Ep 38: Body Fat Overshooting, Body Composition, and Avoiding Weight Loss Mistakes

Episode Transcript
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Philip Pape (00:08):
Welcome to the Wits & Weights podcast, where we
discuss getting strong andhealthy with strength training
and sustainable nutrition. I'myour host, Philip pape, and in
each episode, we examinestrategies to help you achieve
physical self mastery through ahealthy skepticism of the
fitness industry, and acommitment to consistent
nutrition and training forsustainable results.

(00:31):
Welcome to another episode ofWits & Weights. This episode is
from my appearance on PaulHinton's podcast, the healthy
fit life for the episodeavoiding common issues with
sustainable fat loss. Paulinterviewed me about body
composition, body fatovershooting the difference
between weight loss and fatloss. What happens when we lose

(00:53):
weight mistakes people makeduring weight loss and what we
can do instead for a moresustainable approach while still
getting results. The last thingI want to mention is that if you
feel like you've put in effortto improve your health and
fitness, but are not gettingresults, I'd like to invite you
to apply for my one on onecoaching program. To get the

(01:13):
body you desire, lose fat, buildmuscle and make real progress.
We'll work together to examineeverything you're doing and not
doing to figure out what'smissing. So you can look better
perform better and feel better.
Just go to wits &weights.com/coaching. To learn
about my program, and applytoday, or click the link in the
show notes. Thanks for listeningand enjoy our conversation about

(01:35):
body composition.

Paul Hanton (01:39):
Hey, and welcome to The Healthy Fit Life podcast.
I'm your host Paul Hanton. Todaywe'll be talking to Philip Pape,
a certified nutrition coach,mindset specialists and hosts of
the weights and wits podcast,we'll be discussing how to avoid
body fat overshooting forsustainable fat loss. And if
you're a fan of the show, pleasedo remember to subscribe so you
don't miss any episodes. And weleave a review if you enjoy

(02:02):
listening. So Philip, how youdoing today? I'm doing great,
Paul. Thanks for having me onthe show. Yeah, thanks for
coming on the show. So I'mreally excited to talk about
this thing something that whilepeople can learn more about so
an intro mention body fatovershooting for sustainable fat
loss. So I think it's a reallygood place to start. What is
body fat overshooting?

Yeah, body fat overshooting is a concept that I
think if if more people reallyunderstood it, it's probably the
crux of many of the issuespeople have getting results. And
I think the The term was coinedby Layne Norton in fat loss
forever years ago. And it's beenused many times. But in a
nutshell, it's the idea thatevery time we diet, we lose fat,

(02:48):
but we also lose some muscleright there, there are a bunch
of side effects that come alongwith that, that we can get into
detail on that then cause us towant to eat, eat the weight
right back and then some andovershoot the original body fat
level that we had. And there's asobering statistic that at least
1/3 and up to two thirds ofpeople regain the weight they

(03:10):
lose within a year and up to 95%will regain that within five
years. Wow. Yeah. That's, that'scrazy. That's kind of puts it in
perspective, right? If you havesome sort of goal, especially
when it comes to fat loss,

like this one, get 33% chance of getting it back
within a year. And then the vastmajority people sound like they
gain it back within five years.

Yeah, it's it's and it actually is even more
insidious than that. Right?
Because we're gonna get into thebody composition outcome of all
of this. It's not just aboutweight. It's it's really about
fat and body composition andoverall health.

Yeah, and that's a good segue. So why people use
weight loss, fat lossinterchangeably. And, you know,
I think I've been guilty of thatmyself a handful of times,
sometimes it's easier just togeneralize a weight loss. But
what is it between fat loss andweight loss?

Yeah, I think the the fitness industry and the way
we've sold results over theyears, has always focused on
weight loss, because nobodycomes to you saying, I need to
gain more weight. Right? Right.
It's something has happened overmy lifetime. The older I get,
the worse I feel. I look in themirror. And every time I lose
weight, I think I'm gonna behappy and yet, something's not

(04:27):
right. My moods worse over time,my energy, my overall health, my
blood markers, my strength, etc.
And it just accelerates overtime. And what we fail to
realize is that there are verynegative effects as being a
human being over time if wedon't give us ourselves the

(04:47):
right stimulus, the rightstimulus in terms of details
we'll get into but things liketraining and protein, and so our
bodies think, okay, I don'treally need the muscle. You're
not feeding me enough protein.
I'm getting older. I'm sittingaround all day, probably working
from home now, and I just don'tneed this. So you start to lose
the muscle and you start to getweak over time. And when we talk
in the language of weight loss,yeah, it sells. And a lot of

(05:10):
people know what you're talkingabout. But when I work with
clients, it's it's how do wechange our lifestyle, our
habits, our skills andbehaviors, so that we can
improve our body composition,and then gain all the health
benefits that come with thatfrom increased strength to
avoiding disease to just justgreater vitality and, you know,
healthy living.

Right? So I agree that the fitness industry sells
weight loss. And most people,they what they want is fat loss,
right? They they, especially formen, they want to go the body
composition route, where theythey are dropping fat, but they
still retain some sort of musclemass. But I agree that I think

(05:55):
the fitness industry is reallyoversold weight loss. And that's
what you see everywhere, whenpeople what people really want
is fat loss. But I do also wantto talk about body composition.
So maybe you can describe whatis body composition? To me, the
general audience, what does thatmean? What does it look like
body composition?

Sure. I mean, in simplest terms are bodies made
up of tissue, fat, organs,muscle bones. And the simplest
way to describe body compositionis how much of that is fat. So
what is your body fatpercentage, and for you know,
there's a there's an essentiallevel of fat we need to survive.
So if you look at bodybuilderswho are staged, lean, men can

(06:36):
get down to three or 4%. Belowthat you would just die. Right?
That's an insane level ofleanness, and for women, it's
10%, higher than that roughlyabout 12%. And then there's a
level of essential fat you needon top of that for health,
right? It protects your organs.
It's good for your hormones, andwe need to have somewhere for
men, it would be somewherebetween 10 and 20%. Body fat and

(06:56):
for women are going to be 20 to30%. So that's what we mean by
body composition. And mostpeople, if they don't do
anything about it will slowlyslide higher and higher, you
know, for men into the 20s and30s. As they get older.

Yeah. And I think I know, one of the big myth, maybe
back maybe it's gotten betternow. I think it's gotten better
now of how, you know, fat isbad, right? But like you just
like you mentioned, we our bodyactually needs some sort of some
some level of fat to to justsurvive, right? Not not excel,
but just to survive. And I thinkI think we've moved maybe,

(07:36):
hopefully move past that in theindustry. But I know for me,
that was one of the myths I heldfor a long time that fat is bad.
fat is bad. And but really, weour body needs a certain level
of fat, just to survive.

Yeah, and I think like, especially when I have
female clients who they justwant to lose weight right away,
right, we talk about bodycomposition. It's it's like,
even if you focus on losingweight, and think that's gonna
get you to your level ofleanness, a lot of what you're
losing is not fat, it's alsomuscle. And that's part of the
problem.

Right? Right. And so let's talk about body
composition. That's another wordyou mentioned. So what we talked
about body composition, which islike that percentage of fat that
you have, what is bodycomposition? So someone said,
hey, I want to, you know,decrease fat, but keep my
keeping in the lean muscle massthat I have. But what is body

(08:32):
composition? Mean?

Sure. And I guess I would split into two
definitions. One is what peoplego after. That's like the Holy
Grail of building muscle andlosing fat at the same time,
which is, it's possible in a fewcases, it's possible if you're
very overweight, because youhaven't significant fat reserve
your effectively. Even whenyou're in a deficit, it's almost

(08:57):
like you're in a slight surplus,right? Initially, because you
have the extra fat, right? Andthen in brand new lifters have
never lifted before. Because itgets such a huge stimulus to
build muscle, that even if theydiets slightly or at maintenance
that they can recomp. So that'sthat's re composition. But we
could also think of it in termsof just over time changing our

(09:19):
body composition. And we can'tfocus on just one half of the
equation. We can't just focus onlosing, right? Yes. When I when
I have to get a new client andconvince them that, you know, if
they want to lose 30 pounds, atsome point, we want to build
muscle. We generally still startwith a fat loss phase after
after we go through a pre dietmaintenance and prep phase, of

(09:40):
course. But then once they getthere, and once they realize the
importance of muscle, then weturn it around and we say Okay,
now let's focus on buildingmuscle, which very few people
do. Right? And when they do it,they often don't do it for long
enough. They'll do it for threemonths, say Oh, I'm starting to
get fat and then they want tocry. And my general
recommendation is to build forat least six to nine months, if

(10:01):
you've never done it before,because that's where all the
wonderful new gains are going tobe.

Yeah, those newbie gains, just very popular newbie
gains. So you mentioned, likeyou recommend people will do the
six to nine months of juststrength training, especially if
they're new. And I think that'sreally, really important
consideration, especially ifyou're starting out. And you're
brand new, because those newbiegains are very real. And so what

(10:26):
you're saying is, the longer youcan prolong that, the more of
the longer you get thosebenefits from being that newer
lifter, right?

Yeah, that's it, there's, there's some sort of
threshold where, like, theanabolic threshold, whatever you
want to call it, after a fewmonths, where it starts to kick
in, your metabolism reallystarts to ramp up. And
especially for a new lifter, abrand new lifter is going to
have what they call neuromuscular adaptation, right for
the first three months or sowhen you're doing a novice
program, you have this inherentlevel of strength that your body

(10:55):
is capable of, but you're notquite expressing it until you
start getting under heavybarbell for a while. And so you
start to recruit more and moreof those muscle fibers and
develop into your maximummaximal strength. And then you
start to develop new and biggermuscle tissue at that point. So
there's like this thresholdwhere it starts and then it
starts to take off. So if youdon't let it go long enough,
you're not gonna, you're gonnasee that can be very inefficient

(11:17):
for years.

Right. And then after that, after those newbie
gains, that's when the real workstarts. Right. The fun stuff,
right? Just trying to try tomake a little bit of progress.
But yeah, so let's jump intowhat happens when your body when
you actually start to loseweight or fat. So what is what
are some sort of adaptationsthat your body goes through?

(11:39):
When you start to decreaseweight or fat?

Yeah, and I liked the way you put that as
adaptations, because I thinkpeople have to understand that
the body is very dynamic. Itdoes adapt whatever you do to
it. But it never breaks andnever like totally, you know,
falls apart. We I've heard theterm broken metabolism. Again,
it's a sales tactic, in myopinion, say, well, your
metabolism is broken and needsto be fixed. Really? No, it's

(12:03):
downregulated. So what happenswhen you're dieting, let's talk
about the average person whoisn't doing the things we're
going to talk about a little bitlater, or who's maybe sedentary
with a standard diet. And theyuse a typical restrictive diet,
either cutting calories, and orcutting food or food groups,
like keto or all the fat, I'vedone them all myself, okay. And

(12:27):
so so you're doing that. Andwhat happens is, you start to
lose weight pretty quickly,initially, and your metabolism
will start to decline right awayyour your daily energy
expenditure, so the amount ofcalories you burn, right, so one
of the first plateaus people getto is, hey, I'm eating on so few
calories, and yet, I'm notlosing weight, I can't lose
weight, when in reality, it'syou're probably losing weight

(12:48):
way too quickly. And yourmetabolism is keeping up with
that. And now you need to cutfurther because you're not doing
the other things that we do totry to diet on war calories.
Right? Right. There's a lot ofhormonal changes, right, your
your thyroid hormone decreases,that affects your metabolism,
cortisol goes up, that's stress,leptin and ghrelin, which

(13:10):
regulate fat cells as well asappetite change. So what happens
is, as you're losing weightquickly, and you're not
training, and you're losingmuscle, all these things create
a vicious cycle, where youexperience number one, muscle
loss induced appetite. Numbertwo hormone induced appetite.

(13:33):
And then and then when you you,you get to the bottom of that
diet, you're so ravenous, andyou've been restricting so much
that you just now want to bingeon high, high carb, high salt,
high sugar type foods, or highfat foods that nature is telling
you, it would be the best thingto bring into your body to get

(13:53):
back to good health. Right? And,and that's what basically
accelerates the desire to bingeback. What causes you to overeat
and body fat overshoot? And thenon the way up, when you regain
that weight, here's what peoplehave to understand all that
muscle you lost, which could beup to half the tissue, right? So
let's say you lost 20 pounds,maybe 10 pounds with that as

(14:15):
muscle. If you regain that 20pounds back, most of that is
fat. So every time you'recycling up and down and up and
down, you end up with the sameweight, but fatter and fatter.

Yeah, yeah. I think that's something what you what
you mentioned initially aboutthe people would generally just
decrease their calories to anunhealthy amount. Which, which
makes sense, right? We talkedabout being a caloric deficit.
And so you think well, okay,well, I'm going to keep
decreasing my calories in July.
But then you have to askyourself, Okay, at what point

(14:47):
are you going to stop rikes 500calories a day? You know, 100
right there. It doesn't reallythe logic doesn't really make
sense when you start to reallythink through Okay, yeah. EDB
caloric deficit, but But how farcan you go and I think people
sometimes go too far, and theygot hit that plateau, then they
can get they realize they can'tgo any further. They kind of get

(15:07):
stuck.

Yeah, exactly. And so that's, that's why I think
it's very important to spendsome time bringing up your
maintenance calories to a higherlevel that where you can diet on
a higher level. Now, you can'tjust magically do that. There's
there's two pieces that I thinkmake the biggest impact. Based
on what I've seen, based on whatthe evidence supports. One is

(15:31):
going to be training, you know,strength training, where not not
the training itself, which doesburn some calories, it's the
adding muscle mass again,talking about body composition,
that increases your base levelof metabolic rate. And because
muscle is more expensive thanthan fat, and then the other is
activity. But here's wherepeople go off the rails again,

(15:52):
because a lot of people think ofactivity as cardio, like tons of
cardio hours and hours on atreadmill. When in reality, we
just need to move and generallythat steps. So it's, you know, I
used to tell people step count,because if you look at our
ancestors, right, they had tomove all day, they had to expend
energy all day. We don't do thattoday. But as little as an extra

(16:13):
two or 4000 steps a day canprobably up your calorie burn by
several 100 calories every day.

Yeah, and you touched on a one one big
misconception or mistake thatpeople make when it comes to
trying to lose lose weight orlose fat is reliant over relying
on cardio or only focusing oncardio or, or thinking that
that's the only way that's thebest way, or the only way to
lose weight and fat. So how doyou help people kind of

(16:42):
understand that, you know,cardio has a lot of benefits for
you. But when it comes to weightloss, fat loss, strength
training is just gonna be betterfor you.

Yeah, I mean, it's hard, it's hard to convince
people who do the pilates andthe orange theory and CrossFit,
and they're just so into all ofthese things. And that's where
you have to develop arelationship of trust. And, and
basically, have them try, youknow, an effective training
program and understand whatthat's all about. And that we

(17:11):
have goals we have, we have agoal, and our goal requires us
to prioritize certain things,and we can't do everything. If
you want to be a world classtennis player, or marathon
runner, fine, we're gonna haveto focus on that. If you're
trying to improve your bodycomposition, then then strength
is where it's at. And too muchcardio is going to interfere
with the recovery from thatlifting, which then interferes

(17:34):
with the adaptation from thelifting. And that's how we build
muscle. It also can send ourbodies and endurance signal
that, hey, we're it kind ofconflicts with the strength
training signal, it basicallytells our body, try to be more
efficient with calories, becauseI see you really need them,
you're moving a lot every day,be efficient, and thus bring

(17:55):
down your metabolism. Right? Sowhat a lot of people find is
that they start, they go fromhours and hours of cardio to
three days a week in the gym foran hour, and all of a sudden the
metabolism starts to go

up. Right, right.
And then another another commonmistake that you mentioned
already, but I want to talk alittle more about as the extreme
restriction around what you'reeating or even caloric intake.
And I think the fitness industrypushes that a lot, right?
Because it sells well. So whenit comes to those extreme,

(18:28):
restrictive diets, or peopledropping their calories to
unhealthy mount levels, how doyou help people kind of overcome
that?

Yeah, I think a lot of people that are seeking help
with their nutrition have havetried these diets? And the
answer, you don't want to askthem? Did it work for you? The
answer is always for a time.
Like it worked for a time well,why did it stop working? Well, I
can't not eat carbs for the restof my life. Or I can't, you
know, whatever, whateverrestriction it is, you know, if

(19:00):
it's carnivore, I can't just noteat vegetables. Maybe some
people can't. But but it comesdown to sustainability, right?
And yeah, maybe it's a buzzword,maybe we throw it around a lot.
But how do you solve both sidesof the equation one is trying to
lose weight and maintain ahealthy body composition, and
the other is eating things Ienjoy for the rest of my life.

(19:22):
Right? And a lot of people thinkthose two aren't compatible.
They think of dieting as an onoff switch. Okay, now I'm in
dieting mode. So I'm going tostart cutting everything out.
Okay, I'm done. Now what? Likehow do I sustain it? Do I just
eat everything I used to not eator that I cut out but less of
it. I don't know what to do. So,we tend to work on from a

(19:44):
principle of some people call itflexible dieting. But I
basically say if, if it'sconsistent with your lifestyle,
right? If it's foods you enjoy,we try to fit them in, but we
understand where each where itserves. You and your goals. So
if doughnuts are a nonnegotiable, okay, let's find a
way to fit a doughnut in andmaybe it's a homemade donut. Or

(20:07):
maybe it's you know, one versustwo donuts, you know, there's
decisions we can make. And thereare occasionally hard rules
people need to set forthemselves when things are just
completely triggering for them.
But I don't want you to justsay, I'm not having carbs. Hey,
this is Philip pape, letting youknow that applications are now
open for one on one coaching. Ifyou're a busy working

(20:30):
professional, who has trieddieting, and exercising for
years, with little in the way ofresults, and you want to lose
fat, get lean or feel confidentin your body without excessive
dieting, cardio or restrictions,just go to wits &
weights.com/coaching, to apply.

Yeah, and that sustainability piece, you
mentioned, really ties back intothose statistics, you mentioned
in the first half of the firstpart of the episode about
breather thriller, a third ofthe a third of people, the 30
people in the first year justate it back. And then the 95% of
people gain it back within fiveyears. That goes back to

(21:09):
sustainability, like youmentioned. And so I also am a
big proponent of what we callflexible dieting, of trying to
incorporate, try not to restrictpeople from eating some of the
foods that they love, and theyjust cannot do without for a
long period of time. I thinkpeople can maybe suffer through
it for a month or two. But it'sreally hard for people just to
go without it for the rest oftheir lives. And as against

(21:31):
sustainability, and thinkinglong term about how you approach
your nutrition. And your health.
Yeah, totally

agree. Yeah. And then and then the other piece of
that, of course, is the themacro balance all the things
that we do, as part of thatdieting approach that most
people don't do, for example,the big thing, and we can call
this a mistake, or we can callit a solution, but most people
don't get nearly enough protein.
Right? That's a huge one rightthere. Every client that comes
in who who doesn't already havea good solid education on this

(22:01):
stuff is probably under eatingby 50 to 75%. Yeah. Right. I
mean, you have 170 pound femaleeating 60 or 50 grams of protein
a day, and she needs to beeating 140. And of course, in
the from week one, it's how theheck do I do that? Right? And
that's what we that's where theeducation, awareness and skills

(22:24):
come in?

Yeah, yeah, exactly. That's another common
mistake, the macro balance isvery easy. It's very easy to
consume carbs, especially inhere in Texas. And so yeah, I
see that all the time, too, isthe skewed macro balance of not
enough protein, but, you know,overall reading on the carbs and

(22:47):
fat. But I agree, I think part alot a large part of it is just
education and educating peopleon proper nutrition habits. And
I think just another key thingis just making sure people plan
ahead too, as well, which wasmeal prepping. And, and he'll
put together a grocery list and,and again, like the triggering
foods that they may that maytrigger them to overeat or, you

(23:10):
know, stuff like that. But yeah,I think this education around
proper macro balance, whyprotein is important goes a long
way knows a lot of my clients.

Yeah, for sure. And you mentioned some some great
tips in there, including the,the planning ahead. I mean, just
in general, that's a that'ssomething people are missing.
And why we often emotionally eator overeat is we make decisions
in the moment. So if you tiethat into protein, for example,
someone listening who'sthinking, I need to go from 50

(23:41):
grams of protein a day to 100/41of all you have to know that
you're eating 50. And the onlyway you know that is to log it
somehow. My clients log becauseI think it's an educational
tool. I think it's a great habitto learn about food and how much
is in food. And I grew up eatingfoods out. But you could also do
Fun, fun tricks or techniqueslike pre logging your food for

(24:02):
the next day. Or for theweekend. If you're going to go
to a party or event just pre login and see what it looks like.
Or, Hey, I can't get enoughprotein. So how do I do that?
Well, let's do the math. Youhave have to get 160 grams of
protein, you only eat twice aday, you have to slam down 80
grams a meal. That's probablynot feasible, right? Unless
you're in Texas with thebarbecue, right? Yeah. But so

(24:24):
then you do the math, say okay,maybe I need to eat four or five
times. And each of those has tohave 30 grams of protein. Well,
how do I do that? And how do Ihave the groceries for that
doing? Am I incorporating dairyand eggs and meat and all the
things I need for that?

Yeah, that's a good. So we talked about some
common mistakes that people makeand I think it's also good to
discuss what people can dobetter how people what people
should be doing. Instead, hebrought up a really good point
around finding out where they'reat first. So like you mentioned,
if someone doesn't know how muchprotein they're eating I know

(25:01):
that you can do like intuitiveeating. But I'm also a big one
to like you have of trackingthat way you want education, so
you understand what you'reputting in your body and how
much. I think another commonmistake people make is they say,
they under under zoom over,zoom, under, over over zoom.
Understand how much they'reeating right over zoom.

Yeah, under underestimate.

underestimate how much they're actually eating for
sure. Yeah. And then when theystarted tracking, they go, Oh,
wow, that's a lot. Okay. So Ithink education piece is really
important. But so when it comesto what people should be doing,
you mentioned, the training. Solet's talk about the training.
What should someone's trainingbe focused on if they're looking
to lose weight, or especiallyfor fat loss?

Yeah, so I love I love talking about training. And
I know a lot of nutritioncoaches don't get a lot into
that. But it's a huge part of mylife and what my my clients have
to train like, they always haveto train, you know, that's the
big missing ingredient for mostpeople to give you that stimulus
for muscle growth. So I like tostart with principles. I hear

(26:05):
myself in the recording. Do youhear that?

No, I don't have my headphones on sign on. Alright.

Alright. So I'd like to start with principles,
the first big principle is goingto be mechanical tension, that
whatever you're doing in thegym, you have to have sufficient
stress on your muscle. Usually,this comes from very heavy
weights, right. And this couldbe could be barbells. But it
could be dumbbells, it could bemachines, whatever. I'm not

(26:32):
going to be dogmatic about it.
But But most people are liftingin high rep range, high volume
lightweights. And they need toput a lot more stresses on
muscle. So that's mechanicaltension. The second principle is
going to be maximum effort.
Whatever you're doing, it has tobe training hard. So even if it

(26:52):
is a while, or if it's threereps, those last few reps have
to be really hard and feel likesomething you've never done
before. Right? Right. Bigmissing, greedy. And then the
third principle is going to beprogressive overload. So a lot
of people will go into the gym,and they'll do the same thing
over and over again, and theywon't change the weights. But we

(27:13):
need to increase the load,right, we need to add weight to
the bar, add weight to thedumbbells, or add reps. They're
both effective. For beginners, Irecommend, you know, focusing on
weight and just going literallyadding five pounds to the bar
every session so that your bodygets greater and greater stress
each time that it adapts to andyou come back stronger each

(27:35):
time.

Yeah, like I said that adaptation is key, right?
You're wise and adapt towhatever you throw it. And that
includes what it how if you dostress at it, ie lifting
weights, right, so your body'sgonna adapt to that. And you
mentioned a great point aboutprogressive overload. I think
that's something that peopleoverlook, they don't think about
and so I make all my clientstrack their workouts that way we

(27:56):
can see our how are they doingin their workouts? Because you
mentioned how importantintensity is for your workouts
in order to see any sort ofadaptations for your body.
Because if you're just you know,kind of lollygagging through a
workout and you're reallycomfortable, we'll Good on you.
But I don't know it's reallygoing to have any sort of
adaptations, right?

Yeah, exactly. I mean, and I'd like to illustrate
this through videos for peopleand show them kind of what
somebody looks like who's reallyworking. And it might be myself,
it might be Hey, guys, this iswhat you have to look like when
you're training hard. It's toughbeing an online coach, you know,
as opposed to like an in personpersonal trainer, because you
need them to send you videos todo format checks. And like you

(28:37):
said, track their factor repsand weight and see, are they
actually progressing like youwould expect if they're truly
getting stronger?

Right, right. So we talked about training, let's
talk about nutrition as well. Soyou mentioned making sure
someone gets enough protein ofcrucial protein is so when it
comes to nutrition, and so wantsto focus on say fat loss, what
can they do with your nutrition?
How should they structure theirnutrition? At a high level?

Yeah. So there's a couple of things. First, we want
to have the macro balance sortedout, right. So we talked about
that before, of starting withprotein, always starting with
routine and making sure you'regetting roughly a gram per pound
of target body weight. But weknow there's a wide range
anywhere from point seven to1.2. And if you're getting
currently point three

different Yeah, right, right baby

steps, it's let's work with the client. And if you
know, let's work them andtitrate them up toward that
level. So it starts withprotein, fat 20 to 30% of your
calories is usually doable formost people unless they come
from keto and they have to havemore, and then the rest goes to
carbs. And you might find thatit's more carbs than you're used
to eating with some of thesediets. All right, on a fat loss

(29:53):
phase. What you're going to dothen is select your target
weight and you want it go with areasonable deficit. And the
evidence supports a deficit ofbetween a quarter to 1% of your
weight per week, right. And thesweet spot for most people that
I've seen is around a halfpercent 2.75. Because if you go
too, too aggressive, it's justtoo few calories for most

(30:14):
people. So if you're 200 pounds,you're looking at maybe one and
a half pounds a week, somethinglike that. And when you do the
math that comes out to what 4500calories a week deficit, which
is, which is four to 600calories a day, something like
that, just doing quick math,which is just not terrible. For
most people, if you have ametabolism, that's around 2200

(30:36):
calories, that's gonna put youat 1800, for example, 1700. But
that's, that brings us back towhy we need to diet on more
calories and bring thatmetabolism up. Okay, I have a
client who I've never seen, it'sso extreme, but he was very
overweight, we're talking maybe5060 pounds overweight, he
trained when he was younger, hegot pretty jacked when he was in

(31:00):
his 20s. And now he's in his40s. So that that's a point
going for him. Because if youtrain before it comes back
quickly. And we started themdiet dieting at the full 1%. And
his his expenditure, hismetabolism just keeps climbing
and climbing and climbing.
Because he's strength training,and he's getting protein. And
then the next thing I haven'ttalked about, but getting steps.

(31:21):
So he's doing all these things.
And every week we say, man,let's just let's just stay where
you're at your deficit isgetting bigger and bigger
without even changing yourcalories. Yeah, yeah. So it's,
it's I don't throw in a lot ofthings that people and I could
go there. There are other thingsthat support this, like stress,
sleep, recovery, and so on, wecan get into but those are the

(31:42):
big ones.

Yeah, I think one of the key things that you
mentioned is taking that gradualapproach and not looking to lose
10 pounds in a week, right,trying to do something in a
healthy and more, say moreimportantly, but also as just as
important as sustainability,right. And making sure that
whatever your clients do, issomething that they can sustain

(32:04):
for a long period of time.
Because if you look at health asa, as a lifelong pursuit, or
endeavor, whatever you do, isgonna have to be sustainable. I
know I've seen people start andstop things, and they'll start
for a month or two then quit.
And that's because they're justtrying to go from 00 to 100, you

(32:25):
know, overnight with theirtraining or their nutrition. And
really, he's gotta look at agradual baby steps, like you
mentioned, right? Just take babysteps to where you need to go or
where you want to go.

Yeah, I mean, it's about progress and process. And
that gets to tumors, all right,because if you can't stick to
it, if it's not enjoyable, youwon't get anywhere. And I liked
the point you made about the thedeficit itself being part of
sustainability, meaning besidesall the food selection, quality,
and so on, the fact that you aremeasuring, tracking, and then

(32:57):
trying to stick to a certainglide path that is conservative,
conservative enough, is part ofsustainability. Because along
the way, now you get time tofigure out, okay, how do I eat a
little bit more fiber, and alittle bit more fruits that have
more water in them. So I don'tget as hungry, you start to
learn these techniques as you goon the way down. And then when
you've lost all the weight, andnot much muscle because you're

(33:18):
doing it right? When you comeback in a surplus. You don't
just go start eating pop tartsand pizza. Okay, and kind of
scale up the things you justlearned to eat, and maybe
incorporate some treats alongthe way. But it's sustainable.

Yeah, exactly. It's a lot of the same foods, whether
you scale up or scale down,right. It's mostly just the
quantity that and themacronutrient profile. But yeah,
again, like sustainability andeducation. Do you like you
mentioned just educating yourclients or people in general on
on proper habits additionally beadopting? So I think that's a I

(33:52):
know that there's a lot ofinformation out there on the on
the internet when it comes tofitness and health and who do
you listen to? Who do you trust?
So sometimes I know it's hard onthe outside looking in to kind
of filter through the Bs interms of what you actually
should be doing. But I think twothings that I always stress is
just make sure it's sustainable.
You know, you don't want to overcommit or overdue if you've

(34:14):
never done anything like thisbefore. And then just educate
yourself, right? There's a lotof resources out there to
educate yourself. But educationand sustainability are two key
key things that everyone shouldbe doing if they want to make
they're really committed tohealth for the rest of their
life.

Yeah, I agree. I mean, education is a huge gap
and podcasts like yours hydrofitness podcasts like mine Wits,
& Weights, right there are, Imean, that's how I learned a lot
about nutrition is throughthrough podcasts. And that's a
big piece. And then once youhave the education where people
get stuck is just doing it bythemselves. Right. And you know,

(34:53):
some people have, I don't wantto call it discipline or
willpower. It's just everybody'sdifferent and some people have
the willpower Fall to just kindof hold themselves accountable,
and many more people needextrinsic motivation to get
started. But once you getstarted and start getting those
results and developing thehabits, it starts to stick. And
again, the sustainability piececomes in where a habit can be

(35:13):
developed in maybe three to sixweeks, and you start to stack on
habits. And before long before,you know, say, three months of
this process, you're really wellequipped to do this for the rest
of your life on your own.

Yeah, absolutely. I think that the action taking
action pieces was also a hugechallenge for a lot of people
and education is important. Butyou also have to take action to
incorporate that education or dosomething. If you don't you want
to improve your health or loseweight or lose fat. So I think
that's a really great point isto not forget to take action,

(35:46):
right? And we will need help. Weneed new trainers like us to
help now with that, to be ableto rely on their intrinsic
motivations that people needextrinsic motivation, their
spouse or their kids, right. Sothat take an action piece is
really, really crucial. Sobefore we wrap up this episode,
I think it's been really areally great discussion and a

(36:07):
lot of great points. We talkedtalk through what are some last
minute takeaways or big thingsyou want people to get out of
this after listening?

Yeah, there's a lot of takeaways here. Yeah, there's
a lot of takeaways, I think, thebig takeaway is the thing about
weight loss, that there's,there's a different way to think
about this, that we don't haveto struggle for the rest of our
lives thinking that it's aconstant battle of dieting and
gaining weight, that we can takecontrol of our not only our

(36:41):
physique, which I know a lot ofpeople get into this, because
they just want to look better inthe mirror. But our health, and
I think that that cannot beoverstated, is that if you're
worried about diabetes, or heartdisease, or fertility, or some
you know, frailty and old age,at any age, you can start to
turn that ship around, you canyou can avoid what 95% of people

(37:05):
experience with sarcopeniaosteopenia, all these disease,
diseases of aging, and takecontrol of your vitality. By
telling your body Hey, you'vegot to be stronger and more
capable in this physical worldthat humans evolved in, by
getting by, you know, strength,training protein and other
things that we talked about.

Right? Yeah, I think that thing is a really
great point to end the episodeon is, when you look at health
over the rest of your life, likeone there's, it's not too late
to start, you know, if let's sayyou, you were training and then
you stop in kind of wonderingif, when they get back on the
bandwagon, we'll start tomorrowor start start today, right,

(37:47):
there's, you can start at anypoint in time when it comes to
the rest of your life for yourhealth. And I think the other
thing is to like, again, is wantto keep reiterating
sustainability. If you startsomething, but then you're only
going to last for two months,who is not really going to help
you out. And so whatever someonedecides to do, and I'm a big
proponent of strange training,but you know, some people don't

(38:10):
like it, some people don't wantto do that, you will rather go
ride their bike or run, which Idon't like so, you know, props
to them. But whatever someonedoes, it needs to be
sustainable, and they need tohave some sort of enjoyment
behind it. Otherwise, we'll justquit. So, again, I just want to
reiterate how importantsustainability is.

Yeah, I agree. Fun, balance all of those things. You
know, you don't want to becrazy, the crazy weirdo who is
just an exercising their family.
Just live your life and enjoy. Iagree. Those are those are great
words to live by.

Yep. And I think that's a great a great ending
point. So Phillip, thanks againfor coming on the show. Really
got a pleasure talking to you.
And I think there's some really,really, really great takeaways
that people are gonna get fromthis episode.

Thank you, Paul. I also enjoyed the conversation
was a ton of fun. Thanks forhaving me on.

Anytime.

Thanks for listening to the show. Before
you go, I have a quick favoriteask. If you enjoy the podcast,
let me know by leaving a fivestar review in Apple podcasts
and telling others about theshow. Thanks again for joining
me Philip Pape in this episodeof Wits & Weights. I'll see you
next time and stay strong.

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Ep 38: Body Fat Overshooting, Body Composition, and Avoiding Weight Loss Mistakes

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