Is that scoop of protein powder helping you build muscle, or is it just being wasted and turned into sugar and fat?

Today, we're using the engineering concept of Input-Output Systems to bust this common protein myth and help you make informed decisions about your protein intake and supplements like whey and pea/rice powder.

Listener Sara S. asked about claims that protein powder isn't used by the body and is instead converted to sugar and fat. Learn about the science of protein metabolism and explain why these claims don't hold up to scrutiny.

Learn how to choose the right protein powder for your goals and why it can be a valuable tool in optimizing your overall nutrition strategy.

To get your question answered on a future episode, send me a text message.

Try 1st Phorm protein powder as mentioned on the episode.

Main Takeaways:

• Your body is an efficient input-output system that uses protein powder (and any "extra" protein) in a very specific way

• High-quality protein powders, especially whey, are highly bioavailable and can be just as good (or superior to) many whole-food protein sources for muscle protein synthesis

• When choosing a protein powder, there are specific objective elements you should look for rather than believing any particular marketing claim

• Protein powder can help optimize your overall nutrition by making it easier to meet protein goals and has a surprising benefit when building muscle in a gaining phase

Episode summary:

In the latest episode of Wits and Weights, we dive deep into the world of protein powders, debunking myths and exploring their true role in supporting your fitness journey. Hosted by Philip Pape, the episode begins by challenging the widespread misconception that protein powder is wasted by the body or transformed into sugar or fat. Using a listener's query as inspiration, Pape delves into the science behind protein metabolism, likening the body to a complex manufacturing plant where protein serves as a raw material for producing muscle, energy, and hormones.

The discussion begins by addressing the input-output system model, which is pivotal in understanding how the body processes protein. Protein is not simply converted into sugar or fat as some might claim. Instead, the body efficiently utilizes protein for essential functions like muscle repair and growth, enzyme production, and immune function. Only when the body's immediate protein needs are met does excess protein potentially convert into glucose via gluconeogenesis, and even then, it's primarily used for energy rather than stored as fat. This insight dispels the myth that protein powder is a direct pathway to weight gain, clarifying that any weight increase results from an overall calorie surplus, not the protein itself.

The episode further explores the advantages of high-quality protein powders such as whey, pea, and rice proteins. These powders are highlighted for their bioavailability and rich amino acid profiles, with whey protein particularly noted for its high leucine content, crucial for muscle protein synthesis. This underscores the idea that protein powders can be as effective as whole food sources, providing a convenient solution for those with high protein requirements or busy lifestyles.

Pape provides practical advice on choosing the right protein powder, emphasizing the importance of protein content, amino acid profiles, and brand reliability. He warns against misleading marketing claims, encouraging listeners to focus on the ingredients and third-party testing. Brands like First Form and Legion are recommended for their quality and transparency, offering a reliable source of protein supplementation.

In a detailed examination of protein powder myths, Pape reassures listeners that protein powder is not inherently inferior to whole foods. While some might argue for whole foods due to their comprehensive nutrient profiles, protein powders offer a practical alternative for those struggling to meet their protein needs. They are particularly beneficial for individuals who need easily digestible protein, such as those in a muscle-building phase or individuals who struggle with appetite.

The episode also touches on the psychological and practical benefits of incorporating protein powder into a fitness routine. For many, protein powder serves as an essential tool for achieving protein intake goals, supporting muscle growth and recovery. By debunking myths and providing a clear understanding of protein metabolism, Pape empowers listeners to make informed decisions about their protein sources, ensuring they can confidently fuel their fitness journey.

As the episode concludes, Pape encourages listeners to keep lifting weights and using their wits, reminding them that their body is a complex system capable of achieving the desired outcomes with the right inputs. This comprehensive exploration of protein powder's role in fitness provides valuable insights, helping listeners navigate the often confusing world of nutritional supplements.

For those seeking to optimize their fitness journey, understanding the science behind protein powder and its role in muscle building is crucial. This episode of Wits and Weights offers a balanced perspective, blending scientific evidence with practical advice to support listeners in making informed decisions about their nutrition and fitness strategies. Whether you're a seasoned athlete or just beginning your fitness journey, the insights shared in this episode can help you harness the power of protein to achieve your goals.

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Transcript

Philip Pape: 0:01

If you like, using protein powder to support your muscle building goals, but you've heard claims that it's just wasted. If you have too much protein or too much protein powder, or it turns into sugar or fat and you're questioning should I even be using this stuff? This episode is for you. Today, we are talking about input output systems to understand how your body processes protein powder. You'll discover the truth about the protein powder is wasted claim and how to choose the right one for your goals. So if you want to know whether that scoop of protein is helping you or just going down the drain, stick around. Welcome to Wits and Weights, the podcast that blends evidence and engineering to help you build smart, efficient systems to achieve your dream physique.

Philip Pape: 0:59

I'm your host, philip Pape, and today we're answering a question that's been floating around the fitness industry for years Is protein powder actually used by your body or does it turn into sugar and fat? Now, I was a little bit surprised that this question is so common, but I've heard it multiple times. Sometimes people are talking about excess protein in general, but some brands actually make this claim, and I was. I was pretty shocked, but maybe I shouldn't be, and so this question comes from listener, sarah S, and I wanted to give her a big shout out for inspiring today's episode, because she wrote, quote I've been using protein powder again recently after giving it up for a while. The reason I gave it up is sources like and I'm going to leave the brand name out claim that protein powder isn't actually used by the body and is instead turned into sugar than fat in our bodies. I've been using a different brand name protein powder recently, but we'll be trying this other brand name's new powder as soon as it runs out. What are your thoughts on this? End quote All right, thank you for the question, sarah, because it is one I'm sure many listeners have wondered about, if they've heard this claim, and today we're going to get into some of the science and engineering behind protein metabolism to get to the bottom of this. And so I just want to jump into the topic today and address the claim that protein powder isn't used by your body and just turns into sugar and fat, and I'm going to extend this to apply to quote-unquote excess protein in general, because this one idea or the other has been floating around for quite a while and I still hear it, and it's based on a misunderstanding of how our bodies process protein, and so we're going to use a concept from engineering today called input-output systems.

Philip Pape: 2:44

Very simply, an input-output system is a model that describes how a system processes inputs to produce outputs. And think of it like a manufacturing plant. Raw materials go in steel, wood, whatever finished products come out, and your body is essentially a highly complex input-output system. The food that you eat, including the protein powder, that's the input, and then the outputs are things like your energy, your muscle tissue, your hormones and, yes, sometimes stored energy in the form of fat. It's got to go somewhere. Let's just put it that way. Now the confusion comes in, because some people claim protein powder goes straight from input to an unwanted output like sugar or fat, without being used for its intended purpose. But our bodies are much more complex. We know this. They're very good at adapting as well, and so let's talk about exactly how this works.

Philip Pape: 3:39

On the input side, when you consume protein powder, it's broken down into amino acids in your digestive tract, and these are the raw materials Again, the manufacturing plant analogy. These are your raw materials, amino acids that your body then uses for a whole bunch of metabolic processes. So, number two, processing. Your body does stuff with this. It distributes them. It distributes the amino acids where they are needed. This could be muscle repair and growth, it could be enzyme production, it could be immune function. There's actually a ton of things that amino acids are used for. Very exhaustive list. And then number three, the output.

Philip Pape: 4:23

Only when your body has more protein than it immediately needs will some of it potentially be converted to glucose through a process called gluconeogenesis. Right, and that's when you hear of it. Okay, it's converted to sugar, and even then, this glucose is then primarily used for energy. Right, it doesn't mean it's automatically stored as fat. It's like any other source of glucose, namely, for example, carbs. Right, we don't avoid them because we're worried about getting fat. Actually, I should. That I knew as soon as I said it out of my mouth what the response would be. A lot of people think you should avoid them because they make you fat, but in reality they do not. We know this because plenty of healthy, fit people can eat hundreds of carbs, grams of carbs, and be in peak performance and health and body composition and leanness, myself included. So we know that that doesn't happen. And so that's the same glucose that protein can get converted to as well through gluconeogenesis, but it rarely happens. It actually rarely gets to that point.

Philip Pape: 5:18

Your body is very efficient. It doesn't just take a valuable input like protein and just immediately convert it into some waste product. I mean, that would be like a car engine turning fuel straight into exhaust without moving, without producing motion or energy at all. And so I want to address the specific claim about protein powder being inferior to whole food sources. First, or not. First, but in addition to this, as a side tangent, because it's important, I think high quality protein powders, especially whey or pea and rice protein, which is great for vegetarians or people who avoid milk products, are actually some of the most bioavailable protein sources out there. Right, and so your body can efficiently use them for muscle protein synthesis. That's why I don't shy away from them at all, and I think most people trying to get a decent amount of protein you know, 120, 140, 160 grams will often end up supplementing a bit with some protein powder. Right, and it's convenient in other ways. But despite all that, you know, whey protein is sometimes considered superior to many whole food protein sources because of the high leucine content. Right, leucine is one of the essential amino acids and it's the most important one, or at least it's one of the most crucial ones, for triggering muscle protein synthesis. And if you look at, if you take a whole list of protein sources and rank them in terms of percentage of leucine content, whey is going to be at the top.

Philip Pape: 6:45

So now, why do some people experience, say, weight gain when using protein powder? Well, it has nothing to do with the protein itself being converted to fat. It's simply because they're over-consuming calories, period, and they haven't adjusted to anything else. You can definitely get fat on protein if you just eat too much of it, and by too much I don't mean too much for your body. There's no such thing as too much protein in and of itself, but there is such thing as too much protein leading to too much calories. Too many calories, and then you're over consuming and gaining weight when you don't intend to. That's it right.

Philip Pape: 7:19

Our body is an input output system. It follows the laws of thermodynamics. If you constantly consume more energy than you expend, you're going to gain weight, regardless of the source of those calories. Period, end of story on that. That's it. So that's kind of the long and the short of it. When you think about it, our body's going to use the energy and anything it can't use it's either going to expend or store, depending on how much you've consumed right and how much you are, how much you need it and by needed I mean all the things you're doing, as well as all the things going on inside your body, as well as what your organs need and so on. So I think that settles it. In other words, the answer is no. It's not going to get converted to sugar and fat and make you fat. Yes, it can get converted to glucose if all the protein you possibly need in your body has been used, but very few people actually get to that point. In fact, we know that you can consume quite a bit of protein and it's still going to get used. And you can consume it even all in one meal in a day instead of spreading it out, and it's still going to get used. Recent research even backs that up. So there's a ton of flexibility.

Philip Pape: 8:22

Now as far as like choosing the right protein powder, because, sarah, you mentioned trying all these different brands. Again, I'm not going to mention them on the show and frankly, I don't think you have to jump around. I think if you find one that meets the general things that you're going for, without big marketing claims, you're good. Of course, even good ones have good marketing, so that can be confusing as well. What matters most is the ingredients, the protein content, the amino acid profile, and that it's a trusted brand. So what do you look for? Number one protein content. It should like a scoop of protein of like 26 to 30 grams should have most of those grams as protein. So if it's 30 grams as a scoop and it's like 26 grams of protein, you're good. But if it's a 30 gram scoop and it has, you know, 15 or 20, something's off. There's something else in there, you know, it's just, it's just a matter of weight, right?

Philip Pape: 9:17

Then you also want to look at the amino acid profile. If it's whey protein, you're fine, but I've seen some wonky brands that claim to be whey and then when you then they list their amino acids and are missing some of the essential amino acids, and that is fishy to me as well, unless it's just a typo on their nutrition label. Then the next thing which is important for more important for some than others is the number of ingredients and the additives, right? Fewer ingredients usually means less processing, and you want to look out for things that you may be concerned about. You may be concerned about red dye, you may be concerned about artificial sweeteners or other things that are in there, and not all proteins are pure protein too. Some proteins are like whole food substitutes and they have carbs in there as well, or they're like meal replacement proteins. So just watch out, because it may have a bunch of carbs that you didn't want, because they're put in there on purpose for people who want that. And then, lastly, just make sure that you're getting what's on the label because of the quality of the company and the third-party testing that they do so, for example. This is why I usually recommend a brand like Legion or First Form brands like that. I use them all. I use a bunch of brands, but First Form is one that I love for protein powder. They meet all the criteria.

Philip Pape: 10:34

Maybe some people would argue that on the ingredient side there are purer forms. Excuse me, there are purer, less ingredient versions of powder out there, but if you want kind of the flavored protein, you're gonna end up having some extra ingredients in there. Of course, you can get pure, just pure whey protein, nothing else in there, and then you flavor it how you want, if you even need it flavored, or you just dump it in some milk or almond milk and just chug it down. It works really well with milk because it basically is come, it comes from milk, um, and then you know if it meets all the criteria and it tastes the way you want. Great, you know, that's it. And if you want to try out first form, I will put the link in the show notes to find some products in First Form. But that's all I'm going to say about it.

Philip Pape: 11:15

Just keep in mind that protein powder is a supplement. It's not a necessity. It's not technically a quote-unquote whole food, but from the nutritional and health profile it is pretty much just as good as whole food, if you will. Some people will argue with that and you can have your opinion, but a lot of people I found have success when they couldn't quite get their protein. They do a little supplementation with protein powder and now they're good and they're better off than the alternative of constantly missing on their protein. And then of course you try to shift toward more and more whole foods.

Philip Pape: 11:48

Right, if you have a high protein requirement, if you have a busy lifestyle, if you travel, if protein powder can be a convenient and perfectly effective way to support muscle growth and recovery. There's another cool little benefit of protein power and that's it kind of. If you're in a muscle building phase, for example, it is more easily digestible and doesn't take up as much space. It is kind of slightly less filling than a whole food version of protein. This can be a benefit if you need the extra calories, right, if you feel like you can't fit it in. Actually, in fact, I've had many female clients, you know women who they're not on that high level of calories but yet they still don't get hungry. And I find this with older women as well, like in menopause. For some reason they just don't have the hunger they used to have because of their hormones and they're like how do I even eat more? I feel full already. Protein powder can be great for that.

Philip Pape: 12:41

So if you're struggling to meet your protein goals, consider protein powder. It's just fine, any brand that meets the criteria we talked about. Don't worry about over-consuming or just general consumption leading to sugar and fat storage. It doesn't work that way. Only energy balance and calorie consumption leads to excess fat storage and that's it. You got to find what works for you and for your lifestyle and don't listen to what other people say with a fear mongering. Right, if protein powder helps you consistently meet your goals and support your training, it can definitely be a valuable part of your nutrition strategy.

Philip Pape: 13:12

So again, if you want to try high quality protein powder that I personally use and recommend, definitely check out First Form. They're third party tested. They taste really good, they mix really easily, and then I'll throw the link in my show notes for that. Give it a try. Let me know your favorite flavor. They've got a lot of cool flavors. They have some pumpkin stuff now, of course, for the fall. No surprise. Until next time, keep using your wits lifting those weights and remember your body is a complex system but with the right inputs you can engineer the outputs that you want. And yes, protein powder is perfectly fine. This is Philip Pape and you've been listening to Wits and Weights. I'll talk to you next time.

Philip Pape: 0:01

If you've ever started a new fat loss phase or training program with enthusiasm, only to have it derailed by unexpected events like illness, work, stress or family emergencies, and you find yourself constantly falling off track and struggling to maintain consistency with your goals, this episode's for you. Today, I'm going to reveal how the engineering concept of risk management can help you create a bulletproof plan that adapts to life's chaos and uncertainty. You'll learn how to build flexibility and resilience into your nutrition and training approach so you can keep making progress even when life throws curveballs your way. Welcome to Wits and Weights, the podcast that blends evidence and engineering to help you build smart, efficient systems to achieve your dream physique. I'm your host, philip Pape, and today we are diving into a concept from the corporate world risk management. Hear me out, it is not as boring as it sounds. It's not just for big corporations and Wall Street types. This is an engineering principle and I've used it almost every day in my engineering career. That can be a real secret weapon for creating a sustainable, resilient, adaptable plan and in this case we're talking about your fitness, your nutrition and so on that will then stand up to real life, because, think about it, how many times have you started something new. You're super excited. You're entering a fat loss phase, starting a new training program. You're ready to go Monday? Right, I'm going to start on Monday. You're all fired up, ready to go, and then it falls apart, sometimes pretty quickly, when unexpected stuff happens. Right, maybe you got sick, maybe you had to travel for work, maybe some family obligations just took over your schedule. You know, 20 people visited your house, whatever. And suddenly that quote, unquote, perfect plan that you had mapped out goes right out the window, and so we're going to talk about that today. I'm going to show you how to use risk management principles to create an approach that can bend without breaking, no matter what life throws your way, because that's what we want, that is what is sustainable, something that you can just keep doing, no matter what, knowing that the default is life. Life is the default. Things that are unexpected is actually the norm. And before we dive into that, just really quick. If you enjoy the show, if you want to hear more episodes like this, hit follow in your app. It helps people find the show, but it also makes sure that you don't miss an episode. Just hit the follow button, make sure that you go into your podcast app you're listening right now and click, follow or subscribe whatever it's called.

Philip Pape: 2:50

All right, let's talk about the main reason that most plans fail, and this this is really any plan right, whether it's in the corporate world, engineering or with your fitness. And the biggest culprit here is rigidity. We create perfect, ideal scenarios in our heads, and I do this as well. Our future self is going to be perfect. I'm going to work out five days a week, I'm going to meal prep every Sunday, I'm never going to touch food after 7 pm, I'm going to get my 12,000 steps a day and it's just going to work out Right. Sound familiar, even if you think you have the discipline and willpower to do it. And the problem is, life doesn't care about this, life doesn't care about your plan. Life is messy, it's unpredictable, it loves to throw wrenches even to the best laid schemes that we create. And then what do most people do when this happens? They think they failed, they beat themselves up. They oftentimes just give up like, oh, I just can't be consistent, I can't stick to my plan because this happened, and that is the all or nothing mentality that leads to frustration and inconsistency. And this is where risk management comes in.

Philip Pape: 4:00

In engineering, risk management, sometimes called risk and opportunities management, is about planning for the known and unknown risks to get to your outcome, to achieve your objective, to get the product out the door on time, on budget, meeting all the requirements, and it's not about creating a perfect plan. It's about creating one that is resilient to all the things that you may not foresee, and there's two types of risk we deal with. So this is really important. There are foreseeable risks. These are the known unknowns. Okay, these are things we can predict that might happen, based on our experience and based on common sense. It's the things that you know are going to happen, but you're not sure when like getting sick, like having to travel for work, like dealing with holidays, social events. You know they're going to happen. They're known unknowns. That's foreseeable. Then there's unforeseeable risks. These are unknown unknowns, things that you don't know. You don't know the curve balls that you could not have possibly anticipated, like a family emergency that pops up or you suddenly have to move, or a global pandemic hits right, so sound familiar. And those are the. So there's the what we know, we don't know, and what we don't know that we don't know. And the thing is, we know that all of that is going to happen. We know that the unknowns are going to happen and we know that the unknown unknowns are going to happen.

Philip Pape: 5:31

So the key is to create a plan that can adapt to both types of risks. And instead of a rigid and flexible plan which guess what? Hint, that's what diets are like the keto diet or vegetarianism or whatever it is rigid and inflexible we want to build a strategy that's more like a shock absorber, right? It can cushion the impact of the bumps of life and then just allow you to keep moving forward, like a really good suspension on a car, you know, not like a finely tuned sports car trying to go off road, right, but actually something that can handle all the bumps. So how do we actually do this? So I'm going to give you just a few practical steps here. The first one, of course, is we have to identify what those risks are and this is reflection, this is brainstorming Anything that could derail your plan.

Philip Pape: 6:15

Go through the list, take a piece of paper out and think about your life and, over the next six months, what could happen Work deadlines, family commitments, do you get sick on a regular basis, or your family or your child gets sick and it could make you sick. And it's not like you're trying to predict when exactly these are going to happen, although in some cases, like social events or the deadlines, you know when they're going to happen. And then you're basically leaving room for the things you know are going to happen. You're just not sure when the things you know you're going to happen and when they're happening, and then even some things that you may not have a clue they're going to happen, and then for each of those, you want to identify how likely it's to happen and how much it would impact your plan, because some things may not matter that much, right, like, okay, you have a work deadline. It creates stress, but if you know for sure you're going to schedule in your training in the morning and work doesn't start till later and it's not going to matter, then maybe it's not going to impact your plan as much. But it might impact your food plan, right, having having more stress or having a situation where you have to go into work more frequently or something. So for each one of these, you want to know is it how likely it is and how much will impact your plan, and then you can prioritize the ones that you want to focus on the most, and I would just keep it simple and literally just, you know, circle the top three that you want to focus on for this exercise.

Philip Pape: 7:36

Now step three develop strategies to deal with each risk. This is develop strategies to deal with each risk. This is contingency plans. These are what I've sometimes called if-then strategies. If you often miss workouts due to work, then have a 20-minute home workout ready to go as a backup. If a social event is going to come up for work let's say you get invited to a happy hour and you're going to go because it's good for business or whatever and it normally derails your nutrition then I'm going to eat a small protein-focused meal before I go out or I'm going to have a plan ready to go to choose what I eat and drink at any event. Right. So if, then, eat and drink at this at any event, right. So if then, if unexpected travel comes up, then I'm going to research nearby or the hotel gym in advance, or I'm going to pack my bands or my blood full restriction training cuffs for a in-room workout, right. So again, it's if this thing happens. I don't know when it's going to happen. I don't know how long it's going to be. I'm going to have a then strategy, a contingency plan for it.

Philip Pape: 8:47

The other thing that complements this, that supports this, is building in flexibility to your whole plan in general. By default right Now it depends on what we're talking about. So, for example, training, training sessions Instead of saying I'm absolutely going to work out five days a week, you can say I have a plan for a five day. You know five days of training. But because I know sometimes I'm not able to do that, I'm okay stretching out my week by a day or two and still getting in on my workouts. I just might have an extra day there or I might shift them back and forth, right. So either the number of training sessions can kind of spread out beyond that week or I know that I have flexibility in the days that I can train right. If you're only training three days a week, you probably have more flexibility to do that than, say, if your training program is five or six days. So that's some flexibility on the training side.

Philip Pape: 9:40

For your food, I love ranges, right Minimums and ranges for calorie macro targets. So again, it depends on what you're going for. But let's say you're in a fat loss plan, you have calorie and protein target. I would want to hit the minimum protein but then kind of get within 100 or 150 calories of the calorie target, either direction from fats or carbs. Right, like, create the amount of flexibility you need to know that it's sustainable.

Philip Pape: 10:08

Another flexibility is eating throughout the week, right, when you do meal prep and when you have quick options to go to in your pantry and you are smart about your grocery shopping ahead of time so that you have your fridge, your cabinets, your pantry filled up with multiple options. Then, if something throws you off during the week and you can't stick to your normal meal plan, your normal routine, even if you have prepped it, you'll at least have a second, third or fourth backup that you can go to and you're not just reaching for the candy jar or reaching for the vending machine, right, or just you're not sure what to do. So you stop in a grocery or you stop in a convenience store and you grab, um, you know a muffin, right. Or uh, you know calorie dense hot dog or something. So, building in flexibility, compliments, having the backup, uh, contingency plans.

Philip Pape: 10:58

And then, because you have all this flexibility built in, you always want to assess uh, is it working for you? Is one of these things not actually solving the problem and mitigating the risk? Let's say you are invited to a happy hour and you go and all of a sudden, the same thing happens, as always happens. You have the nachos, you have the three margaritas and you overconsume and before you know it, you've gone way past your calories for the week, despite having your risk management plan. Well, that plan obviously wasn't effective, so you just have to come up with a different one that's actually going to work. So that doesn't rely on you having too much discipline or willpower to do it.

Philip Pape: 11:42

And that iterative process is part of the flexibility of risk management and is key to, again, sustainability. And then, underlying all of this is, again, we are not trying to be perfect, we're not trying to have a perfect plan, nor are we trying to execute perfectly. We're trying to just make progress from day to day. Look at every challenge that trips us up as a lesson to adjust our plan rather than a reason to quit and we'll be fine. And so the power of this approach isn't just helping you stick to your plan. It's in transforming the approach, in the relationship and thinking like a risk manager, not seeing setbacks as failures, but really data points, opportunities to learn, to adapt, to improve the system.

Philip Pape: 12:25

Right, that vacation that used to derail your diet for weeks because, well, you know, I ate whatever I wanted on vacation and I can't get back to it now. I'm off track. I might as well just enjoy myself for a while. Now that is a chance to practice the flexible strategies, the flexible eating and nutrition strategies. That busy work period that would have meant skipping the gym. Now it's an opportunity to test out either the home workouts or the flexibility you built into your training days. And that is now taking the power back into you, an internal locus of control. You're not trapped now by some external rigid rule, some unrealistic expectation. You actually have power to navigate the unpredictable nature of life which is the default and make progress, and that is the key to sustainable long-term success.

Philip Pape: 13:18

So if we were to just recap this episode number one, a perfect plan will fail because it can't adapt to life. There's no such thing. Number two risk management principles are a way to create a flexible, resilient strategy, both contingency plans and building in flexibility, which then number three, allows you to make consistent progress even when life gets chaotic, and not just quote unquote, stick to your plan, which now is really a wide range of flexible options, but changing your approach to it in the first place, which will serve you well forever. So your goal is not to create a plan that worked perfectly in ideal conditions, because that doesn't exist. It's to create a system that keeps you moving forward no matter what life throws your way, and that's really it when it comes to risk management.

Philip Pape: 14:06

So if you found value in today's episode and you want to learn more about creating a flexible, sustainable approach to nutrition, I do have a guide that I think you're going to enjoy, called the Nutrition 101 Guide, and it's geared toward body composition with this flexible approach. Just go to witsandweightscom slash free or click the link in my show notes. Again, witsandweightscom slash free or click the link in my show notes and I'll send you the guide for free. It'll help you master that flexible dieting.

Philip Pape: 14:34

Whatever your goal fat loss, muscle building, improved health. It covers everything from calculating your ideal macros to optimizing your nutrition for your workouts, and it's a really good companion to today's episode, because today was a little bit more high level about the risk management in general, but then this helps you dig one level deeper with some practical tools for this resilient, adaptable strategy. Again, go to witsandweightscom, slash free or click the link in the show notes. Until next time, keep using your wits lifting those weights, and remember, in fitness and life it's not about avoiding obstacles, it's just being prepared to overcome them. I'll talk to you next time here on the Wits and Weights Podcast.