Does losing weight and, more importantly, losing fat feel impossible no matter how hard you try? Have you ever lost 10 pounds only to gain back 15? Do you dread stepping on the scale because it never seems to budge?

If you can't figure out why the formula works for others but not you, this co-created and co-hosted episode breaks down the real reasons you haven’t been seeing results.

Join Philip (@witsandweights) and his special co-host today, Scott Friedman,  as they lift the curtain on common weight loss mistakes and provide actionable solutions. You’ll walk away ready to troubleshoot plateaus, optimize body composition, and create a plan that finally helps you shed fat for good.

Scott Friedman (@scottfriedman24) is the host of The Power of Progress podcast. Scott bridges fitness and mindset with his podcast, aiming to end self-sabotage in fitness routines, inspire consistency, and promote a healthier lifestyle. His podcast dismisses fad diets, magic pills, and best routines, focusing instead on personal growth and the journey towards better health.

Today, you’ll learn all about:

3:29 Narrative shift: Fat loss vs. weight loss
6:47 Understanding the road ahead (pitfalls)
9:06 Restrictive diets vs. flexible dieting (the hamster wheel of diet)
14:50 Uninformed optimism or  informed pessimism
19:56 Not tracking or inaccurate tracking, and intuitive eating
31:00 Top 5 foods that have hidden calories
41:56 Giving up too quickly and overcoming plateaus
49:53 Too aggressive with the rate of loss
55:20 Understanding what ‘hard’ feels like and getting discouraged
1:01:16 Not prioritizing hunger management: not enough fiber
1:08:51 Not moving enough
1:10:58 Not training with enough load or "intensity"
1:16:28 Cardio for fat loss
1:19:39 Not sleeping enough, too much stress, or too much medium/high-intensity cardio
1:26:25 Outro

Episode resources:

• Scott's podcast: The Power of Progress 

• IG: @scottfriedman24

• Youtube: @powerofprogress

• Website: scottspeaksfitness.com

Episode summary:

Embarking on the weight loss journey often feels like navigating a labyrinth, where each turn comes with its own set of myths, misconceptions, and unseen challenges. The pursuit of lifelong health and fitness isn't just about shedding pounds but mastering a sustainable lifestyle that harmonizes the body and mind. In the latest podcast episode, we explore the multifaceted world of weight loss, bringing to light the strategies that pave the way to lasting change.

At the core of successful weight management is understanding body composition, which transcends the digits that appear on a scale. This comprehensive episode dissects the significance of muscle mass in maintaining a healthy metabolism and outlines the fallacies that lead to weight loss plateaus. Co-hosts Philip Pape and Scott Friedman provide a roadmap to navigate common pitfalls like inaccurate calorie tracking and the psychological cycle of dieting that hampers progress.

A critical aspect discussed is the psychology of dieting and the power of flexible nutrition. The conversation illuminates how strict, restrictive diets can backfire, causing binges and a yo-yo effect, whereas a flexible approach allows for sustainable, long-term adherence. Emphasizing adaptability and a realistic perspective on health, the hosts guide listeners through the importance of goal-aligned dietary patterns.

Moreover, the episode underscores the value of tracking progress as a tool for managing nutrition without stress. Personal anecdotes illustrate how tracking can cultivate an understanding of portion sizes and caloric intake. Yet, tracking is not proposed as a lifelong dieting tactic but as a temporary educational step to develop mindful eating habits.

The psychological journey of setting and pursuing fitness goals is another cornerstone topic. The discussion touches upon the behavioral changes necessary for sustainable health improvements. Recognizing that a well-informed mindset is vital to prevent the common pitfall of abandoning goals due to uninformed optimism or unrealistic expectations.

As the episode progresses, listeners are equipped with practical tips for managing hunger and maintaining muscle mass during weight loss. The hosts share their personal experiences and the science behind hunger management, highlighting the benefits of protein-rich and fiber-filled diets for satiety.

In the realm of fitness, the podcast delves into the efficiency of training for fat loss. It dispels the myth that more workout volume is better, advocating for high-load training and the importance of consistent lifting. This section serves as a reminder that smart training is just as crucial as nutrition in the weight loss equation.

Lastly, the episode touches on the essential roles of sleep and stress management in weight loss. The hosts offer actionable advice for enhancing sleep quality and managing life's stressors, demonstrating how these lifestyle factors are intertwined with weight management.

By the end of the episode, listeners are armed with a comprehensive understanding of the complexities of weight loss. The hosts emphasize that the journey to health is an ongoing process that requires a balanced approach to diet, exercise, and mental well-being. The goal isn't to chase quick fixes but to build a foundation for a lifetime of fitness and health.

In essence, this podcast episode is more than just a guide to weight loss; it's an invitation to transform your relationship with health and fitness. With every strategy discussed and every myth debunked, the message is clear: mastering the maze of weight loss is within reach, and the path to a healthier you is ready to be crafted.

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Transcript

Philip Pape  00:00

What if losing weight and more importantly, fat? feels impossible no matter how hard you try, have you ever lost 10 pounds only to gain back 15? Do you dread stepping on the scale because it never seems to budge. If you can't figure out why the formula works for others, but not you, this episode breaks down the real reasons you haven't been seeing results. Join me and my special co host, Scott Freedman of the power of progress podcast. As we lift the curtain on common weight loss mistakes and provide actionable solutions. You'll walk away ready to troubleshoot plateaus, optimize body composition, and create a plan that finally helps you shed fat for good. Welcome to the Wits & Weights podcast. I'm your host Philip pape, and this twice a week podcast is dedicated to helping you achieve physical self mastery by getting stronger. Optimizing your nutrition and upgrading your body composition will uncover science backed strategies for movement, metabolism, muscle and mindset with a skeptical eye on the fitness industry so you can look and feel your absolute best. Let's dive right in Wits & Weights community and

 

Scott Friedman  01:07

the power of progress team.

 

Philip Pape  01:10

Welcome to a very special co hosted episode co created episode of the show. I'm Philip Pape of the Wits & Weights podcast for skeptics of the fitness industry who want to live longer by getting stronger with strength training and sustainable nutrition.

 

Scott Friedman  01:25

And I'm Scott Friedman, the host of the power of progress podcast where fitness meets mindset. And for those of you who have trouble getting started and finally want to have long term results. Awesome

 

Philip Pape  01:35

and this episode is being dropped into both feeds. This is a first ever co created co hosted show where we are teaming up to bring you double the value.

 

Scott Friedman  01:45

And today we're tackling the frustrating questions of why some people struggle to lose weight while others seem to shed pounds effortlessly. You'll learn about the hidden obstacles that sabotage even the most disciplined dieters from inaccurate tracking up to the weekend and indulgences that erase a week's worth of progress. You'll come away with a clear solution to manage hunger, maintain muscle stimulate fat troubleshoot plateaus based on the latest science on nutrition, metabolism and physiology. You'll also

 

Philip Pape  02:14

learn a framework for translating motivation into lasting results, we're going to peel back the confusion on how fast you should lose weight. Where does training and movement come into it and the power of your mindset so you can finally make progress. Consider today's episode, your blueprint for optimizing body composition, and designing, eating and training plans that flex to suit your needs. So you can ditch the diet hamster wheel once and for all.

 

Scott Friedman  02:36

Before we jump in. If you love this show, then you'll love both our shows. And the best way you can support the show is to follow subscribe to both of these shows on your favorite podcast app and get notified for future episodes.

 

Philip Pape  02:50

And of course, if you're listening on Wits, & Weights, I want you to go right now and check out the power of progress with Scott Friedman and give it a follow.

 

Scott Friedman  02:57

And if you're listening to power progress follow Wits & Weights with Philip Pape on the podcast app of your choice.

 

Philip Pape  03:04

All right, man. So now that we've gotten to that very awkward, scripted intro,

 

Scott Friedman  03:08

probably mostly because of me. No,

 

Philip Pape  03:10

no, no, no, no, you know, we're experimenting, but I'm sure I'm sure you guys listening are loving it. So we're gonna get into today's topic, which is why you can't lose weight, while others see great results. Now, if you're watching the video, and we're doing this fun little thing where the topic is going to come up on screen. But don't worry if you're only listening to audio, because we're going to say the topic before we get into it. And I'm just going to start with the basics. We're talking about why you can't lose weight, right. But the question I think you should ask yourself is do I want to lose weight? Why am I trying to lose weight? Is that really the goal? And I don't know about you, Scott like it. When you think of the avatars, when you think of body composition, what people want? Do you want to be skinny? Or do you want to be lean and muscled? Right? Lean

 

Scott Friedman  03:53

and muscle? Right? Like I feel like that's everyone's goal. When they say they want to lose weight? I feel like they're said they want to have lean muscle versus just kind of having this skinny bill. That's my opinion, not at least,

 

Philip Pape  04:03

exactly right. And I think especially for a lot of women who come come into me as a client, I'm sure you see the same thing. It's more of a reframing to say, Okay, why does the number on the scale matter? Maybe it doesn't matter so much as the performance, the fitness how you look how you feel. And so I always like to make that distinction of fat loss versus weight loss, right? Scale, weight doesn't mean a thing, if how you look how you feel, how you perform isn't what you want. And you know, I have personal experience with this right now, because I just started a fat loss phase. And some of my lifting buddies are saying, Why are you losing fat, you look pretty lean, and I'm 190 the heaviest I've ever been, quote unquote, lean. And I see this with women all the time to where it's like, they can carry 20 more pounds and be lean because they've spent time building muscle first. So before we get into like, here's why you're not losing weight, and if you want to be in a fat loss phase, ask yourself if that's the goal. And then if it is because of fat loss Then we have to get into the details. Scott and I are going to talk about calorie deficits tracking all the other things to get there. So that's my take on that.

 

Scott Friedman  05:07

I agree. I mean, I think that we have this weird thing in the industry that's like, hey, I want to lose weight, I want the we just use weight as like, the Kleenex term like Kleenex actually isn't the brand, like it's not one brand of tissues actually called facial tissue, but everyone calls a Kleenex, because that's the brand when said, we want to lose weight, they just call it weight loss versus fat loss, because it gets fast, not sexy, or whatever it might be. But the reality is, if your goal is to literally just lose pounds, and that's it, sure, weight loss is great. But if your goal is to look better, than we might want to be talking about fat loss, and if that's the case of scale, doesn't matter. And it really, you said it perfectly, it's just a narrative shift, we have to kind of change that story. Every person I've ever talked to comes to me and says, I want to lose weight. And I'm like, Are you sure? Because if I put him in, so I, my brother and I were about the same height, same weight, so we both weigh about 175 Give or take, I work out, he does not shirts off, we look very, very, very different. But weights all that matters, right? So no, clearly there's something else there. So I think diving into like the fat loss, and people understanding how to look better, from a fat perspective, I think is really what's gonna help people move forward. For

 

Philip Pape  06:19

sure, man. And one last comment on this. And then we get to the next topic is really weight is a number just like your circumference measurements, just like you know how many calories you eat, just like how much sleep you're getting. And it's important in terms of, okay, if I have a goal, and I know for sure, I'm going to keep training, and then I'm going to go into calorie deficit and lose 20 pounds of fat, I need to know that I'm losing 20 pounds of fat. So of course, weight becomes a relevant statistic over time with the trend. So we can get to some of that. But I want to shift it over to the next topic, Scott. So I'm gonna bring that up on the screen for you. Yeah,

 

Scott Friedman  06:55

understand the road ahead. I mean, it's building a perspective of what you need to do in order to succeed. So most people jump into a goal without understanding what the road ahead actually looks like. So my example I give for this is, you're not going to go hiking in high heels, like if you know you're going hiking, you're not going to pack high heels to go hiking, very simple, but most people decide that they are going to do that and they are going to wear heels. That's very common when you're trying to lose weight or lose fat, because you think it's going to be the straight path, the straight line for it is going to be super simple. This is it. But the reality is there's gonna be bumps and Ben cracks along the way that you did not account for. And that's what causes a lot of people to quit.

 

Philip Pape  07:40

Yeah, so what you're saying is, it's not a straight line, it's like any plan, you come up with a plan, it's going to change on day two, I don't remember the famous quote was probably Winston Churchill that had to do with that, like, you have a plan. And you'll get to your end goal at some point, even though it changes on day two. Whereas if you don't have a plan, you just never get there, right? You just meander forever lost in the woods, maybe wearing heels as well. So

 

Scott Friedman  08:02

overnight wearing heels? I think it's I mean, if Winston Churchill said that's pretty far everyone has a plan to get punched in the mouth, right? What is the plan to go? Do? I'm gonna lose, I'm gonna lose 40 pounds of fat, I'm gonna do all this and then not realize that, Oh, wow. For week four to eight, I didn't lose. What do you use weight here as a catch all term for the moment. But oh, I didn't lose any weight for four to eight weeks. It's like, yeah, like, that's probably going to happen along the way. And if you're able to account for that, when you go through it, you're going to be less discouraged moving forward, and therefore more likely to stick to what you're doing. And so that's kind of the, the emphasis of understand the road ahead. Because if you just think, perfect, awesome, things will always go my way, you're going to be disappointed. And that disappointment leads to failing, if you can understand, okay, throughout the 40 weeks or 20 weeks, what I whatever I'm doing, there's gonna be issues that are going to arise, I'm going to have the cake at the wedding, I'm going to do this, I'm gonna go on vacation, if you can plan for those things, or at least acknowledge they're going to happen, you are significantly more likely to stick with what you're trying to do long term. And I think people just kind of missed that. They just think it should be perfect all the time.

 

Philip Pape  09:06

And I think that's a perfect segue into the next diet. We're talking about restrictive versus a flexible approach, which is exactly what you're saying. It's like having that adaptability for life. Because life is going to happen as opposed to seeing life as this anomaly that came out of nowhere that you couldn't plan for it's going to happen, right? We we look at the history, we look at the science of dieting, it's no surprise that when you tell yourself, I'm not going to eat these 80% of foods that are available to me that you're going to eventually binge and you're going to fall off the wagon, so to speak, and get off track, whatever you want to call it because you've given yourself such a restrictive, prescriptive approach to your diet as in I'm only going to eat meat carnivore folks, or I'm not going to eat carbs, keto folks, right. And I always say like, Okay, if you love eating that way, I'm gonna use that word. Like if you just just crave and love and you get up every day, you're like, Yes, I'm on keto. Like this is amazing. I get to keep for the rest of my life. Perfect Man for you. How many people do that? How many people are like, hey, I really want to have a car I'm here and, or even on cardboard or like an orange would be nice. I don't know. So we you know, without getting into all the science like that goes back for decades. restrictive diets cause you to binge they caused you to gain weight again, it's hard to maintain the weight loss. And it's because just what Scott was saying, You're not giving yourself room, Grace, flexibility, you know, whatever adaptability. But if you say, You know what, I'm going to stick within some targets that align with my goals, but give myself 100% freedom to pick what I want to eat to meet those goals. Compare those two approaches, and imagine which one's more successful.

 

Scott Friedman  10:42

I might take a slightly different approach on this I kind of I like it because I am very much anti like dieting 100%, but maybe not for the same reasons I do think you have. Let's just say there's 30 Major diets out there, you know, carnivore keto, which I've done, I've done a lot of these whole 30 I guess, vegans, Titan thing, one, but that's more of a lifestyle thing. Whatever it is, they

 

Philip Pape  11:04

want you to think it's a lifestyle, right?

 

Scott Friedman  11:08

They all say that in their lifestyle. Half the people that do it are like, this is the greatest thing ever. And they can show you research, they can show you status studies that is like this is so beneficial for you. The other half are like this was terrible. I didn't see any result. And the research they show you is horrible, terrible. You shouldn't do it for your body for you can talk about keto is a great example how you know, there's evidence to support keto evidence against keto, what's true, it's probably somewhere in the middle. So my take on that is, you know, first, when you're doing a diet, if you're not trying to learn how to do it on your own, and you're consistently being restricted all the time, and don't really learn why you're doing or what you're doing that I think it's a giant waste of time, because it's not sustainable, long term. If you're like, look, this is what I love, like you were saying before, fine, go for I have nothing against people who do keto long term, I have nothing against people who don't who are vegans long term I know nothing against because if it works for you, and you can do it and you enjoy it, and this is the goal you want to go for, because they probably do work for the right person. But the reality is most of these diets are meant to be kind of a medium to get you to the result you want. And then you stop. And that's the issue. Is that the stopping point? So if you get to the issue of keto, right, the biggest issue with keto in my opinion, is people will do it, they lose either keto, I lost 25 pounds in two months. And I didn't gain it back because I knew exactly how to do the reading the refeeding period, most people finish their goal gave me I did it and then they go, Wow, that cake looks delicious, those dogs are great, they get back into old habits. And without that strict that strict protocol, they gain all the weight back. Because they didn't learn it, they don't know that they just did a goal. They didn't learn anything. And now they're not eating as restrictive and therefore, they're not seeing the results anymore. So that's where I take a little bit of a different approach of like, it's more of like, if you can go into it. Number one, knowing this is what you're going to be doing. Or you can learn how to almost undo it. Like when you're not get to keep the results when you're done, then I'm kind of look go for it. But overall for the average person for me specifically, like I don't flexible dieting, I like to eat what I want to eat, when I want to eat it for the most part, obviously, the hit your, your macros, and we'll probably get into that a little bit later. But that's my kind of my take away of the eating and how do you have to enjoy it? I'm not sure I enjoy what I'm eating now. But I also have a lot of restrictions because I have a really bad stomach. So you know, it's almost like I kind of eat just I eat to survive Most of the time. So I'm not really sure I'm the best example of it. But that's kind of my slightly different take on restrictive dieting.

 

Philip Pape  13:41

Yeah, no, I hear you. Sometimes when I get a conversation with a client, and I'm like, I make a suggestion like remember, I don't eat I can't eat this, this this and like, Ah, that's right. That's right. That's right. I should have looked at my notes on that. You can't eat

 

13:52

turkey every single day for a year.

 

Philip Pape  13:57

Yeah, no, I mean, we're pretty aligned, you know. And our however we communicate this may resonate with different people. But I was talking to Bill Campbell religion, as I mentioned, and he talks about the keto diet and muscle building. And again, it comes down to your specific goal, if you want to use it short term versus long term, all these things. And for some people who are eating just the standard American diet with like 70%, ultra processed foods, if you went to keto or carnivore or Mediterranean, whatever, it'd be a massive improvement. And it would jumpstart you toward you know, better health. But then the problem is people get in their mindset, oh, everything associated with keto needs to be retained, because it's better as opposed to, oh, I ended up you know, getting rid of like some toxic things I was intolerant to and I got rid of the processed foods, and I learned how to be more filled, you know, satiety, and they don't introduce things back ever right and that's what leads to the restriction in my opinion, but up All right, anyway, we're gonna talk a lot more about dieting and stuff as we go through. I want to get into some mindset stuff, Scott, because that is where your expertise lies. So take it away with us next time. Okay, so

 

Scott Friedman  15:00

this is kind of the behavior change aspect of things. This is kind of where my bread and butter is I love nutrition certified fitness or all that stuff, same as you, but you definitely had the mechanics and I kind of go through the mindset aspect a little bit more and uninformed optimism and informed pessimism, what does that mean? So I'm gonna use New Years as kind of the the catch all here. That's what the easiest way to understand that what happens on New Year's every single year right and I'm not making fun this is just this is what happens is you say, Okay, I'm gonna jump into this, I'm going to do this amazing, I'm gonna go to the gym, I'm gonna lose all this weight, it's gonna be awesome. Or my friend told me about this new awesome diet, or all you have to do is order the smoothies and you're going to lose 40 pounds, you jump into something, you hear something shiny, you're like, oh my gosh, that's so let me do that. I'm gonna jump over here. Then you start to do it. And you're like, ah, yeah, this sucks. Like, I no longer wait, like, this is harder than I thought it was. The results are harder, I had to do way more, I thought it was just buy this drink this I'm gonna get I thought it was all this easy stuff. And now you're realizing that wow, this really is not as easy as I thought. And you get to the informed pessimism. So the uninformed optimism aspect of kind of goal setting, jumping into things is I'm happy, I'm jubilant, I can't wait to do it. I'm so excited, motivated to workout every day motivated for this diet, then you realize, Wow, this isn't going to be as easy as I thought it was gonna be. And then you get to the informed pessimism where now you're sad. Now you're discouraged. Now you're annoyed, frustrated, whatever the word is you want to use, because it's not we thought it was, it's harder than you thought it was. And now it's like, you kind of hit a crossroads, or you kind of hit this thing called the valley of despair, where you have a couple choices. One, you can either jump to the next shiny object that you see, another friend is doing a different diet or a different workout program, you jump to that with uninformed optimism, and you go through the same cycle. Or you can stick with what you're doing realize you may have made the mistake, but if you keep going, you can progress through. And people kind of hit that that that point. And so it's kind of it looks like I think it was a reverse parabola, I think is the word I want to use. For all your math, people out there is the very bottom, they have a choice to either go back up, or circle back around. And a lot of people just circle back around. Yo Yo dieting is the exact the exact example of this, where it's just up, down, up, down, up, down, or a different diet every six months, because it's not working. It was easier, harder, easier, harder. So that's uninformed optimism, informed pessimism. And the biggest thing is just don't jump into things without actually maybe taking five minutes to look it up. Look at reviews, look at what you actually have to do talk to someone talk to someone who's done it before, how hard is this? Like, is this actually super easy. And I think when you put yourself in a situation, that can give you negative a negative feedback loop, you're just significantly less likely to continue moving forward. And that's why a lot of people quit. People, a lot of people quit, no goals aren't specific enough on New Year's or, you know, I didn't realize what I was doing, or I jumped in too fast. All of this stuff can be avoided, if you just take a second to think about or ask an expert, or whatever it is, what does this actually look like? What do I actually have to do for this, get some information, and then you can make your informed decision so that you can actually start seeing results and actually understand that this is what heart is going to feel like this is what's going to feel like as I do this, versus wow, I didn't realize that was gonna suck, I should start over or just give up forever, you burn out and you stop. And a year later, you're talking to Philip, right? Hey, I need to coach because I gave up a year ago because, you know, I didn't realize what I was doing, I would get really depressed about it, which happens all the time. So just taking a little bit of insight prior to is super important that

 

Philip Pape  18:33

impulsiveness, which I can be accused of, of wanting to jump into things, you've learned to temper it a little bit, like you said, with sleeping on it, you know, just sleeping on it, and then getting the info. It's what marketers used to latch on to people and take advantage of their, their high when they get exposed to like the shiny object, right? It's like, I gotta lose weight, and I'm ready to go. And by the way, you're gonna get a 20% discount if you sign up right now and right, all of that, that's kind of take advantage of that psychology. So the converse, like you said, is like, you know, take it easy, get get informed, listen to our podcast, which you know, will educate you. But also, when you're trying to do things like don't do so many things. Don't take such a huge leap. You know, maybe dip your toe in and do those baby steps, do the you know, push your comfort zone, don't don't go way outside your comfort zone. All of this is great, like mindset from day one before even get to any of this and decide that I'm just going to do some crazy diet or program for for weight loss. Anything more on that? No,

 

Scott Friedman  19:28

I think that's it just I think the takeaway is, look, when you're looking to do anything, it doesn't matter what it is just don't just jump into it, take a second read if the offer is too good to be true, or they're like, Oh, this is the last hour to screw them. Like just take a second, you know, and think it through. And then when you make your decision, whatever it is, stick with it, hammer it out. Don't give up after one week, give it some time to see if it actually work and then push forward with it. So those would be my takeaways as they get through and push for once you do it.

 

Philip Pape  19:55

Cool, man. Yeah. So let's keep going with this train here and get into one My favorite topics which is tracking and I want to say like 80% of the people that reach out to me, you know, Facebook or wherever else and and have an issue a challenge like, Hey, I'm having trouble losing weight, or now I'm a woman in my 40s menopause, perimenopause hormones are catching up to me. I can't lose weight. One of my first questions always is, do you know how much you eat? Like, are you tracking? Just a very simple thing like that. And this can apply to lots of things in life, but we're talking food here. You can't possibly know that you're actually in a deficit if you don't know how much you're eating, and how much you need to eat. Right? Simple as that. So what are the biggest roadblocks for people when it comes to weight loss? Fat Loss is just they don't know how many calories they burn. They don't know how much they eat. They don't know how much fiber do I need macros, like all that stuff. On top of that, it's a mystery, what their life looks like in a given week, meaning they graze from their kids plates, they eat the candy from the bowl in the office, they drink, you know, three glasses of beer, not just one or two, right? Or it's a big heavy Imperial Stout that I love. And it's like 400 calories, not 200 calories. But it's only one glass, one glass. It's a glass of beer, right? They're all the same glass, glass of beer. Right? So you have all these hidden calories, and then the weekends. So the classic like Monday through Friday, I'm quote unquote, good. And then I eat a little bit more on the weekend. Now even a lot more on the weekend, most likely, I could go to the Mexican restaurant in town with my wife and like even having eaten a big lunch and not be too hungry. And I'll easily come out 1500 calories from my dinner from the chips and all that you know the cheese, right? So people talk about intuitive eating. And I like to always push back and say, Look until you've developed the skill of knowing you how much you eat, what you like to eat your habits, your meal, timing, all of that. Even, you know, irrespective of dieting and gaining just awareness, just knowledge until you have that. You can't be intuitive in anything. Like what is intuitive. I'm just going to eat till I'm full. I mean, you might disagree. I don't know we can get into like Intuitive Eating versus the skill of intuitive eating that you develop after tracking. But yeah, one of the biggest problems is that you're just not tracking for some time to gain that awareness, even if you're not going to track long term. Yeah,

 

Scott Friedman  22:17

I mean, I am when I first started, and I think people would be surprised to hear this is I tracked everything. I mean, I'm talking I would literally buy a bag of baby carrots and I would literally count 12 Carrots owl for 35 calories and write it down. Okay, that's it I was made fun of all the time. It's just like crazy. Religiously tracking it like just craziness. And but a built the system. Like I was able to kind of No, I don't do that. But I was able to build the system. Okay, I kind of now I can eyeball this. I can look at this and say okay, that's a portion of here. I have now have that skill set to do it. I think tracking is monumentally important. I'll give two major examples. One I had a client, I should have a client. Many clients were like, Hey, I eat great. Look at what they're eating. Oh, you are eating great. That's perfect. I'm not losing weight or fat. I mean, okay, well, are you sure you're tracking everything? Yes, I am. Okay. Well, first thing is you're not they've the Phantom calories hearts about the one Oreo they pick up or the what? Oh, yeah, I forgot track that read that people always forget to track kind of the nuances. They don't realize serving sizes are actually significantly smaller than what we think they would be, I believe, as I said, or is one Oreos like 70 calories. I mean, just just throwing it out there for everyone. Like that's, that's not a small number like because you're not eating one or you're eating for so like that's a little bit different. I also think that when it comes to people don't realize you can over eat unhealthy food too. I mean, healthy foods great. It's great for nutrients. It's great. Such a feel your body, but you can overeat it. My dad was trying to lose weight a couple years ago, and he was eating awesome. I was like you're eating healthy. How are you losing weight? This is perfect. And then he tells me he's having a bag of almonds every day. And I'm gonna go, What do you mean the 100 Calorie pack of almonds? No, I don't Well, I don't know, a bag of almonds shows you the bag. The whole bag is like 800 calories worth of almonds. They go let's go dude, like your 500 above your main like you can't. And so I think when you don't track it, it's very difficult to understand what's happening. I'm not saying you have to be a religious track because a lot of people don't want to track because it's it can be hard. It can be tedious. It's restrictive. But I find that when you start tracking number one, you're instantly cutting off about 300 calories a day because you don't put number one you don't want to put it on the sheet to show your Coach Self accountability. Right like you had the receipt and you don't want to show me when you had that. It's number one you get or you realize, oh I didn't realize I was doing that you get start getting rid of your calories. Number two, you're able to kind of see how much of something is and then start to kind of build that quote unquote, intuition over time as you kind of get better at it. So I am a huge believer in tracking I think there's a time in place for I think that at least track your main meal right at least get the main culprits or what you can track out Obviously, not every restaurant has, you know, the tracking mechanism available, right. But like, maybe there are a lot of mainstream restaurants that do so do it where you can, and the more you can do it, you are decreasing the percentage chance that you get it wrong, that's all I'm trying to do is just decrease the chance that we get it wrong, let's increase your probability of success doesn't be perfect. You know, 80% is better than 50%. Right. And that's what I'm trying to do. So I think tracking is important. And what I tell people to do is if you just if you hate tracking fine track for three days, let's get a baseline of what you're trying to do. The intuitive eating part, my first gut instinct to Intuitive Eating is like, go pound sand. Like I think it's the dumbest thing because, like, how can you have intuition? If you've never done it before? Or you have like, your intuition got you elicit I'm not trying, I'm not trying to mean either. Like, the reality is, if you're trying to lose 50 pounds, you're probably obese. And your intuition got you there.

 

Philip Pape  25:54

Got you there. Yeah,

 

Scott Friedman  25:55

got you there. So using that same method, how is it gonna get you I know, maybe you're paying attention more, but I think you need to something's disconnected, I think you need to learn the skills. And then over time, I think you'll you can gain the skill of intuition or the intuitions as skill, not just a trait, I think you have to learn it. And then once you get good enough, then you can start being well, this was about this or this is, by the way, it's still I've been doing it for over a decade. And it's still difficult, I still screw up olive oil, or whatever it is all the time. And I'm over eating or handfuls of stuff. So I think that tracking is monumentally important, because it's just it's very difficult to do on its own. All

 

Philip Pape  26:31

well said, I want to expand on a couple of those. So just with the intuition and the intuitive eating, I find that when you're at maintenance, when you're just trying to maintain your weight, if you've gone through one or two phases, where you have tracked a bit, and you get a sense for those hunger signals, and you've regulated the foods that you're eating, right, where you're now eating the protein you need and everything. And you just keep eating that way. And listen to your body, it's it's pretty good for keeping you, you know, at roughly the same weight, give or take, say two, three to five pounds, once you have that skill, but as soon as you try to go to fat loss, for example, which I'm doing right now, myself, I've done this like five times. And I always forget the hunger and some of the other aspects that you know, not at you, while you're in that phase, where if I wasn't tracking, I would have to like, they would require some level of discipline and willpower above and beyond. Because I'm not tracking to say like, I need to, I need to sit with that hunger, knowing that that hunger is telling me I'm in that deficit. And it's kind of a weird thing, you know, but if I had the numbers, I'm like, Okay, I got 1000 calories left, I'm just gonna plant it in, I'm going to sit with my hunger and work around it next day. Right.

 

Scott Friedman  27:32

And it actually like people take the hunger as a bad thing. That's a great point. And think about that. Like, if you have that hunger pain, we'll call it from one day of not eating all the way as we do in the US. But if you have 500 calories left, you know that you can eat more. And if you're not tracking almost mentally, like oh my god, what do I do? Do I eat? Why not even try to lose weight? Am I over? Just take half of that discipline out of the equation? And the discipline goes, Look, if I'm out of calories, I know a lot of calories today. And I got it now my body's just fighting me. This is normal. And it takes a little bit of that stress off. That's great. That's a great point. Yeah, yeah.

 

Philip Pape  28:05

And even and even when you are tracking, it's it also gives you a calibration against the hunger so that if you're trying to improve the signal, the hunger signals, like if you're trying to, you can never out game hunger, but there's like tricks, you know, that we all try to do. If you can do that and say, Okay, now I know I'm in a deficit, and I've mitigated hunger as much as possible, it's a great place to be, you know, it gives you that confidence. As far as like the minutiae of the friction of tracking, which comes up all the time, like, oh, that sounds tedious, like I like to come in from from it from two perspectives. One on one side, at least when I have a new client, it's let's not worry about all the different specific food selections right now, let's just get more protein and fiber in there in general, right in every meal, because that's going to that additive approach is going to start displacing other things and crowding out the other foods, and you're gonna start feeling better and fuller anyway, at the same time, while you're tracking, I don't want you to get neurotic about it. Like, I want you to just, if you feel tedious about it, reach out to me, because I will probably give you a hack that's going to make it less tedious such as when someone says like, well, there's 20 ingredients on my salad. Like, how about just track the one ingredient that gives you the calories in that salad or you know, like, type in house salad and look it up and just ballpark it. Trust me if you're within 30% That's actually good enough. Even the evidence has supported this like plus or minus 30% of what you think it is. versus not tracking at all is actually good enough to get you to your goals just so people don't stress out. There are ways around that friction.

 

Scott Friedman  29:31

What's the most important track of all so calories? Protein, carbs, fat Well, or sugar fiber? What will be like your like numbers, they're like they're fighting you. What's the one thing you will at least track this?

 

Philip Pape  29:42

Oh, yeah, that's it's between protein and calories. It depends because like, you can kind of know you're getting enough protein without tracking it. But it's a lot harder to know you're getting enough calories without tracking it. You know what I mean?

 

Scott Friedman  29:54

Yeah, I switch it based on the client that has based on need, like what is their specific goal and feel like If it's weight loss, I might do protein, because they're not losing weight that we know or just eating too many calories versus protein. I want to reserve as much muscle as I possibly can. So sometimes I'll switch it off. But yeah, it's tough one, right? Check the one thing, it can be tough. And

 

Philip Pape  30:14

for people listening to your podcast and hearing me, all my clients track and and we track a lot. So like, if that doesn't appeal to you, you're not going to work with me. It's just it's a binary thing. So like, I don't do portions I don't do, you know, intuitive, I don't do just this or just that. We track everything. But trust me, I use tools that are very, very frictionless to make it as easy as possible. And to me, like if you get those quick wins, and you're using that low friction process that works together. But if you're using tools that are a little bit more frustrating, or you're not, you're not taking a 8020 approach, that's where you can like shoot yourself in the foot no matter what you're doing. What's like,

 

Scott Friedman  30:49

what's like a tool, like what you mean by a tool, I got a hotline like calculator or like, What do you

 

Philip Pape  30:53

mean? No, I mean, so my clients whose macro factor by stronger by science, it's a food logging app.

 

Scott Friedman  30:57

Got it a specific app. Yeah, gotcha. Makes sense. I wanted to give a little bit of a takeaway, or we can kind of split up a little bit, but like the top five things that do like hidden calories, what were your take, what are your top five foods or whatever it is to have like hidden issues that people don't realize is like, Oh my God, this has so many calories in it. And if you either eliminate or do half of what you're doing, you actually just couldn't see

 

Philip Pape  31:18

instant results. Yeah, you want me to go through all five that I've got? Yeah, go for it. Okay, so, yeah, what I came up with is first high calorie drinks. Super easy to change, right? You can go from coke to Diet Coke, Coke from alcohol. The lighter alcohol or non alcoholic beer, which I'm huge into right now is non alcoholic beer. It's fun, it's tasty and a lot less calories. And then the fancy coffees, everyone gets a Starbucks Come on, like, oh, it's Olivia, dessert. Me? No.

 

Scott Friedman  31:46

You don't need all that you're drinking 1000 calories for coffee. It's not uncommon. Just pump that sugar and call it what it is. Sometimes it's a milk smoothie or whatever it it's just like it's not even real coffee.

 

Philip Pape  31:56

It is and I think some people have like there's a little bit of a blind spot that there are options. And so sometimes it is just information like hey, you love hot chocolate. Did you know hot chocolate is like cocoa and some sort of milk base that you can take like almond milk, cocoa and some stevia and have like almost no calorie hot chocolate. It tastes pretty good. Like, you know, hacks like that. So that's, that's the first one. Second one is sauces and dressings. And that's a catch all for like, hidden stuff that's in restaurant food. But even when you make a sandwich, and you slather some Manny's on there, man, if you weigh that on a food scale, you'll see like a very thin, like scrape of mayonnaise will give you like 100 calories. So you know, just watch out like mustard is great too, and it's almost no calories. So that's number two. If you're in

 

Scott Friedman  32:43

anywhere in Chicago, I think they're started open up more across the country but Portillo's has like this house trusting that they have the tiny brick into this big 250 calories and they give you two to three of them to put on your salads. Your salads like 600 calories, add 1500 calories and you don't even realize it tastes so good. So yeah, I agree understand sauces dressings. Just be careful because it up some shocked at how little you need to get the serving size and most service sizes are pretty hefty. I mean, these aren't they're not small. No,

 

Philip Pape  33:17

they're not. And it's mostly because of the fat right? It was very calorie dense. When I met my wife, you know, she eats salads dry. Like she doesn't use any dressing, which was shocking to me, because I love blue cheese dressing and you know, oil vinegar. But what I'll do now is I'll get like the I don't know if it's bubbles, or what's that brand of barbecue sauce. It's like almost no calories. You know, and barbecue sauce on salad sounds weird, but it kind of tastes like that. Like, what does that berry French dressing or whatever. I know it sounds weird, but you gotta get the right type. It tastes like what's that orange dressing? French dressing

 

Scott Friedman  33:49

mustard, beautiful bustled salads.

 

Philip Pape  33:51

No, that's crazy, man.

 

Scott Friedman  33:55

But by barbecue sauce is where I am not advocating for barbecue sauce on salads. I also don't eat barbecue sauce. So that's just oh, your various reasons. That's okay. But boy, I can see what you're saying. I mean, my favorite dressing personally is balsamic vinegar. I love that. So that's my, that's my go to for almost everything. And

 

Philip Pape  34:12

one other hack there. Just Just before we go on is like if you have a salad, I like chicken thigh salads when I'm in fat loss phase, because the little bit of extra fat on the chicken thigh acts as a dressing on the salad without very much fat at all. So it's like just coating that salad with a little bit of that mouthfeel from the fat is what we're going for, right? Yeah. Number three would be everything that's called Healthy that they sell in the store in the middle, in the middle aisles. So everything that's a healthy package snack. Not everything. But I mean, just to kind of look at the data, just look what's in there could be much more calorie dense than you think. And I think we know this if you go back to like the 80s when they started the low fat craze and snack walls and all that to today. It's all food science is meant to be highly palatable and getting you to eat more of it and no matter what it's it's going to compare If not going to be favorable compared to Whole Foods, right? No matter how healthy they call it,

 

Scott Friedman  35:05

oh 100 I mean, and we're also not saying By the way, just because it's calorically dense or than you think it is that you shouldn't eat it, we're just saying, be aware because for example, I buy this granola that is relatively healthy all things considered for granola pretty healthy, you know, organic stuff. And like, that's a serving, like it's so small, and I will find myself eating from the bag, I'll have like six servings without even trying and eat servings 150 calories, and it's just, it's dense, you just have to be aware of it. Because food companies are not your friends. They're not your friends are the opposite of Finding Nemo fish are friends, not food, like these people are not friends at all like they're, they're hunting you like sharks, they know they know they're doing, it's deliberately set to you. So yeah, anything that's labeled healthy or even low calorie is I still think, probably a trap is my take on it.

 

Philip Pape  35:57

Yeah, 90% of the time. Now, there's some interesting little hacks, Scott that people look at me weirdly when I say it, but like if I have a client who's in fat loss, and I'm fairly low calories, and they're like craving a sandwich, like look, you know that you know, the Excel these this keto bread, it's kind of interesting. It's made with like, wheat starch mixed with a bunch of fiber. It's all it is. And it's actually like 15 grams of fiber and a slice for 40 calories. So I'm like, you know, so there's a magic of food science out there that could serve you, depending on the context we're talking about. Right? So yeah, number four hidden thing would be eating out, just eating out in general. Because just like food manufacturers, restaurants want you to enjoy, have as much food as you can have a bunch of sugar, salt, fat, so you say it's the best thing you've ever had. And then come again and tell your friends how wonderful the food was. If they're not trying to serve your body composition goals, they don't care about. They just care about a delicious meal, which is why you go out to eat, usually for the experience and for the food. So I'm fine. If you want to eat out, plan for it, and know what you're getting into. And then make some smart swaps or choices, not to the extent where you're like suffering and feel like it's not a fun experience like that. That's the counter to his argument is I want you to enjoy the slight indulgence of what you're getting in a restaurant, but do it in a smart way.

 

Scott Friedman  37:17

No, just I say never eat out does don't do that. Don't go

 

Philip Pape  37:21

don't eat out food hack.

 

Scott Friedman  37:23

Hidden calories. Food, don't eat food. You don't eat food. You can't get calories. Now. I agree with you. I think I went to a restaurant recently, actually, shockingly. And this is this. I think this will shock people. I think it was it was either a mozzie it was like a cheese cake five, seven along those lines. I don't know exactly. But the burger and fries was less calories than the salad. Oh, yeah. Like, I'm sitting here. Like, I went ahead and there was an omelet on there as well for breakfast, more calories in the salad. And I was like, How is this possible? And they just they just I mean, we're talking 1500 2000 calories for a meal. That's not even I mean, it's filling but like that's only for one meal, you have a whole rest of the day to go. You can eat your entire daily allotment in one sitting in a restaurant. So it's not that you shouldn't eat out. It's just that be aware of when you're eating out that if you're going to do it, you're doing it and just be aware of it. So it doesn't negatively affect you mentally. Because that's the biggest thing I eat. I eat out. I had wings the other day. I mean, it is what it is not barbecue wings, but I had something. And but yeah, so I agree with you eating out is crazy.

 

Philip Pape  38:29

Yeah, and the last one I think we touched on already, which is just mindless eating, you know, the grazing? Well, well, what let me let me add nuance here, because mindless isn't just the hidden things that you don't know you're eating. It's the fact that we in modern society are always stimulated by something and doing something we are working or what maybe we're reading a book even but we're always like watching an iPad, watching our phone, doing something eating at the same time. And that can cause you to consume way more calories than if you just were a little bit mindful about I'm not asking you to do like these complex you know, meditative practices of mindful eating that take you know, 45 minutes you can you can

 

Scott Friedman  39:07

Should we do a reverse? Should we do a reverse influencer take where it's like it before every bite you must meditate like Wim Hof for 30 minutes before every bite of popcorn you can do that. There you

 

Philip Pape  39:18

go. And that one bite is going to just feel be so filling you won't want another bite of popcorn. Yeah, I know.

 

39:26

Hi, my name is Lisa and I'd like to Big shout out to my nutrition coach Philip Pape with his coaching I have lost 17 pounds. He helped me identify the reason that I wanted to lose weight and it's very simple longevity. I want to be healthy, active and independent until the day I die. He introduced me to this wonderful Apple macro factor I got that part of my nutrition figured out along with that is the movement part of nutrition. There's a plan to it and really helped me with that. The other thing he helped me with was knowing that I need to get a lot of steps in so the more steps you have, the higher your expenditure is and the easier it is to lose weight when it's presented to you he presents it, it makes even more sense. And another thing that he had was a hunker guide. And that really helped me. So thank you below.

 

Scott Friedman  40:09

What do you could do is like it, you know, like, I tend to graze. Because I work I work from home. Alright, so my kitchens over there, it's very easy to get to one day I try and do is basically if it's not on a plate, I don't eat it. So I had to pour it on a plate or a bowl. So I could physically see how much I mean. Because if you just do it from the bag, it's just unless we put on a plate, at least you can see it and I believe, don't don't quote me on the size on this, I believe, as you see, we put on a smaller plate, it'll look bigger, and therefore as quote unquote, a hack to make you think you're eating more. There was actually a study done that says our perceptions will indicate our fullness on what we're eating. They basically did, they the three persons that control group study where they gave someone a 300 calories smoothie, they gave one group, the same smoothie was that was 100 calories, they gave a second group the same, so they said it was 900 calories. And they reacted as exactly as you think they would the group that got 100 Calorie smoothie was like, Oh, we're so hungry, we gotta keep going. And the group that had the 900 Calorie smoothie, all the same calories was like we're so full, we can't keep going. So perspective plays a huge role in that grazing mentality. Because you just every 20 minutes go, you're like, oh my god, anything. But if you put on a plate in a bowl, and you see it, it could again, it could help you not eat as much just little things that no extra effort at all.

 

Philip Pape  41:24

There's so many things like that. I mean, my wife makes the best desserts, and she doesn't like a lot of sugar. So she just leaves out a lot of the sugar. Now sometimes it's replaced with more eggs or butter, which is kind of defeats the purpose. But if in general, it's just a reduction in sugar, I get this, like, you know, this cake and I end up like logging it as a cake. But then realizing I'm actually I'm satisfied. But I noticed that I don't get quite as many calories as I think over the long term because of the fear workout. You know what I'm saying? So like you said, you can trick yourself a little bit in that regard. Okay, so yeah, that was the five things you want to go on to some more mindsets of yours just jump all the way or officially just jump to the next topic? Let's do it. perfect

 

Scott Friedman  42:05

segue my audience like learn Oh, my audience like no talk more about the foodstuff? We Scott talks about this too much. So basically giving up too quickly overcoming plateaus. I mean, it's I, when we are in the journey, it's very easy to get frustrated here all the time, hey, when do I have to switch my workout or, Hey, it's been two weeks, I'm not seeing weight loss results. Sometimes it takes time. And I think knowing that, again, we talked about kind of builds on each other, knowing that when you go into it and prepare for it, it helps you set proper expectations. If you're three weeks in and quit, because you don't see a change in the mirror on this terrible scale right away. It goes into you're trying to win at something when the reality is there is this concept out there that I call the infinite versus finite paradox of health. And what it is, is basically take a board game, for example, monopoly, there is a clear winner and loser at Monopoly shots, there's a clear winner and loser at shots. Those are finite games, there is a determined ending to determine rule set, and there's a winner. There's just ends. When it comes to your health. It ends when it ends, okay, morbidly like it was not great. It ends with S, but it doesn't end until that point. It's an ongoing cycle forever, right until the last day. And so the issue is we're playing like a, we're playing a chess game. But there's no end to it. And the issue is we think there's this end to it's when people Oh, my God, I lost 40 pounds, and then stop what they're doing. Right? They're like, Oh, and then they gain the 40 pounds back because they stop what they're doing. So the same concept applies, oh, my gosh, I had a bad three weeks. Okay, so what you have another 88,000 weeks to go and you have so much more time to go. We're playing an infinite game where there's no direct winning and losing, it's just about getting to where you want to go and maintain it over time. The key is maintaining it over time. Versus once you get there, nothing magical happens. You're not a better person. I mean, maybe you are but like nothing changes except you just have to keep doing it. Now once you get there becomes easier because you've done it and it's easier to stay I think once you get there, but it's don't go into a journey and spend all the time effort. And number one give up before you even make results because I plateaued well don't just keep going the one thing, think about any field in life, almost any field in life, I can't think of one that is more definitive than fitness and nutrition. There is a clear one to one ratio, eat less calories, lose weight over time, you know, so on so forth, very clear directions. You don't have that in relationships. You don't have that in your job necessarily. You don't I mean, there's nothing that really is like that. And yet it's one of the hardest things for us to accomplish. But take that perspective and take it like a 30,000 foot view and go okay, hold on a second Am I just do this over and over and over and over again. I might not get the instant gratification that I want in the mirror right away. It's on my one bicep curl and look in the Myranda Okay, one bias look like you're not going to get that at the gym. But if you just keep going, and you track over time get not not terrible, not no double crazy what you're going to see results, because there is a direct correlation to what we're trying to do here. And you learn, you grow, you get experience, but people give up so quickly, because they want this, they want to win at this game. And they don't realize that well, what happens after you win, you usually revert back to what you're doing beforehand, which is bad and got to where you were in the first place. And then they don't realize that you have to maintain it over time. So I think going into it understand that this is not something that you do to win, you do it for longevity, you do it so that you can maintain it forever. And I think that it's a very difficult in almost intangible mindset to have. But that's the true nature of health and fitness is that there's no winning at it, it's just yet to get there and maintain it. And that's the game. It's forever. So that's my take on it.

 

Philip Pape  45:54

It's a very profound concept. And that was that's a really good take. Because, yeah, I want to be deadlifting when I'm 95, and then just keel over the next day like, right, that's

 

Scott Friedman  46:03

the best way to do it. I

 

Philip Pape  46:04

don't know, where I'm gonna extend that, because when you talked about tracking and data and awareness, and like, it's not an on off switch, one way that I think we can make it more tangible, right, I'm sure you would agree is the process itself. Like, where can we set ourselves up to get wins daily, I mean, daily, multiple times a day, that's objective, so that we know there's there's going to be something in three weeks or three months or six months, knowing that it works. Now a lot of people don't have the confidence that what they're doing is going to work, because they've tried this, that and the other for the last 30 years. And none of those have worked. Why should we trust Scott, why should we trust Philip, and that is, that's a big barrier to overcome, right. And so that's where like other people who have gone through that you have to to look at objectively at the space and not, you know, not trust marketers and salespeople necessarily, but maybe talk to individuals who've gone through this. And then think about in your own life, as you're listening to this. If you're trying to build muscle, like Scott said, the bicep curl in and of itself isn't going to show you anything. But if you curl, you know, 20 pounds last week, and now your goal is like 22 and a half. And then you do it. Like that's objective data you got stronger that you can get a win from and be super happy about and celebrate, and then go to the next day and the next day after that. So if you can apply that to all the different areas of fitness, not one day, not right now. Like instantly, just pick one thing and then build on it. That in my opinion is a way to not give up too quickly. Because you are seeing progress even on a daily basis.

 

Scott Friedman  47:33

I just think I think the hard part is doing that. I think the hard part is because people look in the mirror and go I haven't changed. I worked out three days last week, I haven't changed. It's how do we get them from the like, stop worrying about the physical and worry about what we can actually track right now. And we will track the physical, but that just it just takes time. I mean, think of I told my client once I got in trouble for this, so I don't recommend it. But this is me, right? A Nutshell is basically, you know, it was three, we work it out for three weeks together, and they came like once or twice a week, right? So it's very much like, okay, good, good job. But like, we got to do more. They're getting now I'm not seeing any results. This is ridiculous. Of course, we're not even doing diet or just personal training. So I'm like, great. I tell him I look them. And I'm a young gun at this point. So I probably should have been doing this. And I've had decades

 

Philip Pape  48:19

ago, years, decades. I mean, okay.

 

Scott Friedman  48:23

And I was like, How old are you is like I'm 40 years ago. Okay, cool. And how long have you been like this for? It's like, ah, since you know, 25? Okay, great. It has been 23 years that you have been doing all this crap to your body, right? Your way doesn't work your way. Got You Here. How will you give me more than three weeks to show you my way? Right? Like it takes more than three weeks to undo 23 years of crap. Alright. And so that's the idea. This is takes a takes a long time you don't go into a company and expect to be CEO in the first three years. Like that's this. This is not how it works like things take time. I'm not sure why we don't have the patience for it. Maybe it's social media, maybe it's just instant gratification that we need now. But I think it's being able to if you can delay gratification of what you're looking to do. For as long as you possibly can, you will see more and better results than you ever thought possible. Period. End of story. There's no nuance to if you can delay gratification. Yeah,

 

Philip Pape  49:19

no nuance, and I think you alluded to a few times, having support, whether it's a coach or a community or something like that, who you can, even if it's just event and say I'm frustrated, I'm not making progress, and they can be like, school, be patient. We're here for you. We've all been through this. It does take time and Okay, cool. I trust you. And I'll keep going. So like you said, you know, kind of doing it on your own is a little harder only because you have to just be committed and do the experiment and get the data and then see what comes out the other side. Maybe it didn't work, maybe it will. Either way. It's gonna take time to change your body. Cool. Why don't we go to the next thing which is what is the next topic? Okay. Speaking of being impatient, one of the biggest mistakes of course with weight loss is trying to do it too quickly. All right. And part of that is marketing. Part of that is, you know, the restrictive diets, in my opinion, can induce very fast weight loss. The challenge there is that we're trying to lose fat, not weight, going back to the very first point I made. And there's a limit at which your body can shed the energy from the fat cells to turn it into ATP and all that, versus go and consume your muscle mass, right. And we don't want to have that muscle mass deteriorate and waste away. And I like to use these like visceral terms, because I want people to know how bad for your health it is that we lose muscle because it's already happening to you. If you're sedentary, then you exacerbate it by by dieting, by dieting aggressively by by aggressive, I mean, like more than 1% of your body weight a week. If you went on keto, and you did it like all in, and then you lose, you know, 40 pounds in a month, that's probably too aggressive, right? Because that's well beyond the 1% a week. And if you did like a DEXA scan, or you did caliper measurements, you would see you lost some muscle mass. Some of it'll come back, like as soon as you gain weight, but some of it's just gone until you strength train and build it back. So if you're having trouble losing weight, it could be because you're you're going too aggressively with the rate of loss in the past with your yo yo dieting, and your body is adapting very quickly. The hunger ramps up, you binge back and you stop dieting. I'm kind of rambling, Scott, but you can you can bring me back.

 

Scott Friedman  51:26

I thought it was very clear. I mean, okay, okay, at the end of the day, basically, what you're saying is, your body's going to resist the change, your body's designed to stay in homeostasis, which is basically a status quo, I don't want to change survival. And every time you're trying to lose weight, your body gets signals, okay, hold on a second, we're losing energy here, because it's all about energy that doesn't know that you had a salad you're trying to lose, it doesn't care, it's like, I need this amount of calories to live. By meaning less than this, we need to adapt our physiological functions to this new caloric energy expenditure that we have. So it will lower your metabolism. And if you go too quickly, your body is just going to push way back, it feels like it's dying, and it doesn't know what you're trying to do. And you can't tell it what you're trying to do. It's just, it's just not going to work. And you'll have a lot of bounce back, you know, you're not going to get into like, you know, having to reverse diet and all that kind of stuff, when you go too low for too long. But the idea is your body's going to resist you. So I think he said actually very well, I wasn't I mean, I followed it. So I don't know. Yeah,

 

Philip Pape  52:20

you know, what I got held up is in my notes, I was trying to separate the ideas of going too aggressively in your past dieting history with yo yo diets, to where you've lost muscle, and it just makes it harder and harder to lose weight versus what you then alluded to, which is metabolic adaptation, you go too quickly, your calories drop severely, and therefore you hit a plateau. And then you're you have trouble losing weight from that point on, which are all valid concepts. I just had a conversation with Jordan lips, you know, Jordan lips, he's, he's a coach, what Jordan loves fitness anyway, he loves to talk about metabolic adaptation. And we had a discussion about how it just exists, like you can't avoid metabolic adaptation. But you can definitely exacerbate it with your lifestyle choices. Right? I mean, we want to Yeah, yeah. And, yeah, so So you can't it's not like you can game it by, you know, reverse dieting and recovery, dieting, all of a sudden, now you burn more calories than you would otherwise, for the same weight and deficit, you're still going to adapt to that same exact level for you. And so the question is, are you doing it at the right rate, that's reasonable. And also practical, like you don't want to be going so aggressive, that it's just, you're hungry all the time, and you're miserable, you have no energy and your hormones are tanked. You can't sleep and you can't train, right? We want to be in that sweet spot where you can go good 1216 weeks, whatever it takes, or even if you need a diet break, and then you continue to actually make that progress. Would you

 

Scott Friedman  53:41

mentioned earlier, and I want to kind of give a an example to the point. So basically, you said that you're losing muscle when you're not working out, right, you'd be kind of made that point, right. As you get older, it is starting to fade. So basically, you need to maintain your muscle over time. So to me that sounds like is not working out is deflation for your muscle, as inflation is for our money. It's not usually too noticeable, excluding the last three years, but it's usually like 3% a year, similar concept of muscle over the course of the years. If you don't do anything, and you just kind of stay where you're at, you're going to lose muscle might take you a while to figure it out, but you're gonna lose a lot. And then by the time you're 67 years old, like it's like, holy crap, I got you know, I got nothing left. And then it's very hard to build it back up. And so doing it now is actually a very, like, important thing. I just want to kind of make that kind of mental imager people. Yeah,

 

Philip Pape  54:32

okay. Yeah, let me let me add to that because we lose like 1% of our muscle mass a year from like the age of 30. I mean, it's insane. And I talked to people like you know, guys want to build all this muscle. You know, even if you're not enhanced, you're not on drugs. We want to build all this muscle. And I usually tell people like the most muscle you can build in a lifetime is around 40 pounds for most average males. That's a lot of muscle. But still, we think oh, that's it. However, I want you to to add that muscle to the muscle you're not losing. When you compared to somebody else. So now think of the math, those people are going negative, they're going below zero, right? They're just losing muscle. And now they're 70. You know, let's say 60 years old. And now you have like 60 pounds more muscle than them because of what they've lost versus what you've gained. And I want people to think about how profound that is. That's a great point.

 

Scott Friedman  55:20

Great point, Don.

 

Philip Pape  55:22

All right, what do we got next? Man,

 

Scott Friedman  55:24

I definitely stole this from Alex or Mozi, when he was talking about this, he wasn't talking about fitness, per se. But I love the concept of just look, you're when you go into this, most people don't think this is easy. Most people know that the fitness journey, getting healthy, it's going to be hard. And then they get surprised when they're frustrated. Days go wrong, they're annoyed, they're sad, they're hormonal, whatever it might be, they're just, that's what they want to give up. Take a step back and realize, you knew this is gonna be hard. This is what hard feels like. This is it when you have your hunger pains, when you want to have that slice of cake when your friends are pushing you to do something, and you can't do it because you have this goal. That's what hard feels like. And so next time you're having those struggles, understand that you signed up for this, and you knew this was not going to be a cakewalk. I mean, that would be a cakewalk, then probably gonna change the perspective there. But we knew this wasn't gonna be easy. So going into it, say, hey, look, like if you're feeling like this is bad, or this is hair, well, this, this is hard to do. Great. That's what it feels like. And it's also a sign that you're on the right path. It's also a sign that you're doing the right things. Because if it was easy, then you're probably not doing enough. For example, just from a weightlifting example, if you're doing 10 reps on any exercise, and you get done, I got easy, done great. You probably didn't do it, right. Because if your goal is 10 reps, that 10th rep should be very, very difficult to complete. And the the same concept applies to losing weight or going in fight as we keep building that habit, whatever it might be, there's a specific point of impact that you're going for. And if you don't feel that intensity, that feel that discouragement almost so that that annoyed to get off. I'm looking in the mirror, it's been three weeks, I have not done any inches yet. Great. That's what heart feels like, then you're on the right path, it's just a matter of time, if you're doing the right things until you're gonna see results.

 

Philip Pape  57:20

Do you think there's like a hardness curve. So for example, there's, there's a huge amount of friction at the beginning. Once you start getting some sort of progress, even though it's hard, you develop some resilience, where the hard is, I guess you can sit with it better, or you can receive it better, or the fact that it's hard becomes a thing you look forward to like what are your thoughts on all of those concepts? Oh,

 

Scott Friedman  57:43

gosh, there's two, I have two thoughts on it. Because I don't think I have an answer. Because I think it's both I think that one as you get better. I'm not sure it gets easier. But like with the knowledge and experience and even strength that you've gained through it, that you're just more confident. And that confidence of it is just like, Okay, I know it's gonna be hard, no big deal. It's not like for me, like, for example, I'm trying to lift 100 pound dumbbells at any easier than then when it was getting to 70 pound dumbbells, it's still just as hard. My confidence is what's changed? I think it's more of a confidence question than a hardness question. I don't think it ever necessarily gets easier. I think your perspective of what you're doing gets easier, because you have now the experience, you have the social proof that you can do it. And I think that leads to sticking with the program longer and getting those results even though quote unquote, it could be easier Horrocks, I would argue that it's harder to live 350 pounds on bench than 225 in almost every category, regardless of where you're at, just because it's physically heavier, just because you could do to 25. Now whatever, even though you're stronger, I still think it's just as hard to get to that point, if not harder, but I've just had more confidence. I know that's a very niche example is that everyone's doing that. But like, I don't think losing weight gets easier. Inherently I think that you just become better at it. That's my general general take on it.

 

Philip Pape  59:02

No, that's a great way to put it. And one nuance on that is she mentioned lifting weights, right like curls, we probably all as guys don't mind going and doing curls, right? But you take something like a Bulgarian split squat, which is like on the top five hated exercises or something Oh, hard. And it's like, what is it about those things? And, you know, do Is there any way to make them comparably? Hard to the things that are less hard? Yeah, but what I mean is like, if you really love bench pressing, but you really disliked this other thing. Can we reframe it in a way where we can almost like this as much as benchpress in the context of knowing it's hard, you know what I'm saying? Yeah, I

 

Scott Friedman  59:39

don't know. I don't think I've ever done that. I mean, I think I just do it, and I hate it. And I know I'm gonna hate it and I push it Yeah. And I say I hate it. I just I think maybe that gives me the strength to get past it because I like Benji and I hate Bulgarian split squats. I mean, in the example so is there a way to reframe it? Yes, I 100% think there is a way to reframe it. I'm not sure I have the best answer to do so someone probably smarter and more experienced than me probably has something some sort of Guru reframing method of, but I think also the person's personality takes into effect. I mean, if you talk to a brad Ritter, who is the School of Grandmaster if you know him, but he did this amazing channel, he's all about challenging, almost like a David Goggins kind of deal. They have that mentality of that they love to torture the body. I don't necessarily have that. I'm not sure I can reframe or I don't think they reframe it. I think they just do

 

Philip Pape  1:00:29

it. They just do it. I don't think that's necessarily healthy for most. I

 

Scott Friedman  1:00:33

don't I'm not sure it's healthy either. So I think there's ways to reframe, I hesitate to give any specifics on how to do that. But I bet you usually have that personality, you could i My personality is like I had to do this, I'll see results, I'm gonna feel good afterwards, I just kind of have to talk myself up. But it's about the discipline of just doing it in my mind. So

 

Philip Pape  1:00:51

maybe the principle is for those listening, like, think about a way that you could make it easier for yourself from a reframing perspective, you know what, it's something individual to you. Like, for me, it might be okay, I'm surrounding it with all these other movements that I do love. I'm going to do this one thing, because I know it's going to smash my quads. And that's what I'm working on right now. And then I'm going to measure my my thighs every week, and it's going to get bigger, you know, like somehow to make it a little bit more palatable. But I could be doing this other movement. That's more fun. Okay, so speaking of things that are hard, it's the hunger during fat loss, right? When we talk about having trouble losing weight, I think you talked about it already hunger exists, it's going to happen, it's a sign that your fat cells are releasing energy, I actually just did an episode all about the science behind it very nerdy, very mechanical about the mechanisms in the body of how like fatty acids get turned to ATP. The cool thing about it, Scott is I didn't, I didn't know that 84% of the energy release is carbon dioxide. Like, yes. Did you lose weight? You probably didn't do that. And 16% is water. So I had forgotten that. Because people are always like, Well, where does it actually go? Does it come out in your you know, your urine? Or let? Anyway, hunger happens? Right? So the question is, Can we can we do anything about it? A lot of it is perception, right? Because a lot of hunger is emotional, or habitual, or psychological in some way. You know, like, if you go from a building phase to a fat loss phase, you're eating six times, now you eat three, those other three gaps in the day, your brain is telling you Where's my food? Right. And that's not real hunger necessarily. There's also the way you set up your diet. I'm a huge fan of answering three questions when you set up your diet one, does it fill me up? To do I enjoy it? And three, can I guilt free? Like those are pretty solid questions to ask yourself, that if you violate them, there could be improvements. So when it comes to hunger, you know, things like fiber and protein are the classics. Of if you have the protein in there, which should be fairly high during fat loss, probably around half of your calories, depending on what you know, calorie level you're at. If you have fiber, which can be hard to get if you're not paying attention to it, right. And if you have enough nutrient dense filling foods, you're gonna do everything you can to mitigate hunger. I do like other hacks, like, you know, hydration or vegetable soups. I like eating harder foods you have to digest like, don't throw the fruit in a smoothie in fat loss, like eat the fruit. Eat the fruit, it'll take time you chew it, the saliva, the what do you call hormones in your gut, and your brain will tell you that you're actually getting fuller than if you process the food in a blender. So that's just to get the discussion started. What else you want to add to that?

 

Scott Friedman  1:03:29

And I mean, that's actually a really I was gonna ask you that question cuz I don't actually know the answer. I'm like, Does eating like for example, I have a smoothie that's probably 400 calories deep. And I can have a I don't feel full from it. And but there's plenty of protein in it. Versus I can have, let's just say ground turkey with with quinoa and veggies, right, whatever I have, which is 350 calories or something like that. And I will be significantly more full from that all things close to equal maybe more protein over here, but like, less calories, maybe because I'm chewing it. Or it's maybe it's a different source of protein. That could be it but I guess Yeah. Is there something to chewing your food versus putting in a smoothie for hunger? I guess hunger retention or not hunger retention?

 

Philip Pape  1:04:10

Yeah, I think I think it's multiple factors. I think there's there's hormones that get secreted. But there's also the time factor, like you're taking time to eat it. And so it's getting into your stomach and sitting there and starting to trigger those hormones leptin and ghrelin, but even like some magnetite, everybody knows that from the anti obesity drugs. That's like a, I believe that's like a stomach centered hormone, just like serotonin is in the gut, you know, and there's a link between gut health and like, how you feel good and sleep and everything. Between all of those, it's pretty fascinating. But the more you can eat whole foods, take time eating your foods to them, you know, it's gonna help a little bit with hunger. Now, these are hacks, I always like to say they're hacks because at the end of the day, you're in a deficit, and you're going to be hungry to some extent. So it's like, identifying and documenting how that's occurring because something simple like by tightening the feeding window or shifting carbs or shifting, you know, your workout or whatever could be just the ticket to, you know, making the hunger just a little bit less. And the whole point of making it less is just so that you stick with it long enough to get to your goal. Conversely, if hunger is just too much, and you've done everything, you're probably in too big of a deficit is willpower is gonna get you to the end, which is hard for most people like bodybuilders do that. But most of us are not bodybuilders. So, yeah, what do you think?

 

Scott Friedman  1:05:28

I think I like you said, two things that I specifically do. So people are gonna call me crazy. But I so I do two things. Number one to help hunger measure. So I intermittent fast, I go from right around 14 to 16 hours, I'm trying to gain weight, I'll probably shoot down to 14 to 12 hours, I'm trying to lose weight or maintain weight, I'm at the 15 to 16 Mark, usually, sometimes I go more, but that's the average. So I have eating windows, it helps me I stopped eating at, let's just say 730 Every single night now before is fine, whatever, you know, 30 minutes before, but what it does, it blocks it for me. I don't care how hungry I am. I know I ate for the day, I'm done eating. I don't start again until roughly 10 o'clock the next day or so. Give or take or whatever the the actual math is on that. But what I do is I actually work out at the end of my fast. So from like, 730 to 930. I'm at the gym, not for the full two hours. But do I do sauna. So I'm gonna calm down to our work. I'm not saying two hours, gotta do saunas. And I work out during that. So I workout fasted, and then I get home, I'm feeling great. And then I break the fast with a nice high protein slash carb meal to kind of help with the hunger that I'm having. And then I kind of get the rest of the day. But I think having those windows of eating should not even from any sort of metabolic physiological thing, just from a routine structure standpoint, is so valuable, because it's a rule. And there's it's black and white, don't eat after this time. Don't eat before this time. Again, you're on vacation or not. But regularly speaking, it really helps maintain it, your body adapts to it. But again, after two weeks, if you're like dying from it, of course, we got to switch things up. But overall, if you can kind of find that sweet spot, I think is very helpful when it comes to hunger management.

 

Philip Pape  1:07:11

That's huge. The principle of it, right? Like people don't have to fast per se, just be routine about it and have a fixed feeding window. And you might get you might go so far. So like schedule it in it first. It's just like tracking, it's like tracking your food might sound a little neurotic. But if you've been all over the place, like just putting on your calendar like this is when I eat you know and get do that for a week or two. And then you're in a routine and there you go. Your body actually your metabolic rate. This is a valid point you brought up, physiologically your metabolic rate will actually down regulate just a bit if you're not in a routine, because of that, like unpredictability of the food supply to your body. So it's like, Oh, you gotta conserve calories. Yeah, yeah, it's so many things can impact your metabolism. And that's when we talk about dieting and weight loss and fat loss. Like a lot of it is about food. But a lot of it is about your lifestyle choices to make eating food easier and able to eat more of it as you're losing that weight. So yeah, other than that, I mean for hunger, I would say swapping foods out, the more you get into a fat loss phase where calories are tight, where you hardly notice a difference, you know, like refined versus white carbs or what did I have in here? My notes? Oh, these were all Ultra processed foods that yeah, okay, this was like soda and candy. You could have diet soda. Like I'm not against diet soda. I have no problem. You aspartame is not going to kill you. That's That's my understanding of the evidence. Just it's better than regular soda or you know, in terms of like trying to manage your calories and sugar and take a whatnot. Alcohol is another one. You know again, if you don't want to cut it out completely be smart about it. Drink light beer, you know, drink, drink fewer times a week, do non alcoholic, which is not alcohol, but it tastes like it. So yeah, that's it. We can go on about hunger, we go to the next topic.

 

Scott Friedman  1:08:54

This one will be quick. The next one will be quick. All right, basically not moving enough. Pretty. I mean, I think this one's pretty simple, is just move that there was a study done that was like basically, if you walk for a brisk walk for 20 minutes a day, it will decrease your chances for any kind of long term illness or disease by like upwards of 30% I mean, it was crazy amount walk, you burn more calories and you walk, you're gonna feel better when you walk, you're gonna lose more weight when you walk, you're gonna be using your body moving your body, there's just there's so much benefits to moving. Even if it's not, again, I recommending resistance training, but even if it's not that just moving itself is so valuable on a regular basis, and it's gonna help your mood, which, for example, have you ever tried to make a decision while you're sitting on the couch? Don't I always tell people, especially if that decision is not aligned with their goals? So you're like, Oh, I'm so hungry. I'm gonna go I have this popcorn right here before you eat it. Stand up, walk around for 10 seconds and then ask yourself the same question. I would argue that your your answer is going to change change a little bit. Because when you're sick, when you're not moving, everything, just kind of just, it's like stagnant air just kind of sits there, when you're moving, things are working, you're at more oxygen into your head. Like there's a lot of things that have happened in that. And so I think moving is so significant from a multi faceted approach that just got to move, just try and move for 20 minutes every single day, do something as you were starting from nothing, that is the best piece of advice, because just you got to get going, and that it's just shown to help you in so many different areas, not just weight loss, but in every area.

 

Philip Pape  1:10:28

Yeah, it's not much more to add to add to that, I mean, walking helps with your mental health, like you said, it helps with your, you know, just getting calories to your brain, your brain consumes 20% of the energy of your body, and it's very bio energetic. A lot of people that I know are lifters, and they just lift but then they won't move. And they're actually independent things like lifting weights for acute stress, you know, acutely stressed sessions, it and then not moving at all, there's still a lot of health consequences to that you've got to move. So agree there's not much more to add to that, we go into training. Alright, so training, one of my my my fun topics here is, of course, when you're in a fat loss phase, because again, we're talking about losing weight. And we don't want to lose weight, we want to lose fat, like we want to lose body mass, but we want that body mass to be fat. And the only way that's going to happen is we have sufficient muscle building stimulus, you have to tell your body that you're at least attempting to build muscle in the attempt to at least preserve the muscle maintain the muscle, the cool thing is that it takes a lot less volume, like training volume to maintain muscle than it does to build muscle. So when you go into fat loss phase, the wrong approach is to say I need to burn fat and burn calories, therefore, I'm going to do more like I'm going to do more reps, and I'm going to do more volume, it's actually the opposite. Like you could do almost less as long as you keep the load pretty intense train close to failure, like Scott mentioned earlier, like, gotta feel like it's hard. And it might even feel harder because you're in fat loss. And that's a very efficient way to work out, like three or four days a week, whatever your program says, you might even cut the number of movements and just go heavy. And then now you have all this recovery time to take advantage of the fewer resources you have. But you're still going to hold on to that muscle, which is what we're trying to do.

 

Scott Friedman  1:12:13

Actually, I'm curious to hear the answer on this one. So let's say at a normal muscle building phase, and you're trying to build specifically muscle, we believe believe that the best ratio of sets per week, or whatever the intensity is about 10 to 20, depending on the person and their training level. If you're in a fat loss phase, what would you say the sets per week for a muscle would be in order to at least be you know, it was that range.

 

Philip Pape  1:12:39

I mean, if you go by the studies on volume for maintaining muscle, it could be as low as like a quarter to half of your volume. But But I wouldn't just I wouldn't cut it by that much like in practice. Yeah, that's more of like if you've if you've been training a long time, and now you want to do other pursuits, and you don't want to spend so much time in the gym kind of thing. But when you're training, I would just say, Do what you're already doing and gauge the biofeedback you know, in those first few weeks how you feel, but the most Yeah, but the most important thing, honestly, is going to be the stimulus to fatigue, but also the the results with your lifts. Meaning if your lifts are pretty much maintaining more or less, you're probably fine. Right? You're gonna lose strength, but you're probably not gonna lose much muscle if you're doing it that way. And I

 

Scott Friedman  1:13:24

think a point from a practical point, and when you're losing weights, if you're losing weight, and you can maintain, so let's say you do 100 pounds on whatever the lift is, and you keep doing 100 pounds at 10 reps or whatever the rep range is right? That's actually you're actually gaining muscle because you're losing weight. So if you let's say you weighed 100 pounds, and you're lifting 100 pounds, now you weigh 99 pounds, and you're lifting 100 pounds, that ratio is it's slightly different. That means you're stronger than you were before. Now you're 9897 96. Now eventually what's going to happen is at a certain point, because it happens all of us, unless you're a bodybuilder, are really, really good at this, like the lift is gonna go down. So you could expect the lift to decrease. But you should not do that on purpose. It's just just because you're not strong enough anymore. Because you are going to lose some muscle when you're losing weight. The idea is to lose as little as humanly possible. And that's how you're going to see it. So if you're losing weight and your lifts are staying relatively the same, that's great. You should not I repeat this 100 times everyone has this question. If you are in fat loss phase, do not deliberately decrease the weight that you are training at. You want to stay there until you cannot stay there. So um, for some reason, there's this, I guess, myth out there that, oh, I'm in a fat loss phase, I need to decrease the weight that I'm lifting, which makes no sense to me. No, like nothing changes other than your it's gonna be harder to maintain that in my perspective.

 

Philip Pape  1:14:43

Yeah. And you hit on you know, there's some counterintuitive things that people just aren't familiar with, like the fact that your relative strength could go up as you're losing weight. I mean, my chin ups and pull ups start to fly when I'm starting to lose weight initially, right? Because I'm just losing weight on my body. Yeah, but what was the other thing I was gonna say about that? It was counterintuitive man and slipped my mind these conversations, it's like I have three things in the buffer and I maybe get to one or two, you know what I'm saying? Oh, yes, I know what it was is recovery and volume. So, again, counter intuitively, you may find it more beneficial, especially if you're older and have like recovery, more limited recovery to work more days a week, but shorter sessions during fat loss, like I've seen that be very successful for people to work. Like if you're normally doing three or four, now you go to five or six, but they're like half hour sessions with three movements. And now you're spreading out that fatigue, and never over stressing yourself from like an energy perspective with the fewer calories coming in. Not for everybody, though, you know, like, especially women can handle more recovery than men. But I've seen this be successful with men too. So just one of those cool little things. I like it.

 

Scott Friedman  1:15:48

I mentioned point of impact earlier, but basically just make sure you're training whatever rep range, you're doing that last rep. It should be. I thought a huge train of failure guy, I think training near failure is more effective, at least for the average person. I'm not talking about the advanced lifters. But yeah, so like whatever you're doing, if you're doing 10 reps, and you're in the weight loss phase, and you can do more, you probably should do more. And that's probably the wrong weight or the wrong rep ranges that be in Yeah,

 

Philip Pape  1:16:14

and one last thing I mean, no, I agree about the the RTR reps and reserve like isolation movements, go for it, you know, go to failure, cheater reps, drop sets, whatever intensity stuff you want to do. But like the big list, you know, yeah, one to two, maybe even three from failure depending on what you're doing. One thing we didn't cover, I don't know, if we would have done it on the movement section is just cardio in general cardio can be a huge variable when it comes to fat loss in terms of a negative in my opinion, like doing too much cardio, during fat loss can raise the stress on your body and also make it harder to lose weight. So I know it didn't seem like we had that in the list. Very important, ladies, especially who love to do the spin class, the boot camps, the F 45. The all this stuff. Fat Loss is the last point. Fat Loss is the last phase where you want to actually think exercise equals calorie burn. No, don't do that. Please don't think exercise equals calorie burn, walking and movement and being active. Yeah, that can contribute to that. But if you are running a lot, and now you're affecting your joints, and you're tearing up muscles a bit more, and you're impeding recovery, now your body says well, I need to recover from that. So I'm not gonna have as much to recover from lifting, for example, and I'm not going to have enough to keep your metabolic rate where it needs to be. So now all of a sudden, you start burning fewer and fewer calories. That's not to say you can't have some like medium intensity cardio in there for cardiovascular health and a little bit of calorie burn. But it's got to be, you know, moderated.

 

Scott Friedman  1:17:38

Yeah, the way I think about it is just like don't do any more than you normally would do. Because you're trying to burn fat. If you're on the treadmill for 30 minutes, that's your that's, that's your fun thing to do. Or you play basketball or pickleball, which is the new thing, you know, do it go do it. Understand, though, first and foremost, it's going to put you in a larger deficit. And that's where you get into trouble with these. And that's really what I think the issue is getting these large deficits, where your body will react negatively, either push, you will fight you really hard or will lower the amount of calories gonna burn in a day. And therefore you get into this cycle of, okay, whoa, I'm burning 500 calories on the treadmill. And I'm only netting 1200 calories a day eating like total eating wise, your body is going to slowly shut down, and then you think, Oh, I gotta eat less, or, or burn more. And then you're only putting in 1000, and then 800. And then you're not losing any more weight. And you get into this kind of cycle. And it's not good for your body. So you know, you want to stick to the I think is a five to 10% deficit, from your caloric maintenance part, which you can find online, whatever it was your coach, whatever it is, and then from there, just kind of try and maintain that. So whatever you do for that, that's what you should do and eat back the calories. So I actually in a fat loss phase, I actually use cardio to eat more so that I can like so. So that I have that I do I do net, I didn't net deficit. So if I have to eat, say just say 1800 calories, what I have to eat to lose a pound a week, I will divide 300 calories on the treadmill, I know I can eat 300 more calories that day to 10. Net, my 1800. So I had to do a dual shifter that I use both kind of ranges to kind of get me there to give me trouble if you don't track it properly. But I do find that it's valuable for some people.

 

Philip Pape  1:19:15

That's interesting. That's interesting, because I wouldn't use it on a daily day to day basis necessarily like that. But I could see a weekly incorporate Yeah, weekly where like Now you've seen how your expenditure if it's actually gone up and you can increase your calories and then you kind of take advantage but you know, if you're in tune with this stuff, that's the point. If you're in tune, you're watching your numbers and your weights going where you want it to go then great. You're doing everything you want to do. So let's let's go to the last thing because they're all kind of related to stress on the body overall, causing a change in metabolic rate. What's What's the issue here was sleeping stress. Well,

 

Scott Friedman  1:19:49

one of the biggest things is that you can be doing everything right. And if you're not sleeping enough, you're your again your body. There's a lot of intangible things in your body. We don't See when they're invisible to us that are currently operating on every single day. And a lot of things will happen if you don't sleep well. So I mean, if you don't sleep enough, right increases irritability will increase hunger, you might store more fat because of it, it reduces expenditure, there's so many things that are going to happen if you're not sleeping properly. So the idea is, if you actually also I think if you do too much high intensity cardio, I believe there's a stress threshold or stress threshold that we have, where if you too much stress in the body, and one day, your bed very difficult to sleep as well. There's another thing, there's if you're just hammering it, like you might find that you're having trouble sleeping, which then in turn, will make it harder to lose weight, because other aspects of not having enough sleep are negative. So a lot of things there when it comes to not sleeping enough. So having that kind of self awareness, when you're doing this is pretty important. Because if you're not sleeping well, and you know, you're not sleeping, well, trying to identify, Okay, what am I doing that's causing this lack of sleep? is important? Is it coming from to doing too much? Or is it coming from more of an habitual routine basis? And what I mean by that is, what are you doing before you're going to sleep? Are you you know, watching TV? Are you eating? Are you drinking? What's the activity before bed? What are you doing? And then if you can identify what's happening? Can we reduce or take away something to see it that helps you sleep? So for example, I got the aura ring, not a paid advertisement. So do it at your own. Due to your risk.

 

Philip Pape  1:21:36

All nutrition coaches have one right?

 

Scott Friedman  1:21:38

I love I love it. It's interesting. I think I give it like a B on the scale of like 85 out of 100. I think that's where I would scale it right now from the information, but I use it to track my sleep and sudden I'd say hey, man, your resting heart rate was super high last night, like try doing X, Y and Z instead. So what are some things that get my heart rate going? Number one, if I eat too late, which some again, on the weekend or something, if I don't follow my structured routine, that will happen. So if you I believe you might have better knowledge on this than I will I tell people try to eat roughly an hour and a half, two hours before you go to sleep. Right? Like if you're eating 30 minutes for bed, that could cause issues like that will might cause you to be up longer and not get good sleep. Are you drinking before bed that might call again could cause you to wake up more times than you wanted to wake it up once it's probably fine during the night. I don't think that's an issue at all, but multiple times that could cause a disruption and get you where sleep. Are you watching TV. And if you're watching TV, that stimulation, just the stimulation itself. So phone, TV, any sort of stimulation, any argument you have whatever, like your brains up and going. The second thing what that is blue light, how much blue light are you pushing your eyeballs I have, I'm trying to look around, I got blue light glasses over here. So if I'm watching TV later on the computer, like I put these on, and it tastes with a blue light. So at least I get rid of that because I know blue light in me. That's what causes me to have trouble sleeping. So there's a lot of things that you might be doing that you don't realize that are inhibiting your ability to get good sleep, which then silently secretly, Phantom li inhibits your ability to lose weight or lose fat in the long run. And you wouldn't know whatever correlate watching an hour of TV, a high intensity drama tv show that gets your heart rate going to bad sleep to then not losing fat, which it's kind of a loose correlation, but it is there. And so making sure that you can identify any of those stressors can be very important if you're struggling with it.

 

Philip Pape  1:23:28

Yeah, I think you've covered most most of the stuff like I mean, I know people have heard the Sleep Sleep hacks a million times on all sorts of podcasts, right? But they're always subtle things that might work for you. And there he goes, putting on the glasses. I have the amber ones that I wear at night and sometimes I just fall asleep on the couch wearing those things they work. So what Scott mentioned right, like, is this sleep poor sleep the route the the symptom of another cause? Or is it the sleep routine itself, he brought up a bunch of things I would just say like also if you can find a way to let your mind unwind at some point, and it might not even be right before bed it might be earlier in the day, we're just taking 20 minutes to yourself to literally not get stimulated by anything in the world because everything is stimulating us to get your thoughts out and process those that can actually have a lot like hours later when you go to sleep. That's just a little hack a lot of people don't think about because we're just on and on and on all day. Cool, man. So sleep and stress very important as well to losing weight. We're going on what an hour and a half. So this has been pretty epic and and it's been fun and we covered I mean a vast majority of topics there's probably even more we could have covered. So you know people can check out our shows. I had a blast covering all this. I hope people listening will take one thing you know you don't have to do all 20 Just take like one thing that resonated with you and take that baby step and action forward. And you know do the hard thing like we said it's gonna be a little bit hard but that's that's where the beauty comes from the process. Anything you want to say before we sign off?

 

Scott Friedman  1:24:56

No, I mean, we covered a vast array topics. It's Obviously, No, you listen to it, you'll get like 20% of what you listen to the first time. So listen to it again and get another 20% and see and kind of get more of it. I think that remember,

 

Philip Pape  1:25:07

listen to it on both podcasts. Well, yeah, the

 

Scott Friedman  1:25:10

most important thing you can do is to subscribe to both podcasts, because you're gonna keep hearing this information over and over again. So this is great. Listen to this awesome. Share this with everyone you know, listen to Wits, & Weights, listen to the power of progress. Wherever you're at subscribe, there's YouTube, there's Apple podcasts, or Spotify. Because the more you listen to it, the more you're gonna gain the knowledge, gain the experience, gain the confidence, and you're gonna start seeing results long term. And it's literally completely free to do all of that. So that's the most important thing you can do today is subscribe to both shows, because you'll get the most information and that's the best ROI of today's episode.

 

Philip Pape  1:25:46

There you go. I don't think I can add to that. I mean, I was gonna say Go Go follow our progress. Go follow Wits, & Weights, wherever you're listening to this in your favorite app, give us a follow, give us a follow. that'll really help us a lot. Don't just download it, give it a follow, share. And we'll be there in your ears for you know, there's our beautiful resonant voices to carry along your fitness journey for months and years to come. Right. I

 

Scott Friedman  1:26:06

think you have the nice voice I have that like nasally annoying voice. They LISTEN TO ME ON 3x speed to get her over with

 

Philip Pape  1:26:12

Oh, don't get me started listening quickly. That's another way you can de stress is actually don't listen to. It's funny because my voice is kind of torn up now. So alright, so I just want to thank everybody for listening. I want to thank you for joining me and Scott on this very cool, co hosted co created experience. Todays was valuable, I hope and we covered a lot and I hope you you know, take that step, take that step, whatever it is reach out to us as well. All that information is in the show notes if you need any help and we'll be here to help you. And we'll talk to you next time on Wits. & Weights and power progress. All right, take it easy and stay strong. Thank you for tuning in to another episode of Wits & Weights. If you found value in today's episode, and know someone else who's looking to level up their Wits & Weights, please take a moment to share this episode with them. And make sure to hit the Follow button in your podcast platform right now to catch the next episode. Until then, stay strong