July 9, 2025 • 23 mins
Join my email list for exclusive content on the psychology of transformation that you won't find anywhere else. Go to witsandweights.com/email
--
Struggling with fat loss despite knowing exactly what to do? You're not alone.
The answer isn't about knowledge, it's about psychology.
Learn how the PERMA framework from positive psychology reveals the 5 psychological elements that separate people who sustain their transformation from those who remain stuck.
Discover how to engineer your fat loss approach to work WITH your psychology instead of against it, creating conditions where healthy behaviors actually feel good to maintain.
Main Takeaways:
- The intelligence paradox: Why smart people often struggle most with sustainable fat loss
- The 5 PERMA elements: Positive emotion, Engagement, Relationships, Meaning, and Accomplishment
- How to systematically engineer psychological momentum into your fat loss approach
- Why traditional approaches focus on mechanics but miss the psychological infrastructure
- How to audit yourself across the PERMA dimensions to identify your weakest area
Timestamps:
0:01 - The intelligence paradox in fat loss
3:22 - Why smart people struggle with fat loss
5:06 - Introduction to the PERMA framework
6:17 - P: Positive Emotion and cognitive flexibility
8:31 - E: Engagement and finding flow states
10:50 - R: Relationships and social connection
13:07 - M: Meaning and purpose-driven goals
14:05 - A: Accomplishment and self-efficacy
17:24 - How to engineer YOUR psychology
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Philip Pape (00:01):
What's fascinating is that the smartest people
often struggle the most withsustainable fat loss, not
because they lack knowledge, butbecause they're missing the
psychological infrastructurethat makes any system actually
work.
Today, we're looking at thePERMA framework from positive
psychology five psychologicalelements that separate people
(00:23):
who sustain their transformationand their results from those
who keep spinning their wheels.
You'll discover how to engineeryour fat loss system to work
with your psychology.
So if you're tired of feelinglike you're fighting yourself
every step of the way, thisepisode will help you achieve
success.
Welcome to Wits and Weights,the show that helps you build a
(00:53):
strong, healthy physique usingevidence, engineering and
efficiency.
I'm your host, certifiednutrition coach, philip Pape,
and today we're going back intomy training from positive
psychology and help you tacklesomething that might sound
counterintuitive to those of youwho love data and systems
thinking, like I do, becausewe're going to talk about why
(01:14):
your perfectly calculated plankeeps falling apart.
Not because of the numbers, butbecause you don't have the
psychological foundation thatmakes systems work for you.
Even if the system seemsquote-unquote perfect, or the
plan seems perfect, most peopleapproach fat loss, or really any
endeavor, as more of amechanical problem.
Energy balance, calories in,calories out, track your macros,
(01:37):
hit your target train, beconsistent, etc.
But what they're missing isengineering the psychological
elements that go along with thephysiology, and those often
determine whether you'llactually want to maintain those
behaviors over time.
And we are talking about muchmore than just habit theory here
.
I'm actually going to introduceyou to a framework from
(01:57):
positive psychology called PERMA, p-e-r-m-a, and we'll define
what that means.
Positive psychology is aspecial field of psychology
focused on the positive, notfixing the negative or dwelling
on issues with the brain, butactually focusing on adding in
the positive, and it wasdeveloped by Dr Martin Seligman,
I want to say, in the 90s.
(02:18):
It's not a very old field, butit's a very empowering field
when you can take away from itinto this industry, and I'm
going to show you how to applyit to create an approach for you
that is not just working onpaper but actually works in your
real life.
Now, before we get into thePERMA framework, I want to let
you know that I've been divingvery deep into this intersection
between psychology and physiquedevelopment and I'm trying to
(02:40):
create more exclusive contentaround mindset and psychological
approaches that you're notgoing to find anywhere else,
because it combines theengineering with the psychology,
with the health and fitness.
And if you want access to thiskind of deeper, more nuanced
content, join my email list.
Just go to witsandweightscomslash email.
That's where you're going toget that.
I rarely take anything fromthere and publish it elsewhere,
(03:02):
so it's a unique lens Plus.
You get notified of podcastepisodes and special promotions,
things like that, but mostlythis very unique content that I
think will help you, give youframeworks, give you strategies
that go beyond just themechanics of fat loss and into
the mental game, and that'sreally where things go up
another level.
Things can finally stick foryou.
All right, let's talk about whysmart people you're a smart
(03:25):
person, right Listening to thisshow, wits and Weights why we
struggle with fat loss and I saywe because I'm one of those,
along with you, not that I'msmart, but that I struggle with
fat loss.
Hopefully I'm a little bitsmart too, but that's a
different topic.
All right, the first thing Iwant to talk about is the
intelligence paradox, and thismight sting because if you are
listening to the show, as I justsaid, you're probably pretty
(03:48):
intelligent.
You have a successful career,or maybe you're a stay-at-home
mom or, in other ways, fulfilledat doing what you do best at
solving problems, understandingcomplex systems.
Yes, we all have challenges inour lives, of course, but you
have this intelligence that'sworking for you in many areas of
your life, but it might beworking against you when it
(04:08):
comes to your fitness, yourhealth, your sustainable fat
loss.
The reason why is thatintelligent people often
approach fat loss like theyapproach other problems, or a
problem at work, right, A verymechanical thing, where you
research it extensively, youcreate a detailed plan and then
you optimize for efficiency.
Well, yeah, philip, becausethat's what you talk about all
(04:29):
the time here, isn't it?
Well, that's part of it.
That's not all of it.
And if you treat your body justlike a machine, a physical
machine that respondspredictably to inputs, then
you're going to get frustratedwhen it doesn't seem to quite
work and you're going to assumethat you need better data, more
precise tracking, a moresophisticated approach.
And, as an aside, a lot of youare not even tracking the bare
(04:53):
minimum, and so there's a lot ofpower in getting more and
better and more precise data,for sure.
So I'm not going to discountthat at all.
It's the fact that that is notall you need.
So, if we look at the researchfrom positive psychology, it
tells us that sustainablebehavior change isn't about.
It stands for positive emotion,engagement, relationships,
(05:15):
meaning and accomplishment.
And these five elements arewhat psychologists have
identified as the corecomponents of human flourishing
(05:37):
and well-being, backed by lotsof research, lots of science.
And when your approach ismissing these elements, when
your life is missing theseelements, you are trying to
sustain behaviors that might notjive, that might make you feel
worse about yourself, about yourlife, and that is a recipe for
failure, no matter how perfectyour macros are.
Let's just be honest.
(05:57):
So I wanna break down.
You're like, okay, that's thePERMA framework from psychology,
great, how does that actuallyapply to fat loss?
Like when we get very specificand talk about getting lean,
building muscle, losing fat, thephysical things that we're
trying to manifest, to behealthier, to live longer, to
get the things that we want, tobe more confident, all of that.
So let's start with a P positiveemotion.
(06:19):
This isn't about delusional,toxic positivity.
It's not about pretendingeverything is great.
Positive emotions are criticalas humans.
They broaden our thinking andthey build our psychological
resources, because when you feelgood about your choices, like
your nutrition choices, you'remore likely to make good choices
(06:41):
in the future.
But most people are associatingtheir fat loss with negative
things like stress, like guilt,like deprivation, like
restriction.
They feel bad when they go overtheir calories, guilty when you
eat something off your plan,stressed about hitting your
targets every day.
All of that Sound familiar.
The research by BarbaraFredrickson, which is a very
(07:02):
well-known name in positivepsychology, shows that positive
emotions literally expand ourcognitive flexibility, right,
our brain's resilience, ourflexibility, and they help us
build lasting psychologicalresources.
It's kind of like your mentalbandwidth, and so in practical
terms, this means, if you canfind ways to feel good about
(07:22):
your fat loss process, you'regoing to be more creative than
in problem solving.
You're going to be moreresilient when you face those
setbacks and challenges, whichis guess what?
Hashtag life, and you're goingto be more motivated to continue
.
And I'm so sorry I did ahashtag in there, all my fellow
40 somethings.
We didn't grow up with that,I'm ashamed, but anyway, that is
(07:44):
where positive emotion comes in.
It is not being delusional.
As you guys know, I'm a prettypositive guy, kind of naturally,
but I've also cultivated theidea of having an optimism bias
and leaning into things that arepositive so that I get the
reinforcing feedback that thisis a good thing that I want to
keep doing.
Right, if you go to the gym andyou suffer and you think it's a
(08:05):
thing you hate and you don'tlike, of course you're not going
to do it.
But if you can make it apositive experience not forcing
that and not faking it, butactually doing things that make
it genuinely positive of courseyou're going to want to do more
of it.
So that's the first one how canyou make your situation, your
process, more positive?
Then we have E engagement.
(08:27):
Engagement is about findingflow.
Flow is a state you ever heardof the flow state?
It's a state where time seemsto stop and whatever you're
doing just feels intrinsicallyrewarding.
And just think about somethingyou so love to do that you get
lost for hours in it.
It might be woodworking, itmight be playing an instrument,
(08:48):
it might be playing a sportright, it could be just reading,
it doesn't matter, but it'ssomething challenging that puts
you into a flow state.
Right, it's not passive.
It's not, for example, playingvideo games as much as I love
those, to just pass the time andveg out.
It doesn't necessarily.
It's not necessarily the sameas being in a flow state.
Now, you don't have to be anelite athlete to experience flow
(09:10):
.
You don't have to be superskilled at something to
experience flow, but you canfind it in the process of
gaining skill and challengingyourself.
That could be cooking, mealprepping, mindful eating, like
all the things I'm talking aboutrelated to nutrition, even the
process of tracking your food.
You can get into a flow stateby shifting from a mentality of
(09:30):
checklist habits to engagingrituals right, instead of just
checking off okay, I hit myprotein.
Let's focus on the creativityof finding ways to incorporate
protein into meals that youenjoy, and that might be
researching recipes.
That might be using AI to putthings together.
That might be having fun at thegrocery store trying to find
(09:52):
ways to incorporate protein.
It might be planning out yourmeals right there's lots of
different ways and it might not.
It might feel, let's say, hardor even not that fun at first.
Right, engagement isn'tnecessarily quote unquote fun,
but challenging yourself andgetting in that flow state and
seeing a result will help youunderstand the output and feed
(10:14):
back to wanting to do more of it.
Very much like having thepositive emotions.
So finding a way to be in aflow state, and that might be
mindfulness when you're lifting,you know, turning the music off
and just really focusing on theform.
So this is kind of a complexarea.
When we talk about engagementand flow and I'm kind of just
scratching the surface, positivepsychology is a very deep field
(10:34):
.
So if you're more curious,definitely go look up the PERMA
model.
And that brings us to Rrelationships.
So P-E-R-M-A PERMA model andthat brings us to R
relationships, so P-E-R-M-APERMA relationships.
We as human beings areabsolutely wired for connection.
Our social environment has aninordinate, a dramatically high
influence on our habits.
(10:55):
I mean more than you canpossibly imagine.
Research shows that weight lossinterventions that involve
friends, partners, result insignificantly better outcomes
than solo efforts.
Right, that relatedness, thatcommunity, is massive and this
goes beyond just having atraining partner.
It's really creating thatidentity within all of your
relationships that supports yourgoals.
(11:17):
When your family understandsand supports your nutrition
choices.
When you have a community thatnormalizes the process, the ups
and downs, they don't judge you,they don't come in and say what
the heck are you doing?
That's weird, you're not goingto succeed that way.
No, when they're positive andthey normalize what you're doing
and they understand the ups anddowns.
(11:37):
When you feel connected ratherthan isolated in your efforts,
then everything becomes so mucheasier.
This is a huge point offriction for people and so if we
flip that around and we lookfor incorporating our identity
and leaning into it with ourrelationships and then seeing
what comes of that, seeing whatrelationships may be more toxic
(11:58):
than we want or need in our liferight now, seeing what Facebook
groups we should and shouldn'tbe in, who we should and
shouldn't follow, which podcastswe should and shouldn't listen
to, right, who we should talk toversus who maybe we just will
be friends, but they're notaligned with my goals right now.
So that's relationships.
Then we get to M for meaning.
So meaning is connecting yourbehavior to something bigger.
(12:21):
Some people call thisspirituality, some people call
this purpose.
It is just something biggerthan yourself and bigger than
the immediate results.
So this goes back to thesuperficial goals, the
short-term goals, the vanitygoals, which there's nothing
wrong with those.
Right, I want abs, I want sixpack abs for the summer.
But when pressure hits yoursystem from life, those goals
(12:45):
tend to collapse very quickly.
But meaning based goals like Iwant to be able to play with my
kids without pain, or I want tomodel healthy behavior for my
family.
Those are deeply rooted,they're so resilient, they don't
collapse as easily because lotsof things will flux up and down
and change in your life andyou're going to come back to
that mentally and say I stillwant that.
(13:07):
When something challenges you inthe short term, you might not
still say I need to have abs forsummer.
You get the difference rightand again, it's not right or
wrong, it's just how deep andmeaningful do you want it to be
to drive you.
Research shows that individualswith a greater sense of purpose
live longer and they engage inbetter health behaviors period.
(13:28):
And when your fat loss journeybecomes part of your larger life
mission right, we're nottalking about just losing weight
and getting skinny or gettinglean even.
We are talking about fat lossfor the purposes of metabolic
health, physical health, offitness, of healthy aging when
that becomes part of your largermission in life, then any
setbacks, any challenges justbecome that.
(13:50):
They become temporary obstaclesrather than the reason that
you're going to quit.
Because why would you quit whenyou have such a deep,
purposeful goal to go after?
And that brings us to the finalletter here A for
accomplishment.
I love accomplishment.
This is about buildingself-efficacy through meaningful
progress.
When somebody joins, forexample, physique University,
(14:11):
which we're going through a bigrelaunch now don't know if you
heard.
We used to.
It used to be 87 a month.
Now we have two tiers.
One is 27 a month because I'mtrying to make it more
accessible to more people sothat they can build this
self-efficacy, so that they canfind community A lot of the
things we're talking about heretoday.
And when somebody joins and saysyou know, I thought I was going
(14:32):
to come in here and you werejust going to tell me, tell me
my workouts, tell me the restperiod, show me the videos, and
just I was just going to followit.
I said, no, actually you'relucky.
You're lucky, you found usbecause we are going to teach
you to fish.
We're not going to give you afish.
We're going to show you how toprogram, how to make adjustments
, how to work with whatever yourgym environment is.
(14:53):
Whether it's now or you movefive years from now, or your
physical situation changes oryou have an injury, it doesn't
matter.
We're not going to stick you toone method or one program.
We're going to give you theprinciples right, and that gives
you self-efficacy, because it'snot about external validation
or hitting a specific program ornumbers or plan, whether it's a
(15:14):
template or anything.
It's the intrinsic satisfactionof growth and mastery.
I mean, let that sit with youfor a bit.
If that doesn't appeal to you,then I'm sorry.
You're not going to find muchfulfillment in your life.
I'm just going to be honestabout it.
But if you embrace this idea ofconstant growth which, yes,
means constant failures to getthat growth and mastery was yes.
(15:37):
Yes Means having a purpose andunderstanding yourself at a
deeper level and empoweringyourself through all of these
things we're talking about andfocusing on the process rather
than the outcome, that's goingto be powerful.
You're not just trying to lose20 pounds, you're not.
You're trying to focus on theday-to-day elements of mastery.
Now those could be very concretethings like okay, I'm going to
(15:59):
plan my meals today to eatprotein at every meal so that I
can make sure I get 150 grams ofprotein.
Nothing wrong with that,absolutely.
Those are all micro pieces ofthe process and those kinds of
behaviors are where the momentumcomes.
Those little actions, thosemicro actions, those micro goals
that all tie to your bigpurposeful goal.
That helps you build momentumand then create a sense of
(16:20):
competence, confidence andcompetence and progress.
Even when little things likeweight on the scale might not be
moving for a few days or a fewweeks, it doesn't matter.
You understand the big picture.
Now, as I'm explaining theseconcepts, I realize how much
deeper we can go into each ofthese.
I mean, I could do months andmonths of episodes related to
(16:41):
positive psychology, because theintersection between that and
engineering and physiquedevelopment is something I'm
very passionate about and I'mdeveloping more content around
that going forward, because Ithink frameworks are super
helpful and I think the fitnessindustry ignores this quite
frequently.
So if you want to get thatcontent, just a reminder I'm
diving deeper into this stuff,into the psychology of
(17:02):
sustainable change, in my emaillist.
Go to witsandweightscom slashemail.
I just wanted to remind youagain.
It came to mind that if youwant more of this, join my list.
You'll get more of it.
Witsandweightscom slash email.
All right.
So here's where my engineeringbrain gets really excited,
because you can engineer thepsychological elements into your
approach for something like fatloss.
(17:24):
And this isn't about hoping thatyou're going to feel motivated
right, we've talked aboutmotivation before.
That's not a thing.
It is really about creating theconditions that generate
positive emotions, engagement,meaningful connections, purpose
and accomplishment, per thePERMA model.
So for positive emotions, youmight find a way to document
(17:44):
your wins on a regular basis.
This could be a journal.
It could be as part ofcommunity.
You know we do that both in ourFacebook group and more
frequently in our PhysiqueUniversity, where we encourage
you to tell us what were yourwins.
Just lay it out there.
What were your wins, what wentwell?
We don't care about the thingsthat went not well, what went
well.
So you can look at where youfelt good about your choices and
(18:08):
lean into those.
For engagement, you could gamifyanything Like you can gamify
meal prep, try a new food eachweek.
You could approach your foodtracking like a scientist, like
you're gathering data about aninteresting experiment.
And if you use macro factor,you get all these graphs and
curves and sure you can go crazywith that.
But you could also use them andjust try to understand all of
(18:30):
these things and how they playtogether and really get in, get
engaged and get into the flow ofthat.
For relationships, maybe shareyour goals with your family,
invite their support, join acommunity.
Again, we have a free Facebookcommunity or jump right into
Physique University.
It's more accessible than ever.
For meaning, here's an idea Icame up with.
You can write a letter to yourfuture self describing how your
(18:53):
health goals connect to yourdeeper values and life mission.
So write a letter to yourfuture self describing how your
goals connect to your deepervalues and your life mission.
Literally, talk to yourself ofthe future, because that's going
to start to get you thinkingabout did you accomplish what
you intended to toward thatdeeper meaning in your future
(19:14):
self, because that is what youare embodying right now your
future self.
And then for accomplishment, Iwould say this is something
we've probably talked about alot, which is tracking
behavioral metrics, not just theoutcome metrics so that you can
be consistent, and that couldbe as simple as your training
log, but it could also bespecific habits that you want to
(19:37):
check off each day to make surethat you're doing them kind of
like an off on not necessarilythat you achieved a certain goal
, because the goal is fartherdown the line.
So what's brilliant about thiswhole framework, the PERMA
framework, is that when you getall five elements working
together, they create thissystem that reinforces itself
right, like the positiveemotions will then make you more
engaged.
When you're more engaged, guesswhat happens?
(19:59):
Your relationships arestrengthened.
The strong relationshipsactually give you more meaning
in your life, and thenmeaningful work leads to a
greater sense of accomplishment.
And then, finally, guess what?
The accomplishment generatesmore positive emotions, boom.
It all ties together.
This is psychological momentumwe're talking about right, or
(20:20):
upward spiraling is another wordthat's been used.
You're not going to whiteknuckle your way through a diet
hopelessly.
You're going to createconditions where the healthy
behaviors feel good to maintainand you want to do them.
Because when you're strugglingwith consistency, you can take
this framework now the PERMAframework, and audit yourself
across these five dimensions,because usually one or two areas
(20:42):
are quite a bit weaker than theothers.
Maybe you've got theaccomplishment piece down
because you're great at tracking, but you're missing the
relationship support.
Or maybe you're highly engagedwith the process, but then
you've lost sight of the deeperwhy the deeper?
Meaning.
So if you can identify theweakest PERMA element, that's
one way to focus your energy onstrengthening that, knowing that
(21:03):
it will improve markedly youroverall sustainability.
And I think about the mostsuccessful clients I've worked
with and, yeah, they're doingall the things, but they also
pay really close attention totheir psychological state.
They have a high level ofself-awareness Now.
They may not have it initially,and we work on that together.
It's part of the process.
May not have it initially, andwe work on that together.
It's, it's part of the process.
But they notice when they'restarting to feel the thing they
(21:24):
don't want to feel.
Maybe they feel deprived andthey're not empowered, even
though they were empowered for awhile.
And all of a sudden they'relike I'm starting to feel this
as a restrictive thing, and theycatch themselves, when the
process starts, feeling likedrudgery rather than growth.
And that's a great place to be,because now you're at a fork in
the road where you can dosomething about it, and then
people who feel good about theirprocess, then they make better
(21:45):
choices, people are engaged intheir habits, are more
consistent.
People who feel supported aremore resilient with periods,
when, when, during difficultperiods, and so guess what?
This is your life.
This isn't just fat loss, is it?
And I always like to bring itback to that, because at the end
of the day, you're like, hmm,it's a pretty cool framework for
everything I do, becausesustainable fat loss it's not
just about changing your body,but your relationship with the
(22:07):
process of change.
That's why I love it so muchbecause you can see it, it's
visceral and when you align theapproach with these psychology
of wellbeing, yourtransformation becomes enjoyable
and fulfilling as well, becauseit's aligned with your
flourishing and your well-being.
All right, if today's episoderesonated with you.
(22:28):
If you want to go deeper intothe psychology of all of this,
especially sustainabletransformation, I'm creating
exclusive content around theseframeworks.
You're not going to find itanywhere else.
Join my email list atwitsandweightscom slash email or
click the link in the shownotes and you'll get access to
some of these advancedstrategies, specific tools, deep
dive into psychology.
(22:49):
Something will absolutelyresonate.
I've heard from people all thetime where they might have
gotten 10 of my emails and youknow that's fine and then email
number 11 comes along.
They're like I had to hear this.
Oh, my God, that is me andthank you, you made my day.
Now I'm thinking differentlyand deeply about what's going on
and if we can change our livesthat way, that's powerful.
(23:10):
Go to witsowheightscom slashemail to get the content.
Until next time, keep usingyour wits lifting those weights
and remember, the mostsophisticated system in the
world is not going to work if itdoesn't work with your
psychology.
I want you to engineer yourapproach, but don't forget to
engineer your mindset as well.
I'll talk to you next time hereon the Wits and Weights podcast
(23:32):
.
What's fascinating is that the smartest people
often struggle the most withsustainable fat loss, not
because they lack knowledge, butbecause they're missing the
psychological infrastructurethat makes any system actually
work.
Today, we're looking at thePERMA framework from positive
psychology five psychologicalelements that separate people
(00:23):
who sustain their transformationand their results from those
who keep spinning their wheels.
You'll discover how to engineeryour fat loss system to work
with your psychology.
So if you're tired of feelinglike you're fighting yourself
every step of the way, thisepisode will help you achieve
success.
Welcome to Wits and Weights,the show that helps you build a
(00:53):
strong, healthy physique usingevidence, engineering and
efficiency.
I'm your host, certifiednutrition coach, philip Pape,
and today we're going back intomy training from positive
psychology and help you tacklesomething that might sound
counterintuitive to those of youwho love data and systems
thinking, like I do, becausewe're going to talk about why
(01:14):
your perfectly calculated plankeeps falling apart.
Not because of the numbers, butbecause you don't have the
psychological foundation thatmakes systems work for you.
Even if the system seemsquote-unquote perfect, or the
plan seems perfect, most peopleapproach fat loss, or really any
endeavor, as more of amechanical problem.
Energy balance, calories in,calories out, track your macros,
(01:37):
hit your target train, beconsistent, etc.
But what they're missing isengineering the psychological
elements that go along with thephysiology, and those often
determine whether you'llactually want to maintain those
behaviors over time.
And we are talking about muchmore than just habit theory here
.
I'm actually going to introduceyou to a framework from
(01:57):
positive psychology called PERMA, p-e-r-m-a, and we'll define
what that means.
Positive psychology is aspecial field of psychology
focused on the positive, notfixing the negative or dwelling
on issues with the brain, butactually focusing on adding in
the positive, and it wasdeveloped by Dr Martin Seligman,
I want to say, in the 90s.
(02:18):
It's not a very old field, butit's a very empowering field
when you can take away from itinto this industry, and I'm
going to show you how to applyit to create an approach for you
that is not just working onpaper but actually works in your
real life.
Now, before we get into thePERMA framework, I want to let
you know that I've been divingvery deep into this intersection
between psychology and physiquedevelopment and I'm trying to
(02:40):
create more exclusive contentaround mindset and psychological
approaches that you're notgoing to find anywhere else,
because it combines theengineering with the psychology,
with the health and fitness.
And if you want access to thiskind of deeper, more nuanced
content, join my email list.
Just go to witsandweightscomslash email.
That's where you're going toget that.
I rarely take anything fromthere and publish it elsewhere,
(03:02):
so it's a unique lens Plus.
You get notified of podcastepisodes and special promotions,
things like that, but mostlythis very unique content that I
think will help you, give youframeworks, give you strategies
that go beyond just themechanics of fat loss and into
the mental game, and that'sreally where things go up
another level.
Things can finally stick foryou.
All right, let's talk about whysmart people you're a smart
(03:25):
person, right Listening to thisshow, wits and Weights why we
struggle with fat loss and I saywe because I'm one of those,
along with you, not that I'msmart, but that I struggle with
fat loss.
Hopefully I'm a little bitsmart too, but that's a
different topic.
All right, the first thing Iwant to talk about is the
intelligence paradox, and thismight sting because if you are
listening to the show, as I justsaid, you're probably pretty
(03:48):
intelligent.
You have a successful career,or maybe you're a stay-at-home
mom or, in other ways, fulfilledat doing what you do best at
solving problems, understandingcomplex systems.
Yes, we all have challenges inour lives, of course, but you
have this intelligence that'sworking for you in many areas of
your life, but it might beworking against you when it
(04:08):
comes to your fitness, yourhealth, your sustainable fat
loss.
The reason why is thatintelligent people often
approach fat loss like theyapproach other problems, or a
problem at work, right, A verymechanical thing, where you
research it extensively, youcreate a detailed plan and then
you optimize for efficiency.
Well, yeah, philip, becausethat's what you talk about all
(04:29):
the time here, isn't it?
Well, that's part of it.
That's not all of it.
And if you treat your body justlike a machine, a physical
machine that respondspredictably to inputs, then
you're going to get frustratedwhen it doesn't seem to quite
work and you're going to assumethat you need better data, more
precise tracking, a moresophisticated approach.
And, as an aside, a lot of youare not even tracking the bare
(04:53):
minimum, and so there's a lot ofpower in getting more and
better and more precise data,for sure.
So I'm not going to discountthat at all.
It's the fact that that is notall you need.
So, if we look at the researchfrom positive psychology, it
tells us that sustainablebehavior change isn't about.
It stands for positive emotion,engagement, relationships,
(05:15):
meaning and accomplishment.
And these five elements arewhat psychologists have
identified as the corecomponents of human flourishing
(05:37):
and well-being, backed by lotsof research, lots of science.
And when your approach ismissing these elements, when
your life is missing theseelements, you are trying to
sustain behaviors that might notjive, that might make you feel
worse about yourself, about yourlife, and that is a recipe for
failure, no matter how perfectyour macros are.
Let's just be honest.
(05:57):
So I wanna break down.
You're like, okay, that's thePERMA framework from psychology,
great, how does that actuallyapply to fat loss?
Like when we get very specificand talk about getting lean,
building muscle, losing fat, thephysical things that we're
trying to manifest, to behealthier, to live longer, to
get the things that we want, tobe more confident, all of that.
So let's start with a P positiveemotion.
(06:19):
This isn't about delusional,toxic positivity.
It's not about pretendingeverything is great.
Positive emotions are criticalas humans.
They broaden our thinking andthey build our psychological
resources, because when you feelgood about your choices, like
your nutrition choices, you'remore likely to make good choices
(06:41):
in the future.
But most people are associatingtheir fat loss with negative
things like stress, like guilt,like deprivation, like
restriction.
They feel bad when they go overtheir calories, guilty when you
eat something off your plan,stressed about hitting your
targets every day.
All of that Sound familiar.
The research by BarbaraFredrickson, which is a very
(07:02):
well-known name in positivepsychology, shows that positive
emotions literally expand ourcognitive flexibility, right,
our brain's resilience, ourflexibility, and they help us
build lasting psychologicalresources.
It's kind of like your mentalbandwidth, and so in practical
terms, this means, if you canfind ways to feel good about
(07:22):
your fat loss process, you'regoing to be more creative than
in problem solving.
You're going to be moreresilient when you face those
setbacks and challenges, whichis guess what?
Hashtag life, and you're goingto be more motivated to continue
.
And I'm so sorry I did ahashtag in there, all my fellow
40 somethings.
We didn't grow up with that,I'm ashamed, but anyway, that is
(07:44):
where positive emotion comes in.
It is not being delusional.
As you guys know, I'm a prettypositive guy, kind of naturally,
but I've also cultivated theidea of having an optimism bias
and leaning into things that arepositive so that I get the
reinforcing feedback that thisis a good thing that I want to
keep doing.
Right, if you go to the gym andyou suffer and you think it's a
(08:05):
thing you hate and you don'tlike, of course you're not going
to do it.
But if you can make it apositive experience not forcing
that and not faking it, butactually doing things that make
it genuinely positive of courseyou're going to want to do more
of it.
So that's the first one how canyou make your situation, your
process, more positive?
Then we have E engagement.
(08:27):
Engagement is about findingflow.
Flow is a state you ever heardof the flow state?
It's a state where time seemsto stop and whatever you're
doing just feels intrinsicallyrewarding.
And just think about somethingyou so love to do that you get
lost for hours in it.
It might be woodworking, itmight be playing an instrument,
(08:48):
it might be playing a sportright, it could be just reading,
it doesn't matter, but it'ssomething challenging that puts
you into a flow state.
Right, it's not passive.
It's not, for example, playingvideo games as much as I love
those, to just pass the time andveg out.
It doesn't necessarily.
It's not necessarily the sameas being in a flow state.
Now, you don't have to be anelite athlete to experience flow
(09:10):
.
You don't have to be superskilled at something to
experience flow, but you canfind it in the process of
gaining skill and challengingyourself.
That could be cooking, mealprepping, mindful eating, like
all the things I'm talking aboutrelated to nutrition, even the
process of tracking your food.
You can get into a flow stateby shifting from a mentality of
(09:30):
checklist habits to engagingrituals right, instead of just
checking off okay, I hit myprotein.
Let's focus on the creativityof finding ways to incorporate
protein into meals that youenjoy, and that might be
researching recipes.
That might be using AI to putthings together.
That might be having fun at thegrocery store trying to find
(09:52):
ways to incorporate protein.
It might be planning out yourmeals right there's lots of
different ways and it might not.
It might feel, let's say, hardor even not that fun at first.
Right, engagement isn'tnecessarily quote unquote fun,
but challenging yourself andgetting in that flow state and
seeing a result will help youunderstand the output and feed
(10:14):
back to wanting to do more of it.
Very much like having thepositive emotions.
So finding a way to be in aflow state, and that might be
mindfulness when you're lifting,you know, turning the music off
and just really focusing on theform.
So this is kind of a complexarea.
When we talk about engagementand flow and I'm kind of just
scratching the surface, positivepsychology is a very deep field
(10:34):
.
So if you're more curious,definitely go look up the PERMA
model.
And that brings us to Rrelationships.
So P-E-R-M-A PERMA model andthat brings us to R
relationships, so P-E-R-M-APERMA relationships.
We as human beings areabsolutely wired for connection.
Our social environment has aninordinate, a dramatically high
influence on our habits.
(10:55):
I mean more than you canpossibly imagine.
Research shows that weight lossinterventions that involve
friends, partners, result insignificantly better outcomes
than solo efforts.
Right, that relatedness, thatcommunity, is massive and this
goes beyond just having atraining partner.
It's really creating thatidentity within all of your
relationships that supports yourgoals.
(11:17):
When your family understandsand supports your nutrition
choices.
When you have a community thatnormalizes the process, the ups
and downs, they don't judge you,they don't come in and say what
the heck are you doing?
That's weird, you're not goingto succeed that way.
No, when they're positive andthey normalize what you're doing
and they understand the ups anddowns.
(11:37):
When you feel connected ratherthan isolated in your efforts,
then everything becomes so mucheasier.
This is a huge point offriction for people and so if we
flip that around and we lookfor incorporating our identity
and leaning into it with ourrelationships and then seeing
what comes of that, seeing whatrelationships may be more toxic
(11:58):
than we want or need in our liferight now, seeing what Facebook
groups we should and shouldn'tbe in, who we should and
shouldn't follow, which podcastswe should and shouldn't listen
to, right, who we should talk toversus who maybe we just will
be friends, but they're notaligned with my goals right now.
So that's relationships.
Then we get to M for meaning.
So meaning is connecting yourbehavior to something bigger.
(12:21):
Some people call thisspirituality, some people call
this purpose.
It is just something biggerthan yourself and bigger than
the immediate results.
So this goes back to thesuperficial goals, the
short-term goals, the vanitygoals, which there's nothing
wrong with those.
Right, I want abs, I want sixpack abs for the summer.
But when pressure hits yoursystem from life, those goals
(12:45):
tend to collapse very quickly.
But meaning based goals like Iwant to be able to play with my
kids without pain, or I want tomodel healthy behavior for my
family.
Those are deeply rooted,they're so resilient, they don't
collapse as easily because lotsof things will flux up and down
and change in your life andyou're going to come back to
that mentally and say I stillwant that.
(13:07):
When something challenges you inthe short term, you might not
still say I need to have abs forsummer.
You get the difference rightand again, it's not right or
wrong, it's just how deep andmeaningful do you want it to be
to drive you.
Research shows that individualswith a greater sense of purpose
live longer and they engage inbetter health behaviors period.
(13:28):
And when your fat loss journeybecomes part of your larger life
mission right, we're nottalking about just losing weight
and getting skinny or gettinglean even.
We are talking about fat lossfor the purposes of metabolic
health, physical health, offitness, of healthy aging when
that becomes part of your largermission in life, then any
setbacks, any challenges justbecome that.
(13:50):
They become temporary obstaclesrather than the reason that
you're going to quit.
Because why would you quit whenyou have such a deep,
purposeful goal to go after?
And that brings us to the finalletter here A for
accomplishment.
I love accomplishment.
This is about buildingself-efficacy through meaningful
progress.
When somebody joins, forexample, physique University,
(14:11):
which we're going through a bigrelaunch now don't know if you
heard.
We used to.
It used to be 87 a month.
Now we have two tiers.
One is 27 a month because I'mtrying to make it more
accessible to more people sothat they can build this
self-efficacy, so that they canfind community A lot of the
things we're talking about heretoday.
And when somebody joins and saysyou know, I thought I was going
(14:32):
to come in here and you werejust going to tell me, tell me
my workouts, tell me the restperiod, show me the videos, and
just I was just going to followit.
I said, no, actually you'relucky.
You're lucky, you found usbecause we are going to teach
you to fish.
We're not going to give you afish.
We're going to show you how toprogram, how to make adjustments
, how to work with whatever yourgym environment is.
(14:53):
Whether it's now or you movefive years from now, or your
physical situation changes oryou have an injury, it doesn't
matter.
We're not going to stick you toone method or one program.
We're going to give you theprinciples right, and that gives
you self-efficacy, because it'snot about external validation
or hitting a specific program ornumbers or plan, whether it's a
(15:14):
template or anything.
It's the intrinsic satisfactionof growth and mastery.
I mean, let that sit with youfor a bit.
If that doesn't appeal to you,then I'm sorry.
You're not going to find muchfulfillment in your life.
I'm just going to be honestabout it.
But if you embrace this idea ofconstant growth which, yes,
means constant failures to getthat growth and mastery was yes.
(15:37):
Yes Means having a purpose andunderstanding yourself at a
deeper level and empoweringyourself through all of these
things we're talking about andfocusing on the process rather
than the outcome, that's goingto be powerful.
You're not just trying to lose20 pounds, you're not.
You're trying to focus on theday-to-day elements of mastery.
Now those could be very concretethings like okay, I'm going to
(15:59):
plan my meals today to eatprotein at every meal so that I
can make sure I get 150 grams ofprotein.
Nothing wrong with that,absolutely.
Those are all micro pieces ofthe process and those kinds of
behaviors are where the momentumcomes.
Those little actions, thosemicro actions, those micro goals
that all tie to your bigpurposeful goal.
That helps you build momentumand then create a sense of
(16:20):
competence, confidence andcompetence and progress.
Even when little things likeweight on the scale might not be
moving for a few days or a fewweeks, it doesn't matter.
You understand the big picture.
Now, as I'm explaining theseconcepts, I realize how much
deeper we can go into each ofthese.
I mean, I could do months andmonths of episodes related to
(16:41):
positive psychology, because theintersection between that and
engineering and physiquedevelopment is something I'm
very passionate about and I'mdeveloping more content around
that going forward, because Ithink frameworks are super
helpful and I think the fitnessindustry ignores this quite
frequently.
So if you want to get thatcontent, just a reminder I'm
diving deeper into this stuff,into the psychology of
(17:02):
sustainable change, in my emaillist.
Go to witsandweightscom slashemail.
I just wanted to remind youagain.
It came to mind that if youwant more of this, join my list.
You'll get more of it.
Witsandweightscom slash email.
All right.
So here's where my engineeringbrain gets really excited,
because you can engineer thepsychological elements into your
approach for something like fatloss.
(17:24):
And this isn't about hoping thatyou're going to feel motivated
right, we've talked aboutmotivation before.
That's not a thing.
It is really about creating theconditions that generate
positive emotions, engagement,meaningful connections, purpose
and accomplishment, per thePERMA model.
So for positive emotions, youmight find a way to document
(17:44):
your wins on a regular basis.
This could be a journal.
It could be as part ofcommunity.
You know we do that both in ourFacebook group and more
frequently in our PhysiqueUniversity, where we encourage
you to tell us what were yourwins.
Just lay it out there.
What were your wins, what wentwell?
We don't care about the thingsthat went not well, what went
well.
So you can look at where youfelt good about your choices and
(18:08):
lean into those.
For engagement, you could gamifyanything Like you can gamify
meal prep, try a new food eachweek.
You could approach your foodtracking like a scientist, like
you're gathering data about aninteresting experiment.
And if you use macro factor,you get all these graphs and
curves and sure you can go crazywith that.
But you could also use them andjust try to understand all of
(18:30):
these things and how they playtogether and really get in, get
engaged and get into the flow ofthat.
For relationships, maybe shareyour goals with your family,
invite their support, join acommunity.
Again, we have a free Facebookcommunity or jump right into
Physique University.
It's more accessible than ever.
For meaning, here's an idea Icame up with.
You can write a letter to yourfuture self describing how your
(18:53):
health goals connect to yourdeeper values and life mission.
So write a letter to yourfuture self describing how your
goals connect to your deepervalues and your life mission.
Literally, talk to yourself ofthe future, because that's going
to start to get you thinkingabout did you accomplish what
you intended to toward thatdeeper meaning in your future
(19:14):
self, because that is what youare embodying right now your
future self.
And then for accomplishment, Iwould say this is something
we've probably talked about alot, which is tracking
behavioral metrics, not just theoutcome metrics so that you can
be consistent, and that couldbe as simple as your training
log, but it could also bespecific habits that you want to
(19:37):
check off each day to make surethat you're doing them kind of
like an off on not necessarilythat you achieved a certain goal
, because the goal is fartherdown the line.
So what's brilliant about thiswhole framework, the PERMA
framework, is that when you getall five elements working
together, they create thissystem that reinforces itself
right, like the positiveemotions will then make you more
engaged.
When you're more engaged, guesswhat happens?
(19:59):
Your relationships arestrengthened.
The strong relationshipsactually give you more meaning
in your life, and thenmeaningful work leads to a
greater sense of accomplishment.
And then, finally, guess what?
The accomplishment generatesmore positive emotions, boom.
It all ties together.
This is psychological momentumwe're talking about right, or
(20:20):
upward spiraling is another wordthat's been used.
You're not going to whiteknuckle your way through a diet
hopelessly.
You're going to createconditions where the healthy
behaviors feel good to maintainand you want to do them.
Because when you're strugglingwith consistency, you can take
this framework now the PERMAframework, and audit yourself
across these five dimensions,because usually one or two areas
(20:42):
are quite a bit weaker than theothers.
Maybe you've got theaccomplishment piece down
because you're great at tracking, but you're missing the
relationship support.
Or maybe you're highly engagedwith the process, but then
you've lost sight of the deeperwhy the deeper?
Meaning.
So if you can identify theweakest PERMA element, that's
one way to focus your energy onstrengthening that, knowing that
(21:03):
it will improve markedly youroverall sustainability.
And I think about the mostsuccessful clients I've worked
with and, yeah, they're doingall the things, but they also
pay really close attention totheir psychological state.
They have a high level ofself-awareness Now.
They may not have it initially,and we work on that together.
It's part of the process.
May not have it initially, andwe work on that together.
It's, it's part of the process.
But they notice when they'restarting to feel the thing they
(21:24):
don't want to feel.
Maybe they feel deprived andthey're not empowered, even
though they were empowered for awhile.
And all of a sudden they'relike I'm starting to feel this
as a restrictive thing, and theycatch themselves, when the
process starts, feeling likedrudgery rather than growth.
And that's a great place to be,because now you're at a fork in
the road where you can dosomething about it, and then
people who feel good about theirprocess, then they make better
(21:45):
choices, people are engaged intheir habits, are more
consistent.
People who feel supported aremore resilient with periods,
when, when, during difficultperiods, and so guess what?
This is your life.
This isn't just fat loss, is it?
And I always like to bring itback to that, because at the end
of the day, you're like, hmm,it's a pretty cool framework for
everything I do, becausesustainable fat loss it's not
just about changing your body,but your relationship with the
(22:07):
process of change.
That's why I love it so muchbecause you can see it, it's
visceral and when you align theapproach with these psychology
of wellbeing, yourtransformation becomes enjoyable
and fulfilling as well, becauseit's aligned with your
flourishing and your well-being.
All right, if today's episoderesonated with you.
(22:28):
If you want to go deeper intothe psychology of all of this,
especially sustainabletransformation, I'm creating
exclusive content around theseframeworks.
You're not going to find itanywhere else.
Join my email list atwitsandweightscom slash email or
click the link in the shownotes and you'll get access to
some of these advancedstrategies, specific tools, deep
dive into psychology.
(22:49):
Something will absolutelyresonate.
I've heard from people all thetime where they might have
gotten 10 of my emails and youknow that's fine and then email
number 11 comes along.
They're like I had to hear this.
Oh, my God, that is me andthank you, you made my day.
Now I'm thinking differentlyand deeply about what's going on
and if we can change our livesthat way, that's powerful.
(23:10):
Go to witsowheightscom slashemail to get the content.
Until next time, keep usingyour wits lifting those weights
and remember, the mostsophisticated system in the
world is not going to work if itdoesn't work with your
psychology.
I want you to engineer yourapproach, but don't forget to
engineer your mindset as well.
I'll talk to you next time hereon the Wits and Weights podcast
(23:32):
.
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