Have you ever dreamed of running a marathon but felt it was impossible due to your weight or fitness level? Or that lots of cardio will kill your muscle and gains? Discover how Ben went from 280 pounds to qualifying for the Boston Marathon at 55 without losing muscle mass.

In this episode, Philip (@witsandweights) interviews Ben Lewis, who began his fitness journey at 52, weighing over 280 pounds. Now, at 55, Ben has transformed his life, shedding over 100 pounds and improving his cardiovascular health while building muscle. Ben's remarkable story includes qualifying for the Boston Marathon, showcasing the potential of combining weight loss with muscle gain.

Philip and Ben dive deep into the strategies that enabled Ben's incredible transformation. They discuss the importance of balancing nutrition, training, and physique goals, all while doing what you love. Ben shares insights on sustainable fat loss, hybrid training approaches, and the significance of setting realistic goals. He also emphasizes the role of mindset and consistency in achieving long-term success.

Tune in to learn from Ben's journey and discover practical tips for reclaiming your health and fitness. Whether you're just starting or looking to refine your approach, this episode offers valuable lessons on balancing various aspects of fitness while maintaining a fulfilling lifestyle.

Today, you’ll learn all about:

1:35 What goes through Ben's mind during his workout
4:49 Training for the Boston Marathon
6:31 His fitness journey and weight fluctuations
12:51 His fitness journey starting at age 52
16:20 Lessons and motivations from his initial 2021 weight loss
21:21 Tracking progress and managing the scale
26:46 Maintaining a calorie deficit and recomposition
30:51 Using the Physique Tracker (a WWPU tool)
40:10 Hybrid training: balancing lifting and running
53:05 Prioritizing performance vs. health
57:31 What question Ben wished Philip had asked
1:00:08 Advice for others on a similar journey
1:03:48 How to connect with Ben
1:04:40 Outro

Episode resources:

• Join our Facebook group to get the FREE physique tracker

• Ben’s IG: @benelou_fitness 

Episode summary:

Maintaining muscle mass and cardiovascular health as we age can be a challenging endeavor. In a recent podcast episode, Ben Lewis, at 55, shares his transformative journey of losing over 100 pounds and qualifying for the Boston Marathon. This episode offers a treasure trove of insights on balancing intense workouts, strategic nutrition, and the importance of a positive mindset.

The episode kicks off with an inspiring overview of Ben Lewis's fitness journey. At 55, Ben has managed to redefine his health by shedding a significant amount of weight and qualifying for one of the most prestigious marathons in the world. His story is not just about losing weight but about finding a sustainable way to integrate both lifting and running into his daily regimen. He emphasizes the importance of strategic nutrition, which plays a pivotal role in fueling his intense workouts. Ben's mindset strategies, such as planning intense workouts with the knowledge of an easier session later, are crucial in keeping him motivated and focused.

One of the key discussions in the episode revolves around the complexities of weight loss sustainability. Ben shares his personal journey, which began with a community weight loss challenge. Initially, rapid weight loss was achieved through intense dieting and exercise. However, this approach was not sustainable in the long run. The episode delves into the emotional and psychological aspects of weight loss, highlighting why internal motivators often triumph over external validation. Lifestyle disruptions can significantly impact long-term health goals, making it essential to embrace sustainable practices.

Personalized nutrition is another critical topic covered in the episode. Ben talks about how tracking food intake can lead to better dietary choices. The use of modern fitness tools, such as the Zozo suit, is discussed in detail. This technology provides accurate body measurements, helping individuals track muscle gain and fat loss effectively. The episode emphasizes the importance of avoiding extremes in training and creating a strategic, flexible plan that aligns with both health and performance goals.

The episode also explores the power of seizing moments of opportunity for weight loss success. Ben reflects on his experience and the turning point that led him to take actionable steps towards his health. Creating moments of opportunity, even during busy schedules, can be crucial for overcoming insecurities and making lasting changes. The early progress in weight loss can build momentum, making it easier to stay committed to the journey.

Another significant aspect discussed is the importance of sustainable nutrition. Ben shares his approach to crafting a personalized meal plan that works for individual needs. The flexibility of making informed dietary choices without adhering to rigid diet rules is emphasized. Tools like the Ninja Creami can revolutionize the enjoyment of healthy foods, such as creating high-protein, low-calorie ice cream. Incorporating whole, unprocessed foods into the diet is crucial for long-term success.

Modern technology's role in fitness progress is highlighted through the use of the Zozo suit for body measurements. This tool, along with a physique tracker, provides accurate insights into body composition changes. By tracking muscle gain and fat loss, individuals can make informed dietary adjustments, even while maintaining a calorie deficit. The episode also touches on the significance of easy, zone two running in increasing mileage without compromising muscle mass.

The journey of balancing fitness and health goals, especially as we age, is a recurring theme in the episode. At 52, Ben recognized the importance of preventing muscle loss and improving cardiovascular fitness. He shares his experience of integrating weightlifting and running, adopting a balanced approach that prioritizes current goals. Seasonal periodization is discussed as a strategy to balance health, fitness, and performance goals effectively.

The importance of strategic planning for sustainable fitness is another crucial topic. The episode highlights the value of creating a 12-month plan by reverse engineering from significant dates and events. Setting realistic and flexible goals is essential for long-term success. The discussion emphasizes the need for grace and adaptability when life events interfere with plans. A high-energy, well-fed state is beneficial for effective body recomposition and slow, sustainable weight loss.

The episode concludes with a multifaceted approach to health and fitness. Finding joy in different modalities of movement, such as running and lifting, is emphasized. The potential pitfalls of extreme behaviors in these activities are also addressed. The psychological relationship with the scale is discussed, highlighting how tracking weight daily can shift it from a source of stress to just another data point.

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Transcript

Philip Pape  00:01

Imagine starting a fitness journey at 52, weighing over 280 pounds, and now at 55 Feeling better than ever after losing over 100 pounds, improving cardiovascular health and building muscle, maybe you've taken up running and you want to maintain muscle while shedding fat. Maybe you're eager to reclaim your health at the same time. In today's episode, we're talking to someone who did just that. He used our physique development approach to massively improve his health and body composition. While qualifying for the Boston Marathon, you're going to learn from him how to balance it all how to balance nutrition, training and physique goals while doing what you love.

 

Philip Pape  00:40

Today have been Louis on the show, then use our physique tracker to help him track measure and achieve a truly remarkable transformation, shedding over 100 pounds and qualifying for Boston at 55. Like we said in the intro, while building and maintaining muscle mass at the same time, yes, you can prioritize what you love to do, and what kind of athlete you want to be and still achieve your physique and health goals. We'll explore his transformation, the strategies he used for sustainable fat loss and how he makes it all work. Plus, later on, Ben is going to share his number one tip if you're trying to prioritize performance and health at the same time, Ben, welcome to the show.

 

Ben Lewis  01:17

Thank you. Appreciate it. Good to be here.

 

Philip Pape  01:20

So we met in our Facebook group, and then it's on its Facebook group. And we're like, Let's get together because you have an incredible story. I mean, you know, we love posting photos and looking at the before and after and all that. But really, it's it's what's deep down inside and kind of the process you went through to get there and why this thing works and what didn't work. So just to start off, I want to put the audience in your shoes, you know, okay, you're about to start one of your training sessions right now, maybe it's one of your hybrid training sessions, you're training for the marathon, whatever it is, maybe you're lifting and running, you know, I don't know, you're gonna tell us what it looks like? Yeah, well, I want you to take us there right into the gym or your favorite trail, or wherever it is, what is going through your mind as you prepare to tackle the disciplines involved?

 

Ben Lewis  02:02

Oh, wow, what's going through my mind. So typically, I either run or lift first thing in the morning. So I'm getting up out of bed, getting some nutrition and depending on which one I'm doing first on a particular day. And I'm really just thinking about the workout just thinking about what I need to do what I need to accomplish, what's the purpose of this particular workout today. So say, for example, I'll just I'll talk about today, because so today that I did a I did leg day, first in the gym. So you know, I was knowing that today is we're recording this on a Thursday and Saturday is my long run day. So I knew I had to I've got two days before my long run. So I knew I could really push it on the legs. So I'm really thinking about you know, how I'm gonna lean into the bulk area, I was doing Bulgarian split squats, Romanian deadlift, some cable step ups. And so I'm just I'm really going in thinking about getting now hard knowing that I had an easy run after that. And so yeah, I go, I go in, hit that workout, get some more food, get some, get a couple of magical days, get some carbs. And I actually eat a little bit of protein before I left when I do a lift and run back to back. So I had a had a protein shake, and some banana and prunes before I went then have Medjool dates afterward. And I took off for a seven mile super easy run. I know that for those who kinda like your listeners probably have more strength training focus. So seven miles does not sound easy. But in terms of in terms of the taxing this Oh, my cardiovascular system, I knew this because I'm gonna be super easy on this one thing, how to actually start it and I recorded one today, I will force myself to be able to sing a song that while I'm running. So yeah, real low heart rate. You know, I know zone trainings, real popular these days, we'll we'll run was actually about 60%. Zone one and 50% zone two. So it's, it's going to be that easy. And I'm just kind of pushing that run. And yeah, cool. That was fun. And it was faster than I would have anticipated to zone one. Zone two. Right. So that was nice, too. So awesome.

 

Philip Pape  04:01

Yeah, I meant that sounds like a lot of fun. And definitely more than a lot of listeners probably do in a typical training session. Because yeah, you're right, we're focused on lifting. And I remember years ago, attempting to train up to a half marathon and once I was at four miles or above, I'm like, this is a lot. And, you know, I've done five K's and I'm like, that even just like wins me. But a couple things you mentioned was you know, hitting it hard knowing you had an easy run after that, that strikes me as like a really good kind of mindset approach or trick where you know, you're contrasting things and saying like, you know, it's not going to be bad that bad. So I should go after it now. And then you mentioned you know, you got very specific on your protein, carbs and I love people are always asking what should I eat before workout? And you talked about some fruit, some dried fruit prunes day. I love that you got specific there. And then with the zones and all that. Yeah, man. So like, what are you training for right now?

 

Ben Lewis  04:51

So theoretically, I'm going to do another marathon in December. I qualified for Boston. This past December. However, Have you listeners may not be aware for the Boston Marathon, it's the number one, you have to hit a standard time for your aid. So I made that standard by about a minute and a half. However, based on the number of people who have put in applications, sometimes they have to cut off that time even further than the standard. So my standard was three hours and 35 minutes. I did 333. And some change. My strong suspicion is that I will qualify, I got the t shirt, but I won't get in the race.

 

Philip Pape  05:29

That's not fair. Yeah. Yeah,

 

Ben Lewis  05:31

there was a lot of consternation about it last this year for the 20, the one that just passed a couple months ago in April, it was like a five and a half minute buffer you had to have. And, frankly, I did well, and I qualified for Boston. But I felt like even then I felt like I could have done better. There was some mitigating circumstances that day. So I really, I want to crush the marathon. I want to conquer the marathon in December, run Boston in 2026. And then frankly, be done with marathons moved on to the half distance to shorter distance. Yeah. We could talk more about that later. But yeah, yeah, I want the server to be my third marathon in Boston to be my last marathon.

 

Philip Pape  06:07

Okay. And again, you your attitude, I love it, man. It's infectious. Like I want one of people to hear that. Because you're like, well, it's worth celebrating that you qualified. And yet, it doesn't have to be enough. Like you want more. And that's fine, right? Like, I totally get that of, there's a healthy frustration that drives you. And that's cool, right? Like, there's a point where it can get too much. And there's a there's a point where there's maybe not enough where you're just not pushing enough. Let's go back in time, because I want the listener to kind of go through your history here, and start about 10 years ago, right? 2013, you got down to about 175 pounds from what what were you at your max,

 

Ben Lewis  06:44

the max when I stepped on a scale was 277. Okay, I don't you know, when you're when you're when you're overweight, like that, at least me. So I grew up, I grew up as an athlete, and you know, playing basketball in high school and all that stuff. And you know, that I represent a lot of guys that, I think, you know, we could eat whatever we wanted to because we were so active when we were younger, you know, I was playing I was playing ball for five days a week for two or three hours. Literally, I had a bowl of I pull a butter pecan ice cream every night before I went to bed. And I weighed 155 pounds when I graduated high school and 510. So anyway, so yeah, I had some not good eating habits, and those slowly over time ballooned into I was about to 78 when I was 4344 years old, however old that was in 2013. And actually, a guy from my church started a Facebook group, I'd never heard of it. He's, he's it was he started a Facebook group at the beginning of 2013. And he invited, he was overweight. And he invited basically kind of all the overweight dudes that were heavily involved in the church to a Facebook group, and he called it let's lose it, fellas, I wouldn't looked it up again today, because let's lose it fellas. It was it was using the lose it app, which I didn't even Yeah, I didn't know there were weight loss. This was 2013 I don't even know there were weight loss apps at the time. And so it was just kind of a lark. And I was like, I really, yeah, I need to do this. And it's in the back of my head. You know, I'm, I'm 40. At that point, I guess I'm 43 My wife is pregnant with our second child. And I know I'm going to be 62 when she graduates from high school. And, um, you know, class to obese. And, you know, I'm worried about health, I want to be around for my daughters. And you know, we have an older daughter than her as well. So it was kind of always in the back of my mind, this is something I need to to I need to deal with this. I need to take care of this. I need to get back to a healthy weight.

 

Philip Pape  08:33

Yeah, health was a driver, but but the values were really like living for your family and being there and yeah, not being and like you said, you're representing a lot of other people. I mean, men and women who hear this who life has made things very different than in their 20s. And they're getting older, and they haven't kept up with things. So you had you did lose a bunch of weight back then, but maybe not in the right way. We want to understand what that looked like so that we can contrast it to what you did later.

 

Ben Lewis  08:59

So you know, I went in the app and the app gives you the option. How much weight do you want to lose per week and it maximizes the two pounds, so I chose two pounds. I was able to do it as fast possible. I really, I can't tell you other than I just want to do this why I chose the fastest weight loss. It didn't make any there's no logical reason for it. Like it wasn't, oh, I want to get 10 for this event. I didn't have anything coming up. No, no, nothing like that. It was just not want to lose as fast as possible. I didn't know any better. I didn't know any better either. So and you know, they had forums, lose it have forums back then. And people were saying, well don't eat back your exercise calories either. And you know, I started exercising. And so, you know, I was 510 270 some pounds, eating 2300 down to I think 1800 calories a day. And by the end, you know, I started running and I was lifting a little bit I was running a little too. I was doing probably more cardio than I should have for body composition stuff. But anyway, I was running, lifting and doing all the things and basically the weight loss I I looked at the journey looked at the the journal that I have of that it was like two and a half, three pounds, virtually every week for the past seven months.

 

Philip Pape  10:09

So good solid 1% or more of your weight every week. Yeah, gotta be,

 

Ben Lewis  10:13

it was more than when I was still losing three pounds a week, two and a half to three pounds a week when I was 210 to 100. I mean, and so it was getting harder and harder. So I'd have these big, you know, you get starving, you have a big band that goes up, then you then you can grit your teeth for two weeks. And then you then you just can't take it and you grit your teeth. And it was just it was I did it. But it was not sustainable. And long story short, it kind of all fell apart. When I started running. I got pretty fast he I was getting some attention for that. And so I was on Strava, which is a running app that you know, folks, you share your runs, and everybody's getting all these likes, and blah, blah, blah. And then we ended up we moved, we lived in Charleston, South Carolina at the time we moved to Greensboro, North Carolina. And you know, the time right before the move, when you got all your stuff packed up, and you're eating carrot takeout, like every single night. And then three or four weeks after you're eating takeout every single night, because you're still unpacking and I put on weight, didn't have time to exercise. And my times were a lot slower. And again, it was so outwardly focused on people seeing how good I was doing how well I was doing. And I wasn't doing as well. And I just kind of went I really I went into a cocoon and basically gained it all back over the course of you know, it was a slow, kind of slow game back to I ended up heavier than I started even. And so I won't go into all that detail. But I guess you want to take that to the beginning of 20, or the end of 2021. Yeah,

 

Philip Pape  11:51

let's hit on some of this, right? Because I'm sure people are listening thinking like, oh, man, I can identify with so much of that. First of all the external validation that you are seeking, right? It's like, you put that in the bucket of of motivators that are outside of you that maybe aren't sustainable as motivators, right, or even unhealthy motivators, the fast food while moving. So we built our house in 2018. Now, that was a couple years before I got into this stuff as well, myself. And then I became really good friends with the McDonald's manager. Because it's like a, it's like a block away from me. And I was like, just exhausted and distracted. And it's like, easy, it's convenient. And you don't have a routine, you don't have this discipline that you probably have now. And then you gain it all back. Like you said, you probably didn't gain it back at three pounds a week, like you've lost it. And people need to understand that, right? Because we're why people think, Oh, I just got fat all of a sudden, or I just gained a buck. But if you really are honest with yourself, it probably took a long time. Yes. You know, and which is means it's, you can easily reverse it, you know, with the right approach. So, all right, fast forward to just about three years ago, 2021, you were 52? And then your backup to 280 or 277. Max, but whatever. No, no, it

 

Ben Lewis  13:01

was more than that. It was out. Yeah, this

 

Philip Pape  13:02

one was more than that. Okay, got it.

 

Ben Lewis  13:04

I have to tell you the before picture I posted in the group. Technically it was from 2020. It was December 2020. My birthday was my 52nd birthday. And I was gonna start, you know, right at the New Year, because my birthday is in late December. And I was gonna start right the new year. And that, and I didn't. And I didn't the funny thing, I can't really tell you what happened, because I don't really remember the detail. But in March of 2021. So I really started in terms of like tracking my food, paying attention to what I was doing. March 15 2021. Somebody asked me what what clicked and I said, honestly, it was probably a non busy weekend where I had time to plan and get get a couple of meals together and cook a couple of things ahead of time. That probably was what it was to be honest, it was just because, you know, again, it's in my head for all this time that I've got to do this, I've got to take care of this. I've got to take care of this. And so you know, I think about like these online trolls that love the body shaming people I'm going there's probably two categories of people that are obese. There's people like me who are, it's constantly in your head. It's not not not a little it is constantly in my head every time. Every night when I could walk upstairs and I'm winded after a walk upstairs, I've got to take care of this. Every time there's, you know, I go I see people out in public, I've got to take care of this. You know, every time there's an event back in my hometown and I want to go to and I'm thinking I don't want anybody to see me like this. I gotta take care of it. It's just it is a constant battle. So it's not like I didn't you know, it's not like I was never thinking about it. I was always thinking about it, but something Something hit that second week, third weekend of March and 2021 before

 

Philip Pape  14:45

because I want to hear what the second type of person is. But when you were would you verbalize that often as well or was it mostly in your head? Oh, it was here. It was it was it was it wasn't like to everybody like I gotta get gotta get back in shape. I gotta do my wife your life. Yeah, okay, okay. to

 

Ben Lewis  15:00

my wife, but no, not not out in public or anything. I would just say the second type of person, they probably they're not concerned about it either. And, you know, why are you concerned about it? They're so concerned about ambient leave people alone. That's my point. There's no matter where they're at, just leave them alone.

 

Philip Pape  15:14

Okay. It's your it's your personal journey. Absolute. You have to be ready for it. You can. Yeah.

 

Ben Lewis  15:18

So anyway, yeah, it's not helpful when I know. And I think most people are probably where I was the vast majority of where I was of, oh, my gosh, I need to take care of this. I don't need somebody else beat me up. I'm beating myself up enough. Thank you. Okay. Yeah. And

 

Philip Pape  15:31

that, and that applies? I mean, honestly, that applies to so many insecurities we have about ourselves. Yeah, just be true. It may be a little overweight, and maybe just your physique in general, and maybe you know, something related to work or your relationship or whatever. It's like, yeah, you're constantly telling yourself, I've got to do this. So what prevents people from doing it? I love what you said, though, when you talked about taking non busy weekend and planning, like that actually struck me because I know, I'm a really busy guy, right? You can imagine, okay, I've seen the podcast in the work and everything else. Sometimes surprisingly, I just have this like two hour block of nothing, just very surprisingly, and rarely. And when that happens, if I could just sit down, like do something that's just been totally neglected. It can take your mind off, you know, the stress of it, but also gives you this insight and clarity to go forward and take action. So is the lesson from that, that we have to like, create those moments? Have you thought about that too much?

 

Ben Lewis  16:25

That's a great question. I haven't thought a ton about it. But I think you know, ultimately, yeah, it's it's creating. I mean, if I had created that space at another time, I mean, my goodness, it was dependent. You know, this, we're talking coming to the tail, the pandemic. It's not that I didn't have non busy weekends in 2020. I mean, come on. We all busy weekends. And 2020 Beginning of the pandemic, I did lose a little bit got destroyed. I don't remember why I got distracted, but I did. So but creating that space, and really just seizing that moment. Yeah, I think that's not waiting till Monday, not waiting till the New Year, I just seizing the moment when it comes.

 

Philip Pape  17:01

But there's magic in that man and I think, gonna necessarily sit on this topic. But there's a lot of people probably listening who are like getting motivated by this podcast and not taking action. I hope most people are. But if they're not like where you were, what is it that they can do to seize that moment, besides just do it? And I know, sometimes it is just do it. But seriously, people want to know, like, what's the secret? Ben? What are your thoughts? I know, you're not a guru. And we're just asking honest opinions here?

 

Ben Lewis  17:28

It's a great question. Yeah, I would say this progress definitely gives you momentum. And early on, I think momentum is is critical and crucial. So, you know, progress could be a number on the scale, it could be yet last week, I was able to jog for 30 seconds. And this week, I can jog for 35 seconds, it's you know, it's seeing something where there's some sort of tangible evidence of okay, this is working, I am getting better. Now, that's dangerous. Because sometimes, you know, we know the scale can be a fickle master. And you know, it may be that you're more tired and you're, you're a little bit slower than you were last week, your heart rate goes a little higher, whatever metric you might be using. Good that can be dangerous, but you know, save and trusting the process, at some point of this stuff works, it really does. And I can say that and we may get into that more,

 

Philip Pape  18:21

I'll go into this no one

 

Ben Lewis  18:23

really does work. It is. It is math and science in the final analysis, but there's definitely a mental mindset piece of it. But there's a lot of math and science involved too.

 

Philip Pape  18:34

I can totally empathize with that you know that I'm a geek at heart and nerd I like to do. And like you're right, sometimes you just have to say it, almost like forget what you're thinking and your emotion about it. And just say you've got a process, you've got some numbers planted out, start doing it, see what happens, you know, like test it out. But this is really important because the insight here for people listening is okay, you've got to see some sort of moment, you got to have the space to do that. You've got to seize it, and then do something that gives you quick progress quick wins to get motivation. What were those for you in the first like month or two back in 2021?

 

Ben Lewis  19:06

Well, I started tracking my calories, I got a calorie count, it was higher than what I was doing back in 2013. But still not probably not high enough ultimately. And that that change over time, you didn't see the scale move, actually the first couple of two or three days it went up and then it started going down. I had a bicycle and I started riding in the neighborhood. And you know one thing when you are really really out of shape that I found this to be in 2020 13 as well as in 2020. Why? When you're really really out of shape you make progress pretty toggle

 

Philip Pape  19:40

is so low your baseline so low, so the relative to

 

Ben Lewis  19:44

remember the numbers but you know, I probably did a 10 minute bike ride on this street at seven miles per hour the first week and it's probably eight or nine miles per hour the second week just oh, okay, I'm getting better. It was probably that big of a difference almost quit you know had to do it every other day. And I would recommend, you know, whatever cardio whatever strength training you're doing, don't try to do it every day. Take a you know, every other day, take a rest, the walk or jog walk, we're gonna start over, that's what I would do. I would jog for 30 seconds and walk for three minutes and jog for 30 seconds and walk for three minutes, probably how I would structure it. And if you can't jog for 30 seconds, jog for 15 seconds if you can't jog at all, walk for 30 minutes, just track. So I did see I saw my bike ride. I did not start I didn't start in 2013 was running it all I was afraid of my weight and my knees. Make

 

Philip Pape  20:33

sense? Yeah. So again, another powerful quote, you said when you're out of shape, you make faster progress. I mean, like, that's a great thing to latch on to, because that's a positive reframing of being out of shape. It's like, it's funny because I I'll have like these discovery calls with somebody who's like 300 something pounds, we just had a new client set up who's you know, on the heavier side, and I smile, I like have this big smile, like, I'm so jealous of you right now. Because you have so much opportunity to change from where you are, it actually doesn't have to be that hard, because you've got some benefits of being out of shape. And it's like, it's a weird way to think about it. But like, if you have excess fat, that's energy that your body will start using early on. That actually makes it easy to lose weight and easy to build muscle versus Rosina. Yep. Right? So that's kind of like reframing of wherever you are, you've got things going for, you've got some strengths to go with. That's pretty cool. Why don't we get into some nuts and bolts? I mean, start with nutrition, since you mentioned tracking macros, you know what, you can either go back then or you can just say like, how it's evolved. And like, what what your general philosophy has been Trisha, you know,

 

Ben Lewis  21:32

I'll tell you one thing, and I am a big fan of tracking protein and calories, not necessarily all not all the macros, and my primary reason I'm not a fan of meal plan at all. And my reason for that is, you know, I want to feel empowered to make these decisions myself. And when I started tracking, you start learning, I learned that walnuts are healthy, but they are luck. I mean, they're just a lot of calories. I learned what was worth it, and what wasn't worth it quote, unquote, you know, what, what indulgences were worth the calories and some some weren't worth it for me and I was it I was empowered to make that decision. It wasn't some named diet telling me you can't eat carbs or you must go less than 3050 grams of fat a day or you must do this. So it was me being able to say okay, you know, in some cases like I like cheddar cheese, but you know what I do reduce fat cheddar cheese now it doesn't pay on it. It just it's not worth it still scratching the

 

Philip Pape  22:29

itch of having cheese in it

 

Ben Lewis  22:31

but it's much it makes it worth it but I still eat walnuts I just eat fewer wow I love all but I not understanding I manage the amount of walnuts I eat so

 

Philip Pape  22:41

for you a healthy amount of walnuts is less walnuts. You know, there's like it's not like a walnut is healthy or not right. It's just for you less right is healthy. Yeah, there you go. Yeah,

 

Ben Lewis  22:50

I mean, it really was, I would want to work from home, I would want it in the kitchen and grab a handful of walnuts once every hour and a half or so. So I probably was eating 1000 calories a day in walnuts. I'm not exaggerating when I say that. It was probably 1000 calories a day in walnut. Oh yeah, love. Yeah, my wife joke like, oh my like, I'll get like, if talking about balance, I'll get like, you know, cheesecake home for dessert on my birthday. Say for example, I'll say You know, I want some walnuts on the side and why for interrupting? You don't understand how many walnuts he was. Just you don't understand he wants more walnuts and you've ever given anyone. So yeah, but so nutrition. So structuring my nutrition. Number one, like I said, I like tracking because it empowered is empowered me to figure out what's worth and what's not worth it, where I can do it and donors where I can decide you know what I don't I want chicken thighs not chicken breast and in order to do chicken thighs and chicken breasts. That means I'm going to do Greek yogurt for breakfast and not eggs. I'll do more egg whites and not not eggs for breakfast you know I can make those trade offs and I can make those decisions and they work for me I'm definitely a fan of vast majority is whole unprocessed foods of what I do in my diet and let fitting in the indulgences we just bought when I say just bought I just yesterday had my first from it the what's it called the creamy ninja creamy the things that oh my gosh, that thing is ridiculous. thing as a whole. I mean it's a game changer. absolute game changer. My 50 year old daughter heard me say that she's the one that got us to buy it and she's standing at my office door now looking very smug.

 

Philip Pape  24:45

Because then you could have ice cream that actually doesn't do the trade off that you have to make with ice cream.

 

Ben Lewis  24:51

I make. Yeah, I made a 350 Calorie pint of ice cream that has 40 grams. Yes, yes, the protein is a slicer but Ello eyes Korean Oh my gosh. Anyway, yeah, so I do a lot of vegetables, a lot of fruit. You know, the Beatles Ella's don't come from me. At this point, you know, because I'm running and lifting, I am in a cut at about 4100 calories a day average meeting men. Like consistently losing dropping body fat and, and gaining a hair muscle based on your calculator. Since mid January, just kind of since 2021, late 2021, I got down to under 190 or so, since late 2021. I haven't been above about 210 or 215 or so. And so you know, that's been between 175 and, and really the 210 to 15. That was a one time thing. So really between 175 and 205 for three years now. Yeah. So so two and a half years. Yeah. Anyway, but somebody nutrition.

 

Philip Pape  26:01

It's all good. These are all tangent. Trust me, I take notes, and we want to go off on these. Because that's when people are asking. I mean, first of all, I mean, sustainability is the the word we're the buzzword we always throw around, but there's a reason for that. And it sounds like you've taken that approach. I like how you said, Okay, you're not a fan of meal plans. Neither am I, I've done episodes about it all, I have one called the perfect meal plan. That's basically a mind shift when you listen to it, because it's like the perfect meal plan is the one that you make for yourself that works for you. Right? That's the spoiler alert. Yeah, 100%. And I just did one recently actually just came out this week how to allocate, you know, 1200 2003 1000 calories. But again, it's it's you got to be flexible and pick it for yourself. So that what you said was it empowers you to know what's worth it and not worth it. And I want people to understand how that that's distinguished from if you weren't tracking or you're trying to eat intuitively. And I understand there's a place where you could live that maintenance and not have to track and all that we know that. But tell us what your thoughts are on that, how it empowers you. Whereas if you weren't tracking, if you just ate mostly Whole Foods, why it might not be successful, you

 

Ben Lewis  27:07

know, this varies from person to person. And so I like to say that I am aware, I listen to a lot of podcasts, by the way. So I have heard you say that I'm sure but I've probably heard other people say it too. So I get they all kind of run together. I run like eight and a half hours a week and so I listen to podcasts. I'll run too fast if I listen to music so I listen to and I listen to a lot. I mean I'll help

 

Philip Pape  27:31

you listen to it. We want x or do you listen to it faster speeds. 1x 1x.

 

Ben Lewis  27:35

Just 1x. Just straight up, calm, easier, most of our runnings easier tracking versus not trying, I am aware from listening a lot of podcasts that people struggle with getting enough protein that is not if left to my own devices, I would eat three 400 grams of protein a day. I'm not kidding you. When I make even even now when I'll make a meal plan the day before, you know, here's what I'm going to eat the bar and it's invariably Okay, now where am I going to cut the protein so I can get enough carbs and fat. I know the time I know the time, okay, I can only eat eight ounces of chicken, I can't eat 10 You know, that kind of thing. So I can testify this I'm not a big I mentioned cheesecake. But other than that, I don't really like sweets, like candy. I don't like chips that don't eat any of that stuff. Even if even when not tracking I eat mostly whole unprocessed foods, you know, but I will eat too much of them. This just quite bluntly, I'll just I'll just eat too much. And I just kind of have to understand, you know, because I am super active. And I can get away with it to some degree now. So I will but I know myself. So I like to do it just to keep those numbers. I think I could do intuitive now if I wanted to. And in fact, I may do it when I hit maintenance. I'm probably what's this. I'm less than two months away from hitting where I want to be most likely probably in mid to late August I will get to right where I want to be body fat wise body composition wise and I will hit I'll go to maintenance for the official marathon training block. So I'm not trying to lose weight while training for a marathon. For me tracking this it keeps it rains me and in terms of here's what you need to do. And here's what you need to pay attention to. Yeah, for me intuitive would be too much protein too much fat. I'm not a carb hound. I get a man because I need to get him as my running and lifting. Yeah,

 

Philip Pape  29:23

so again, you're like dropping lots of wisdom bombs today. Seriously, you don't you don't even know it. But like, because the way you're phrasing things, people need to hear this. What Ben was just saying is like, he doesn't even eat all the things that are blamed on obesity and people getting fat right? Like too much sugar sweets. He doesn't eat that stuff. He eats mostly Whole Foods, but he just eats too much. I mean, how many times when we talked about just it really does come down energy balance even though there are 1000 roads to both sides of the energy balance equation that make it harder for people. And like for you it's just you want to eat maybe you don't like food, maybe you just crave it and you've got to track just to get the Add information, but that information empowers you to then make the trade offs to still enjoy what you want and get your results

 

30:07

out to Philippe an awfully for a long time and know how passionate he is about healthy eating and body strength. And that's why choosing to be my coach. I was no stranger to a dieting and body training. But I've always struggled to do it sustainably really helped me prioritize my goals with evidence based recommendations, or not over stressing my body and not feeling like I'm starving. In six months, I lost 45 pounds without drastically changing the foods I enjoy. And now I have a more balanced diet. I weight train consistently for most importantly, I do it sustainably if a scientifically sound healthy diet and a links from body is what you're looking for. fully paid is your guy.

 

Philip Pape  30:51

Speaking of tracking, and spreadsheets since you mentioned it, why don't we talk about the physique tracker, which is what got us here today originally, and kind of the overall method of tracking body composition. Just you tell us your story about using it and what you how it helped you.

 

Ben Lewis  31:04

Yeah, so you dropped that thing. When did I don't remember when you actually posted it? It was March or so

 

Philip Pape  31:09

when we launched Whitson weights physique university because it's one of the tools in there and I gave it Yeah, yeah, you gave

 

Ben Lewis  31:15

it out for free. And I grabbed it. I had, I don't know it's another product. I had just bought these Zozo suit if y'all have heard of that thing, it's uh, it measures your it does your body measurements for you, it's just a lot easier than using a tape measure.

 

Philip Pape  31:28

How much does that cost? Let me ask you, I'm curious. To 100 bucks, I really it's just, it's just a like neoprene or what's the material?

 

Ben Lewis  31:35

I think it isn't. It's just like a body suit. Yeah, they now offer a subscription with your phone, whether your phone would do it. And they say that the Zozo suit is 2.5 centimeters, or mil, point five, and the suit isn't. And then the phone is less accurate kind of thing. But honestly, I've done it with a suit. And I've done it with a tape measure. I think it's accurate enough that I can trust it. So anyway, I had some measurements with it. And then you drop this physique track. And I was like, Oh, let me start plugging these measurements in here and see what my body composition actually is. And what I saw was, okay, and I thought this was the case in this little cut. I've been here since January, but and this affirmed that, but I'm not losing any muscle man. Yep. I mean, and according to the tracker, I've gained one pound of muscle mass since January and dropped about 20 pounds of body fat, which is consistent with what I see in the mirror, because, but what it did for me is it allowed it, you know, it allowed me to trust the process even more and go, Okay, I can bump up and I was feeling like I was feeling at a hungry and I'm tempted to just grab all the things on these days and macro factor is telling me you can eat another 150 calories a day. And that now this tracker is saying, you know you are losing fat and gaining muscle. Alright, I'm gonna say yes to that extra 150 calories a day. And that was something that I was not, you know, eating the minimum number of calories now gotten more into the mindset of, okay, I'm gonna, I'm gonna do this thing, I'm gonna, I'm gonna increase things now. And even though you're on a cut, even though I'm on a cut, I'm gonna be willing to increase when, when it's and I have been increasing my running, I was intentionally trying to increase my running base. So it, it makes logical sense that I would be burning more calories, I am running 655 to 60 miles a week. I've never run more than I hit 60 Watts during my last marathon bill, but I've never consistently run at this level, this number of miles a week. So it makes all the logical sense in the world. But I'll be honest, without the physique tracker, I would have said, I don't think I'm gonna just stay where I am. I don't trust I'm not going to take these extra calories.

 

Philip Pape  33:42

That's awesome. I love that use case, man, because it shows you the value of having the different types of measurements. A lot of people will use the physique tracker in a very limited scope, just kind of before and after, you know, get the numbers and understand what happened. You use it to take action or at least to comfort your mind about what other data was telling you like that. triangulating you know like double checking. Yes. And that's why I love you know, not just scale weight, but trendway and body composition and measurements and biofeedback and all that. So that's pretty cool. Now you gained a pound. So here's what's interesting for people listening. I might as well offer the physique trackers like a freebie for this episode. So you know, I'll put a link to that. But it's just to be technical. It's it's lean body mass, which is organ weight plus muscle plus fluid. But since you're losing weight, it is mainly muscle you're looking at because you've you've effectively lost. So here's what usually happens when people will see a certain amount of loss of muscle and they'll get freaked out because it's a little more than they thought. And in reality, I'm like, hold on, when you go back to maintenance, some of that's going to come right back because it's not muscle. It's just fluid. Right? Right. But you actually saw go up. So in essence, if you apply the same logic, you actually might have gained even more than that and muscle. Did you think of Got that? No, no, I did.

 

Ben Lewis  35:02

You're right. That is a possibility. Yeah, cuz you pull in some fluid with the muscle. Yeah,

 

Philip Pape  35:06

yeah, yeah. Or you've lost fluid by being in a deficit and being in hydrated state. So if it's showing a net gain, you've actually gained more than what it's saying a tiny bit. And yeah, yeah. And you've demonstrated like you can potty recomp even when you're in a deficit,

 

Ben Lewis  35:21

even when you're deficit, and even when you're running 60 miles a week.

 

Philip Pape  35:24

So let me ask you about that. Would you recommend all the listeners that they should run 60 miles a week to increase their expenditure? Okay, all right. No, no, because people, people are like, Oh, that's how you eat 4000 calories. That's

 

Ben Lewis  35:37

why unless you have a marathon goal. And if there are some of y'all out there that do want to improve your running, there's some great podcasts that will help you with that running explains a great way. Scott, Alyssa lenok does the messy middle and she talks about, he talks a lot about hybrid training, too. But the number one thing is and I know that this is a buzzword now in the fitness world, but that zone two running that easier running. So my increase in mileage was I you know, running coaches will tell you do 80% of your runs easy 20% 80% of your mileage, easy, 20% hard, I was doing 90%, easy, 95% Easy during those weeks when I was increasing so that I could recover so that I could still lift and lift well, so that I wouldn't get injured in my running. So make sure that if you are if you do want to increase your writing, that you're increasing it slowly sustainably, that you can recover from and that's really where that zone two really shines. It's the most you can do and still recover easily. Because you don't have that built up a lactate, we won't get into all the technical. No,

 

Philip Pape  36:42

I got it. Same thing with lifting, right, it's like five to 10 Hard sets will start to get you toward the upper end of like the perfect amount where you still get a lot of recovery. Whereas if you get to like 15 to 20 sets, it's optimal to like build as much as possible, but now you're impeding recovery. So with running save, I've heard that too, from runners like Uber evolved their thinking over the time, especially as they get older, right? Because that's when you start to really feel it that no, come on, let's take a step back. And you'll actually get more results over the long term. Really good with your eating habits. Besides macros and calories, which I've been thinking of doing an episode that's like, cannot just be enough. In other words, sometimes we criticize, If It Fits Your Macros for being too simplistic. And we need to consider health factors and saturated fat and fiber and everything. Yeah, which I agreed with to an extent. But I also know when I started my journey, I just thought of macros, and it made a massive improvement for me. So what are your thoughts on?

 

Ben Lewis  37:37

Okay, there's the 80 to 90%. And there's the 10 to 20%. And so it kind of depends on where you are. So when I was 280 pounds, you know what, just dropping the body weight has huge improvement to all cause mortality, even if you do lose some muscle mass. And so I don't I don't recommend

 

Philip Pape  37:57

the case for the Olympic and all those drugs today. Yeah, but a lot of

 

Ben Lewis  38:01

there's a case for that. So, so it kind of how far away from healthy, whatever that means. Are you so you know? Yeah. Now I'm sitting here. I'm right at 180 right now, and I'm about somewhere 15 1617 18% body fat somewhere in there. So this is where some of those 10 to 20% things do start to matter a little bit more. Yeah. So my thought is, you know, major on the majors first getting your calories, getting your protein getting your strength training, getting some cardio. Yeah, you know, the things that Phillip did you talk about on your podcast. So those are the things that are going to drive, you know, whatever percentage it is, but a large percentage of those things a large percentage of those improvements, then, yeah, you may need to hit some dial in some other levels, when you start to get closer to ideal and you start to need, you know, in order to make progress, you need to get some of these other things. It's

 

Philip Pape  38:58

really important that you said that, right? Because yeah, 8020 9010 Whatever. It's counterintuitive, I think maybe for people who are a bit on the closer to obese weight side, and again, I've seen this I've had clients, mostly males who are upper two hundreds or low, three hundreds. And it's tough sometimes for them to want to eat more, I'm telling me more in some sense, and they're like, well, that doesn't jive with like, I've gained weight to all these years. But they're lifting and they're eating protein. And I'm like, I don't even care about your fiber and your saturated fat to be honest, like I really don't care because you know how much change is gonna happen just from what you're doing here. And then once your slimmed up bit, you're down to 225 to 50. And you're lifting you've got muscle, you're gonna be like, What do I do next? And you're naturally going to get there. So that's a good point.

 

Ben Lewis  39:41

I'm paying attention to saturated fat. Honestly, I don't back fiber because I eat so much fruit and vegetables. I was tracking it and then I started looking I was like over 70 grams every day. I'm like, why? I don't even look. Why am I even looking at this anymore? Because I'm hitting it. I just the way I eat. Yeah,

 

Philip Pape  39:58

and that's a good point. You may not for some People certain things are easy, and you just don't have to track or even care about it, because it just happens. And that's where you can take the stress off and not track everything, but track the things that you need to change. Yeah. So we talked about nutrition and some of the Sustainable fat loss stuff. I do want to talk about your training a little bit, because I talked a little bit about the running, you have a hybrid training approach. But what does that mean? You know, concurrent training, whatever, all the buzzwords are laid on us. Yeah, because this is not our, our strength as a podcast is not that. But I want people to understand what it's like.

 

Ben Lewis  40:28

So I want to just say how I started, I started thinking, Oh, my gosh, I'm 55 years old, or 5252. At the time, I'm 52 years old. This is when you start to lose muscle mass sarcopenia, I'm getting older that I don't want to lose muscle fat. So I need to not drop muscle mass as I dropped this weight. And also, I get winded every time I walk up the stairs, and I can't, you know do things that I want to do I have a large yard, I get really tired doing basic yard work, I need to improve my cardiovascular health, as well as just the daily activities of living. So I didn't come at this I didn't I've never heard of concurrent or hybrid or any of that stuff. It was just, these are two things that I know are good for my health. So I'm gonna do these two things. And eventually, somewhere along the line, I started podcasts and fitness Instagram. And, and this hybrid concurrent thing. It was what I was already doing. You know, but by the time I learned that term, I was probably lifting three to four days a week and running four to five days a week, you know, the 25, that's fine, the 30 ish mile run, you're doing a, I think I'll do an upper lower upper lower split. So the time maybe I'd switch to push both. I prefer push pull a six day push, pull leg, push, pull leg, but because I live close to my jam, I can get there easily. So point being Yeah, it was I came at it with a health mindset of these are things that are going to be good for my health and healthspan and lifespan. And so I just kind of attack both of them. And then at some point, you know, they started to, okay, how do I do both of these and have time for them? And you know, you have to just you have to figure out, you know, what season are you in right now, right now, I'm training for a marathon. And you know, if I listen to you, and I've heard you say this, you know, I listen to you. And you'll say well always do your lifting before you run it. You listen to runcoach. And they will say always do your running before you care about what you care about most you do first. And so I'm like, Oh, I've kind of adopted that from my own sort of, what am I focused on right now right now I'm building a vase, I'm running mostly easy running, I can really get lifting. So I am lifting first these days, I'm hitting, I'm working harder on my strength. I'm got a huge cardiovascular base. I mean, again, I'm running 60 miles a week. But I'm running easy. And I can do that with very little finally, even after a hard lifting session, I can run 3045 minutes later, and I really feel not seeing any substantive difference in like my performance, you know, my heart rate is this and my speed is that and that's probably right at what it would have been if I hadn't lifted beforehand. So I'm seeing that anyway. But anyway, yeah, you just, but there's gonna be seasons. You know, I can look at my log from last fall when I was getting ready for the marathon were qualified in Boston, I dropped my lifting two days a week. Yep. And you know, there's a lot less so you know, I may drop it and, or two to three days and drop just due to two upper body, one lower body and, and so it just, you know, you just have to kind of focus on whatever it is that right now, in this particular time is important to you. I've actually already drawn up a 2025 Yeah, Jewel, I'm presuming I'm going to mega qualify in December. And most of the 2025 I can just do true hybrid where I'm going to do as much as I can of both but not overdo it. But just really, I'm going to allow me to do a balance, do a real balance thing for much of 2025 is my plan. Okay,

 

Philip Pape  43:56

man, some really cool things in there. First of all, you touched on periodization and seasons, you use the term seasons very early when I got my nutrition coaching cert, that was definitely the language used in the context of like, if you think of an athletic season, you have a preseason where your prep season where you go after it you know, offseason when you recover. And then did I miss one but you know what I mean? What in between? Oh, yeah, the offseason is actually where you develop your skill, right? Like you might go after? Yeah, but you talked about planning into 2025 Just this morning, somebody posts in our community. This is our paid program. One of our courses asked you to put together a 12 month plan there like I want you to think ahead of an entire year think about the holidays. Think about what you want to do think about how you want to move the seasons how hot and cold like all that stuff and put together Oh, yeah, it just like you're doing you're you're backing it up. You're reverse engineering from you know, events dates. Yeah, maybe you have a wedding, maybe you want to look great on the beach, it doesn't matter whatever is driving you plan it in because we're good. Humans are really good at using like special milestones and moments and holidays to drive things. And so we take advantage of that. So I'm just putting it out for the listener like that's a great tip Ben just said, like plan out the next 12 months. Do you have any advice specifically on how people can start doing that? Like, because they may, they may think it's just kind of overwhelming. What even do I do over the next 12 months? You know, well,

 

Ben Lewis  45:13

you know, Excel is your friend, you can

 

Philip Pape  45:17

get your you're going right to the tool. All right, you're like me, man.

 

Ben Lewis  45:20

For me, that was my friend. Okay, here's, there's, here's the weeks. And literally, I started with just here's the weeks and what, and then looking at you, you've used a great term that reverse engineering, so I'm going to reverse engineering. Okay. Yeah. All right, the pool opens and Memorial Day weekend, and I'm not saying this was necessarily me. But yeah, the full Memorial Day weekend, I want to be coming right out of a cut down. Yeah. But a lot of people are probably gonna think you know, so think about that. All right. So then I set up, okay, this is when I'm going to, I'm going to straight train. And you know, I'm going to do my, whatever, 12 weeks or 16 weeks, whatever that number might be, and you work backwards from there. And then, you know, for me as a runner, it's like, I want to do a half marathon in 2025. And there's one near me, it's actually in Mount Airy, North Carolina, Andy Griffith hometown, where the show was kind of the show was kind of based on Mount Airy, and you get to take a picture with Barney, Barney Fife. Qmobile. Yeah, so that, that's, that's always like the second week of November. So I'm kind of Alright, so we're gonna remember, half marathon training is going to take me 12 weeks, I'm going to work back from the second week of November and then think about Alright, so that's when I'll start scaling back lifting. So then whatever that 12 We I don't have that spreadsheet in front of me right now. But whatever the 12 weeks, sometimes it was sometime it says some week in September. So up to that time in September, I'm really going to go hard on my lifting, you know, perfect man. So that that kind of things, it's really those events, those things that what you where you want to be at certain times in the year,

 

Philip Pape  46:51

as I'm thinking of that, what how do you is it a completely perfection oriented plan? Or do you put in some wiggle room and some like buffer in there? For me,

 

Ben Lewis  47:01

I put I start with best case scenario, just but just understanding it, you know, I need to have grace with myself and life can happen. And you know, just be okay with that. I'll really be okay. When, when life happens, and I hate I get sick a lot less now that I'm eating healthy, whole unprocessed foods all the time, or most of the time that I get sick a lot less and I'm healthy. I'm a healthier person, but I do get sick. You know, okay, maybe gotta take a week, two weeks off, just to let your body heal. And that's okay. Yeah, for sure

 

Philip Pape  47:37

we see it. I mean, again, as you get older, you got the surgeries and the injuries in life and kids in COVID. And now all these other things that happened, right? This theory came up with my mind now that I wanted to pick your brain on Okay, so you okay, you're eating like 4000 calories in a deficit, right? Yeah. Like your expenditures is 4800.

 

Ben Lewis  47:56

Macro. fattener has my expenditure around 46 4700. Okay. All

 

Philip Pape  48:00

right. So you're eating a lot of food, like you're just eating a lot in terms of volume and calories and energy. Yes, you're running a lot, but you're adapted to it. You're lifting as well. We've seen this kind of unusual outlier version of body recomp. I'm just going to call it that. Because it's not like results are not typical kind of thing. Yeah. Do you think that there's an element here, kind of a formula that you're applying here that is putting you into a high energy? well fed state that is akin to not dieting, but because the energy balance is still dieting, that you're losing weight? You don't say? Yeah,

 

Ben Lewis  48:38

I should have said that. Okay, I did not specify that. So I am losing intentionally my I am losing way slower than I ever have. Even slower than macro factor. I think I set it for point. Oh, 5%. Body fat. So that's my intention. Point. Oh,

 

Philip Pape  48:58

5% a week. Okay. point or point? 5.5. Okay. Well, that's, that's reasonable. That's, you know, it's moderate. Yeah. But yeah,

 

Ben Lewis  49:06

most people want to get close to that one. So, yeah, most people want to but I'm doing point 5%. And, yeah, so. So part of it I'm losing you referenced is when you're still obesity. Body fat is energy. And excess body fat is energy. And so yeah, I suspect that my body has been using some of that fat for muscle building. Yeah, yeah,

 

Philip Pape  49:28

but not really. Yeah. So wait, let's I don't want to leave it. I'm gonna challenge you on that a little not challenge but you're at a much higher level than the average person in terms of your absolute calories. You just are being Sub Sub 200 male, right? Yeah. Typically, I see people's expenditure being on the upper end 4000 On the far upper end, like, you know, a bigger guy and everything, but usually it's around 3000 to 3500 At most, and then when they're dieting they're down to like 2500 or 2000 calories. They are getting to the point Weigh Down where their body feels, you know, even if it's moderate, you are eating a ton of calories. And so my like, my theory goes is the energy coming in even though a lot of it gets burned? It's kind of circling through. I wonder if that puts you in a better health state or metabolic state, even while you're losing such that your body doesn't feel like it's dieting as much you know what to say? Right?

 

Ben Lewis  50:21

This is just so much more sustainable. Yes. In terms of my hunger cues. Yeah. So even though I'm burning it all and losing fat, I do not feel hungry. Yeah. Because I mean, you know, you don't have time. You know, I eat a, I typically eat 1000 calories by the, by the time I pre workout, Intro workout and parry workout. I've eaten 1000 calories in the morning, and I'm eating 1000 basically 1000 Calorie breakfast 1000 Calorie lunch 1000 Calorie dinner and 1000 calories in the morning before breakfast is basically how it tends to play out. And yeah, I'm not hungry. I I program in snacks and fruit and stuff. And sometimes I forget to get up and then I forget to go get an orange or some blueberries or whatever I put in for a snack for the day. Yes, that absolutely happened.

 

Philip Pape  51:11

So now you're also running a lot. And so people are gonna think, because here's the thing, I always have to caution people, especially when they start work with me, like we're probably going to do less in the short term, because you're probably doing too much and you're stressing your body, especially women doing too much cardio, but now we're talking to a guy here you Ben that's doing a ton of cardio, like a ton of cardio. And so what makes it actually work for you. You talked about balance, but still it's a lot. It's a lot of volume. Is it sleep? Are you getting nine hours of sleep? What is it that's keeping the stress load down? Do you think

 

Ben Lewis  51:42

you said that earlier? Now that I think about it? I do think it's the quality, the quality and the amount of nutrition really have to be it? I'm not a great sleeper. It's funny. My wife asked me fairly recently, a week or two ago, she's like, Have you stopped drinking for good or asset? I don't know. I've literally I've never met like, I've literally never been drunk in my life or even tipsy in my life. But I would have a glass of wine here and there. I haven't had any in. I think it was around 2022 I'm not even sure. So it wasn't like a conscious, I'm not gonna drink it. This day. I just kind of stopped at some point. And I'm not saying you know, so. So the point that I don't consume alcohol, which is you know, it's a recovery in heaven because it hurts your recovery. So I really focus on recovery, and getting walks in and you know, active recovery on the days that I'm not running or not lifting, doing a little bit of active recovery, doing, you know, real life stuff on those days. You know, I'm not a great sleeper. I know it's important. I try to sometimes I just wake up. Yeah. I'm getting in bed. I am typically in bed before 8pm every night. Okay, but I don't sleep eight hours, almost never. Okay,

 

Philip Pape  52:54

no, it's good to understand what what is your sub count come out to be when you include all your running? What is it roughly a day?

 

Ben Lewis  53:02

Don't check it much anymore. It's like 20 to 20,000?

 

Philip Pape  53:05

Well, no, just so now I want to get to that pivotal. Like we teased early on, you know, a lot of people will hear all this the concurrent training, the hybrid training, and the fact that you went after two goals, right, that sometimes seem contradictory with performance, and health. So what's like the number one piece of advice that you would have for people who are like, I do want to prioritize both of those with my, my approach in my training? Yeah,

 

Ben Lewis  53:30

so performance and health is similar to the whole thing I was saying about running and lifting, you've got to periodized and decide what right now is the thing I want to focus on. I'll give you my personal example. That said earlier, I really want to focus on just nailing a marathon this fall. Okay, that is not an optimal health goal. It is a performance goal. And quite frankly, you know, I would say, as a runner, I feel like I've gotten on a bit of a bunny trail doing marathons, like, as I start, you know, I started at health, I'm working on this health, and now I'm chasing this rabbit over here of the marathon and really kind of nail that. I would probably say, even as somebody who's, you know, who's who's running nine hours a week ish, and you know, do a 1618 mile or every week, probably 90 minutes is the cap for any run that he would ever want to do. So point being I know that I am not optimized for necessarily health right now, quote, unquote, I am getting close to optimize performance. But as I said earlier, I'm going to change that. I'm going to do this and I plan to get out of Marathon. I plan to get out of the marathon business, if you will. Yeah. You know, it's a nice goal. It's a fun goal. And I'm not saying if you're a runner, you could keep running marathons. That's your thing, but I don't think it's optimal for my health pursuits. Yeah, quite frankly.

 

Philip Pape  54:47

Yeah. So makes it you gotta go off to one or the other. What are your thoughts on lifting because kind of the extreme version of that would be bodybuilding where again, that's not healthy. But is there this interesting space where lifting weights as a performance goal to an extent actually can overlap more with health. I wonder, right? Yeah. So, for

 

Ben Lewis  55:08

me lifting is at pros lifting and running really differently, like lifting. I want to progress, like, oh, I want to see is getting a little bit stronger. And my six to eight rep range like I, people ask me, you know, how much can you bench? I have no idea. I have never one rep max. I don't, I can't come up with a reason I Why would want to try to

 

Philip Pape  55:29

we should, we should try.

 

Ben Lewis  55:32

No, but you know, I've built muscle, I feel like I'm strong. You know, for a guy my size in particular, I feel like I've got a lot of strength. But I really approach that with a muscle building strength, you know, mobility, plyometrics sort of it is health. It's an aspect of health, as you're saying, I'm able to approach lifting much more with a pure health thing. I need to build and maintain muscle mass. And that is my focus. I'm not tempted to go do a bodybuilding show. I'm not tempted to take some anabolic stuff. And I'm not tempted to be enhanced. I mean, that's not even it's not on my radar. Yeah.

 

Philip Pape  56:14

And similarly, you alluded to the fact that keeping running under a certain level can also be aligned with health so that again, there's a spectrum and there's extremes, you can go off to the extremes, knowing that they're going to be contradictory with the health goal, but not necessarily. It's not going to just trash it in. So you know, long term, it might even support it long term when you get out of it potentially because you're periodized. And then mentally I imagine it's like you want it like you want it you want to win this thing, right? You want to crush your marathon.

 

Ben Lewis  56:43

I think the lesson is also kind of what what drives you what's fun, and drives you and what keeps you in the game. Really what keeps you know, what is it that keeps me going back to the gym? Every morning? What keeps me running every day, you know, I enjoy it. So awesome. You got to find modalities of movement that you you personally enjoy. I mentioned that started with biking, I realized.

 

Philip Pape  57:07

Yeah, like many of us don't like running.

 

Ben Lewis  57:10

I just like it. And so I have I mean, I have right behind me an indoor bike that I bought that I use. I do use it for recovery. Right? Sure. Warm enough recovery. Yeah, I use it once a week. But it's never grabbed me like running and lifting has Oh, I don't do it as often. Alright,

 

Philip Pape  57:31

we touched on so much today, man. You know, this question is coming because you listened to the show, right? But what one question Did you wish I'd asked what is your answer?

 

Ben Lewis  57:40

Oh, gosh, no, I'd written down something that I forgot what it was. That we never talked about the scale.

 

Philip Pape  57:47

Yeah, it was. It was I had a lot of notes, man. Yeah, that would have been one this. Let's jump into it. Okay, talk about your relationship with the scale. Yeah,

 

Ben Lewis  57:54

yeah. So, um, and I was in 2013. Man, it was, it drove everything. It was awful. Yeah, it was terrible. It was, you know, I gotta get up and hope to sit and TMI. Like, I gotta poop before I get on the scale. Because I don't want that extra few ounces or whatever, you know, oh,

 

Philip Pape  58:11

man. I've been I know what you mean. No, but yeah,

 

Ben Lewis  58:14

I mean, and, you know, it was it was ridiculous. And now it has evolved to, honestly, it's done it by weighing every day, ironically, just kind of facing that giant eye wave practically every single day, when I don't wait, because like I'm traveling or, you know, I have to whatever reason rush out the door really fast. But now, it's just another data point. And partly, you know, that's probably because I am tracking and I know my diet is dialed in. And I know it worked. Because I know this stuff works. I trust the process. I keep playing that. And I know, you know, I've had you know, there's you know, there's some variability and ability. What's the word I'm looking for? There's some, it's not 100% accurate when you track it. Yeah, that's what I was trying to say. I know, there's something but you know, I know that today I've had 44,050 calories. And I know that that's a deficit from what I burn. And if I'm up a half a pound, tomorrow, whatever. And if I'm down, if I'm down to half a pound tomorrow, whatever, that's just how it works. And I've seen I posted in your Facebook group, I mean, my skill track for the last four, whatever since January, five months. It's just been. It's going down. But it's not. It's not this. It's not. It's a lot. Oh, yeah, for those for those listeners a lot of humps. But I know I know where it's headed. And you know, even I was able to say up, I've surprised myself and when I said it, I was like oh my gosh, that's so weird that I can just say that out loud with confidence that in two months, I'm gonna be at 12 to 15% I'm just kind of know that I trust the process that much because I've started tracking it every day and just seeing kind of how it works when you're hitting it. And that also relates to not being hungry. I don't. I just I'm way more confident. I'm not going to have these crazy binges because I'm eating enough

 

Philip Pape  59:59

so you're seeing it released. Trouble, the scale has improved because you're tracking it every day you have the knowledge, awareness power to know, this is going to fluctuate. Yeah. Yeah. What do you say to someone who, because I've seen a spectrum with Clint working with clients, where 90% of the time that is true, there's 10% of the time where somebody does track daily, because all my clients check daily, where it's still a mental roadblock for them. And I have different techniques that I worked through with them, because there's usually something else going on, and some reframing and things. But how would you like talk to a friend who's trying to lose their weight for the first time, and they're, like, I've been weighing myself every day, but just jumped jumped three pounds today, I'm freaking out, you know, what would you say to them?

 

Ben Lewis  1:00:39

You know, I would leave with compassion. I mean, our culture has trained us so poorly in this area. You know, we say, it's been interesting, as I've gotten in the podcast world to hear you and others use the fame, fat loss, you know, which is more what's what risk is really what you want to do, and not just weight loss that, that we're, you know, we're gonna do, we're working to remove or reduce body fat. And so I would lead with compassion and just be like, you know, I understand why this is such a, it was a problematic area for me. You know, I'd be I can speak to you, as someone who have been there, man, or lady, or lady, I've been there. I totally get it. Here's what did work for me eventually. But I'm not gonna say I had a great relationship with the scale. I mean, I've been down again, I've been down, under, I've been at a healthy to semi healthy body weight for almost three years now. But I'm not gonna say my relationship with scale has been good for three years, I'm gonna say my relationship, the scale has been outstanding since probably February or March ish, when, when I really decided I'm gonna lose, I'm gonna lose slowly. I'm gonna cut slowly is the first time in my life. I've cut slowly every time I go up as I want to get rid of that fast. But no. So definitely, I guess not I think about it. I think I would go there. But you know, let's talk about what a slow cut looks like. And that is what has taught me to trust it is doing it's actually doing the slow cut. And I know that I want to track so your your little rapid two week fat loss protocol thing? I've heard that No, once, once I get into maintenance, I might play with that song. I do think there's a place for that slow loss that really helps you feel confident and better that relationship where it's like, you know what I'm not, I'm not trying to lose two and a half, three pounds a week. I don't want to get down to x weight by the beach, or by Memorial Day or by, you know, the class reunion or the wedding or whatever it may be. Okay,

 

Philip Pape  1:02:37

yeah, no, that's well said, I mean, focus on the process, don't go so fast. So you have realistic expectations, and then use the scale as a tool, you know, rather than an indictment on you know, your soul.

 

Ben Lewis  1:02:51

I would say practically speaking, you know, using using something like macro factor, I also just use a good old seven day average in Excel. You know, I put it in excel every day, and I just a good old is my seven day average. So that helps. That helps. It was just a data point in the seven day average, not the be all end all today. I'll probably talk to folks about that, too. There's also an app, I know you're an app guy, this is a this is a freebie happy scale. It also doesn't It doesn't it doesn't moving average, if and if you have any smart skills sync to it automatically. And it can give you a moving average, just might be an alternative for those that don't want to pay for macro. doesn't want to pay for the macro factor.

 

Philip Pape  1:03:29

And actually, if you want to do a Ben's do with the spreadsheet, and I don't know if Ben you want to upgrade your spreadsheet, macro factor uses a 20 day exponential moving average. So yeah, yeah. But then it requires data points. Yeah. I didn't mean to be the No at all, man, I tend to run it get into that mode sometimes. So just sharing knowledge. Awesome. This has been really cool. Where do you want people to find you and reach out to

 

Ben Lewis  1:03:51

you? Oh, yeah, so I am and I can use the help I should have said this earlier. I'm gonna make a quick statement here. We were talking about folks that you know, have a lot of weight to lose, I found a random person on Instagram that is just really we're talking about making those little progress gains and like, I'm watching her run, get from a 16 minute mile to a 15 minute mile and the joy that she is having just hitting that hitting that that little bit faster mile pace. So Anyway, point being those of us that are in these journeys on Instagram, and I've just started following her and just cheering her on. Those of us that are in these journeys that we don't have these large social media followings and whatnot, we can we would love your support and it's called it's Vinny Lu fitness, I'm sure you'll put the link in your show notes but it's at Vinny Lu Vinny Lu ve n e l o u underscore fitness and Instagram that's where I would love your support. Having that bit of external validation is helpful and joyful and I think it does help so definitely

 

Philip Pape  1:04:49

for sure if you're listening go right now follow Have you have used IG Instagram yet Benny Lupin is b e ne Liu underscore fitness and I'll include that in the show notes and give Been a follow up please do if you you know, joined the show and you want to follow him and just say hello, I'm sure he'll say hello back. And then man, it's been a pleasure. I didn't you know, I didn't know exactly what we'd get into here, but it's like, it's all the good things people need to know about how to tackle this mentally, physically and otherwise. So thank you so much for coming on.

 

Ben Lewis  1:05:16

Thanks for having me. I appreciate it.