October 15, 2025 • 31 mins
Ready to escape the low-calorie trap and eat 400-800+ more calories while maintaining your body composition?
Join the 10-Week Recovery Diet Workshop on Tuesday, October 21st at 12pm Eastern and get the complete protocol workbook plus 30 days in Physique University for just $27: https://live.witsandweights.com
--
Are eating very low calories, yet the scale won't budge, your energy is in the tank, and you're terrified to eat more?
Discover what's going on with your metabolism, why "just eat less and move more" stopped working months ago, and the precise protocol for escaping this trap without gaining fat.
Learn why reverse dieting doesn't work plus the 5 foundations that determine whether increasing calories will succeed or backfire.
Main Takeaways
- Metabolic suppression isn't "damage"
- How eating less leads to fewer calories, reduced training performance, and hormonal downregulation
- 5 critical foundations must be in place before increasing calories
- Recovery dieting vs. reverse dieting and how long it takes to truly recover
Episode Resources
- Join the 10-Week Recovery Diet Workshop – Tuesday, October 21st at 12pm Eastern ($27, includes replay, 20-page protocol workbook, and your first month in Physique University) at https://live.witsandweights.com
Timestamps
0:00 - Why eating less stopped working
0:49 - Recovery vs. reverse dieting
4:56 - The Suppression Spiral explained
8:17 - Five foundations you must fix first
19:12 - How a recovery diet actually works
24:33 - Common failure points to avoid
27:55 - Do you really need recovery?
30:16 - Workshop invite and final takeaways
🔥 Take a 2-minute Metabolic Quiz for a personalized fat loss report (strength training & nutrition strategies)
🩸 Book a Performance Bloodwork Analysis to find out what's slowing your metabolism and weight loss (20% off - code VITALITY20)
🎓 Lose fat + build muscle in Physique University with evidence-based nutrition coaching (free custom nutrition plan - code FREEPLAN)
👥 Join our Facebook community for fitness & body recomp strategies
👋 Ask a question or find Philip Pape on Instagram
📱 Try MacroFactor 2 weeks free with code WITSANDWEIGHTS (my favorite nutrition and macros app for lifting weights)
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Philip Pape (00:00):
If you've been eating 1200 calories, training
consistently, doing everythingright, and the scale's not
budging, your energy is in thetank, and you're terrified to
eat more, because the last timeyou did, you gained weight.
This episode is for you.
I'll show you why your body hasadapted to suppress your
metabolism, why just eat lessand move more stopped working
(00:22):
months or years ago, and theprecise protocol for escaping
this trap without gaining fat.
You'll discover what recoverydieting is, why most reverse
dieting attempts fail, and thefive foundations that determine
whether increasing calories willwork or backfire.
Welcome to Wits and Weights,the show that helps you build a
(00:52):
strong, healthy physique usingevidence, engineering, and
efficiency.
I'm your host, Philip Pate, andtoday we're gonna talk about
one of the most frustratingpositions you can find yourself
in.
You're eating very little,you're training really hard, and
you're getting nowhere.
I've worked with lots of peoplewho came to me eating very low
calories.
This might be around a thousandto fourteen hundred for female,
(01:14):
maybe 1500 to 1800 for males,and they're doing a lot of the
things right.
They're lifting maybe three orfour days a week, they're
walking every day, they'retracking, eating enough protein
in general, but something'sstuck.
And I'm not talking about scaleweight, I'm also talking about
lifts stalling, feelingexhausted, not having the
(01:35):
energy.
Maybe our blood works okay,maybe it's not.
But all you're thinking at thispoint is what do I need to do?
Do I need to eat even less?
Do I need to add more trainingor cardio?
And also, what's up withreverse dieting?
Is that what I need to do?
Do I need to eat more?
Because last time I tried that,I gained five pounds in a week,
right?
Stories like that.
These are not rare stories.
(01:56):
I hear them a lot.
And I think the online adviceabout some of this stuff is
either useless or activelyharmful.
A lot of people still throwaround the terms metabolic
damage, that you need to healyour metabolism and or that you
need to fix your metabolism.
Some people just sayflippantly, you know, you know,
it's you're just eating toomuch.
(02:16):
You're probably not tracking.
You probably don't know howmany calories you're eating, you
just need to eat less.
Some people, you know, say thatthe only way to do this is
reverse diet with, you know,five, add 50 to 100 calories per
week.
That's how you do it.
And then there's people thatsay, okay, just eat at
maintenance for a while andeverything's gonna kind of work
out, which doesn't sound too farfrom advice I might, I've I
sometimes give, which is we needto change one variable at a
(02:39):
time and try to stay atmaintenance, but there's a
different approach to doing thatthe right way versus just, you
know, trying to eat the samecalories you've been eating,
thinking that that'smaintenance.
Okay, we're gonna get into someof the nuances here.
I think a lot of this advice isjust missing the most important
thing, which is what'shappening to you and your body
and why just adding caloriesdoesn't always work without
(03:04):
certain foundations in place.
And I wanna be clear on that.
Reverse dieting is often notthe solution.
It may be a little piece of it.
And if you've ever heard mycontent before, you know that I
don't even use reverse dieting.
We do something called recoverydieting.
We're gonna talk about thattoday.
Before we do, I do want toshare what some members of
Physique University have beenexperiencing lately because it
(03:25):
connects directly to what we aretalking about.
So, Richard, he said, quote,after six weeks on the program,
I found the tools and info quitea game changer.
Very happy with the empowermentgained and the progress so far.
So, empowerment, I shared thisbecause of that word and not
feeling helpless and actuallyunderstanding what's going on
(03:45):
inside of you with you as anindividual so you can build your
system.
Ajana shared, quote, I'venoticed I'm not getting fatigued
early in the day, and my energylevel has written.
Again, I shared this becauseit's exactly what happens when
your metabolic function isworking properly instead of
being suppressed.
Notice I didn't say damaged,okay?
(04:06):
Suppressed.
And then Haig said, quote,winning, feeling better, pain
and illness gone, and I'mlifting what I was 10 years ago,
now to push harder.
So when your body has enoughenergy, when it's recovering
enough, everything improves.
This isn't just about the scaleand and often it has nothing to
do with the scale.
And yeah, you can push hardonce things aren't where you
(04:27):
need them to be.
So if you're looking for thiskind of result and
transformation, support,guidance, that's why we have
Physique University.
You can join atwitsandweights.com slash
physique, get access to ourcommunity, form checks with me
and Coach Carroll, all the toolsyou need to build your physique
and more importantly, yourhealth system, your fitness
(04:47):
system systematically.
So I just wanted to sharethose.
And now I want to get into whatthe heck is going on when you
are stuck at low calories.
Okay.
And I'm gonna call this thesuppression spiral, just because
it sounds cool and I likealliteration.
The suppression spiral.
All right, this is not aboutmetabolic damage.
The term gets thrown thrownaround a lot, but it is not a
(05:09):
real thing.
It is not a medical condition,your metabolism can't break.
Your metabolism adapts.
And adaptation is normal, ithappens to everybody, it's okay,
you expect it to happen.
And it can be reversed as well.
But understanding how is goingto explain why you today might
feel terrible and might havetrouble losing weight.
And again, we don't care aboutthe weight loss in and of
(05:29):
itself.
We care about improving yourhealth and body composition.
And then weight loss tends tofollow as a piece of that, and
not always, because you don'talways need it to.
But in this case, we're talkingabout people who are trying to
undergo some form of fat losswith a calorie deficit, and they
are stuck and so they feel likethey can't go up or down.
Okay, when you eat in a caloriedeficit for an extended period,
(05:50):
your body adapts and itconserves energy, in addition to
your metabolism droppingbecause you're losing weight.
But in this case, we're gonnaassume you've stuck, you've
gotten stuck trying to lose fatand lose weight on the scale.
Okay, and what we want tounderstand what's happening,
whether you should care, whatyou should do about it.
So your body adapts to conserveenergy hormonally at the
(06:12):
cellular level.
And this happens when you stayin a deficit too long or you eat
too little relative to youractivity.
Here's what happens (06:18):
first, your neat, your non-exercise
activity thermogenesis, actuallydrops.
A lot of it is unconscious.
Okay, and this is all themovement you're doing outside of
formal structured exercise.
Studies show that meat can dropby two to four hundred calories
per day.
And this is actually verycommon for what I see.
I see a lot of people inseveral months of dieting, their
(06:41):
metabolisms will drop severalhundreds of calories.
Sometimes more than thisbecause of added factors like
the weight loss.
And it's not that youconsciously decide to do this,
it's your body does thisautomatically, sometimes causes
you to move less or move withless effort, or there's so many
things, even if when you evenwhen you try to keep your step
count up that can move this theother direction.
(07:02):
Second, your trainingperformance suffers.
You're not pushing as hard,you're, you know, taking longer
to rest because you don't havethe work capacity.
Maybe you're not adding weightto the bar, to the to the lifts,
you're not going up in weight.
Not all of this is bad in a fatloss phase.
Like you're expected to nothave as much energy, but if it's
really stalled out andregressing, this could be a
challenge.
This means, you know, you'renot working as hard, you're also
(07:25):
burning fewer calories duringthe workout, right?
Even though we don't care aboutthat as a metric, it's an end
result of training less,training less hard, getting less
of a training stimulus to holdon to your muscle.
All of that is happening.
Third, your hormonesdownregulate, your thyroid
function goes down,testosterone, leptin.
When leptin's low, you feelhungrier, you move less, your
(07:47):
body becomes more efficient atstoring energy, which we don't
like, right?
Which means it's less efficientat giving it up.
And all this together meansthat your actual energy
expenditure, your metabolismdrops quite a bit.
It can drop substantially.
If you were, say, burning 2,000calories a day before you
started the diet, you might bedown to 1500 or 1300 or 1200
(08:11):
just to maintain your weight asyou are right now.
Okay.
And it's not because yourmetabolism is damaged, but
because your body has adapted.
This is a temporary state.
Most people respond with a gutreaction.
They do things that make itworse, such as cutting calories
more, right?
Adding cardio, trying to pushthrough with more discipline and
(08:35):
willpower.
And this just makes it worse.
You end up in what I called itearlier, the suppression spiral.
You eat less, your body adapts,the loss stops, you eat even
less, your body adapts more,you're doing more cardio, then
you're eating very little,you're feeling terrible, you're
making no progress, and and and.
And then the psychological tollis huge.
(08:56):
It is massive.
You then feel like a failure,right?
It seems to affect yourself-worth, your even your
self-respect.
You see other people eatingmore, looking better.
You can't understand why don'tthose rules apply to me.
I'm different.
Something is wrong with me.
But the problem is not withyou.
The problem is the approach.
It always is, guys.
It's always the approach.
And that is really empoweringbecause you can fix it.
(09:18):
You can you can't diet your wayout of metabolic suppression.
Almost by definition, youcan't.
Because eating less is what gotyou here.
You've got to have a differentstrategy.
So, where do we go with this?
All right.
That's the suppression spiral.
Now I want to talk about thefoundation, the problem with
your foundation, okay?
Because it really does comedown to basic principles, first
(09:39):
principles, foundations.
And if eating less isn't theanswer, what about eating more?
Well, this is where a lot ofpeople jump right to reverse
dieting.
You know, you get a newbiecoach who's like, yeah, we just
need to increase your calories,right?
That's what they learned intheir certification, and that's
the solution.
You're gonna increase yourcalories, you're going to boost
your metabolism, and you'regonna have this higher set
(10:00):
point, and everything's gonna behunky-dory.
And so we're gonna add, I don'tknow, 100 calories a week.
Hope the fat loss will resume.
And yeah, that never works.
Almost, almost never works.
I mean, there's it pretty muchnever works.
And the reason is foundational.
Your body's ability to handleincreased calories without
gaining fat depends on fivespecific factors.
(10:24):
And if these aren't in placefirst, then adding calories will
just make you gain weight.
And you're like, huh?
Haven't you talked all the timeabout recovering your
metabolism?
Yes, but you have to do it inconjunction with these
foundations.
That's the point.
It is not just about increasingcalories.
That is the important point Iwant you to take away.
(10:44):
So, foundation one, and a lotof people will have this at the
base of their pyramid for thefor good reason, is sleep
quality and consistency,especially consistency.
When you're chronicallyunder-recovered, your body is in
a stressful, sympathetic state.
And that's a big, big problembecause sleep is almost like
(11:05):
food to your body.
When you're depriving yourselfof sleep, even adding more food
isn't necessarily going tomitigate that, because the sleep
is another massive source ofrecovery and energy and taking
off that stress that's causingyou to have this suppression in
your metabolism.
Foundation two is non-trainingstress.
And I say it that way becausetraining itself is a stress, but
(11:29):
it's a good stress.
If you have stress from work,from your relationship, from
major things in your life, maybewith your family, with your
finances, you've got thiselevated cortisol all the time,
right?
That plus increasing yourcalories, your body's gonna say,
Oh, give me that energy for fatstorage.
Please give it to me for fatstorage.
(11:49):
And I say it that way becauseif you gain weight at all, you
might think, okay, I'm gainingsome muscle and fat.
You might gain a little bit ofmuscle.
Chances are though, if youdon't have these foundations in
place, you're gonna gain a lotmore fat than you'd like.
Okay, a lot more fat than you'dlike.
What we're trying to do here isas you eat more, we're gonna,
we're gonna tie this alltogether in the end.
These foundations allow you,your body to recover your
(12:13):
metabolism without gaining much,much, if any, fat at all, or
even any weight at all.
Like you, you might even youmight even start losing weight,
which again is not the end, notreally the goal.
It's just the the pleasant endresult is a drop in body fat.
So basic stress management isgoing to be huge here.
Foundation number three is ofcourse your training consistency
and progression.
(12:33):
It's interesting.
Some people, you know, they'lljoin our program.
It's not very common, butthey'll join our program and
when they do the intake, I say,How many training sessions are
you doing?
They say zero.
My brain immediately goes to,oh boy, I'm excited because this
is the biggest low-hangingfruit for you right now.
You're doing zero.
If we just go that go to one aweek, man, will that just
massively improve everythingyou're doing, your health, your
(12:56):
strength, your mouth, even justone a week.
I mean, ideally it's three orfour, but we need to start where
you're at.
Okay.
And you've got to be followinga structured program, a
structured program where you areprogressing, if not every week,
then most weeks.
And it has to be consistent.
I think every day you need tobe doing something for your
(13:17):
physical health in terms ofmovement, but from a strength
training perspective, that'sideally three to four weeks,
three, three to four days aweek, and at a minimum two.
But you know what?
One is still better than zero.
So I we need to make itconsistent and then start to
build from there.
The muscle that you have, thestimulus, stimulus you're
providing through that strengthtraining, is telling your body
(13:38):
what to do with that extraenergy in such a good way.
In such a good way.
If you're not training at all,then all these things are gonna
be a problem, are gonna continuebeing a problem.
Okay.
Foundation four is restoringthat suppression of your neat,
right?
Your non-exercise stuff.
So if you're barely movingoutside the gym, you're still
gonna have a lot of issuesrecovering.
(14:00):
This is where bringing thatstep count up, you know, seven
to 10,000 steps is a goodtarget.
But again, bringing it up fromwhere you are.
And also getting up off yourchair if you're a desk, if you
have a desk job and do thatmultiple times throughout the
day, you know, moving, gettingoutside, walking your dog, you
know, going for 30 to 60 minutesof cumulative movement
throughout the day, independentof your strength training.
(14:22):
And then foundation five is ofcourse, nutrition and nutrition.
And this primarily is not justthe energy overall, which is
calories, but the quality ofyour food, starting with protein
and fiber, and then havingbalanced foods with plenty of
fats and carbs as well.
And carbs are gonna be massivehere, guys.
Let me tell you.
If you've got to suppress yourmetabolism, suppress metabolism
(14:43):
and what you're trying to do isrecover, carbs are going to be
your friend.
Absolutely.
When combined with training,they're gonna help your
hormones, they're gonna helpyour recovery.
Very become very efficient.
Okay, this is not the time tobe doing keto and low carb.
Trust me, it's not.
I've seen the difference.
You're gonna recover yourenergy much faster this way.
So nutrition is reallyimportant from all of these
(15:03):
perspectives.
And I've seen dozens, hundreds,thousands of people trying to
reverse diet without thesefoundations.
All they're doing is increasingcalories.
Well, of course, it's gonnablow up in their face, right?
Sometimes they gain weight,sometimes they don't, but then
nothing is recovering.
So they're just eating a littlebit more food, and their
metabolism is, I'll say, slowlyincreasing, but they still have
(15:28):
the energy problems.
They are still gaining more fatthan they would like, right?
Like their physique, their bodycomposition is not improving.
And it's kind of a weird stateto be in because that's the
worst situation, is whereyou're, you know, recovering
your metabolism, not gainingweight on the scale, but also
not improving of the things thatyou really, really care about.
You know, sometimes people willfeel a little better because
they're eating more food, butthen they're having trouble with
(15:51):
the body composition, right?
So you get like these weirdcorner cases when you're not
doing all the foundations.
But when you are, then therecovery diet works dramatically
better.
And I say recovery, it'srecovery from our suppressed
metabolism, whether you've justbeen living that way through
lots of restrictive eating, oryou've done a fat loss phase
intentionally and now are tryingto come out.
(16:12):
Hopefully, if you've done a fatloss phase, you've already done
these things beforehand.
I am mainly speaking to theperson that's not even there yet
and you're just trying torecover for the first time.
Right.
And now you can actually addthose calories pretty
aggressively and feel bettereven faster and have your body
composition stay stable orimprove as you're doing that.
(16:34):
And then when you later onreturn to a deficit, you're
coming from a much better place.
And honestly, I don't want youeven in a deficit for a while
until you go through thatrecovery process.
And that's the next problem isthat it takes time, it takes
focus, it takes patience.
I'm not gonna use the worddiscipline, it's consistency.
And you can do this in a verymanageable, achievable way, one
(16:57):
step at a time, two steps at atime, you know, just whatever
works best for your lifestyleright now with the low-hanging
fruit to fix your sleep, tomanage your stress, to train, to
move a little more, right?
I know sometimes it feelsoverwhelming because it seems
like all these pillars.
At some point, you do need toget to the point where you're
doing something with each ofthese pillars.
But right now, pick the thingthat is your go-get, as they
(17:19):
say.
All right.
So now that we've talked aboutthe suppression spiral, we've
talked about the five uhfoundations you have to have in
place.
Let's now talk about therecovery diet approach.
And I haven't talked about itin a while on the show, and
that's why I wanted to make thisepisode.
What is a recovery diet?
All right, it is not the sameas a reverse diet.
A reverse diet is about slowlyadding calories to maintain your
(17:44):
weight after diet ends, to tryto get back to your metabolism,
but you're doing it in a randomguessing sort of way.
That's really all it is.
You're doing it with lessprecision and it takes longer,
and you might overshoot, and allof those challenges that you've
heard of with reverse dieting.
A recovery diet is just a veryprecise protocol to restore
(18:06):
metabolic function immediately,as quickly as possible, to where
it should be right now.
Like, what is your optimal setpoint right now?
We won't know what it is untilwe get there, but we do know
what it is right now, and weknow that if we're under-eating
to that, we can quickly go backthere and not worry about
gaining weight.
All right.
You are definitely gonna gain afew pounds of water weight and
(18:27):
glycogen, but that is not bodyfat.
Just to put that out there,because that's another fear
people have.
The goal is to get your bodyback to firing and burning more
calories, maintaining your bodycomposition, feeling better,
feeling healthier, feelingstronger, all of those things.
So we're talking about goingfrom let's say you're 1200
calories right now and bringingthat up to it, might be as high
(18:50):
as 2,000 calories withoutgaining any fat or weight.
Now, again, you're gonna gainsome weight of water weight, but
not of fat.
Maybe you'll gain a littlemuscle as well.
And then letting that stabilizebefore you do whatever your
next phase is, which might befat loss, maybe it's building
muscle, maybe you want tomaintain it there.
But the point is we need torecover to that point.
And you're not gonna do itinstantly.
(19:11):
It could happen, you could doit in a few days, and then when
you start to recover, you mayneed to go even higher.
And so there are some parallelsto reverse dieting, but it's a
lot more precision or a lot moreprecise.
You have to track your intakeaccurately, weigh your food, log
your food, log your weight, anduse it uh either a calculation
(19:32):
or in my opinion, MacroFactor isthe one app on the market that
can estimate your expenditurefrom what you've logged.
And then it you will literallyknow the number to go to
tomorrow after you've done that.
Now, that's after you've beentracking for several weeks.
You'll know what metabolismyour metabolism is right now and
how many calories to increase.
Go download macrofactor, use mycode WITS and weights, all one
(19:54):
word, to get a free trial forthat.
It's excellent for this becauseit adjusts your expenditure
based on your trend and intakefor that accurate recovery diet.
But you also have to track yourbody composition, your
strength, right, your lifts, allthe things you should be doing
anyway.
And then remember, the scale isgoing to go up during that
recovery, especially at thebeginning, because of water,
(20:16):
glycogen, digestive content,sodium, like you're just eating
more, all of that.
You should look pretty much thesame, if not better, in the
mirror.
It's because sometimes when youfill out the muscles of that
glycogen, you end up looking alittle bit more pumped.
You know, it depends on whatyou already have there, of
course.
If you've never lifted weights,you're not there yet.
But in general, you're gonnalook a little better, actually.
(20:37):
And then the timeline is reallyimportant here because while
you can jump caloriesimmediately to get out of the
deficit, literally one day,you're gonna need eight to 12
weeks, sometimes longer,depending on how suppressed your
metabolism was to get to fullrecovery.
So it's kind of like recoveryhops.
Okay.
If you were eating 1200calories for six months, you
(20:59):
might need two or three monthsto get back to your 1800 or 2000
or 2200 maintenance.
And you don't want, I know youdon't want to hear this, but
your body doesn't work on thetimeline that you want it to
work on.
It's gonna work on whatnature's gonna do.
And you're gonna, I'm notspeaking properly here, but
you're going to give it the bestshot to recover as quickly as
possible.
So success looks like eatingthree, four, five, six, up to
(21:22):
maybe 800 calories more, maybe athousand, you know, if you're a
bigger guy, for example, thanwhen you started.
So I would say probably four tofour to six or eight hundred
calories is like a nice bigwindow for a lot of people that
I see.
And then your weight, your bodyweight has stabilized after
that initial water bump and it'skind of stabilized.
Maybe it's a little bit higherthan that, but your measurements
should be about the same.
(21:42):
You should look the same orbetter, your energy should be
significantly improved.
Your training performanceshould be going up, right?
You're adding weight or reps.
Your recovery is faster, feelsbetter, your mood should be
better.
For the ladies, your menstrualcycle should be normal again if
it was irregular.
Now, these aren't claims I'mmaking, these are just the
shoulds that should happen allthings equal, you know, not
(22:04):
counting any other conditionsomeone might have.
And then when you return to afat loss phase later, you're
gonna be set up much better forsuccess.
And you probably won't have todiet to those calories either,
because you're eating more fiberand you're moving more, you're
burning more calories ingeneral.
This is different than thosefit fluencers saying, Oh, you
(22:25):
gotta do is reverse diet, andthen you do a fat loss phase and
you could eat more caloriesthan last time.
Okay, it doesn't work that way,like in that short timeline
without doing all thefoundational things and without
potentially having built alittle bit of muscle and
metabolic capacity as well.
Okay, don't look for quickfixes, it's going to backfire.
(22:46):
But if you do this the rightway, then when you do have fat
loss phase, you're not gonnafeel destroyed and you're not
gonna be losing muscle.
And that's the key, one of thekey differences.
And then you're gonna haveenergy for your workouts, your
life.
You could probably do it in asustainable way, not have to go
as aggressive.
Now, everybody's different.
Everybody has different levelsthat they start from and end
from and different histories.
(23:07):
So the protocol has to beindividualized, right?
Some people can add thosecalories more aggressively or
bigger jumps.
Others need to go slowerbecause of how it makes them
feel or the practicality of it,right?
Just trying to eat more food.
So the specifics depend on yoursituation, your foundations,
where you are, what you're ableto incorporate now, and of
course how your body responds.
(23:28):
All right.
So if what I'm describing sofar sounds kind of like your
situation.
If you're stuck at lowcalories, if you're not sure how
to go from where to go fromhere, if you need a systematic
way out and it to improve all ofthese factors, I'm running a
live workshop October 21stcalled the Recovery Diet
Workshop.
It's actually called the10-week recovery diet workshop
(23:50):
because I'm going to walkthrough a full, it's like a
20-page workbook that you'regonna get access to afterward
that is gonna help you assessexactly whether you are
suppressed, what is the week byweek progression to get out of
it with a recovery diet as wehead to the end of the year.
So it's perfectly timed 10weeks to take you into the new
(24:10):
year, and then you're ready togo if you're looking to do a fat
loss phase in the new year.
And so it walk, we're gonnawalk through, you know, how to
adjust based on your response,all the pitfalls, all the
scenarios, what to do when.
You're gonna have it all mappedout.
And you're also gonna get yourfirst month in physique
(24:31):
university as part of the wholething for no extra cost.
So to me, it's a no-brainerbecause you're gonna have the
workbook, the workshop, and ofcourse all the resources and
support to get started and getsome accountability and
feedback, which for many peoplethat's what they need is the
accountability to make ithappen.
So that's 27 bucks October21st.
Go to live.witsandweights.com.
(24:52):
That is Tuesday.
That's next Tuesday, our10-week recovery diet workshop.
So if you're stuck with lowcalories, if you want a system
for improving that and comingout the right way and not these
random reverse diets, grab yourspot, link is in the show notes,
live.witsandweights.com.
I'll share it again at the end.
Now let's talk about some ofthe common failure points.
What makes people fail?
(25:13):
All right, because even whenpeople understand this recovery
diet concept, and I I knowpeople will parrot it back to me
and will define it pretty well,but then there's these three
major failure points in realitythat prevent people from doing
them successfully.
The first failure point is, ofcourse, impatience.
You knew I was gonna say this,right?
This is hey, I added caloriesfor two weeks, I didn't see
(25:35):
things change, or I had thatbump in weight that Phillip said
would happen.
It's all fluid, but I freakedout and I cut back.
Look, your body's not gonnarecover in two weeks.
It's just not.
I'm sorry, it's not gonnarecover in two weeks if you've
been doing this for any lengthof time, right?
Because what got you here tookmany, many months.
I'm not saying it's gonna takethe same amount of time.
It's just gonna take somedecent amount.
(25:57):
So that's the first failurepoint is impatience.
That's why we have to focus onthe metrics that we care about
the most, which is increasingour strength in the gym,
increasing our nutritionquality.
Guess what?
All the foundations that Italked about.
The second failure point isguess what?
Inconsistency with thosefoundations.
So consistency really is what Imean here.
And that is not just sleepingwell for two out of the seven
(26:19):
days of the week, but sleepingwell for four, five, six,
hopefully all seven, but morethan you were before.
Walking, you know, getting yourX number of steps every day.
If you can't get 12,000 steps aday, don't aim for 12.
Aim for six or seven or eightor nine.
Whatever lets you get thatminimum viable product of steps,
and then push beyond that whenyou can.
(26:41):
Same thing with training.
You've got to get into the gymconsistently.
Your body's gonna respond toconsistent signals.
So consistency itself is areally important skill that we
want to develop here.
That's a whole separate topic,but it's very important.
Not discipline, not willpower,but really habits, behaviors
that are ingrained in your lifebecause they're achievable in
(27:02):
your life.
Okay, and then failure pointthree is trying to diet in the
middle of recovery.
Raise your hand if this is you,okay?
You're you're like four weeksin your recovery, you see the
scale up a few pounds, andyou're like, I'm gonna do a
rapid fat loss phase, or I'mgonna just quickly go on a
deficit for a week or two,Philip won't mind, you know.
And it undermines the wholeprocess, right?
(27:24):
It undermines the wholeprocess.
You can't simultaneouslyrecover your metabolism and
diet, because the dieting itselfis what got you here and it's
causing the suppression.
And if you can't mentallyhandle that, then I don't think
you're ready for a recovery dietyet.
Although I think everybodyshould strive to become ready
for one.
So those are the three failurepoints.
(27:44):
And I think, like, if there'sone surprising takeaway today
that that you might find is mostpeople who think they need a
recovery diet don't actuallyneed one.
And what I mean by that is alot of people who think they're
metabolically suppressed arejust they're in their calorie
deficit and they're impatient.
And I say that with a caveatbecause your metabolism should
(28:06):
adapt no matter what.
It's probably gonna drop.
But I'm talking about thepeople who've been dieting for
like six weeks.
And maybe you're not losingweight as fast as you want, but
you're losing it gradually andyou got past that initial bump
that deceives everyone intothinking they're gonna lose
weight a lot faster than theydo, right?
You can't, you kind of kind ofignore those first few weeks of
dropping water weight.
And, you know, things are gonnaslow down a little bit, but
(28:28):
then they kind of should kind ofget in a steady drop.
And those people who are makingthat slow but steady progress,
even if it's like a quarterpound or pound a week, I often
see them think that they are ina plateau or their metabolism is
so suppressed they can't makeprogress, but they actually are
chipping away at it.
And then it's a matter of goingback to my previous things and
of patience and consistency andjust continuing, right?
(28:50):
Actually being suppressed hasvery specific indicators.
Like you're at an ungodly lownumber of calories for multiple
months, and you shouldn't youshouldn't have to do that.
You know, your weight has beenabsolutely completely rock solid
stalled for like four or fiveweeks past the initial drop,
(29:10):
even though you're doing all thethings the right way.
Or your energy is in thecrapper, or your training
performance has declinednoticeably, or your sleep
quality has decreased, right?
It's all the biofeedback stuff.
Even for women, you've lostyour cycle, your sex drive is
gone.
Those kinds of things.
If you're eating in areasonable deficit, right,
there's there's a range of whatthat means.
(29:31):
But like if you're a woman,maybe that might look like 1600
calories you're eating.
Like, I'm not gonna freak outover that.
And your weight loss is stillgoing down, but it's just maybe
not as fast as you want, whichis a very common scenario.
You don't necessarily need arecovery diet.
Now, if you're done, if you'reready to come out, if you don't
want to diet, if you want to goto maintenance, that's perfect
for a recovery diet, right?
But I'm talking about peoplewho think they're not making
(29:51):
progress when they are, if thatmakes sense.
And and that's more of apatience thing, a precision
thing, a tracking thing.
It also an experience thing.
If you don't have those, if ifYou do have the markers of like
you things are reallysuppressed, just not great.
Then this is one of the mostpowerful tools available so that
you don't stay stuck for likemonths, years, or whatever and
(30:11):
just feel terrible.
We don't want you that way, dowe?
We want you feeling great andlooking great and doing all the
things you want to do in yourlife.
So the problem is usually notthat you need to eat less, it's
this metabolic adaptation.
And the solution is, of course,recovery, which means
establishing the fivefoundations we talked about
today, and then incorporatingthat with a recovery diet
protocol.
And then you're gonna, youknow, eat more, feel better, be
(30:34):
able to lose fat effectivelywhen you're ready.
So again, if you're thinkinglike this is exactly what I
need, please join me nextTuesday for the 10-week recovery
diet workshop.
I'm teaching the completesystem, the assessment process,
the week-by-week protocol, thetroubleshooting framework.
And this is literally a 20, Idon't hope this is not
overwhelming, but it's like a20-page document.
And I did it that way this timebecause I literally wanted to
(30:57):
give you something to take homewhere you can then map it out
exactly as needed.
And then we could help youimplement it or give you the
support you need along the wayas you hit those roadblocks that
we all inevitably intend tohit.
So you're gonna get all ofthat.
Your first month of physiqueuniversity, all of that 27
bucks.
Registration is open now.
Link is in the show notes or goto live.witsandweights.com.
(31:17):
And if you found value intoday's episode, please share it
with someone else who's stuckin low calories, who's
complaining about this, whofeels like there's no hope or no
way to go, because there is.
Until next time, keep usingyour wits, lifting those
weights, and remember that yourbody is capable of remarkable
adaptation in both directions.
Okay, the direction that wedon't like and the direction we
(31:38):
want to recover.
You just need the rightapproach, the right protocol to
guide it again.
This is Philip, and I'll talkto you next time.
If you've been eating 1200 calories, training
consistently, doing everythingright, and the scale's not
budging, your energy is in thetank, and you're terrified to
eat more, because the last timeyou did, you gained weight.
This episode is for you.
I'll show you why your body hasadapted to suppress your
metabolism, why just eat lessand move more stopped working
(00:22):
months or years ago, and theprecise protocol for escaping
this trap without gaining fat.
You'll discover what recoverydieting is, why most reverse
dieting attempts fail, and thefive foundations that determine
whether increasing calories willwork or backfire.
Welcome to Wits and Weights,the show that helps you build a
(00:52):
strong, healthy physique usingevidence, engineering, and
efficiency.
I'm your host, Philip Pate, andtoday we're gonna talk about
one of the most frustratingpositions you can find yourself
in.
You're eating very little,you're training really hard, and
you're getting nowhere.
I've worked with lots of peoplewho came to me eating very low
calories.
This might be around a thousandto fourteen hundred for female,
(01:14):
maybe 1500 to 1800 for males,and they're doing a lot of the
things right.
They're lifting maybe three orfour days a week, they're
walking every day, they'retracking, eating enough protein
in general, but something'sstuck.
And I'm not talking about scaleweight, I'm also talking about
lifts stalling, feelingexhausted, not having the
(01:35):
energy.
Maybe our blood works okay,maybe it's not.
But all you're thinking at thispoint is what do I need to do?
Do I need to eat even less?
Do I need to add more trainingor cardio?
And also, what's up withreverse dieting?
Is that what I need to do?
Do I need to eat more?
Because last time I tried that,I gained five pounds in a week,
right?
Stories like that.
These are not rare stories.
(01:56):
I hear them a lot.
And I think the online adviceabout some of this stuff is
either useless or activelyharmful.
A lot of people still throwaround the terms metabolic
damage, that you need to healyour metabolism and or that you
need to fix your metabolism.
Some people just sayflippantly, you know, you know,
it's you're just eating toomuch.
(02:16):
You're probably not tracking.
You probably don't know howmany calories you're eating, you
just need to eat less.
Some people, you know, say thatthe only way to do this is
reverse diet with, you know,five, add 50 to 100 calories per
week.
That's how you do it.
And then there's people thatsay, okay, just eat at
maintenance for a while andeverything's gonna kind of work
out, which doesn't sound too farfrom advice I might, I've I
sometimes give, which is we needto change one variable at a
(02:39):
time and try to stay atmaintenance, but there's a
different approach to doing thatthe right way versus just, you
know, trying to eat the samecalories you've been eating,
thinking that that'smaintenance.
Okay, we're gonna get into someof the nuances here.
I think a lot of this advice isjust missing the most important
thing, which is what'shappening to you and your body
and why just adding caloriesdoesn't always work without
(03:04):
certain foundations in place.
And I wanna be clear on that.
Reverse dieting is often notthe solution.
It may be a little piece of it.
And if you've ever heard mycontent before, you know that I
don't even use reverse dieting.
We do something called recoverydieting.
We're gonna talk about thattoday.
Before we do, I do want toshare what some members of
Physique University have beenexperiencing lately because it
(03:25):
connects directly to what we aretalking about.
So, Richard, he said, quote,after six weeks on the program,
I found the tools and info quitea game changer.
Very happy with the empowermentgained and the progress so far.
So, empowerment, I shared thisbecause of that word and not
feeling helpless and actuallyunderstanding what's going on
(03:45):
inside of you with you as anindividual so you can build your
system.
Ajana shared, quote, I'venoticed I'm not getting fatigued
early in the day, and my energylevel has written.
Again, I shared this becauseit's exactly what happens when
your metabolic function isworking properly instead of
being suppressed.
Notice I didn't say damaged,okay?
(04:06):
Suppressed.
And then Haig said, quote,winning, feeling better, pain
and illness gone, and I'mlifting what I was 10 years ago,
now to push harder.
So when your body has enoughenergy, when it's recovering
enough, everything improves.
This isn't just about the scaleand and often it has nothing to
do with the scale.
And yeah, you can push hardonce things aren't where you
(04:27):
need them to be.
So if you're looking for thiskind of result and
transformation, support,guidance, that's why we have
Physique University.
You can join atwitsandweights.com slash
physique, get access to ourcommunity, form checks with me
and Coach Carroll, all the toolsyou need to build your physique
and more importantly, yourhealth system, your fitness
(04:47):
system systematically.
So I just wanted to sharethose.
And now I want to get into whatthe heck is going on when you
are stuck at low calories.
Okay.
And I'm gonna call this thesuppression spiral, just because
it sounds cool and I likealliteration.
The suppression spiral.
All right, this is not aboutmetabolic damage.
The term gets thrown thrownaround a lot, but it is not a
(05:09):
real thing.
It is not a medical condition,your metabolism can't break.
Your metabolism adapts.
And adaptation is normal, ithappens to everybody, it's okay,
you expect it to happen.
And it can be reversed as well.
But understanding how is goingto explain why you today might
feel terrible and might havetrouble losing weight.
And again, we don't care aboutthe weight loss in and of
(05:29):
itself.
We care about improving yourhealth and body composition.
And then weight loss tends tofollow as a piece of that, and
not always, because you don'talways need it to.
But in this case, we're talkingabout people who are trying to
undergo some form of fat losswith a calorie deficit, and they
are stuck and so they feel likethey can't go up or down.
Okay, when you eat in a caloriedeficit for an extended period,
(05:50):
your body adapts and itconserves energy, in addition to
your metabolism droppingbecause you're losing weight.
But in this case, we're gonnaassume you've stuck, you've
gotten stuck trying to lose fatand lose weight on the scale.
Okay, and what we want tounderstand what's happening,
whether you should care, whatyou should do about it.
So your body adapts to conserveenergy hormonally at the
(06:12):
cellular level.
And this happens when you stayin a deficit too long or you eat
too little relative to youractivity.
Here's what happens (06:18):
first, your neat, your non-exercise
activity thermogenesis, actuallydrops.
A lot of it is unconscious.
Okay, and this is all themovement you're doing outside of
formal structured exercise.
Studies show that meat can dropby two to four hundred calories
per day.
And this is actually verycommon for what I see.
I see a lot of people inseveral months of dieting, their
(06:41):
metabolisms will drop severalhundreds of calories.
Sometimes more than thisbecause of added factors like
the weight loss.
And it's not that youconsciously decide to do this,
it's your body does thisautomatically, sometimes causes
you to move less or move withless effort, or there's so many
things, even if when you evenwhen you try to keep your step
count up that can move this theother direction.
(07:02):
Second, your trainingperformance suffers.
You're not pushing as hard,you're, you know, taking longer
to rest because you don't havethe work capacity.
Maybe you're not adding weightto the bar, to the to the lifts,
you're not going up in weight.
Not all of this is bad in a fatloss phase.
Like you're expected to nothave as much energy, but if it's
really stalled out andregressing, this could be a
challenge.
This means, you know, you'renot working as hard, you're also
(07:25):
burning fewer calories duringthe workout, right?
Even though we don't care aboutthat as a metric, it's an end
result of training less,training less hard, getting less
of a training stimulus to holdon to your muscle.
All of that is happening.
Third, your hormonesdownregulate, your thyroid
function goes down,testosterone, leptin.
When leptin's low, you feelhungrier, you move less, your
(07:47):
body becomes more efficient atstoring energy, which we don't
like, right?
Which means it's less efficientat giving it up.
And all this together meansthat your actual energy
expenditure, your metabolismdrops quite a bit.
It can drop substantially.
If you were, say, burning 2,000calories a day before you
started the diet, you might bedown to 1500 or 1300 or 1200
(08:11):
just to maintain your weight asyou are right now.
Okay.
And it's not because yourmetabolism is damaged, but
because your body has adapted.
This is a temporary state.
Most people respond with a gutreaction.
They do things that make itworse, such as cutting calories
more, right?
Adding cardio, trying to pushthrough with more discipline and
(08:35):
willpower.
And this just makes it worse.
You end up in what I called itearlier, the suppression spiral.
You eat less, your body adapts,the loss stops, you eat even
less, your body adapts more,you're doing more cardio, then
you're eating very little,you're feeling terrible, you're
making no progress, and and and.
And then the psychological tollis huge.
(08:56):
It is massive.
You then feel like a failure,right?
It seems to affect yourself-worth, your even your
self-respect.
You see other people eatingmore, looking better.
You can't understand why don'tthose rules apply to me.
I'm different.
Something is wrong with me.
But the problem is not withyou.
The problem is the approach.
It always is, guys.
It's always the approach.
And that is really empoweringbecause you can fix it.
(09:18):
You can you can't diet your wayout of metabolic suppression.
Almost by definition, youcan't.
Because eating less is what gotyou here.
You've got to have a differentstrategy.
So, where do we go with this?
All right.
That's the suppression spiral.
Now I want to talk about thefoundation, the problem with
your foundation, okay?
Because it really does comedown to basic principles, first
(09:39):
principles, foundations.
And if eating less isn't theanswer, what about eating more?
Well, this is where a lot ofpeople jump right to reverse
dieting.
You know, you get a newbiecoach who's like, yeah, we just
need to increase your calories,right?
That's what they learned intheir certification, and that's
the solution.
You're gonna increase yourcalories, you're going to boost
your metabolism, and you'regonna have this higher set
(10:00):
point, and everything's gonna behunky-dory.
And so we're gonna add, I don'tknow, 100 calories a week.
Hope the fat loss will resume.
And yeah, that never works.
Almost, almost never works.
I mean, there's it pretty muchnever works.
And the reason is foundational.
Your body's ability to handleincreased calories without
gaining fat depends on fivespecific factors.
(10:24):
And if these aren't in placefirst, then adding calories will
just make you gain weight.
And you're like, huh?
Haven't you talked all the timeabout recovering your
metabolism?
Yes, but you have to do it inconjunction with these
foundations.
That's the point.
It is not just about increasingcalories.
That is the important point Iwant you to take away.
(10:44):
So, foundation one, and a lotof people will have this at the
base of their pyramid for thefor good reason, is sleep
quality and consistency,especially consistency.
When you're chronicallyunder-recovered, your body is in
a stressful, sympathetic state.
And that's a big, big problembecause sleep is almost like
(11:05):
food to your body.
When you're depriving yourselfof sleep, even adding more food
isn't necessarily going tomitigate that, because the sleep
is another massive source ofrecovery and energy and taking
off that stress that's causingyou to have this suppression in
your metabolism.
Foundation two is non-trainingstress.
And I say it that way becausetraining itself is a stress, but
(11:29):
it's a good stress.
If you have stress from work,from your relationship, from
major things in your life, maybewith your family, with your
finances, you've got thiselevated cortisol all the time,
right?
That plus increasing yourcalories, your body's gonna say,
Oh, give me that energy for fatstorage.
Please give it to me for fatstorage.
(11:49):
And I say it that way becauseif you gain weight at all, you
might think, okay, I'm gainingsome muscle and fat.
You might gain a little bit ofmuscle.
Chances are though, if youdon't have these foundations in
place, you're gonna gain a lotmore fat than you'd like.
Okay, a lot more fat than you'dlike.
What we're trying to do here isas you eat more, we're gonna,
we're gonna tie this alltogether in the end.
These foundations allow you,your body to recover your
(12:13):
metabolism without gaining much,much, if any, fat at all, or
even any weight at all.
Like you, you might even youmight even start losing weight,
which again is not the end, notreally the goal.
It's just the the pleasant endresult is a drop in body fat.
So basic stress management isgoing to be huge here.
Foundation number three is ofcourse your training consistency
and progression.
(12:33):
It's interesting.
Some people, you know, they'lljoin our program.
It's not very common, butthey'll join our program and
when they do the intake, I say,How many training sessions are
you doing?
They say zero.
My brain immediately goes to,oh boy, I'm excited because this
is the biggest low-hangingfruit for you right now.
You're doing zero.
If we just go that go to one aweek, man, will that just
massively improve everythingyou're doing, your health, your
(12:56):
strength, your mouth, even justone a week.
I mean, ideally it's three orfour, but we need to start where
you're at.
Okay.
And you've got to be followinga structured program, a
structured program where you areprogressing, if not every week,
then most weeks.
And it has to be consistent.
I think every day you need tobe doing something for your
(13:17):
physical health in terms ofmovement, but from a strength
training perspective, that'sideally three to four weeks,
three, three to four days aweek, and at a minimum two.
But you know what?
One is still better than zero.
So I we need to make itconsistent and then start to
build from there.
The muscle that you have, thestimulus, stimulus you're
providing through that strengthtraining, is telling your body
(13:38):
what to do with that extraenergy in such a good way.
In such a good way.
If you're not training at all,then all these things are gonna
be a problem, are gonna continuebeing a problem.
Okay.
Foundation four is restoringthat suppression of your neat,
right?
Your non-exercise stuff.
So if you're barely movingoutside the gym, you're still
gonna have a lot of issuesrecovering.
(14:00):
This is where bringing thatstep count up, you know, seven
to 10,000 steps is a goodtarget.
But again, bringing it up fromwhere you are.
And also getting up off yourchair if you're a desk, if you
have a desk job and do thatmultiple times throughout the
day, you know, moving, gettingoutside, walking your dog, you
know, going for 30 to 60 minutesof cumulative movement
throughout the day, independentof your strength training.
(14:22):
And then foundation five is ofcourse, nutrition and nutrition.
And this primarily is not justthe energy overall, which is
calories, but the quality ofyour food, starting with protein
and fiber, and then havingbalanced foods with plenty of
fats and carbs as well.
And carbs are gonna be massivehere, guys.
Let me tell you.
If you've got to suppress yourmetabolism, suppress metabolism
(14:43):
and what you're trying to do isrecover, carbs are going to be
your friend.
Absolutely.
When combined with training,they're gonna help your
hormones, they're gonna helpyour recovery.
Very become very efficient.
Okay, this is not the time tobe doing keto and low carb.
Trust me, it's not.
I've seen the difference.
You're gonna recover yourenergy much faster this way.
So nutrition is reallyimportant from all of these
(15:03):
perspectives.
And I've seen dozens, hundreds,thousands of people trying to
reverse diet without thesefoundations.
All they're doing is increasingcalories.
Well, of course, it's gonnablow up in their face, right?
Sometimes they gain weight,sometimes they don't, but then
nothing is recovering.
So they're just eating a littlebit more food, and their
metabolism is, I'll say, slowlyincreasing, but they still have
(15:28):
the energy problems.
They are still gaining more fatthan they would like, right?
Like their physique, their bodycomposition is not improving.
And it's kind of a weird stateto be in because that's the
worst situation, is whereyou're, you know, recovering
your metabolism, not gainingweight on the scale, but also
not improving of the things thatyou really, really care about.
You know, sometimes people willfeel a little better because
they're eating more food, butthen they're having trouble with
(15:51):
the body composition, right?
So you get like these weirdcorner cases when you're not
doing all the foundations.
But when you are, then therecovery diet works dramatically
better.
And I say recovery, it'srecovery from our suppressed
metabolism, whether you've justbeen living that way through
lots of restrictive eating, oryou've done a fat loss phase
intentionally and now are tryingto come out.
(16:12):
Hopefully, if you've done a fatloss phase, you've already done
these things beforehand.
I am mainly speaking to theperson that's not even there yet
and you're just trying torecover for the first time.
Right.
And now you can actually addthose calories pretty
aggressively and feel bettereven faster and have your body
composition stay stable orimprove as you're doing that.
(16:34):
And then when you later onreturn to a deficit, you're
coming from a much better place.
And honestly, I don't want youeven in a deficit for a while
until you go through thatrecovery process.
And that's the next problem isthat it takes time, it takes
focus, it takes patience.
I'm not gonna use the worddiscipline, it's consistency.
And you can do this in a verymanageable, achievable way, one
(16:57):
step at a time, two steps at atime, you know, just whatever
works best for your lifestyleright now with the low-hanging
fruit to fix your sleep, tomanage your stress, to train, to
move a little more, right?
I know sometimes it feelsoverwhelming because it seems
like all these pillars.
At some point, you do need toget to the point where you're
doing something with each ofthese pillars.
But right now, pick the thingthat is your go-get, as they
(17:19):
say.
All right.
So now that we've talked aboutthe suppression spiral, we've
talked about the five uhfoundations you have to have in
place.
Let's now talk about therecovery diet approach.
And I haven't talked about itin a while on the show, and
that's why I wanted to make thisepisode.
What is a recovery diet?
All right, it is not the sameas a reverse diet.
A reverse diet is about slowlyadding calories to maintain your
(17:44):
weight after diet ends, to tryto get back to your metabolism,
but you're doing it in a randomguessing sort of way.
That's really all it is.
You're doing it with lessprecision and it takes longer,
and you might overshoot, and allof those challenges that you've
heard of with reverse dieting.
A recovery diet is just a veryprecise protocol to restore
(18:06):
metabolic function immediately,as quickly as possible, to where
it should be right now.
Like, what is your optimal setpoint right now?
We won't know what it is untilwe get there, but we do know
what it is right now, and weknow that if we're under-eating
to that, we can quickly go backthere and not worry about
gaining weight.
All right.
You are definitely gonna gain afew pounds of water weight and
(18:27):
glycogen, but that is not bodyfat.
Just to put that out there,because that's another fear
people have.
The goal is to get your bodyback to firing and burning more
calories, maintaining your bodycomposition, feeling better,
feeling healthier, feelingstronger, all of those things.
So we're talking about goingfrom let's say you're 1200
calories right now and bringingthat up to it, might be as high
(18:50):
as 2,000 calories withoutgaining any fat or weight.
Now, again, you're gonna gainsome weight of water weight, but
not of fat.
Maybe you'll gain a littlemuscle as well.
And then letting that stabilizebefore you do whatever your
next phase is, which might befat loss, maybe it's building
muscle, maybe you want tomaintain it there.
But the point is we need torecover to that point.
And you're not gonna do itinstantly.
(19:11):
It could happen, you could doit in a few days, and then when
you start to recover, you mayneed to go even higher.
And so there are some parallelsto reverse dieting, but it's a
lot more precision or a lot moreprecise.
You have to track your intakeaccurately, weigh your food, log
your food, log your weight, anduse it uh either a calculation
(19:32):
or in my opinion, MacroFactor isthe one app on the market that
can estimate your expenditurefrom what you've logged.
And then it you will literallyknow the number to go to
tomorrow after you've done that.
Now, that's after you've beentracking for several weeks.
You'll know what metabolismyour metabolism is right now and
how many calories to increase.
Go download macrofactor, use mycode WITS and weights, all one
(19:54):
word, to get a free trial forthat.
It's excellent for this becauseit adjusts your expenditure
based on your trend and intakefor that accurate recovery diet.
But you also have to track yourbody composition, your
strength, right, your lifts, allthe things you should be doing
anyway.
And then remember, the scale isgoing to go up during that
recovery, especially at thebeginning, because of water,
(20:16):
glycogen, digestive content,sodium, like you're just eating
more, all of that.
You should look pretty much thesame, if not better, in the
mirror.
It's because sometimes when youfill out the muscles of that
glycogen, you end up looking alittle bit more pumped.
You know, it depends on whatyou already have there, of
course.
If you've never lifted weights,you're not there yet.
But in general, you're gonnalook a little better, actually.
(20:37):
And then the timeline is reallyimportant here because while
you can jump caloriesimmediately to get out of the
deficit, literally one day,you're gonna need eight to 12
weeks, sometimes longer,depending on how suppressed your
metabolism was to get to fullrecovery.
So it's kind of like recoveryhops.
Okay.
If you were eating 1200calories for six months, you
(20:59):
might need two or three monthsto get back to your 1800 or 2000
or 2200 maintenance.
And you don't want, I know youdon't want to hear this, but
your body doesn't work on thetimeline that you want it to
work on.
It's gonna work on whatnature's gonna do.
And you're gonna, I'm notspeaking properly here, but
you're going to give it the bestshot to recover as quickly as
possible.
So success looks like eatingthree, four, five, six, up to
(21:22):
maybe 800 calories more, maybe athousand, you know, if you're a
bigger guy, for example, thanwhen you started.
So I would say probably four tofour to six or eight hundred
calories is like a nice bigwindow for a lot of people that
I see.
And then your weight, your bodyweight has stabilized after
that initial water bump and it'skind of stabilized.
Maybe it's a little bit higherthan that, but your measurements
should be about the same.
(21:42):
You should look the same orbetter, your energy should be
significantly improved.
Your training performanceshould be going up, right?
You're adding weight or reps.
Your recovery is faster, feelsbetter, your mood should be
better.
For the ladies, your menstrualcycle should be normal again if
it was irregular.
Now, these aren't claims I'mmaking, these are just the
shoulds that should happen allthings equal, you know, not
(22:04):
counting any other conditionsomeone might have.
And then when you return to afat loss phase later, you're
gonna be set up much better forsuccess.
And you probably won't have todiet to those calories either,
because you're eating more fiberand you're moving more, you're
burning more calories ingeneral.
This is different than thosefit fluencers saying, Oh, you
(22:25):
gotta do is reverse diet, andthen you do a fat loss phase and
you could eat more caloriesthan last time.
Okay, it doesn't work that way,like in that short timeline
without doing all thefoundational things and without
potentially having built alittle bit of muscle and
metabolic capacity as well.
Okay, don't look for quickfixes, it's going to backfire.
(22:46):
But if you do this the rightway, then when you do have fat
loss phase, you're not gonnafeel destroyed and you're not
gonna be losing muscle.
And that's the key, one of thekey differences.
And then you're gonna haveenergy for your workouts, your
life.
You could probably do it in asustainable way, not have to go
as aggressive.
Now, everybody's different.
Everybody has different levelsthat they start from and end
from and different histories.
(23:07):
So the protocol has to beindividualized, right?
Some people can add thosecalories more aggressively or
bigger jumps.
Others need to go slowerbecause of how it makes them
feel or the practicality of it,right?
Just trying to eat more food.
So the specifics depend on yoursituation, your foundations,
where you are, what you're ableto incorporate now, and of
course how your body responds.
(23:28):
All right.
So if what I'm describing sofar sounds kind of like your
situation.
If you're stuck at lowcalories, if you're not sure how
to go from where to go fromhere, if you need a systematic
way out and it to improve all ofthese factors, I'm running a
live workshop October 21stcalled the Recovery Diet
Workshop.
It's actually called the10-week recovery diet workshop
(23:50):
because I'm going to walkthrough a full, it's like a
20-page workbook that you'regonna get access to afterward
that is gonna help you assessexactly whether you are
suppressed, what is the week byweek progression to get out of
it with a recovery diet as wehead to the end of the year.
So it's perfectly timed 10weeks to take you into the new
(24:10):
year, and then you're ready togo if you're looking to do a fat
loss phase in the new year.
And so it walk, we're gonnawalk through, you know, how to
adjust based on your response,all the pitfalls, all the
scenarios, what to do when.
You're gonna have it all mappedout.
And you're also gonna get yourfirst month in physique
(24:31):
university as part of the wholething for no extra cost.
So to me, it's a no-brainerbecause you're gonna have the
workbook, the workshop, and ofcourse all the resources and
support to get started and getsome accountability and
feedback, which for many peoplethat's what they need is the
accountability to make ithappen.
So that's 27 bucks October21st.
Go to live.witsandweights.com.
(24:52):
That is Tuesday.
That's next Tuesday, our10-week recovery diet workshop.
So if you're stuck with lowcalories, if you want a system
for improving that and comingout the right way and not these
random reverse diets, grab yourspot, link is in the show notes,
live.witsandweights.com.
I'll share it again at the end.
Now let's talk about some ofthe common failure points.
What makes people fail?
(25:13):
All right, because even whenpeople understand this recovery
diet concept, and I I knowpeople will parrot it back to me
and will define it pretty well,but then there's these three
major failure points in realitythat prevent people from doing
them successfully.
The first failure point is, ofcourse, impatience.
You knew I was gonna say this,right?
This is hey, I added caloriesfor two weeks, I didn't see
(25:35):
things change, or I had thatbump in weight that Phillip said
would happen.
It's all fluid, but I freakedout and I cut back.
Look, your body's not gonnarecover in two weeks.
It's just not.
I'm sorry, it's not gonnarecover in two weeks if you've
been doing this for any lengthof time, right?
Because what got you here tookmany, many months.
I'm not saying it's gonna takethe same amount of time.
It's just gonna take somedecent amount.
(25:57):
So that's the first failurepoint is impatience.
That's why we have to focus onthe metrics that we care about
the most, which is increasingour strength in the gym,
increasing our nutritionquality.
Guess what?
All the foundations that Italked about.
The second failure point isguess what?
Inconsistency with thosefoundations.
So consistency really is what Imean here.
And that is not just sleepingwell for two out of the seven
(26:19):
days of the week, but sleepingwell for four, five, six,
hopefully all seven, but morethan you were before.
Walking, you know, getting yourX number of steps every day.
If you can't get 12,000 steps aday, don't aim for 12.
Aim for six or seven or eightor nine.
Whatever lets you get thatminimum viable product of steps,
and then push beyond that whenyou can.
(26:41):
Same thing with training.
You've got to get into the gymconsistently.
Your body's gonna respond toconsistent signals.
So consistency itself is areally important skill that we
want to develop here.
That's a whole separate topic,but it's very important.
Not discipline, not willpower,but really habits, behaviors
that are ingrained in your lifebecause they're achievable in
(27:02):
your life.
Okay, and then failure pointthree is trying to diet in the
middle of recovery.
Raise your hand if this is you,okay?
You're you're like four weeksin your recovery, you see the
scale up a few pounds, andyou're like, I'm gonna do a
rapid fat loss phase, or I'mgonna just quickly go on a
deficit for a week or two,Philip won't mind, you know.
And it undermines the wholeprocess, right?
(27:24):
It undermines the wholeprocess.
You can't simultaneouslyrecover your metabolism and
diet, because the dieting itselfis what got you here and it's
causing the suppression.
And if you can't mentallyhandle that, then I don't think
you're ready for a recovery dietyet.
Although I think everybodyshould strive to become ready
for one.
So those are the three failurepoints.
(27:44):
And I think, like, if there'sone surprising takeaway today
that that you might find is mostpeople who think they need a
recovery diet don't actuallyneed one.
And what I mean by that is alot of people who think they're
metabolically suppressed arejust they're in their calorie
deficit and they're impatient.
And I say that with a caveatbecause your metabolism should
(28:06):
adapt no matter what.
It's probably gonna drop.
But I'm talking about thepeople who've been dieting for
like six weeks.
And maybe you're not losingweight as fast as you want, but
you're losing it gradually andyou got past that initial bump
that deceives everyone intothinking they're gonna lose
weight a lot faster than theydo, right?
You can't, you kind of kind ofignore those first few weeks of
dropping water weight.
And, you know, things are gonnaslow down a little bit, but
(28:28):
then they kind of should kind ofget in a steady drop.
And those people who are makingthat slow but steady progress,
even if it's like a quarterpound or pound a week, I often
see them think that they are ina plateau or their metabolism is
so suppressed they can't makeprogress, but they actually are
chipping away at it.
And then it's a matter of goingback to my previous things and
of patience and consistency andjust continuing, right?
(28:50):
Actually being suppressed hasvery specific indicators.
Like you're at an ungodly lownumber of calories for multiple
months, and you shouldn't youshouldn't have to do that.
You know, your weight has beenabsolutely completely rock solid
stalled for like four or fiveweeks past the initial drop,
(29:10):
even though you're doing all thethings the right way.
Or your energy is in thecrapper, or your training
performance has declinednoticeably, or your sleep
quality has decreased, right?
It's all the biofeedback stuff.
Even for women, you've lostyour cycle, your sex drive is
gone.
Those kinds of things.
If you're eating in areasonable deficit, right,
there's there's a range of whatthat means.
(29:31):
But like if you're a woman,maybe that might look like 1600
calories you're eating.
Like, I'm not gonna freak outover that.
And your weight loss is stillgoing down, but it's just maybe
not as fast as you want, whichis a very common scenario.
You don't necessarily need arecovery diet.
Now, if you're done, if you'reready to come out, if you don't
want to diet, if you want to goto maintenance, that's perfect
for a recovery diet, right?
But I'm talking about peoplewho think they're not making
(29:51):
progress when they are, if thatmakes sense.
And and that's more of apatience thing, a precision
thing, a tracking thing.
It also an experience thing.
If you don't have those, if ifYou do have the markers of like
you things are reallysuppressed, just not great.
Then this is one of the mostpowerful tools available so that
you don't stay stuck for likemonths, years, or whatever and
(30:11):
just feel terrible.
We don't want you that way, dowe?
We want you feeling great andlooking great and doing all the
things you want to do in yourlife.
So the problem is usually notthat you need to eat less, it's
this metabolic adaptation.
And the solution is, of course,recovery, which means
establishing the fivefoundations we talked about
today, and then incorporatingthat with a recovery diet
protocol.
And then you're gonna, youknow, eat more, feel better, be
(30:34):
able to lose fat effectivelywhen you're ready.
So again, if you're thinkinglike this is exactly what I
need, please join me nextTuesday for the 10-week recovery
diet workshop.
I'm teaching the completesystem, the assessment process,
the week-by-week protocol, thetroubleshooting framework.
And this is literally a 20, Idon't hope this is not
overwhelming, but it's like a20-page document.
And I did it that way this timebecause I literally wanted to
(30:57):
give you something to take homewhere you can then map it out
exactly as needed.
And then we could help youimplement it or give you the
support you need along the wayas you hit those roadblocks that
we all inevitably intend tohit.
So you're gonna get all ofthat.
Your first month of physiqueuniversity, all of that 27
bucks.
Registration is open now.
Link is in the show notes or goto live.witsandweights.com.
(31:17):
And if you found value intoday's episode, please share it
with someone else who's stuckin low calories, who's
complaining about this, whofeels like there's no hope or no
way to go, because there is.
Until next time, keep usingyour wits, lifting those
weights, and remember that yourbody is capable of remarkable
adaptation in both directions.
Okay, the direction that wedon't like and the direction we
(31:38):
want to recover.
You just need the rightapproach, the right protocol to
guide it again.
This is Philip, and I'll talkto you next time.
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