This is another Q&A episode!
Today I’m answering five questions from members of the Wits & Weights Facebook community covering training, nutrition, and health.
Questions:
- I want to build my glutes. How many times a week should I train them? Is once a week too little?
- How would you train and coach someone differently who struggles with insulin resistance?
- What do you think about carb cycling? Is it beneficial to load up on carbs and calories and reduce fat on the workout days (mostly before and after the heavy lifting session), and reduce carbs and calories a lot and increase fat on the non-lifting days, assuming you maintain protein and your weekly calorie deficit? I am aiming for body recomposition. Will I feel increased performance during workout and avoid metabolic adaptations?
- Are refeeding days okay when you are in a fat loss phase? Like one day a week when you intentionally eat at maintenance as opposed to a deficit?
- I have a client who has gastrointestinal issues from having her gallbladder removed and heard that fat intake shouldn’t be higher than 30%. The question is, how do I stay within that 30% if her body needs fat to produce hormones? She is suffering from poor digestion, falling asleep periodically and can’t sleep a full night. So I know there is a hormonal imbalance.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:08):
Welcome to the Wits & Weightspodcast, where we discuss
getting strong and healthy withstrength training and
sustainable nutrition. I'm yourhost, Philip Pape. And in each
episode, we examine strategiesto help you achieve physical
self mastery through a healthyskepticism of the fitness
industry, and a commitment toconsistent nutrition and
training for sustainableresults.
(00:31):
Welcome to another episode ofWits & Weights. This is another
q&a episode. And today I'manswering five questions from
members of the Wits & Weights,Facebook community, covering
training, nutrition and health.
You can find the group linked inthe show notes or just search
for Wits & Weights on Facebook.
All right, let's just dive intotoday's questions. Question
(00:53):
number one is from Christine y,who asks, I want to build my
glutes. How many times a weekshould I train them is once a
week too little? Okay, so when Ithink of a specific body part,
my first question is going to beare you already working on the
overall basic human movementsbefore we start focusing on a
(01:15):
specific body part. And what Imean by that are using compound
lifts, like the squat, and likethe deadlift that engage your
full range of motion in anatural movement, using lots of
muscle mass, because that willbuild overall strength and size
in parallel, and will start to Iguess, even out the various
(01:38):
muscle imbalances that you startwith as a beginner, and help you
build that first base ofstrength and size. And then is
when I would start to add inadditional accessory movements
and isolation movements. Andfrom a programming perspective,
if we start there, your questionwas is once a week, too little.
And the way I like to look at itis overall sets during the week,
(02:02):
as well as frequency. So overallsets, we're looking at somewhere
between nine and 12 sets a weekper major muscle group. And of
course, the glutes are just partof the hip musculature. There's
some tie ins with thehamstrings, there's an aspect of
your lower back involved, etc.
And different angles that youcan hit it. So if you could work
(02:23):
out directly once a week andindirectly once a week. That
would be from a frequencyperspective, a pretty effective
training program. And you wouldeither get that through full
body work, or you're hitting ittwo or three times a week anyway
through big movements. Or itcould be something like a four
day split, where two of thosedays are lower body, and you can
(02:44):
use one of those to be moretargeted. As far as each of
those workouts, I'd like to seeone compound lift in the quote
unquote strength range like thefour to six rep range. And then
one or two variants of the liftor accessory slash isolation
movements. You know, later on inthe workout, it may not be back
(03:08):
to back with that firstmovement. It may be after some
other big heavy movements foryour overall training. But
that's the way I would look atit. So what does that look like
a compound movement would besquat deadlift, in the four to
six rep range. For example, avariant could be a Romanian
deadlift, or a different form ofa squat that emphasizes the
(03:30):
hips, or even something like aleg press Believe it or not,
because we are getting a littlebit more into the hypertrophy
bodybuilding discussion whenwe're saying, Let's emphasize a
specific part of the body. Now,there are plenty of accessory
movements for the glutes. Somethings that I like include, of
course, the classic hip thruststhat we can do with the barbell,
(03:53):
but I also like barbell reverselunges, I actually prefer those
over the forward lunges, I thinkyou can get a deeper stretch and
it's a little bit more of anatural movement. To do it up
properly. I think the forwardlunge, sometimes the the knee
relative to the foot is isn't abad place for people to get a
lot of stress on the knee. So Ilike the reverse lunge with a
(04:16):
barbell. I also like barbellsstep ups, just doing some really
heavy barbell step ups to a boxthat's reasonably high but not
too high, can really smash yourglutes. And then when you get to
smaller isolation movements,we're looking at things like
heavy kettlebell swings, or evencable pull throughs where you
have a cable in the lowposition, and you use the rope
(04:38):
attachment with the two handleskind of what people use for
tricep pushdowns and it'sbetween your legs and you're
basically just pulling it outand coming to an upright
position so that you squeeze theglutes. So those are just a
bunch of different movements.
You could just search online foryou know best movements for the
(04:59):
glutes and you'll find I in 20,different things. But I would
have a compound lift in the fourto six rep range, and then one
or two variants in probably theeight to 12 rep range. But you
can mix that up, you could go,you know, four to six, six to
810 to 15, depending on yourprogramming style, what you're
looking to accomplish. And themost important thing with all of
this, of course, is progressiveoverload. So whatever you
(05:21):
select, stick with it for awhile. And while it could be
something like four to eightweeks in your training cycle,
and make sure to increase theweight over time, when you're
working in a rep range, you wantto pick a weight that's maybe
toward the top of the rep range,and then you go up in weight
each session, the reps comedown, and then when you get to
(05:42):
the bottom of that rep range,then you decrease the weight to
a little bit more than what youwere able to get for the top of
the rep range to begin with. Soyou're kind of going up, up, up,
then you're resetting but not asfar down as you started and go
up, up up, and then you'reresetting. So it's kind of this
up and down, but gradually,gradually increasing your maxes
(06:07):
for all of those rep ranges, ifthat makes sense. Okay, so that
is my answer to building yourglutes. And let's move on to
question two. Question two isfrom Kayla H, who asks, How
would you train and coachsomeone differently who
struggles with insulinresistance? Insulin resistance
(06:28):
is usually associated withmetabolic disease, which is pre
diabetes, and ultimately leadingto type two diabetes. And this
is where there's too muchglucose circulating and
remaining in the blood. And I'mgoing to assume for this
question that this person hasnot yet developed diabetes. And
I hate to say yet, we don't wantto do that we want to reduce the
(06:49):
risk or just altogether preventit. And if it's not too late,
then we can definitely do that.
Now, almost all the lifestyleprinciples that I would use with
any client who wants to improvetheir health, for any reason,
still apply, and are in fact,the primary factors in reducing
risk outside of don't smoke, andoutside of whatever your
(07:10):
genetics are. Let's start withnutrition. On the nutrition
side, we want to have nutrientdense, high fiber foods like
fruits, vegetables, wholegrains, lean animal products, we
want to limit our saturated fatto maybe 10% of our calories,
have plenty of protein, andlimit our processed foods, we
don't have to eliminate them,but somewhere between 10 and 20%
(07:32):
of our overall calories. Andthese are just all the things
that we shift toward whendialing in our macros, using a
flexible dieting approach. Andusing strategies like managing
hunger during a fat loss phase,that those things drive how we
select foods, we don't use a,you know, good or bad food diet,
(07:53):
we don't say this is excluded,we say, you know, enjoy the
things you like, but limit themto 10 to 20% of the calories
discretionary. And the rest isdevoted to mostly Whole Foods,
things that serve your goals,generally, animal sources of
products for proteins, plantsources for micronutrients. And
you limit things like saturatedfat, and you're good. And this
(08:16):
helps with everybody, includingpeople who have an issue with
insulin resistance. On themovement side. This is also
extremely important besides thenutrition, we have, of course
strength training, why would Inot talk about strength training
on this on this show, and goingfor walks every day. It's not
just the step count, but makingsure you get up and move every
(08:39):
day, especially after you eatmeals. Walking after a meal is
highly effective for regulatingblood sugar. So of insulin
resistance, or the opposite ofthat, which is sensitivity,
which is what you want, is aconcern of yours than walk after
meals, even for 10 minutes makesa huge difference. Strength
(09:00):
training, of course, is alsohighly effective, because you
add muscle mass and muscle massincreases insulin sensitivity.
They're like your muscles arelike a sink for energy. And
building muscle is just one ofthe best things you could do for
about just about every healthmarker you can think of, as we
talked about all the time on theshow. But even for insulin
(09:22):
sensitivity, it's huge. It thatcombined with eating carbs
regularly and throughout theday, actually will help with
insulin sensitivity. Believe itor not, carbs are not your enemy
in this regard. Now, here'sanother fun fact. High intensity
interval training or HIIT canelevate blood sugar in the short
term, but it actually lowersaverage blood sugar over the
(09:45):
long term. So if you want toincorporate some hit sessions
during the week as part of acardio, slash calorie burn
strategy, that's fine, you know,as we talked about on the show,
don't overdo it with cardio, bestrategic, limit it to that Less
than half the time that youlift, but if you need it hit can
be effective. Now, what's thecommon denominator here, that
improving your body compositionthrough training, movement, and
(10:08):
a healthy dietary pattern aregood for everyone. Whether you
are at risk of diabetes, insulinresistance or not, it's good for
everyone. And if you're notdoing these things consistently,
start there and then start tolook at other things as needed.
Okay, question three is fromChristos D. who asks, What do
(10:28):
you think about carb cycling? Isit beneficial to load up on
carbs and calories and reducefat on the workout days, mostly
before and after the heavylifting session, and reduce
carbs and calories significantlyand increase fat? On the non
lifting days? Assuming youmaintain protein and your weekly
calorie deficit? I'm aiming forbody composition, will I feel
(10:52):
increased performance duringworkouts and avoid metabolic
adaptations? Okay, I knowthere's a lot in that question.
Basically, Christos is asking isIs carb cycling worth it? For
performance, and to avoidadaptation? Okay, metabolic
adaptation where our metabolismdeclines as we get further and
further into a diet. So he's notasking about fat loss, we know
(11:15):
that fat loss and weight lossare driven by your calorie
deficit. And fat lossspecifically is driven by the
fact that you strength train andhave sufficient protein, He's
not asking about that, becauseif he were, I would say, there's
absolutely no benefit in carbcycling whatsoever. He's asking
about performance andadaptation. So the main reason
someone would carb cycle, whichis eating more carbs on Sundays
(11:39):
than others is, all it is, is tostick to your diet. It's for
psychological reasons foradherence. And carb cycling is
just one form of a refeed, orwhat we call nonlinear dieting,
where you just have differentcalories on different days, or
different carbs in differentdays, or you take breaks, it's
(12:00):
all really the same idea. Now,as far as performance, let's
start there, the evidence,frankly, is neutral. So when you
carb cycle, I want you to thinkabout the overall effect on your
week, when you're carb cycling,you're actually depriving
yourself from the other days. Soon your recovery days, where
you're not training, you're nowdepriving yourself of energy,
even though you of course havemore glycogen and energy on
(12:23):
training days. So because ofthat, there, it might be a wash,
but you have to try it yourself,because for some people, there
might be a small boost inperformance. If you time it
right, simply because you dohave that extra glycogen uptake
and storage from the carp. So itcould help with performance, I'm
not ruling it out, the evidenceis kind of neutral. But again, n
(12:45):
equals one, you've got to try iton yourself. As far as metabolic
adaptation, there doesn't seemto be any benefit. Studies have
looked at refeeds with thehypothesis that the extra influx
of nutrition of energy wouldcause your hormones to readapt
upward and this would shift yourmetabolism up and make you burn
(13:09):
more calories. And then you canstart from a higher starting
point to continue a diet, forexample. But it doesn't work.
That way, it all nets out. Whenyou go back to the diet, you
readapt right back to where youwere, there's only two ways to
shift your metabolism, thepermanent way to do it is to
have more muscle mass. And ofcourse, that takes time, the
temporary way to do it is toburn more calories. But we want
to do it strategically andintelligently with especially
(13:31):
through walking primarily, ifnot a little bit of cardio here
and there. But if you overdo it,you're gonna actually cause more
adaptation. Anyway, having saidall of that, there's very little
upside. And it's probablyneutral in terms of carb
cycling. And the downside is thecomplexity is trying to track
all of this and do it right, andthen not only have the higher
(13:54):
and lower days, but making surethey're lined up with your
training days, which might movearound depending on your
schedule, and then what time inthe day you train, it's a lot of
stuff. If you want to experimentwith it, this is how I would do
it, I would just increase yourdeficit on low carb days. So
make your low carb days evenlower than they are today. And
then your high carb days addmore carbs in but still stay in
(14:18):
a deficit. This is how you wouldhave your your weekly calories
overall, in the deficit you wantto be without slowing down your
fat loss, you're going to keepprotein the same, you're going
to keep fat around 25 30% ofyour calories. And then the rest
comes from carbs. So when yourhigh carb days, it's going to be
like two to three times as manycarbs as your low carb days when
(14:38):
you do it this way. Now myclients pretty much do not carb
cycle unless they just want totry it out for fun, or see if it
helps their training as anexperiment. Most of them do not
and if they've tried it, theyusually go back to even calorie
distribution at the end of theday. I think that the timing of
carbs is probably morebeneficial than trying to cycle
the them day after, you know,from one day to the next. And so
(15:01):
making sure you have that preworkout meal in your system, or
a decent amount of carbs atdinner the night before, if you
train in the morning, I think isgoing to be more helpful for
fueling that, that liftingsession.
Hey, this is Philip Pape. And ifyou feel like you've put in
effort to improve your healthand fitness, but aren't getting
(15:23):
results, I invite you to applyfor a one on one coaching to
make real progress and get thebody you desire. We'll work
together 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. Now back to the episode.
All right, let's go to Questionfour is from Carol ah, who asks,
(15:44):
are refeeding days Okay, whenyou're in a fat loss phase, like
one day a week when youintentionally eat at maintenance
as opposed to a deficit. So yes,they are perfectly okay. And a
refeed days, really just anotherexample of when you're talking
about carb cycling, and you'rejust choosing to eat more on one
(16:06):
day. So this is a non lightlunch, non linear dieting
approach where the main benefitis psychological. But again,
like I said, for carb cycling,it could give you a short term
boost in performance, you'd haveto try it out performance and
recovery. Especially if thetiming, you know if it's like
right before your heaviestlifting session or something
like that. It is another form ofa diet break. And the way you
(16:30):
could do it is either go tomaintenance on that day and keep
the rest of the week the same,which would obviously reduce
your weekly deficit just a bit,it would slow down your fat loss
a bit. Or you can reduce all theother days to make up for the
increase on that one day. Andthis would allow for a high
calorie day or two days in arow, which for a lot of people
(16:52):
that might be Saturday andSunday, right? If you have your
lifestyles such that you reallywouldn't just eat more on the
weekends. And your weekdays areroutine, they're boring, you're
busy or distracted, no big deal.
And you can have a lot fewercalories during the week, go for
it. That's sometimes I haveclients do that intentionally as
a one off, if they have a bigevent or party or wedding coming
(17:15):
up on the weekend. And they sortof bank the calories during the
week. It's the same thing exceptyou just be doing it week after
week. Now when you do this,those extra calories on the
higher day should mainly comefrom carbs. And they naturally
will because you're keepingprotein roughly the same. And
you're just increasing yourcalories, which is going to come
(17:36):
from a little bit from fats, butmostly from carbs. And that's
again, because of the energybecause of the recovery, because
of the what we call anticatabolic effect the protective
effect against muscle loss. Butagain, it doesn't matter if you
do that versus have the samecalories and carbs each day of
the week. It's mainly forpsychological reasons and a
(17:58):
potential boost to performance.
And then lastly, there's nometabolic or hormonal benefit to
this strategy. Okay. And keep inmind, you're going to see larger
swings in your daily weigh inswhen you do this, right. If you
have one day that's like a spikein carbs, you potentially could
have a higher weigh in the nextday or the day after that. You
might not I mean, everybody'sdifferent, but just look out for
(18:20):
that, and really stay focused onthe long term. All right. Our
last question. Question numberfive is from Travis a, who asks
about a client who hasgastrointestinal issues from
having her gallbladder removed.
And he heard that fat intakeshouldn't be higher than 30%.
The question is, how do I staywithin that 30% and her body
(18:42):
needs fat to produce hormones.
She's suffering from poordigestion, falling asleep
periodically and can't sleep afull night. So I know there's a
hormonal imbalance. Alright,Travis, my first question is how
she actually had her hormonelevels checked to conclude that
there's an imbalance because Iactually see several red flags
here that have nothing to dowith the fat intake, for
(19:05):
example, I see issues with foodquality and fiber potentially,
if she has poor digestion, shemight have some sleep issues
that come down to her activityand her sleep hygiene, like her
pre bed ritual. You know, theuse of screens before bed,
things like that. And of course,whether she has strength
(19:27):
training and walking regularly,all of which can significantly
mitigate health issues before welook at other factors like a
hormonal imbalance. You know, Iusually like to deal with all of
that with a client for about asix to 10 week period and get
everything lined upnutritionally and movement wise,
before I look at anything else,because generally that's where
(19:48):
the answer is going to be formost people. The other question
is, Is she eating enough? So ifshe's been in a diet for a while
or been yo yo dieting and veryrestricted and adapted at this
point. And then that definitelycould cause issues with
hormones, not a hormonalimbalance, just the
downregulation that naturallyoccurs from not eating enough.
And I would have read atmaintenance for a few months,
(20:09):
while putting in place all thethings right the proper strength
training, the movement, thesleep, self care, you know,
self, self care, nutrition, andhydration. Now, the premise of
the question, specifically isthat intake below 30% of your
calories as fat is detrimentalto hormones, when in reality,
(20:30):
the minimum intake is far lower,it's closer to 10%. And it's
probably even lower depending onwhat calorie level you're at.
But someone with an optimizeddiet can still be consistently
around 15 to 20% of theircalories from fat without any
detrimental effects. This isboth men and women. The studies
have shown there's suchvariation between individuals
that you can't distinguishrecommendations between men and
(20:54):
women. Long story short, theissue here is not insufficient
fat intake for hormone health.
It's all these other factorsthat need to be worked on. And I
think that's where most peoplestruggle to be consistent. You
want to get her moving, becausewalking can be helpful for
digestion as well. Anddefinitely get her strength
(21:16):
training, getting enoughprotein, selecting high quality
foods for 80 to 90% of ourintake all these other things
and I think this quote unquotehormonal imbalance from fat
intake would probably inmysteriously go away. That's my
guess if you start there. Allright. That does it for today's
q&a episode. If you enjoy thisepisode, let me know by leaving
(21:39):
a five star review with Apple oryour favorite podcast app. If
you're using an Apple just go tothe Wits & Weights Show page
scroll down to the bottom selectfive stars and tap write a
review. And also here's here's abonus I will read your comments
on air in a future episode. Ifyou go ahead and post a
screenshot of your review toyour social account of choice
(22:00):
and tag me at Wits & Weights. Asalways, thank you so much for
listening, and stay strong.
Thanks for listening to theshow. Before you go, I have a
quick favorite ask if you enjoythe podcast. Let me know by
leaving a five star review inApple podcasts and telling
others about the show. Thanksagain for joining me Philip Pape
in this episode of Wits &Weights. I'll see you next time
(22:22):
and stay strong.
Welcome to the Wits & Weightspodcast, where we discuss
getting strong and healthy withstrength training and
sustainable nutrition. I'm yourhost, Philip Pape. And in each
episode, we examine strategiesto help you achieve physical
self mastery through a healthyskepticism of the fitness
industry, and a commitment toconsistent nutrition and
training for sustainableresults.
(00:31):
Welcome to another episode ofWits & Weights. This is another
q&a episode. And today I'manswering five questions from
members of the Wits & Weights,Facebook community, covering
training, nutrition and health.
You can find the group linked inthe show notes or just search
for Wits & Weights on Facebook.
All right, let's just dive intotoday's questions. Question
(00:53):
number one is from Christine y,who asks, I want to build my
glutes. How many times a weekshould I train them is once a
week too little? Okay, so when Ithink of a specific body part,
my first question is going to beare you already working on the
overall basic human movementsbefore we start focusing on a
(01:15):
specific body part. And what Imean by that are using compound
lifts, like the squat, and likethe deadlift that engage your
full range of motion in anatural movement, using lots of
muscle mass, because that willbuild overall strength and size
in parallel, and will start to Iguess, even out the various
(01:38):
muscle imbalances that you startwith as a beginner, and help you
build that first base ofstrength and size. And then is
when I would start to add inadditional accessory movements
and isolation movements. Andfrom a programming perspective,
if we start there, your questionwas is once a week, too little.
And the way I like to look at itis overall sets during the week,
(02:02):
as well as frequency. So overallsets, we're looking at somewhere
between nine and 12 sets a weekper major muscle group. And of
course, the glutes are just partof the hip musculature. There's
some tie ins with thehamstrings, there's an aspect of
your lower back involved, etc.
And different angles that youcan hit it. So if you could work
(02:23):
out directly once a week andindirectly once a week. That
would be from a frequencyperspective, a pretty effective
training program. And you wouldeither get that through full
body work, or you're hitting ittwo or three times a week anyway
through big movements. Or itcould be something like a four
day split, where two of thosedays are lower body, and you can
(02:44):
use one of those to be moretargeted. As far as each of
those workouts, I'd like to seeone compound lift in the quote
unquote strength range like thefour to six rep range. And then
one or two variants of the liftor accessory slash isolation
movements. You know, later on inthe workout, it may not be back
(03:08):
to back with that firstmovement. It may be after some
other big heavy movements foryour overall training. But
that's the way I would look atit. So what does that look like
a compound movement would besquat deadlift, in the four to
six rep range. For example, avariant could be a Romanian
deadlift, or a different form ofa squat that emphasizes the
(03:30):
hips, or even something like aleg press Believe it or not,
because we are getting a littlebit more into the hypertrophy
bodybuilding discussion whenwe're saying, Let's emphasize a
specific part of the body. Now,there are plenty of accessory
movements for the glutes. Somethings that I like include, of
course, the classic hip thruststhat we can do with the barbell,
(03:53):
but I also like barbell reverselunges, I actually prefer those
over the forward lunges, I thinkyou can get a deeper stretch and
it's a little bit more of anatural movement. To do it up
properly. I think the forwardlunge, sometimes the the knee
relative to the foot is isn't abad place for people to get a
lot of stress on the knee. So Ilike the reverse lunge with a
(04:16):
barbell. I also like barbellsstep ups, just doing some really
heavy barbell step ups to a boxthat's reasonably high but not
too high, can really smash yourglutes. And then when you get to
smaller isolation movements,we're looking at things like
heavy kettlebell swings, or evencable pull throughs where you
have a cable in the lowposition, and you use the rope
(04:38):
attachment with the two handleskind of what people use for
tricep pushdowns and it'sbetween your legs and you're
basically just pulling it outand coming to an upright
position so that you squeeze theglutes. So those are just a
bunch of different movements.
You could just search online foryou know best movements for the
(04:59):
glutes and you'll find I in 20,different things. But I would
have a compound lift in the fourto six rep range, and then one
or two variants in probably theeight to 12 rep range. But you
can mix that up, you could go,you know, four to six, six to
810 to 15, depending on yourprogramming style, what you're
looking to accomplish. And themost important thing with all of
this, of course, is progressiveoverload. So whatever you
(05:21):
select, stick with it for awhile. And while it could be
something like four to eightweeks in your training cycle,
and make sure to increase theweight over time, when you're
working in a rep range, you wantto pick a weight that's maybe
toward the top of the rep range,and then you go up in weight
each session, the reps comedown, and then when you get to
(05:42):
the bottom of that rep range,then you decrease the weight to
a little bit more than what youwere able to get for the top of
the rep range to begin with. Soyou're kind of going up, up, up,
then you're resetting but not asfar down as you started and go
up, up up, and then you'reresetting. So it's kind of this
up and down, but gradually,gradually increasing your maxes
(06:07):
for all of those rep ranges, ifthat makes sense. Okay, so that
is my answer to building yourglutes. And let's move on to
question two. Question two isfrom Kayla H, who asks, How
would you train and coachsomeone differently who
struggles with insulinresistance? Insulin resistance
(06:28):
is usually associated withmetabolic disease, which is pre
diabetes, and ultimately leadingto type two diabetes. And this
is where there's too muchglucose circulating and
remaining in the blood. And I'mgoing to assume for this
question that this person hasnot yet developed diabetes. And
I hate to say yet, we don't wantto do that we want to reduce the
(06:49):
risk or just altogether preventit. And if it's not too late,
then we can definitely do that.
Now, almost all the lifestyleprinciples that I would use with
any client who wants to improvetheir health, for any reason,
still apply, and are in fact,the primary factors in reducing
risk outside of don't smoke, andoutside of whatever your
(07:10):
genetics are. Let's start withnutrition. On the nutrition
side, we want to have nutrientdense, high fiber foods like
fruits, vegetables, wholegrains, lean animal products, we
want to limit our saturated fatto maybe 10% of our calories,
have plenty of protein, andlimit our processed foods, we
don't have to eliminate them,but somewhere between 10 and 20%
(07:32):
of our overall calories. Andthese are just all the things
that we shift toward whendialing in our macros, using a
flexible dieting approach. Andusing strategies like managing
hunger during a fat loss phase,that those things drive how we
select foods, we don't use a,you know, good or bad food diet,
(07:53):
we don't say this is excluded,we say, you know, enjoy the
things you like, but limit themto 10 to 20% of the calories
discretionary. And the rest isdevoted to mostly Whole Foods,
things that serve your goals,generally, animal sources of
products for proteins, plantsources for micronutrients. And
you limit things like saturatedfat, and you're good. And this
(08:16):
helps with everybody, includingpeople who have an issue with
insulin resistance. On themovement side. This is also
extremely important besides thenutrition, we have, of course
strength training, why would Inot talk about strength training
on this on this show, and goingfor walks every day. It's not
just the step count, but makingsure you get up and move every
(08:39):
day, especially after you eatmeals. Walking after a meal is
highly effective for regulatingblood sugar. So of insulin
resistance, or the opposite ofthat, which is sensitivity,
which is what you want, is aconcern of yours than walk after
meals, even for 10 minutes makesa huge difference. Strength
(09:00):
training, of course, is alsohighly effective, because you
add muscle mass and muscle massincreases insulin sensitivity.
They're like your muscles arelike a sink for energy. And
building muscle is just one ofthe best things you could do for
about just about every healthmarker you can think of, as we
talked about all the time on theshow. But even for insulin
(09:22):
sensitivity, it's huge. It thatcombined with eating carbs
regularly and throughout theday, actually will help with
insulin sensitivity. Believe itor not, carbs are not your enemy
in this regard. Now, here'sanother fun fact. High intensity
interval training or HIIT canelevate blood sugar in the short
term, but it actually lowersaverage blood sugar over the
(09:45):
long term. So if you want toincorporate some hit sessions
during the week as part of acardio, slash calorie burn
strategy, that's fine, you know,as we talked about on the show,
don't overdo it with cardio, bestrategic, limit it to that Less
than half the time that youlift, but if you need it hit can
be effective. Now, what's thecommon denominator here, that
improving your body compositionthrough training, movement, and
(10:08):
a healthy dietary pattern aregood for everyone. Whether you
are at risk of diabetes, insulinresistance or not, it's good for
everyone. And if you're notdoing these things consistently,
start there and then start tolook at other things as needed.
Okay, question three is fromChristos D. who asks, What do
(10:28):
you think about carb cycling? Isit beneficial to load up on
carbs and calories and reducefat on the workout days, mostly
before and after the heavylifting session, and reduce
carbs and calories significantlyand increase fat? On the non
lifting days? Assuming youmaintain protein and your weekly
calorie deficit? I'm aiming forbody composition, will I feel
(10:52):
increased performance duringworkouts and avoid metabolic
adaptations? Okay, I knowthere's a lot in that question.
Basically, Christos is asking isIs carb cycling worth it? For
performance, and to avoidadaptation? Okay, metabolic
adaptation where our metabolismdeclines as we get further and
further into a diet. So he's notasking about fat loss, we know
(11:15):
that fat loss and weight lossare driven by your calorie
deficit. And fat lossspecifically is driven by the
fact that you strength train andhave sufficient protein, He's
not asking about that, becauseif he were, I would say, there's
absolutely no benefit in carbcycling whatsoever. He's asking
about performance andadaptation. So the main reason
someone would carb cycle, whichis eating more carbs on Sundays
(11:39):
than others is, all it is, is tostick to your diet. It's for
psychological reasons foradherence. And carb cycling is
just one form of a refeed, orwhat we call nonlinear dieting,
where you just have differentcalories on different days, or
different carbs in differentdays, or you take breaks, it's
(12:00):
all really the same idea. Now,as far as performance, let's
start there, the evidence,frankly, is neutral. So when you
carb cycle, I want you to thinkabout the overall effect on your
week, when you're carb cycling,you're actually depriving
yourself from the other days. Soon your recovery days, where
you're not training, you're nowdepriving yourself of energy,
even though you of course havemore glycogen and energy on
(12:23):
training days. So because ofthat, there, it might be a wash,
but you have to try it yourself,because for some people, there
might be a small boost inperformance. If you time it
right, simply because you dohave that extra glycogen uptake
and storage from the carp. So itcould help with performance, I'm
not ruling it out, the evidenceis kind of neutral. But again, n
(12:45):
equals one, you've got to try iton yourself. As far as metabolic
adaptation, there doesn't seemto be any benefit. Studies have
looked at refeeds with thehypothesis that the extra influx
of nutrition of energy wouldcause your hormones to readapt
upward and this would shift yourmetabolism up and make you burn
(13:09):
more calories. And then you canstart from a higher starting
point to continue a diet, forexample. But it doesn't work.
That way, it all nets out. Whenyou go back to the diet, you
readapt right back to where youwere, there's only two ways to
shift your metabolism, thepermanent way to do it is to
have more muscle mass. And ofcourse, that takes time, the
temporary way to do it is toburn more calories. But we want
to do it strategically andintelligently with especially
(13:31):
through walking primarily, ifnot a little bit of cardio here
and there. But if you overdo it,you're gonna actually cause more
adaptation. Anyway, having saidall of that, there's very little
upside. And it's probablyneutral in terms of carb
cycling. And the downside is thecomplexity is trying to track
all of this and do it right, andthen not only have the higher
(13:54):
and lower days, but making surethey're lined up with your
training days, which might movearound depending on your
schedule, and then what time inthe day you train, it's a lot of
stuff. If you want to experimentwith it, this is how I would do
it, I would just increase yourdeficit on low carb days. So
make your low carb days evenlower than they are today. And
then your high carb days addmore carbs in but still stay in
(14:18):
a deficit. This is how you wouldhave your your weekly calories
overall, in the deficit you wantto be without slowing down your
fat loss, you're going to keepprotein the same, you're going
to keep fat around 25 30% ofyour calories. And then the rest
comes from carbs. So when yourhigh carb days, it's going to be
like two to three times as manycarbs as your low carb days when
(14:38):
you do it this way. Now myclients pretty much do not carb
cycle unless they just want totry it out for fun, or see if it
helps their training as anexperiment. Most of them do not
and if they've tried it, theyusually go back to even calorie
distribution at the end of theday. I think that the timing of
carbs is probably morebeneficial than trying to cycle
the them day after, you know,from one day to the next. And so
(15:01):
making sure you have that preworkout meal in your system, or
a decent amount of carbs atdinner the night before, if you
train in the morning, I think isgoing to be more helpful for
fueling that, that liftingsession.
Hey, this is Philip Pape. And ifyou feel like you've put in
effort to improve your healthand fitness, but aren't getting
(15:23):
results, I invite you to applyfor a one on one coaching to
make real progress and get thebody you desire. We'll work
together 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. Now back to the episode.
All right, let's go to Questionfour is from Carol ah, who asks,
(15:44):
are refeeding days Okay, whenyou're in a fat loss phase, like
one day a week when youintentionally eat at maintenance
as opposed to a deficit. So yes,they are perfectly okay. And a
refeed days, really just anotherexample of when you're talking
about carb cycling, and you'rejust choosing to eat more on one
(16:06):
day. So this is a non lightlunch, non linear dieting
approach where the main benefitis psychological. But again,
like I said, for carb cycling,it could give you a short term
boost in performance, you'd haveto try it out performance and
recovery. Especially if thetiming, you know if it's like
right before your heaviestlifting session or something
like that. It is another form ofa diet break. And the way you
(16:30):
could do it is either go tomaintenance on that day and keep
the rest of the week the same,which would obviously reduce
your weekly deficit just a bit,it would slow down your fat loss
a bit. Or you can reduce all theother days to make up for the
increase on that one day. Andthis would allow for a high
calorie day or two days in arow, which for a lot of people
(16:52):
that might be Saturday andSunday, right? If you have your
lifestyles such that you reallywouldn't just eat more on the
weekends. And your weekdays areroutine, they're boring, you're
busy or distracted, no big deal.
And you can have a lot fewercalories during the week, go for
it. That's sometimes I haveclients do that intentionally as
a one off, if they have a bigevent or party or wedding coming
(17:15):
up on the weekend. And they sortof bank the calories during the
week. It's the same thing exceptyou just be doing it week after
week. Now when you do this,those extra calories on the
higher day should mainly comefrom carbs. And they naturally
will because you're keepingprotein roughly the same. And
you're just increasing yourcalories, which is going to come
(17:36):
from a little bit from fats, butmostly from carbs. And that's
again, because of the energybecause of the recovery, because
of the what we call anticatabolic effect the protective
effect against muscle loss. Butagain, it doesn't matter if you
do that versus have the samecalories and carbs each day of
the week. It's mainly forpsychological reasons and a
(17:58):
potential boost to performance.
And then lastly, there's nometabolic or hormonal benefit to
this strategy. Okay. And keep inmind, you're going to see larger
swings in your daily weigh inswhen you do this, right. If you
have one day that's like a spikein carbs, you potentially could
have a higher weigh in the nextday or the day after that. You
might not I mean, everybody'sdifferent, but just look out for
(18:20):
that, and really stay focused onthe long term. All right. Our
last question. Question numberfive is from Travis a, who asks
about a client who hasgastrointestinal issues from
having her gallbladder removed.
And he heard that fat intakeshouldn't be higher than 30%.
The question is, how do I staywithin that 30% and her body
(18:42):
needs fat to produce hormones.
She's suffering from poordigestion, falling asleep
periodically and can't sleep afull night. So I know there's a
hormonal imbalance. Alright,Travis, my first question is how
she actually had her hormonelevels checked to conclude that
there's an imbalance because Iactually see several red flags
here that have nothing to dowith the fat intake, for
(19:05):
example, I see issues with foodquality and fiber potentially,
if she has poor digestion, shemight have some sleep issues
that come down to her activityand her sleep hygiene, like her
pre bed ritual. You know, theuse of screens before bed,
things like that. And of course,whether she has strength
(19:27):
training and walking regularly,all of which can significantly
mitigate health issues before welook at other factors like a
hormonal imbalance. You know, Iusually like to deal with all of
that with a client for about asix to 10 week period and get
everything lined upnutritionally and movement wise,
before I look at anything else,because generally that's where
(19:48):
the answer is going to be formost people. The other question
is, Is she eating enough? So ifshe's been in a diet for a while
or been yo yo dieting and veryrestricted and adapted at this
point. And then that definitelycould cause issues with
hormones, not a hormonalimbalance, just the
downregulation that naturallyoccurs from not eating enough.
And I would have read atmaintenance for a few months,
(20:09):
while putting in place all thethings right the proper strength
training, the movement, thesleep, self care, you know,
self, self care, nutrition, andhydration. Now, the premise of
the question, specifically isthat intake below 30% of your
calories as fat is detrimentalto hormones, when in reality,
(20:30):
the minimum intake is far lower,it's closer to 10%. And it's
probably even lower depending onwhat calorie level you're at.
But someone with an optimizeddiet can still be consistently
around 15 to 20% of theircalories from fat without any
detrimental effects. This isboth men and women. The studies
have shown there's suchvariation between individuals
that you can't distinguishrecommendations between men and
(20:54):
women. Long story short, theissue here is not insufficient
fat intake for hormone health.
It's all these other factorsthat need to be worked on. And I
think that's where most peoplestruggle to be consistent. You
want to get her moving, becausewalking can be helpful for
digestion as well. Anddefinitely get her strength
(21:16):
training, getting enoughprotein, selecting high quality
foods for 80 to 90% of ourintake all these other things
and I think this quote unquotehormonal imbalance from fat
intake would probably inmysteriously go away. That's my
guess if you start there. Allright. That does it for today's
q&a episode. If you enjoy thisepisode, let me know by leaving
(21:39):
a five star review with Apple oryour favorite podcast app. If
you're using an Apple just go tothe Wits & Weights Show page
scroll down to the bottom selectfive stars and tap write a
review. And also here's here's abonus I will read your comments
on air in a future episode. Ifyou go ahead and post a
screenshot of your review toyour social account of choice
(22:00):
and tag me at Wits & Weights. Asalways, thank you so much for
listening, and stay strong.
Thanks for listening to theshow. Before you go, I have a
quick favorite ask if you enjoythe podcast. Let me know by
leaving a five star review inApple podcasts and telling
others about the show. Thanksagain for joining me Philip Pape
in this episode of Wits &Weights. I'll see you next time
(22:22):
and stay strong.
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