How long have you been liftingconsistently?
Because if you've been cuttinga lot for many years without any
time building at all, then youprobably have very little muscle
to work with and that meansyour first priority is
absolutely to build muscle, notto cut.
If you look like you lift rightnow, whatever that means to you
(22:55):
and the answer is not really, Idon't, then you probably want
to build because you're notgoing to just by continuing to
cut.
So that's that's the first one.
Step two is you have to committo this.
And by commit I mean eating atmaintenance or a slight surplus
for six to 12 months.
We're not talking about a dirtybulk that's that's 1990s where
(23:15):
you gain excessive fat.
I'm talking about a controlbuilding phase where you add
muscle slowly while stayingrelatively I'll say relatively
lean or whatever your leannessis now and you're just going to
get leaner because you're addingthe muscle right it's very hard
for people to grasp this, butyou could actually gain a little
bit of weight and be leanerbecause more most of that weight
is muscle.
Now how much of a surplus?
(23:35):
In terms of percentage bodyweight a week I'm going to say
anywhere from 0.3 to 0.5% bodyweight a week all right which
for a lot of people is likemaybe a half to a pound a month
maybe more than that for menmaybe it could be two pounds a
month no more than that.
It usually amounts to a hundredto three hundred calories above
maintenance.
So you could do this withmacrofactor you could do this by
(23:57):
by hand you could do this usingmy app.
It doesn't matter just that youare intentional about it and
making sure you're not dippinginto constant restriction like
before step three is of courseyou're training you've got to
train for this that means enoughvolume, right?
Typically 10 or 15 hard setsper muscle group per week.
Use progressive overload whichmeans you're gradually
increasing the weight or thereps or sets over time but
(24:20):
generally the weight trainingwithin one to three reps of
failure on most working sets,using compound movements
combined with isolation work,all that fun stuff we've had
several episodes recently abouttraining, about training volume.
We did an episode aboutstrength versus hypertrophy.
It's all in the library if youneed something specific reach
out.
How about find me on Instagramat wits and weights and send me
(24:40):
a message this is the part thatrequires consistency and this is
the part that a lot of peoplescrew up because they're like
okay I'm going to go into aslight surplus and then I'm
going to train and then I miss atraining session and then I
miss another one.
You're probably going to wantto train three or four days a
week and you're going to want totrack your progress.
So again there are multipleways to do this you can use an
app, you can use a notebook, youcan use Fitness lab, it doesn't
(25:01):
matter.
If you've been using the sameweight for months, the same pink
dumbbells that's I'm sorry ifthat's derogatory but that's it
kind of gets the point across.
If you're doing the YouTubecircuit training workouts, if
you're doing the CrossFit styleworkouts and nothing's
improving, you're not buildingmuscle, right?
At best you're maintainingsomething and being a little bit
fit, but you're not actuallybuilding maintaining muscle.
Then of course you've got theprotein and the nutrition side.
(25:22):
And so we we talked about beingin a surplus but part of that
surplus is having sufficientprotein up to a gram per pound
of body weight.
For most people it's 0.7 to onegram per pound.
So take your body weight andget kind of close to that like
just a ballpark it I weigh about180 so I try to get 160 to 180.
If you weigh 200 it's 180 to200.
(25:42):
If you only weigh 150 poundsyou're trying to get like 120 to
150 something like that.
And then we've got sleep andstress sleeping at least seven
to eight hours managing yourstress also getting enough steps
all that stuff.
We're not going to go throughall these pillars again today
but whatever you're doing in fatloss to maintain your energy
and metabolism you're stillgoing to do that when you're
(26:03):
building muscle it's not likeyou give that up you still want
to be active you still want tomove around you're not going to
sit around all day.
And then and then only then sowe're talking six to 12 months
of building when you then decideto cut you to make it short and
deliberate.
I would honestly just do thewhole building phase
continuously and then do afocused six to 10 week cut at
(26:23):
around a half to 0.75% of yourbody weight a week.
We're going to talk about adifferent option later in the
episode that might be even morestrategic for some of you, but
that's generally what Irecommend.
And then you're going to getback to maintenance or building
so you're not going to stretchthe cutout.
You're just going to not chasea lower number on the scale
you're going to get in, removethe fat, get out.
Understand that your overallbody weight may actually trend
(26:43):
kind of slightly up over time.
You know it's going to go upand down with the building and
the fat loss but then the neteffect is probably slightly up
because of muscle.
And that's a great thingbecause you're going to be
leaner, higher body weighthigher metabolism more food all
that jazz.
And then just repeat this goingforward and most of your ears
are going to look like this longperiods of building or
(27:04):
maintenance brief periods ofcutting you're going to
accumulate muscle you're goingto improve your metabolism the
cuts are going to be reallyshort and easy.
And that is what I mean bybecoming a person who rarely
needs to diet that will be youridentity as you you perform
you're an athlete you lift youtrain you eat you fuel and
occasionally you drop some fat.
And it's not being geneticallyblessed.
(27:25):
It's because you're working onbuilding this infrastructure of
muscle.
So we've covered a lot allright before I wrap up I want
you to stick around I'm going toshare what I call the mini cut
accelerator.
It's a specific approach to fatloss where you can push a
little harder finish a littlebit faster and protect more
muscle than conventional cuttingthat I just talked about and it
(27:46):
might change how you approachyour cuts.
But a lot of you are lookingfor tools to help you do this.
So if you need a tool to helpimplement any of these
approaches whether musclebuilding executing a strategic
mini cut and you're looking forsupport from human coaches and
others in a community physiqueuniversity is where we coach
people through this.
And what's cool is coming up onJanuary 20th we're going to do
(28:10):
a workshop called Get Lean in 45days.
It's going to be a completeframework for executing the kind
of short aggressive musclesparing cut that I'm about to
describe in a second.
It's the exact setup it's themacros it's training we're going
to have a specific trainingprogram for the 45 days how to
transition out withoutrebounding.
(28:31):
And again that's going to beJanuary 20th but if you join
physique university now you'llhave a few weeks to do some of
the prep work because you wantto be ready for this.
This is not for everyone youcan't just jump in.
This is not a quick fix.
You have to have your nutritiona bit dialed in you have to
have your baseline your trainingthings like that dialed in but
we can get you some of thoseresources in advance only if you
join physique university or ifyou're already in and if you're
(28:54):
ready hit the ground runningthen in January 20th that's how
you can do it.
So go to wits and weights.comslash physique link in the show
notes go to wits and weights.comslash physique join us in
physique university for the getlean in 45 days workshop.
All right so let's talk aboutthat strategy the mini cut
accelerator most people aregoing probably too slow for too
(29:14):
long which sounds anathema towhat I talk about because we are
all about sustainability.
The problem is a 12 or 16 weekmoderate deficit even though it
sounds sustainable because therate of loss is less it tends to
be psychologically hard on somepeople it really is.
12 or 16 weeks on paper doesn'tsound like that long.
It's three or four months butin reality it starts to feel
(29:36):
kind of fatiguing and kind oftedious right and again not
everybody.
For some people it's perfectbut for others I've found that
something like a four to sixweek mini cut is going to be
extremely effective and it's abalance between very rapid fat
loss.
That's a different protocolthat I've that I teach and kind
of a standard cut that we talkedabout earlier.
(29:57):
And in a four to six week minicut you are pushing about one to
1.2% of your body weight loss aweek right so it's a little bit
faster than that typical halfto one percent recommendation.
And because it's short, you'restill not risking any muscle
loss.
So this brevity the shortnessis what protects you.
You know you again going backto my earlier points about your
(30:20):
metabolism will start adapting,your hormones start to
downregulate, you don't reallyget much time to hit that phase,
which is a good thing.
And then psychologically youcan push harder knowing that
there's a clear end date.
So for a lot of people this isreally powerful.
Let's say you're a 180 poundperson that might look like 1.8
to 2.2 pounds a week for four tosix weeks which is eight to 12
(30:41):
pounds of fat.
This is a very common archetypeespecially a lot of men that I
work with who are eating adecent amount of calories and
they weigh around that 180 to200, they can lop off like 10
pounds of fat.
If you are let's say 130 or 40pounds, you could still get you
know four to eight pounds offat.
It's all relative, right?
Compare that to someone whokind of has to grind away for
(31:03):
like four months for 16 weeksand there's this little bit of
hunger and fatigue the wholetime it's not a lot but it's
enough to make it feel like agrind even though on paper it
seems more conservative andsustainable.
The problem or the key here isit only works if you've built
the foundation first.
So this doesn't happen nextweek or in two weeks as we start
(31:24):
the new year.
This is either during a longbuilding phase or after.
And so I mentioned earlyearlier I recommend doing these
after you do have the optionlet's say you're planning to
build for 12 months let's sayafter six months you do a mini
cut and then you get back in itand finish the year out strong.
So you're kind of sandwichingthe mini cut in between two
maintenance two building phases.
(31:45):
And really that's all it is.
So you've got to get that inplace first and that workshop I
mentioned the get lean in 45days that's exactly what we're
covering a full framework forexecuting this.
So if you want to get access tothat and do the prep work join
us in physique university go towitsandweights.com slash
physique and we're going to helpyou execute that 45 day mini
(32:06):
cut and learn all about it.
All right until next time keepusing your wits lifting those
weights and remember that 2026is your year to build not just
to cut I'm Philip Pape and I'lltalk to you next time here on
Wits and Weights
Every January, millions of people start cutting
calories to lose fat.
By March, most have quit.
Frustrated, tired, no leanerthan before.
And the problem isn'tdiscipline, it's that they're
trying to diet their way into abody they never built.
Today I am flipping the scripton how you approach 2026.
You'll learn why muscle is anasset, while cutting is just
(00:24):
maintaining what you have.
How to escape the cycle ofchronic dieting, and why people
who build muscle first end upneeding to diet less often for
the rest of their lives.
Welcome to Wits and Weights,the show that helps you build a
(00:46):
strong, healthy physique usingevidence, engineering, and
efficiency.
I'm your host, certifiednutrition coach, Philip Cape,
also the creator of Fitness Lab.
And as we head into a new year,into 2026, I want to challenge
the default mode that mostpeople are operating from.
The assumption that fat loss isthe goal, that cutting is the
(01:07):
strategy to get there, and thateverything else falls second
behind that.
Today's episode is about afundamental shift in thinking.
The idea that muscle is theasset and cutting is just
maintenance.
I want to kind of flip aroundhow you think about both cutting
and bulking.
The goal is not to get betterat dieting, it's to build a body
(01:30):
that requires dieting lessoften.
So we're going to cover threethings.
First, why cutting alone keepsfailing you, even when you do it
right.
Second, the structuraladvantage that muscle provides
for your metabolism, your fatloss, your long-term physique,
and your longevity.
And third, how to design 2026so that fat loss becomes short,
(01:52):
infrequent, and almosteffortless compared to what
you've experienced before.
And then I want you to stickaround until the end because I'm
going to share a specific ruleabout cutting that most people
get backward that will let youlose fat faster while protecting
more muscle.
It's counterintuitive, but itcould change how you approach
(02:12):
all of your fat loss phases fromhere on out.
So stick around to the end forthat.
All right, let's start with theproblem with this cut first
mentality, this fat loss firstmentality.
And it's a pattern that I'veseen hundreds of times where
someone decides, hey, I need tolose that 10, 20, 30 pounds of
fat, and I'm gonna go in acalorie deficit.
Then you start seeing someresults, then progress stalls,
(02:34):
then you cut calories more,maybe you add some cardio,
progress stalls again.
Eventually you're eating verylittle, exercising a ton, maybe
exhausted a lot, and then barelylosing anything.
And this is men, women, allages, all sizes, all hormonal
situations, right?
I see it time and again.
And so then you take a break,then you tend to regain the
weight because you're nottracking, or it just was too
(02:57):
restrictive.
And then the cycle starts againnext year.
And you know, we see a patternthroughout the year as well
between the seasons, especiallyas we get toward the holidays,
which we're just finishing now.
So this is a great time toreset this pattern.
And for some people, this hasbeen going on for decades,
right?
People in their 50s and 60swho've been doing it since their
20s.
We know that on average, womentry over 100 diets in their
(03:19):
lifestyle, for example.
And then you're just losing andregaining, I'll say the same 20
pounds, but it's not even thesame 20 pounds.
It's you're losing muscle andgaining fat in addition to the
fat that you've lost and gained,if that makes sense.
So you're actually gettingworse and worse body composition
over time.
And then the frustrating thingis these are often very
disciplined, smart people.
They listen to this podcast.
(03:39):
They're not, you know, failingbecause of uh willpower, as
we've talked about before.
It's because of the system andthe structure.
And I call this the cuttingfirst trap.
You guys, not you guys, but alot of you listening fall into
this.
A lot of you are desperate tolose weight, are so obsessed
with the scale, and that's thething holding you back.
And understanding this requireslooking at what dieting
(04:02):
actually does and what itdoesn't do, right?
So the core problem here iswhen you cut calories and you
just don't have enough musclemass, yes, you're reducing your
body weight, but you're notimproving your body's capacity
to handle the energy coming in,the food that's coming in.
You're not building metabolicresilience, right?
You are not creating a moreefficient machine.
(04:25):
What you're doing is gettingsmaller, which you might say,
well, that was my goal.
But then you're getting weakerand you're actually getting
worse body composition.
The research on this is prettyclear that energy deficits
absolutely are gonna reduce yourbody mass, that's
thermodynamics, but they don'timprove your strength.
They don't improve your workcapacity, they don't improve
your metabolic health on theirown.
Now, I've I've given the caveatbefore that if you have a lot
(04:47):
of weight to lose, if you'relike three, 400 pounds and you
lose 100 pounds by almost anymeans, you're probably gonna
have a net improvement in yourhealth, but you could have a
much better improvement in yourhealth and the ability to
sustain that health with whatwe're gonna talk about today,
which is resistance training,sufficient muscle, so that
dieting does not lead to losingthat lean mass, reducing your
(05:09):
training performance, lowerenergy flux, worse body
composition just because thescale is lower, because the the
end goal is not to have a lowerscale weight, is it?
And if you think it is, keeplistening to this episode.
Two people can lose the sameamount of weight and end up with
radically different physiquesdepending on how much muscle
they started with and how muchthey held on to.
One person can look very lean,very defined, very athletic.
(05:33):
The other looks smaller butstill soft, what people call
skinny fat.
We've talked about that before.
And many of you have lostweight and then you're not
happy, and then you think theanswer is to lose more weight.
Stop, stop.
That's not gonna get you there,right?
It's not the weight loss.
This is why cutting alone isnot gonna work.
Not because cutting itselfisn't useful, it's very useful,
(05:53):
but cutting without thestructural foundation of muscle
is extremely inefficient.
And you're somebody put it bestthat you can't sculpt a pebble,
right?
You can sculpt a nice slab ofmarble, but you can't sculpt a
pebble.
So the first shift here is stopthinking of fat loss as the
primary goal.
As much as I talk about fatloss on this episode as a goal,
(06:15):
don't think of it as the primarygoal.
Start thinking of muscle as theasset, the thing you're
building, the thing that you'regonna keep around for a long
time that's gonna makeeverything easier.
And then cutting is this littletask to maintain that asset
from a better state, whetherthat state is better muscle
(06:35):
definition, physique, health,what have you.
You've got to have the musclethere.
So that leads me to the nextpoint I want to talk about,
which is muscle as thisinfrastructure for your body,
not just for the for aesthetics,even though that's a wonderful
side effect for many of us,right?
It's not just about lookinglike you lift, even though
that's a great selling point.
Muscle is not just cosmetic,right?
(06:58):
It's a major aspect of yourhealth and of making fat loss
easier.
From a physiology standpoint,skeletal muscle, this is a major
site, for example, of glucosedisposal.
When you eat carbs, muscletissue absorbs a significant
portion of that glucose.
More muscle means betterglucose handling, which means
better insulin sensitivity.
(07:19):
This is why strength trainingis probably the number one
recommendation for people withblood sugar issues.
I go on diabetes podcasts, Italk about pre-diabetes, type 2
diabetes, and people ask me,like, what's what's the first
recommendation you have, orwhat's the highest priority?
And I usually say it's strengthtraining because a lot of
people with blood sugar issuesknow about walking.
Walking is also important,sleep is also important.
(07:40):
But if you're not strengthtraining, that could be the
biggest issue because muscle isa metabolic sink.
It has somewhere to put thatglucose instead of storing it as
fat.
And the insulin-triggereduptake of glucose, the first
place it's going to go isskeletal muscle, or I should say
80% of it's gonna go toskeletal muscle.
So if you have more of thatmuscle, you're able to dispose
more of it.
Another thing muscle does isreleases compounds called
(08:03):
myokines that influence your fattissue and your liver, also
other organs like your pancreasand your brain.
These are signaling moleculesthat improve your metabolic
flexibility.
And that's your ability to burndifferent sources of energy,
right?
Carbs and fats, whatever,depending on how you're
consuming your food and movingat the time.
The metabolic value of muscleis far less about how many more
(08:24):
calories it burns and more aboutthings like nutrient
partitioning and tolerance forwhat you're eating, how much
you're eating, the types of foodyou're eating.
People love to talk about howmuscle burns more calories at
rest, and it does maybe six tonine calories per day extra,
which matters over time.
It's not nothing, but it's notthe main benefit.
The real benefit is that youcan eat more food with fewer
(08:46):
negative downstream effects.
You can have your carbs go moretoward muscle glycogen instead
of fat storage, your proteingoing toward muscle repair
instead of oxidation, right?
And so if I see this withclients, I see this with a lot
of you listeners who are doingthis the right way.
You focus on building muscle,you build, let's say, 10 pounds
of muscle over a year.
Totally doable for men andwomen, right?
Men could probably build alittle more, but doesn't matter.
(09:08):
And their scale weight might bethe same, might be a little
higher, depending on how theyapproached it.
Did they do a bulk?
Did they do it closer tomaintenance?
But they're probably eatingmore food.
Their metabolism has gone up,their energy is better, they're
training stronger, they lookleaner.
That's the power of nutrientpartitioning without even having
to do a fat loss phase.
And that's why two people caneat the same diet and have
(09:29):
different body compositions.
And that's why you see peoplecomplain that, you know, I can't
eat as much as this otherperson.
Now, we shouldn't compareourselves to each other because
some people just havegenetically lower metabolisms on
average, but they can stillmove the needle, right?
It's the people with moremuscle are gonna be able to
handle the fuel a lot better.
And it's gonna affect all theseother things, which then become
more critical as we age.
(09:51):
Think about sarcopenic obesity.
This is the combination of lowmuscle mass, high body fat,
reduced functional capacity aswe age.
This is a phenotype, right?
Low muscle and high fat.
That is probably the mostassociated with the worse health
outcomes, than either of themalone.
Meaning, if you have a lot ofmuscle mass, you're gonna
(10:11):
significantly blunt that effect.
If you have low body fat, evenif you don't have a lot of
muscle, that's gonna be abenefit as well.
But having both is extremelybeneficial.
It affects your mobility, yourmetabolic health, your
longevity.
And then chronic dieting allthe time, especially without
resistance training, acceleratesthis phenotype again of high
body fat and low muscle mass.
(10:32):
Where even when you loseweight, you're losing the wrong
kind of weight.
You're losing muscle and thenfat comes back, muscle doesn't
come back because you're notdoing anything to bring it back.
So from this lens, cuttingwithout first building muscle,
it's not just a matter of beinginefficient.
It is highly counterproductive.
You're setting yourself up forthis awful phenotype of aging,
(10:55):
of sick aging, I'll call it,that creates the most problems
down the road.
So muscle's not optional, guys.
Like anytime I hear someonesay, Yeah, I'm not resistance
training, maybe I'll do it.
It's not my focus right now.
I'm like, what are you doing?
Get your act together.
We have to resistance train.
Doesn't mean lifting weights ina very specific way, but it
does mean following theprinciples of resistance
(11:16):
training to build strength ofmuscle, which we're gonna touch
on a little bit later, right?
It's not a nice to have.
Muscle's the foundation thatmakes all of this work together.
Now, before we move on totalking about how and when you
should cut, if you're planningout your year, if you want
personalized guidance onbuilding muscle and optimizing
nutrition and knowing when andhow to cut and what to do on a
(11:39):
daily basis.
You want to wake up and knowhere are the few things that I
should do to continue moving theneedle.
The Fitness Lab app is what Ibuilt to do exactly that.
It's an AI-powered coaching appthat is a game changer.
It gives you daily briefings,it gives you daily activities
based on your data, based onyour training and your nutrition
patterns, your biofeedback.
(12:00):
It's not generic advice.
It's highly adaptable andpersonalized to you.
You don't have to go to ChatGPTand figure stuff out.
It will literally tell youhere's what to do today, and
here and then tomorrow it'lltell you what to do tomorrow
based on what happened today.
So it adapts to what'shappening to you in your body.
And through January 2nd, just afew days left, you can get 20%
off as part of our holidaypromotion.
(12:20):
Just go to wits and weights.comslash app.
The link is also in the shownotes.
That's witsandweights.com slashapp.
All right.
Now let's get into the partmost people miss, which is why
short, infrequent cuts areprobably the best approach for
most people.
And then quick reminder at theend of this episode, I'm going
to share what I call the minicut accelerator.
(12:41):
All right, this is a specificapproach that lets you lose fat
faster than conventional cutsand still protect your muscle.
And it's counterintuitive, butit's a nice balance between
speed and sustainability.
So stick around after for thattoward the end of the episode.
All right.
So let's talk about cutting.
If you're cutting most of theyear, you're probably doing it
(13:04):
wrong.
If you're cutting most of theyear, you're probably doing it
wrong.
Now, this doesn't, this is notspeaking to someone who has like
50 or 100 pounds or more tolose and is doing this slowly
over a long time because that istheir priority.
This is the vast majority ofyou who are more concerned with
10, 20, 30 pounds of fat tolose.
Muscle is slow to build, butit's very durable once you have
(13:24):
it.
It's actually kind of easy tomaintain.
Fat is actually pretty easy tocut off.
You might hear that and say, Ohyeah, right.
Get in my body and tell methat.
But it's it's relatively easyto cut off when you've built the
muscle.
This is my point.
With reasonable training andnutrition, you can maintain
muscle mass with as little as aneighth of the effort that it
took to build it.
So that's what I mean by it'san asset, it compounds.
(13:46):
It's like once you've got it,it's pretty easy to hold on to
it.
Even if you lose it because youstop training for six months,
it'll come back very fast.
Amazing how the body works.
Fat loss is different.
It's very fast, it's a lotfaster than muscle building, but
it's kind of fragile, right?
It's easy to reverse and it'shard to maintain without ongoing
effort.
The moment you stop a deficit,the body is going to return to
(14:07):
its previous state.
I don't mean you're gonna gainall the fat back, but it's going
to want to get to some level ofhomeostasis.
If you're not careful, thatcould then also mean creep up in
weight.
And then the deficitsaccumulate a lot of costs to you
and your body and your psyche.
Diet fatigue, physical fatigue,reduced performance, hormonal
disruption, downregulation,increased hunger, decreased
(14:29):
motivation.
It's not great to be in a dietfor very long.
Let's just be honest.
There's no, there's no likegood diet in terms of a dieting
phase.
So if your default state isthat level of restriction, then
something structurally is notgoing to work long term.
It's off.
You're paying these costs inyou're paying costs to try to
maintain something that youdon't even have yet, instead of
(14:52):
being in a more fueled state andbuilding something that's then
going to allow you to cutwithout the same level of cost.
So it's I to me it's a win-winto do it this other way.
So, what does that look like?
What does a well-designed yearlook like for most people?
In my opinion, rule of thumb,80% or more of your time is
(15:12):
spent at maintenance or a slightsurplus, focused on building
strength, on you know, buildingmuscle mass, on recovering, on
enjoying food, on living life tothe fullest and not worrying
about dieting at all.
In fact, I just had a clientreach out to me who's been in
maintenance for a while now.
She's getting stronger, and shelost she lost a bunch of fat
(15:33):
initially together, and then wewent back to maintenance.
And a little doubt in her mindwas like, I feel like I have to
lose another couple pounds, butI'm loving what I'm doing.
And people say I look great.
And and then, and it was like,look, you answered your own
question.
Like, this is not the time tocut.
If you have, if you want to cuttwo or three pounds at some
point in the future, we could doit very strategically.
But let's be honest, you'reloving this life, and that's
(15:53):
where I want most of you to be,dear listener.
That's where I want you to be.
So 80% or more of your timespent in maintenance or slight
surplus, and then maybe six to10 weeks at most, either two
short phases or one medium tolong phase at most, and some of
you just a very short phase ofintentional cutting to remove
any accumulated fat for whatevergoal you have, which for many
people is like in the springleading to summer, get a little
(16:16):
bit shredded.
I hate to use the word shreddedbecause it implies extreme
leanness, just to get a littleget a little bit more muscle
definition when you, you know,have your shirt off or you're
wearing a bathing suit,whatever.
And that's it.
Shortcuts, infrequent cuts, therest of the time you're
building or maintaining whatyou've built.
Now, what kind of lifestyle isthat?
It's that's an awesome one.
And compare the style mostpeople operate, where they try
(16:37):
to cut for four to six months orindefinitely, let's be honest,
and then they might break thecut for a few weeks to recover
or because they just can't do itanymore, and then they keep
going and they're always in astate of metabolic adaptation.
They're always restricting,spending 70, 80% of the year in
restricting, restricting,restricting, wondering why they
never actually look better andget the result they want, and
(16:58):
thinking this stuff just doesn'twork, or even that calorie
deficits don't work.
Here's why the muscle firstapproach works so much better.
I mean, guys, this is myopinion, but I think it's very
well supported by evidence andwhat I see with my own clients,
those using my app, those in thegroup program.
Physiologically, short cuts,okay, doing a cut for a short
(17:22):
period of time, what's it gonnado?
It's gonna limit how much leanmass you lose, how much muscle
mass you lose, if any, becausethe longer a cut goes, the
greater risk you have for losingmuscle mass.
Your body adapts to thatrestriction also, right?
Your metabolism will slow downslightly.
This just is gonna happen.
It's totally normal.
Your hunger is gonna go up,your training performance is
gonna drop.
And again, shortcuts are gonnaminimize this.
(17:44):
I don't want to call it damage,but this not so great living
state of you know, low energybecause you're not giving your
body time to adapt to it in ashortcut, which is a good thing,
right?
Like a shortcut is gonna maybedip into that regime a little
bit, but then you're done beforeyou know it.
Psychologically, living mostlyoutside a deficit is gonna
(18:06):
reduce burnout.
It's gonna improve youradherence over the long term.
The S-word, sustainability.
It's gonna reinforce also youridentity as a lifter, as an
athlete, someone who's building,someone who's operating at a
high level of performance, notas someone who's always dieting
and saying no and restrictingand feeling, you know,
emotionally stressed by all ofthis.
(18:27):
And then here's acounterintuitive observation
that I've seen repeatedly withclients.
Many people with sufficientmuscle mass just naturally lose
fat over time while they're inmaintenance phases for a long
time.
And they're not evenintentionally doing it, they're
not restricting.
It's just because that higherenergy flux, they're eating
more, they're training hard,they're moving more, they're not
(18:50):
packing on a bunch of fat frombeing in a big surplus, but
they're just slowly recompingover time.
And that creates an environmentwhere the body naturally wants
to be leaner, right?
That's recomposition.
Now, the the most optimal orquickest way to build muscle is
to go into a slight surplus.
And by slight, I mean reallyslight.
But for many of you, just beingat maintenance, living with
(19:12):
enough muscle that your bodyhandles the energy more
efficiently can get the jobdone.
So, the goal I want you tointernalize here is not to
become a better dieter.
I think a lot of you are tryingto develop this skill of
dieting, which to be fair, wegive you the tools here on the
show to try to do that becauseat some point you do go through
a cut and there's tools forthat.
But what I want you tointernalize is building a body
(19:36):
that requires dieting lessoften.
Then fat loss is just thesebrief, almost routine
maintenance tasks.
And I see it all the time.
People I've worked with for awhile who've spent the time to
build the muscle, they're like,yeah, I'm just gonna do a quick
fat loss phase, gonna take fouror five weeks, cut a few pounds,
boom, then get back to it.
That's far better than thisexhausting year or years long
(19:57):
struggle that most peopleexperience.
So I went.
briefly connect this to theGLP1 era we're in now as well.
Stick with me.
Okay.
I don't think this is going tobe controversial.
I'm going to I'm going to applysome nuance to this.
Medications like semaglatide orzepitide, you know, are wake
are making rapid weight lossvery accessible to millions of
people.
And many of you are probablytaking these.
(20:18):
And I have clients who takethese.
All good.
For some people, they aregenuinely helpful tools that
address real physiologicalchallenges with appetite
regulation.
Okay.
We had Jamie Selzeron talkedabout that exact thing and he's
doing it the right way.
Love it.
I'm not anti-medication.
Okay.
The concern is this that rapidweight loss without the
resistance training is whatcreates the scenario I've
(20:41):
already described.
And it tends to accelerate itthe reduced muscle mass, the
lower metabolic capacity, aphysique that is lower on the
scale but may not be improved orfeel different the way you want
it to be.
And many people are takingthese medications need to lose
weight for health reasons.
And so it's an independentgoal, let's say.
And then when you stop themedication or when your body
(21:03):
adapts, then you, you know, youget back where you're started.
And many people on thesemedications then are worse off
and they end up gaining theweight back and they're gaining
more body fat.
And then it's kind of thisvicious cycle to the extreme.
And that's why I think themuscle first philosophy matters
today more than ever, to behonest.
So whatever tool you use tomanage appetite, which we're
going to have a whole series onappetite starting next week
(21:25):
throughout January, we're goingto talk about lifestyle-based
appetite management, naturalappetite suppressants,
pharmacological, we're going totalk about all those tools.
Whatever tool you use to dothat or to create a deficit, the
strength training piece isstill non-negotiable.
The solution is the same nomatter what tool you're using.
Resistance training, adequateprotein to preserve and build
muscle during weight loss.
(21:47):
Right.
So this again this is just thecut side of the equation.
So if you're already if you'reyou know considering using these
meds or you're already on them,make sure to double down on
strength training.
I don't mean do double thestrength training I mean double
down as in do it, make it apriority, make muscle and
strength a priority.
Let the medication handle theappetite piece and those two can
work together really, reallywell because the goal isn't just
(22:09):
weight loss.
It's building the physiquethat's durable, that's
functional, that's sustainableand that requires muscle.
All right so how do we design2026 as your muscle first year
and not worry about things likegetting too bulky or gaining too
much fat.
All right.
How do you do this?
I would first assess whereyou're starting from how much
muscle do you have?
Have you never lifted before orhave you lifted for two
(22:31):
decades?
Two different populations,right?
How well do you recover?
What is your training age?
How long have you been liftingconsistently?
Because if you've been cuttinga lot for many years without any
time building at all, then youprobably have very little muscle
to work with and that meansyour first priority is
absolutely to build muscle, notto cut.
If you look like you lift rightnow, whatever that means to you
(22:55):
and the answer is not really, Idon't, then you probably want
to build because you're notgoing to just by continuing to
cut.
So that's that's the first one.
Step two is you have to committo this.
And by commit I mean eating atmaintenance or a slight surplus
for six to 12 months.
We're not talking about a dirtybulk that's that's 1990s where
(23:15):
you gain excessive fat.
I'm talking about a controlbuilding phase where you add
muscle slowly while stayingrelatively I'll say relatively
lean or whatever your leannessis now and you're just going to
get leaner because you're addingthe muscle right it's very hard
for people to grasp this, butyou could actually gain a little
bit of weight and be leanerbecause more most of that weight
is muscle.
Now how much of a surplus?
(23:35):
In terms of percentage bodyweight a week I'm going to say
anywhere from 0.3 to 0.5% bodyweight a week all right which
for a lot of people is likemaybe a half to a pound a month
maybe more than that for menmaybe it could be two pounds a
month no more than that.
It usually amounts to a hundredto three hundred calories above
maintenance.
So you could do this withmacrofactor you could do this by
(23:57):
by hand you could do this usingmy app.
It doesn't matter just that youare intentional about it and
making sure you're not dippinginto constant restriction like
before step three is of courseyou're training you've got to
train for this that means enoughvolume, right?
Typically 10 or 15 hard setsper muscle group per week.
Use progressive overload whichmeans you're gradually
increasing the weight or thereps or sets over time but
(24:20):
generally the weight trainingwithin one to three reps of
failure on most working sets,using compound movements
combined with isolation work,all that fun stuff we've had
several episodes recently abouttraining, about training volume.
We did an episode aboutstrength versus hypertrophy.
It's all in the library if youneed something specific reach
out.
How about find me on Instagramat wits and weights and send me
(24:40):
a message this is the part thatrequires consistency and this is
the part that a lot of peoplescrew up because they're like
okay I'm going to go into aslight surplus and then I'm
going to train and then I miss atraining session and then I
miss another one.
You're probably going to wantto train three or four days a
week and you're going to want totrack your progress.
So again there are multipleways to do this you can use an
app, you can use a notebook, youcan use Fitness lab, it doesn't
(25:01):
matter.
If you've been using the sameweight for months, the same pink
dumbbells that's I'm sorry ifthat's derogatory but that's it
kind of gets the point across.
If you're doing the YouTubecircuit training workouts, if
you're doing the CrossFit styleworkouts and nothing's
improving, you're not buildingmuscle, right?
At best you're maintainingsomething and being a little bit
fit, but you're not actuallybuilding maintaining muscle.
Then of course you've got theprotein and the nutrition side.
(25:22):
And so we we talked about beingin a surplus but part of that
surplus is having sufficientprotein up to a gram per pound
of body weight.
For most people it's 0.7 to onegram per pound.
So take your body weight andget kind of close to that like
just a ballpark it I weigh about180 so I try to get 160 to 180.
If you weigh 200 it's 180 to200.
(25:42):
If you only weigh 150 poundsyou're trying to get like 120 to
150 something like that.
And then we've got sleep andstress sleeping at least seven
to eight hours managing yourstress also getting enough steps
all that stuff.
We're not going to go throughall these pillars again today
but whatever you're doing in fatloss to maintain your energy
and metabolism you're stillgoing to do that when you're
(26:03):
building muscle it's not likeyou give that up you still want
to be active you still want tomove around you're not going to
sit around all day.
And then and then only then sowe're talking six to 12 months
of building when you then decideto cut you to make it short and
deliberate.
I would honestly just do thewhole building phase
continuously and then do afocused six to 10 week cut at
(26:23):
around a half to 0.75% of yourbody weight a week.
We're going to talk about adifferent option later in the
episode that might be even morestrategic for some of you, but
that's generally what Irecommend.
And then you're going to getback to maintenance or building
so you're not going to stretchthe cutout.
You're just going to not chasea lower number on the scale
you're going to get in, removethe fat, get out.
Understand that your overallbody weight may actually trend
(26:43):
kind of slightly up over time.
You know it's going to go upand down with the building and
the fat loss but then the neteffect is probably slightly up
because of muscle.
And that's a great thingbecause you're going to be
leaner, higher body weighthigher metabolism more food all
that jazz.
And then just repeat this goingforward and most of your ears
are going to look like this longperiods of building or
(27:04):
maintenance brief periods ofcutting you're going to
accumulate muscle you're goingto improve your metabolism the
cuts are going to be reallyshort and easy.
And that is what I mean bybecoming a person who rarely
needs to diet that will be youridentity as you you perform
you're an athlete you lift youtrain you eat you fuel and
occasionally you drop some fat.
And it's not being geneticallyblessed.
(27:25):
It's because you're working onbuilding this infrastructure of
muscle.
So we've covered a lot allright before I wrap up I want
you to stick around I'm going toshare what I call the mini cut
accelerator.
It's a specific approach to fatloss where you can push a
little harder finish a littlebit faster and protect more
muscle than conventional cuttingthat I just talked about and it
(27:46):
might change how you approachyour cuts.
But a lot of you are lookingfor tools to help you do this.
So if you need a tool to helpimplement any of these
approaches whether musclebuilding executing a strategic
mini cut and you're looking forsupport from human coaches and
others in a community physiqueuniversity is where we coach
people through this.
And what's cool is coming up onJanuary 20th we're going to do
(28:10):
a workshop called Get Lean in 45days.
It's going to be a completeframework for executing the kind
of short aggressive musclesparing cut that I'm about to
describe in a second.
It's the exact setup it's themacros it's training we're going
to have a specific trainingprogram for the 45 days how to
transition out withoutrebounding.
(28:31):
And again that's going to beJanuary 20th but if you join
physique university now you'llhave a few weeks to do some of
the prep work because you wantto be ready for this.
This is not for everyone youcan't just jump in.
This is not a quick fix.
You have to have your nutritiona bit dialed in you have to
have your baseline your trainingthings like that dialed in but
we can get you some of thoseresources in advance only if you
join physique university or ifyou're already in and if you're
(28:54):
ready hit the ground runningthen in January 20th that's how
you can do it.
So go to wits and weights.comslash physique link in the show
notes go to wits and weights.comslash physique join us in
physique university for the getlean in 45 days workshop.
All right so let's talk aboutthat strategy the mini cut
accelerator most people aregoing probably too slow for too
(29:14):
long which sounds anathema towhat I talk about because we are
all about sustainability.
The problem is a 12 or 16 weekmoderate deficit even though it
sounds sustainable because therate of loss is less it tends to
be psychologically hard on somepeople it really is.
12 or 16 weeks on paper doesn'tsound like that long.
It's three or four months butin reality it starts to feel
(29:36):
kind of fatiguing and kind oftedious right and again not
everybody.
For some people it's perfectbut for others I've found that
something like a four to sixweek mini cut is going to be
extremely effective and it's abalance between very rapid fat
loss.
That's a different protocolthat I've that I teach and kind
of a standard cut that we talkedabout earlier.
(29:57):
And in a four to six week minicut you are pushing about one to
1.2% of your body weight loss aweek right so it's a little bit
faster than that typical halfto one percent recommendation.
And because it's short, you'restill not risking any muscle
loss.
So this brevity the shortnessis what protects you.
You know you again going backto my earlier points about your
(30:20):
metabolism will start adapting,your hormones start to
downregulate, you don't reallyget much time to hit that phase,
which is a good thing.
And then psychologically youcan push harder knowing that
there's a clear end date.
So for a lot of people this isreally powerful.
Let's say you're a 180 poundperson that might look like 1.8
to 2.2 pounds a week for four tosix weeks which is eight to 12
(30:41):
pounds of fat.
This is a very common archetypeespecially a lot of men that I
work with who are eating adecent amount of calories and
they weigh around that 180 to200, they can lop off like 10
pounds of fat.
If you are let's say 130 or 40pounds, you could still get you
know four to eight pounds offat.
It's all relative, right?
Compare that to someone whokind of has to grind away for
(31:03):
like four months for 16 weeksand there's this little bit of
hunger and fatigue the wholetime it's not a lot but it's
enough to make it feel like agrind even though on paper it
seems more conservative andsustainable.
The problem or the key here isit only works if you've built
the foundation first.
So this doesn't happen nextweek or in two weeks as we start
(31:24):
the new year.
This is either during a longbuilding phase or after.
And so I mentioned earlyearlier I recommend doing these
after you do have the optionlet's say you're planning to
build for 12 months let's sayafter six months you do a mini
cut and then you get back in itand finish the year out strong.
So you're kind of sandwichingthe mini cut in between two
maintenance two building phases.
(31:45):
And really that's all it is.
So you've got to get that inplace first and that workshop I
mentioned the get lean in 45days that's exactly what we're
covering a full framework forexecuting this.
So if you want to get access tothat and do the prep work join
us in physique university go towitsandweights.com slash
physique and we're going to helpyou execute that 45 day mini
(32:06):
cut and learn all about it.
All right until next time keepusing your wits lifting those
weights and remember that 2026is your year to build not just
to cut I'm Philip Pape and I'lltalk to you next time here on
Wits and Weights
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