Latest / Wits & Weights | Strength & Fat Loss Over 40 / Body Positivity vs. Fat Loss (You Can Have Both) | Ep 386

Transcript

Body Positivity vs. Fat Loss (You Can Have Both) | Ep 386 · Wits & Weights | Strength & Fat Loss Over 40

• 0:01
  Philip Pape: Can you love your body and still want to change it?
• 0:04
  Philip Pape: For years you've been caught between two extremes: the body positivity camp that says any discussion of weight is harmful, and the traditional fitness world that makes you feel guilty for not being lean or ripped or shredded enough.
• 0:16
  Philip Pape: You want to respect yourself, but you also want to get stronger, healthier, maybe change your body composition.
• 0:22
  Philip Pape: And there's a tension between these two worlds where you feel like you have to choose between self-acceptance and self-improvement.
• 0:28
  Philip Pape: Today we're proving that you can have both.
• 0:31
  Philip Pape: You'll learn why removing shame doesn't mean removing high standards, how fitness capacity matters more than the number on the scale, and the system for building health while respecting your body right now.
• 0:43
  Philip Pape: Now, I'm gonna show you why this isn't actually a conflict at all and how you can engineer an approach that honors both self-respect and measurable progress.
• 1:21
  Philip Pape: Now, this episode, I wanted to create it because of multiple listener questions I've received over the past few months, all asking variations of the same thing.
• 1:30
  Philip Pape: Is it wrong to want to change my body?
• 1:32
  Philip Pape: Am I betraying body positivity, right?
• 1:35
  Philip Pape: The concept if I try to lose fat or gain muscle.
• 1:38
  Philip Pape: Now, they didn't say it that way specifically, but I'm kind of paraphrasing because this is a legitimate question.
• 1:43
  Philip Pape: The vanity question, I'm trying to look good, I'm trying to improve my physique.
• 1:47
  Philip Pape: You know, I don't want to have my belly spilling over my genes, however, viscerally you put that into words.
• 1:53
  Philip Pape: And I think they do reveal this big problem today and how we talk about health, bodies, about change, about personal improvement.
• 2:02
  Philip Pape: And I think we're gonna try to solve that problem today using evidence, using clear thinking, and using a framework that you can use.
• 2:10
  Philip Pape: Before we get into it, I want to share a few quick wins from Physique University over the past couple weeks just to show you how positive this can be when we are pursuing health.
• 2:21
  Philip Pape: And the first one is the highlight of my week was that a few people told me I look healthy and vibrant.
• 2:26
  Philip Pape: The biggest one of all is that on Friday night I went to a fancy fundraiser dinner and had my picture taken.
• 2:31
  Philip Pape: When I looked at the picture, I know my body size has not changed yet, but I liked the picture.
• 2:36
  Philip Pape: First time in almost 18 years.
• 2:37
  Philip Pape: Now, again, that's kind of straddling the, you know, how I feel versus how I look dichotomy we're talking about today.
• 2:43
  Philip Pape: The second one, I feel like consistency in getting to the gym and whatever level of diet I've achieved are big wins.
• 2:50
  Philip Pape: I'm proud of my increasing, increasing all my PRs this week.
• 2:53
  Philip Pape: So again, there's more of a focus on improvement from a strength perspective that will translate to physique improvement, and yet that isn't really the point.
• 3:01
  Philip Pape: The third one is I sense your passion for helping people.
• 3:04
  Philip Pape: It comes through in the response time you give us as clients and the attention you're putting into helping us grow.
• 3:09
  Philip Pape: You're really excited about training.
• 3:11
  Philip Pape: I get more excited to train because of your excitement for it.
• 3:14
  Philip Pape: It's infectious.
• 3:15
  Philip Pape: I'm really liking the experience.
• 3:16
  Philip Pape: So I wanted to share all of these because they're really more focused on the process of improvement, and that is gonna be key to what we talk about today with the topic and the framework.
• 3:25
  Philip Pape: So let's talk about this.
• 3:27
  Philip Pape: What is this false dichotomy?
• 3:29
  Philip Pape: Let's name the problem clearly.
• 3:31
  Philip Pape: On one side, you have this body positivity movement.
• 3:34
  Philip Pape: At its core, it is about pushing back against appearance hierarchies, I'm gonna call them, right?
• 3:41
  Philip Pape: Like it depends on where you are on that hierarchy and what kind of social media you use and what age you are and what that means to you.
• 3:49
  Philip Pape: But basically, this movement, in my opinion, is trying to remove moral judgment from the size that you are with your body, right?
• 3:57
  Philip Pape: I think that's a pretty fair definition.
• 4:00
  Philip Pape: And guess what?
• 4:01
  Philip Pape: I think that is a valuable thing.
• 4:03
  Philip Pape: I think that shame doesn't help anybody, it doesn't improve health, it can undermine health, it is not, it's just not helpful to the situation.
• 4:11
  Philip Pape: On the other side, you have, I'll say, traditional weight normative fitness culture, right?
• 4:18
  Philip Pape: Which is irks me the most, I would say, about what I see on Instagram, for example, or in the way coaching programs are framed.
• 4:25
  Philip Pape: And this is where we use weight loss as the primary or only endpoint.
• 4:29
  Philip Pape: I mean, all the all the commercials I see for now for Noom and microdosing, and it's all about weight loss, right?
• 4:35
  Philip Pape: All the GLP ones, it's just what they talk about.
• 4:38
  Philip Pape: And I think that sometimes, well, it definitely works from a marketing perspective, but I think it's not super helpful at all when it comes to how an individual receives this because it is packaged with shame-based messaging.
• 4:52
  Philip Pape: It is usually tied into some sort of rigid rules or system and the implicit message that you are not acceptable until you hit a certain size or number on the scale.
• 5:04
  Philip Pape: And I've talked many times on this show about how I don't even like that phrase weight loss because it doesn't tell you what you're trying to achieve, which is improved health, body composition, you know, mindset that comes from a variety of factors that we measure, not just weight.
• 5:18
  Philip Pape: In fact, weight loss can be a countermeasure if you're using it the wrong way.
• 5:22
  Philip Pape: So here we are, stuck in the middle, and you kind of feel like you have to pick one of these or cozy up with one of these camps.
• 5:28
  Philip Pape: Maybe you don't, okay?
• 5:29
  Philip Pape: Maybe I'm falsely ascribing this to you, the listener, but still you're aware of this dichotomy.
• 5:35
  Philip Pape: And either, you know, on one hand, people are saying just accept your body as it is, which kind of implies that you're giving up on your health goals.
• 5:43
  Philip Pape: It really does, because by definition, if you improve your health, you're gonna improve your physical representation of that health, is the way I'm gonna put it, right?
• 5:54
  Philip Pape: That's so that's on one side.
• 5:55
  Philip Pape: And the other side is, you know, pursuing health goals and then feeling guilty that you care about improving your body or like, you know, somebody makes you feel bad because, oh, now it's all about looks for you, isn't it?
• 6:08
  Philip Pape: Right.
• 6:08
  Philip Pape: And I think this is a false choice because the reality is you can practice self-acceptance and dignity and still pursue measurable health behaviors, right?
• 6:18
  Philip Pape: That's the way I'm gonna put it measurable health behaviors.
• 6:20
  Philip Pape: We had Jamie Selsler on, who lost over 350 pounds, and I realized the framing of that is weight on the scale, but his whole conversation with me was not about the weight on the scale.
• 6:29
  Philip Pape: It was about the process of self-acceptance and self-respect to get healthier so that he can live and thrive in the world for a long time to come.
• 6:38
  Philip Pape: So these things are not in conflict.
• 6:40
  Philip Pape: I think the conflict only exists when we confuse weight with health or when we attach moral value to body size.
• 6:47
  Philip Pape: And so I'm gonna be explicit about the framework we're building today.
• 6:50
  Philip Pape: Uh, I gave it a phrase in my notes.
• 6:52
  Philip Pape: I call it dignity first performance engineering.
• 6:54
  Philip Pape: Maybe that's a mouthful.
• 6:55
  Philip Pape: I don't know if it'll stick, but dignity first performance engineering.
• 6:58
  Philip Pape: It's kind of a mesh between the two in the best way.
• 7:01
  Philip Pape: So, dignity first, what I mean by that is no moral value attached to weight or food, no tolerance at all for stigma.
• 7:09
  Philip Pape: These are just things.
• 7:11
  Philip Pape: They're things you can measure, they're, you know, things that have wide spectra in terms of their judgment or attributes.
• 7:18
  Philip Pape: And why would you tie that into self-worth?
• 7:21
  Philip Pape: You don't earn your worth by hitting a certain whatever, even if it's body fat and body composition, right?
• 7:26
  Philip Pape: It's not tied to your worth.
• 7:28
  Philip Pape: And then the performance engineering piece means we focus on the measurable behaviors and outcomes, right?
• 7:33
  Philip Pape: The process.
• 7:34
  Philip Pape: I've talked about physique engineering before, but I'd really rather use the term performance engineering, with physique just being one of many outputs.
• 7:41
  Philip Pape: So we're talking strength gains, like in the testimonial I shared about getting PRs, personal records.
• 7:47
  Philip Pape: This could be your heart health, your cardiovascular fitness, your blood markers, biomarkers, sleep quality, energy levels.
• 7:53
  Philip Pape: And then even body composition can be among the data stream to give you objective information.
• 8:00
  Philip Pape: And this isn't about, you know, lowering standards, right?
• 8:04
  Philip Pape: Because that's part of the argument people make is that you have to lower standards for the body positivity move bubble.
• 8:10
  Philip Pape: I'm not gonna go there.
• 8:11
  Philip Pape: I think, I think we keep high standards, whatever those are for you, right?
• 8:14
  Philip Pape: Which for you, it may not be nearly as high as someone else because it's relative to where you are right now, you know, start where you're at.
• 8:21
  Philip Pape: So we keep these standards for behaviors and biomarkers, but altogether remove any moral judgment of our body, right?
• 8:29
  Philip Pape: Our physical body.
• 8:30
  Philip Pape: And so, what is the standard then?
• 8:32
  Philip Pape: Well, the standard is you show up consistently, you train and make progress, you hit whatever targets you are setting for yourself, or at least you do your best, knowing that you can't, you're not gonna be perfect, but you're gonna be consistent.
• 8:45
  Philip Pape: And then you track the things you care about, right?
• 8:47
  Philip Pape: And this could be very different from one person to the next, even though on this show we talk about a standard set of these types of metrics.
• 8:54
  Philip Pape: So the standard is not achieving a certain body weight by a certain date, or else you failed as a person.
• 9:02
  Philip Pape: So that's kind of the false dichotomy that I wanted to dispel first.
• 9:06
  Philip Pape: Now, in the second segment, I want to talk about what the evidence shows because I think that's important too.
• 9:12
  Philip Pape: It's not just some guy's opinion on uh a podcast or on YouTube, all right?
• 9:16
  Philip Pape: What does the research tell us?
• 9:18
  Philip Pape: Because I think there's some hard data here.
• 9:20
  Philip Pape: And the first big thing is that stigma and shame simply make health worse.
• 9:23
  Philip Pape: You're like, yeah, that's that's obvious, right?
• 9:26
  Philip Pape: But you know what?
• 9:27
  Philip Pape: The conversation on mental health has changed a lot in the last only 10 years, 20 years.
• 9:32
  Philip Pape: I mean, I'm 44 and I can remember the 90s, and there was a lot of shame and stigma around everything health related, you know, mental health, a lot of it, okay?
• 9:42
  Philip Pape: And things have changed a lot.
• 9:43
  Philip Pape: And and this isn't tough love, right, that I'm asking for or motivating tough love.
• 9:50
  Philip Pape: It's really physiologically harmful when we have stigma and shame.
• 9:55
  Philip Pape: Studies show that experiencing weight stigma predicts higher cardiometabolic risk, disordered eating, elevated cortisol, right?
• 10:05
  Philip Pape: You're just stressed, even higher mortality risk, independent of BMI.
• 10:09
  Philip Pape: Okay, so this mental aspect translates to the physiological aspect.
• 10:14
  Philip Pape: And there are different mechanisms behind this.
• 10:17
  Philip Pape: There's activating your stress physiology, right?
• 10:19
  Philip Pape: The fight or flight, the parasympathetic versus sympathetic.
• 10:22
  Philip Pape: There's people who avoid getting medical care because of the stigma, right?
• 10:27
  Philip Pape: There's behaviors where you compensate with your eating, and that could that definitely includes emotional eating, right?
• 10:33
  Philip Pape: And you're familiar with all of these concepts, I'm sure.
• 10:36
  Philip Pape: So when you shame someone about their weight, and I hope nobody listening to this is doing that, you're not helping them get healthier, right?
• 10:42
  Philip Pape: You are actively making them less healthy.
• 10:44
  Philip Pape: And that's what the data shows.
• 10:46
  Philip Pape: Second, as far as data goes, research, is that fitness and strength do matter at any size.
• 10:55
  Philip Pape: So this is a kind of an interesting concept, right?
• 10:57
  Philip Pape: When we were talking about our fitness as in cardiorespiratory fitness, but also muscular strength, muscle mass, very important things we talk about here, are among the strongest predictors of lower all cause and cardiovascular mortality across all BMI categories.
• 11:12
  Philip Pape: People who are fit and have obesity actually have lower mortality risk than people who are unfit but might be at a normal BMI.
• 11:22
  Philip Pape: This is kind of like the strong with lots of muscle mass but extra fat persona versus skinny fat, but not much muscle mass.
• 11:29
  Philip Pape: I would rather be in general be the person with more muscle, as long as we're not talking about excessively overweight, right?
• 11:35
  Philip Pape: That's like its own category.
• 11:36
  Philip Pape: But this is really crucial.
• 11:38
  Philip Pape: I've had plenty of clients who have been lifters for many years with lots of muscle mass.
• 11:42
  Philip Pape: And they have extra fat, but they're a lot healthier than other people with their biomarkers, even despite that extra fat because of the muscle mass and the fitness.
• 11:51
  Philip Pape: And actually, in some cases, I'll see like their cardio fitness isn't great because they don't walk a lot, and then they start walking, and that improves.
• 11:57
  Philip Pape: Or vice versa.
• 11:59
  Philip Pape: Somebody's really fit in the endurance, but they don't have much muscle mass.
• 12:02
  Philip Pape: They start training for muscle mass and then their markers improve, right?
• 12:05
  Philip Pape: Training improves health markers even before you get any substantial weight loss.
• 12:10
  Philip Pape: That's really, really important.
• 12:11
  Philip Pape: That's really important.
• 12:12
  Philip Pape: A person who lifts weights, who does a little bit of cardio, and that can, yes, absolutely include walking, and ultimately improves their resting heart rate, maybe their VO2 max, I'm not as hung up on that metric, but you know, their general fitness is getting healthier, whether or not, independent of losing any weight.
• 12:29
  Philip Pape: That's really powerful.
• 12:30
  Philip Pape: That's very empowering, I would say, as well.
• 12:33
  Philip Pape: And it's the behavior that drives the benefit here.
• 12:36
  Philip Pape: Okay, that behavior of being an athlete and training.
• 12:39
  Philip Pape: Third, when we look at the data, weight inclusive or health-centric approaches can improve health.
• 12:47
  Philip Pape: This is interesting.
• 12:48
  Philip Pape: Okay.
• 12:48
  Philip Pape: I'm just sharing the data here, whether you like the terms or this hits you right or not.
• 12:53
  Philip Pape: So there's some systematic reviews of the health at every size type programs that do show improvements in lipids and blood pressure and eating behaviors and psychological well-being.
• 13:04
  Philip Pape: The effects on body weight are similar to the what I'll call traditional weight-focused interventions in some of these analyses.
• 13:12
  Philip Pape: This is interesting because you're basically saying this is almost sounds like body positivity, doesn't it?
• 13:17
  Philip Pape: Like, okay, you can be healthy at any size.
• 13:19
  Philip Pape: We're gonna set that as the premise, but now we need to get healthy at your size.
• 13:23
  Philip Pape: That's what strikes me about it, which tells me that behavior change is carrying most of the load, not just the weight loss.
• 13:30
  Philip Pape: And so it moves the needle in the right direction, if that makes sense.
• 13:34
  Philip Pape: All right, the fourth thing I found in the research is that intuitive and mindful eating are very promising for mental health and cardiometabolic markers.
• 13:45
  Philip Pape: Now you're shocked, right?
• 13:46
  Philip Pape: Because I I've blasted intuitive eating on other episodes, but usually what I mean by that is intuitive as in go right in and try to be intuitive and listen to your hunger signals without having developed the skill of doing so through some form of tracking and awareness, right?
• 14:02
  Philip Pape: So I'm not talking about that.
• 14:03
  Philip Pape: I think the idea here is more on the mindfulness piece.
• 14:06
  Philip Pape: Okay.
• 14:06
  Philip Pape: Research links this mindful eating.
• 14:09
  Philip Pape: When we say intuitive, that is what I'm talking about in this context, to a lower BMI, lower waist circumference, better psycho psychosocial outcomes, and mindful eatings associated with improved mood, healthier eating patterns.
• 14:21
  Philip Pape: Now, I love mindfulness and I love developing a skill of knowing what and how to eat, even if it becomes more and more intuitive by using a system to get there.
• 14:31
  Philip Pape: That is the best of both worlds.
• 14:33
  Philip Pape: You've got to be taught, is my point.
• 14:35
  Philip Pape: You've got to be taught, you've got to learn the skill of intuitive eating and mindful eating.
• 14:39
  Philip Pape: They're not magic bullets, right?
• 14:41
  Philip Pape: For a lot of us, they're actually hard.
• 14:43
  Philip Pape: Some apps, based on like psychological behavior, are probably have the right approach there when it comes to the mindfulness piece.
• 14:50
  Philip Pape: Unfortunately, they often lack the data side of things, the numbers side of things.
• 14:54
  Philip Pape: And in my opinion, you can combine the two in a really nice way.
• 14:57
  Philip Pape: But if you've been stuck in like a diet binge cycle, you've got to start somewhere.
• 15:01
  Philip Pape: And I think having mindfulness in general goes a long way.
• 15:05
  Philip Pape: Now, before anyone accuses me of being anti-weight loss or promoting some unhealthy lifestyle, I want to address legitimate criticisms.
• 15:15
  Philip Pape: Okay.
• 15:16
  Philip Pape: Some online body positivity content does cycle back to pure talk of appearance and it can dilute health behaviors.
• 15:27
  Philip Pape: All right.
• 15:28
  Philip Pape: Not everyone thrives with purely weight neutral messaging.
• 15:33
  Philip Pape: Okay.
• 15:34
  Philip Pape: Let me say that again.
• 15:34
  Philip Pape: Not everyone thrives with purely weight neutral messaging.
• 15:37
  Philip Pape: Some people are motivated by body composition goals, and that's totally fine.
• 15:42
  Philip Pape: Some people are motivated by pure vanity goals, and that's totally fine.
• 15:46
  Philip Pape: As long as the process is free of stigma and the metrics go far beyond scale weight.
• 15:52
  Philip Pape: Okay.
• 15:53
  Philip Pape: This is consistent with a lot of things I've been saying over the years that your motivations are yours.
• 15:58
  Philip Pape: They can change.
• 15:59
  Philip Pape: You can have multiple motivations.
• 16:01
  Philip Pape: There are multiple levels of motivation, right?
• 16:03
  Philip Pape: You can have some superficial motivation up here, maybe some external motivation, that's fine.
• 16:07
  Philip Pape: And then you get deeper and deeper and deeper.
• 16:08
  Philip Pape: And ultimately it ties to a what we say is your why, right?
• 16:12
  Philip Pape: Like the deeper reason you want this.
• 16:14
  Philip Pape: You want to be a role model for your kids.
• 16:15
  Philip Pape: You want to be able to not be falling in and breaking your hip when you're in your 70s, right?
• 16:21
  Philip Pape: You don't want to be a nursing home, those things.
• 16:23
  Philip Pape: So that's a legitimate criticism that, you know, when we talk about body positivity, which again, I'm not supporting the traditionally criticized version of it on this episode.
• 16:34
  Philip Pape: I'm trying to add nuance to how we define it or how we think about it.
• 16:38
  Philip Pape: And the issue isn't whether you want to change your body.
• 16:42
  Philip Pape: The issue is whether shame is part of the equation and whether you're using a single metric to define success, right?
• 16:50
  Philip Pape: Because I've met so many people that, you know, they have they have some extra weight on their body.
• 16:54
  Philip Pape: They know it's not healthy.
• 16:56
  Philip Pape: There's no benefit in shaming them.
• 16:58
  Philip Pape: And yet they're not sure whether they can be healthy without losing a lot of weight.
• 17:04
  Philip Pape: And I think it's okay to focus on health and performance and not even care about weight.
• 17:09
  Philip Pape: And guess what?
• 17:10
  Philip Pape: A beautiful thing happens in that your body will start to respond physically and physiologically to that, which often involves releasing stored body fat and building more muscle and partitioning your nutrients where you want them, right?
• 17:22
  Philip Pape: And then the things happen naturally because you're using your body in that way, in that fit athletic sort of way.
• 17:27
  Philip Pape: All right.
• 17:28
  Philip Pape: And I I love data, I love tools.
• 17:30
  Philip Pape: You guys have heard me maybe talk about Macrofactor.
• 17:33
  Philip Pape: It's my favorite nutrition app.
• 17:34
  Philip Pape: I use it every day myself to track my expenditure, my metabolism, my food.
• 17:38
  Philip Pape: But the reason I like tools like that is they are adherence neutral.
• 17:42
  Philip Pape: They do not, they do not shame you for missing a target.
• 17:45
  Philip Pape: So if you can find an app like that or a tracking method like that, where all you're doing is tracking against your goals and metrics, but nothing is like flashing a big red bell at you that says, you just failed because you were over by five calories.
• 18:01
  Philip Pape: That can be very helpful.
• 18:02
  Philip Pape: Now, speaking of metrics and removing shame from the process, anything you can do where you're not judged and you're just adjusting based on what happened and saying, I learned from this.
• 18:14
  Philip Pape: Now I'm gonna do something differently in the future to lessen the impact when it happens again is really, really helpful.
• 18:20
  Philip Pape: All right.
• 18:21
  Philip Pape: That's kind of what an engineer thinks like.
• 18:23
  Philip Pape: An engineer, an inventor, an innovator is gonna fail a lot of times, but they don't even think of it as failure.
• 18:28
  Philip Pape: They think of it as learning from the data.
• 18:30
  Philip Pape: All right.
• 18:30
  Philip Pape: So the next thing I want to talk about is those metrics.
• 18:34
  Philip Pape: In other words, what should you track?
• 18:37
  Philip Pape: And you might be hearing my dogs bark.
• 18:39
  Philip Pape: If weight isn't the metric that matters and body composition is just one of the data streams, what should you track?
• 18:44
  Philip Pape: So think of it like a dashboard, right?
• 18:47
  Philip Pape: What would this dashboard look that paints a complete picture of your health and progress?
• 18:52
  Philip Pape: So we could just stop talking about weight loss.
• 18:54
  Philip Pape: Okay, let's start with performance metrics.
• 18:57
  Philip Pape: This is really where I wanted you to focus most of your attention.
• 19:00
  Philip Pape: One thing you want to do is track your strength progression, your maxes on your key lifts.
• 19:07
  Philip Pape: Now, what this might look like is if you're a beginner, you might only be tracking four lifts.
• 19:11
  Philip Pape: You know, your squat, your bench, your deadlift, your press, maybe.
• 19:14
  Philip Pape: And then you for five reps, let's say, and you're gonna track those.
• 19:17
  Philip Pape: As you get more advanced, you're gonna track more of the lifts and you're gonna track more rep ranges.
• 19:21
  Philip Pape: It might just matter to track what is in your current program.
• 19:25
  Philip Pape: So I'm doing a five-day-a-week program right now where every week I'm doing the same, you know, exercises I did the week before.
• 19:32
  Philip Pape: So what I care about is am I progressing at those exact exercises and reps each week?
• 19:37
  Philip Pape: Whether I go up in reps, whether I go up in weight, do I need to do a reset to kind of you know continue progressing or whatnot?
• 19:45
  Philip Pape: So that's that's strength.
• 19:47
  Philip Pape: Now, cardiovascular fitness gets a little more complicated.
• 19:50
  Philip Pape: There are there are people I'd say more experienced than me in the endurance world.
• 19:53
  Philip Pape: I would say for the average person, for you and me, resting heart rate by itself is gonna be a big indicator, okay?
• 20:01
  Philip Pape: Because you can see a relatively fast improvement when you, for example, start walking more or doing more cardio supportive activities.
• 20:08
  Philip Pape: But if you like wearables and tracking other data, I would say heart rate variability is helpful.
• 20:13
  Philip Pape: Anything on an aura ring or phone or wearable or strap or whatever that can help you is is pretty cool, right?
• 20:19
  Philip Pape: But that's all that's it.
• 20:20
  Philip Pape: I would say resting heart rate is is enough, just to keep it simple.
• 20:23
  Philip Pape: How about your work capacity?
• 20:25
  Philip Pape: Okay, this is also cardio related, but it also is related to your lifting.
• 20:28
  Philip Pape: How many sets can you do before you get winded?
• 20:31
  Philip Pape: How quickly can you recover between them with your rest periods?
• 20:34
  Philip Pape: You know, again, this is tied in a little bit to your step count.
• 20:37
  Philip Pape: It's important to be aware of all that because the amount of cardio and type of cardio you do is going to support how much work capacity you have in the gym.
• 20:44
  Philip Pape: And what you do in the gym with your lifting can also increase your work capacity.
• 20:47
  Philip Pape: So different people have different goals there.
• 20:49
  Philip Pape: And all of these metrics tell you am I getting fitter and stronger?
• 20:53
  Philip Pape: Right?
• 20:54
  Philip Pape: Because they respond pretty quickly to your training.
• 20:57
  Philip Pape: They're very motivating when you see them improve, and then they predict long-term health really, really well, far more than body weight does if you were listening to some of the relationships I mentioned before, like the fact that having more muscle is gonna be super protective, even if you have a little extra weight.
• 21:11
  Philip Pape: So that's performance.
• 21:12
  Philip Pape: Then we get to body composition metrics.
• 21:15
  Philip Pape: We're still gonna track these, but as part of context, as part of a big picture.
• 21:19
  Philip Pape: So your waist circumference, your body weight, but looking at the trend over time.
• 21:23
  Philip Pape: So again, if you use macrofactor, it uses a 20-day exponential moving average.
• 21:28
  Philip Pape: The app that I'm developing also thinks of things in this context of trends and kind of pressure in a direction over time.
• 21:36
  Philip Pape: And you don't have to use like a DEXA scan or anything like that.
• 21:40
  Philip Pape: There are simple ways to track with the Navy formula, for example.
• 21:44
  Philip Pape: We use, I have a biofeedback and physique tracker in physique university we use, where you just put in some simple measurements and it gives you these estimates.
• 21:51
  Philip Pape: But if you look up Navy formula, you just need a few measurements to track it that way.
• 21:55
  Philip Pape: But all of these are lagging indicators and they change more slowly versus the performance indicators, which are more either leading or real-time type indicators.
• 22:05
  Philip Pape: I mean, resting heart rate is a little bit of a lagging indicator, but they change pretty quickly.
• 22:09
  Philip Pape: These body composition metrics are gonna take time to change.
• 22:12
  Philip Pape: So this is where you have to not let a week of no movement, because a week is nothing, seven days is nothing, tell you, hey, this is not working if your performance metrics are improving.
• 22:23
  Philip Pape: In fact, in many cases, the these body composition things aren't gonna change very much at all, but your health and your performance is gonna improve a lot.
• 22:31
  Philip Pape: And then your body composition might start to catch up.
• 22:34
  Philip Pape: So those that's body composition.
• 22:35
  Philip Pape: The third category on your dashboard is the metabolic health markers.
• 22:39
  Philip Pape: And this is getting your labs done, I would say, every at least annually, if not every six months, or even three months if you're really into this stuff.
• 22:47
  Philip Pape: And that's a lot of different things that could be A1C, fasting glucose, your lipids, your blood pressure, inflammant infl markers of inflammation, nutrient, you know, deficiencies and stuff.
• 22:57
  Philip Pape: And these tell you what's happening inside your body, right?
• 23:00
  Philip Pape: Not just what you see in the mirror.
• 23:01
  Philip Pape: This is very, very important.
• 23:02
  Philip Pape: It tells you how what you're eating is affecting what's in your body.
• 23:05
  Philip Pape: Are you getting enough sunlight, right?
• 23:07
  Philip Pape: Those kinds of things.
• 23:07
  Philip Pape: How are your hormones?
• 23:09
  Philip Pape: Right?
• 23:09
  Philip Pape: You can have a six-pack, but still have terrible metabolic health, or you can have a little higher body fat percentage, but have really good metabolic health.
• 23:16
  Philip Pape: And this goes back to why body positivity gets really tricky.
• 23:20
  Philip Pape: We want to know what's actually going on.
• 23:22
  Philip Pape: And of course, we we do a service now called performance blood work.
• 23:26
  Philip Pape: I need to share that with you guys because I have a I have an example, some example reports from clients who've done that recently.
• 23:31
  Philip Pape: You effectively get 85 plus biomarkers measured, and then thousands of calculations and patterns put on top of that to then say, okay, these two markers are low or they're in the normal range rather than the optimal range.
• 23:47
  Philip Pape: How do we get them to be more optimal?
• 23:49
  Philip Pape: All right, you need to be maybe supplementing with omega-3 fish oil over here.
• 23:54
  Philip Pape: And are you training?
• 23:55
  Philip Pape: You know, are you strength training?
• 23:57
  Philip Pape: Of course, that's gonna be on everybody's plan that I put together.
• 23:59
  Philip Pape: But yeah, that those are the kind of things that are can be really powerful.
• 24:02
  Philip Pape: And then you do have subjective metrics, right?
• 24:05
  Philip Pape: Like your biofeedback is kind of subjective, although when you track it over time, it becomes a little more objective, if that makes sense.
• 24:11
  Philip Pape: Kind of the idea of quality, qualitative data becoming empirical, if you will.
• 24:18
  Philip Pape: So energy, mood, sleep quality, how you feel during your workouts, your digestion, your hunger, all this, all those stuff, right?
• 24:24
  Philip Pape: There's a whole list.
• 24:25
  Philip Pape: These matter because if you're, let's say, losing weight, but you feel like garbage, you're not really winning.
• 24:31
  Philip Pape: I mean, you're not you're not gonna feel your best probably when you're in a fat loss phase, but there are optimal ways to do it, okay?
• 24:38
  Philip Pape: And conversely, if you're getting stronger and you feel great, but the scale's not moving, maybe your waist is going down, you're probably doing exactly what you should be doing, right?
• 24:46
  Philip Pape: That's where it gets kind of confusing.
• 24:48
  Philip Pape: So if if the the key here is looking at all of these together.
• 24:51
  Philip Pape: So if your strength's going up, your waist is going down, your energy is high, your labs are improving, and your weight is exactly the same, that is a huge, massive win right there.
• 25:01
  Philip Pape: That's a massive win.
• 25:02
  Philip Pape: You are replacing fat with muscle, or I should say you're losing one and gaining the other, and you're getting healthier and you're getting more capable.
• 25:09
  Philip Pape: And I bet you're feeling better and more confident.
• 25:12
  Philip Pape: If you only looked at the scale, you'd think that nothing was happening and you might quit.
• 25:17
  Philip Pape: So that's a great example.
• 25:18
  Philip Pape: All right, so now let's quickly talk about nutrition in this framework because I think a lot of people get stuck here.
• 25:24
  Philip Pape: We've talked a lot about training and performance, and you're like, well, where does food come into this?
• 25:28
  Philip Pape: Well, the first principle here is make it behavior based, right?
• 25:32
  Philip Pape: Not outcome-based, always.
• 25:34
  Philip Pape: So if you can focus on what to do day to day and then track that and see how you're doing and nudge, nudge, nudge till you get there, it's gonna work out really well.
• 25:42
  Philip Pape: Okay.
• 25:43
  Philip Pape: And that's things like your minimum targets for protein, 0.7 to 1 gram per pound.
• 25:48
  Philip Pape: Hitting that consistently is going to go a huge way.
• 25:50
  Philip Pape: Same thing for fiber, 25 to 35 grams, probably more like 25 for women, 35 for men.
• 25:56
  Philip Pape: Vegetables, fruits, whole grains.
• 25:58
  Philip Pape: If you have to supplement, supplement.
• 26:00
  Philip Pape: Build the meals that you enjoy.
• 26:02
  Philip Pape: I want you to enjoy your food.
• 26:03
  Philip Pape: If you hate chicken breasts and broccoli, don't make that a regular staple in your diet.
• 26:07
  Philip Pape: Find proteins and vegetables you do like, prepare them in a way you do like.
• 26:11
  Philip Pape: Learn how to cook really good food.
• 26:12
  Philip Pape: Use a meal service if you have to, you know, marry somebody who's a great cook.
• 26:17
  Philip Pape: Okay, that was out of line, maybe, or not.
• 26:19
  Philip Pape: I don't know.
• 26:19
  Philip Pape: I got lucky in that regard.
• 26:21
  Philip Pape: You don't want to suffer your way through, you want to build the sustainable behavior.
• 26:25
  Philip Pape: And so, those of you who've been chronically dieting in the past, or you've done multiple rounds of restrictive diets, of carnivore, of keto, of low carb, all that, intermittent fasting, right?
• 26:35
  Philip Pape: Then tracking these things and even some of the mindfulness and intuitive eating things can help.
• 26:41
  Philip Pape: Believe it or not, together, these things can help because then you can learn to recognize hunger, physiological versus emotional hunger, when you're full, removing moral labels from food, eating without distraction, so you can taste your food and take time to let it digest and let yourself fill up before you overeat.
• 26:58
  Philip Pape: Like those skills are gonna reduce the backlash that you would get from rigid dieting.
• 27:03
  Philip Pape: And when combined with hitting some simple ranges and targets and tracking that, that's everything.
• 27:09
  Philip Pape: Let me tell you, that is everything.
• 27:11
  Philip Pape: Now, speaking of tracking calories and macros, I'm not saying, I'm definitely not saying you never track those.
• 27:17
  Philip Pape: In fact, I think anybody listening to this podcast with the goals we have should track these.
• 27:23
  Philip Pape: Okay.
• 27:23
  Philip Pape: If you have a body composition goal at all, if you want to lose fat or gain weight intentionally to build muscle, then you've got to understand at least your energy balance and whether you're in a surplus or deficit so you don't hold yourself back or make it take a lot longer and get more frustrating with plateaus than you want.
• 27:40
  Philip Pape: Okay.
• 27:40
  Philip Pape: Track your intake, practice this neutrality when it comes to food.
• 27:45
  Philip Pape: You know, eat mostly whole foods, hit hit your macros, still honor your hunger and fullness cues.
• 27:50
  Philip Pape: It all works really well, but really just start somewhere.
• 27:52
  Philip Pape: And the difference is the mental side, right?
• 27:55
  Philip Pape: You are not tracking to punish yourself or earn the right to eat from your exercise, right?
• 28:00
  Philip Pape: Your tracking is information.
• 28:02
  Philip Pape: It is data to help you engineer the outcome that you want by focusing on the here and now and the process.
• 28:07
  Philip Pape: Just like when you track training volume.
• 28:09
  Philip Pape: It's a tool.
• 28:10
  Philip Pape: It's a tool, right?
• 28:11
  Philip Pape: And you're gonna go off track.
• 28:13
  Philip Pape: That's cool, that's fine.
• 28:14
  Philip Pape: Everyone does.
• 28:15
  Philip Pape: You don't spiral into shame.
• 28:16
  Philip Pape: You just adjust and move forward.
• 28:18
  Philip Pape: You learn from it.
• 28:19
  Philip Pape: One meal, one day, one week at a time.
• 28:22
  Philip Pape: The trend is what matters.
• 28:24
  Philip Pape: All right.
• 28:24
  Philip Pape: So this is where let's talk about coaching psychology here.
• 28:29
  Philip Pape: So that's it, that's all I have on nutrition.
• 28:31
  Philip Pape: So I think a lot of the approaches with the psycho based on psychology is where things fall apart.
• 28:37
  Philip Pape: So you might be doing all the things we just talked about.
• 28:40
  Philip Pape: You might have great training, you might have a good nutrition plan.
• 28:43
  Philip Pape: But if you have terrible self-talk, if you're always beating yourself up, you are not gonna stick with it.
• 28:48
  Philip Pape: Right.
• 28:48
  Philip Pape: So this really is about coaching yourself without shame.
• 28:52
  Philip Pape: How do we do that?
• 28:53
  Philip Pape: How do we do that?
• 28:54
  Philip Pape: All right.
• 28:54
  Philip Pape: One thought I have is replace criticism with neutral observation.
• 28:59
  Philip Pape: I'm simply observing.
• 29:01
  Philip Pape: So instead of saying, you know, I'm I'm really lazy, I skip the gym again.
• 29:04
  Philip Pape: Just say I didn't train this week.
• 29:07
  Philip Pape: What got in the way of me doing that?
• 29:09
  Philip Pape: What can I do differently next week?
• 29:10
  Philip Pape: You see the difference, right?
• 29:12
  Philip Pape: You're not labeling yourself, you're just observing what happened.
• 29:15
  Philip Pape: Right?
• 29:16
  Philip Pape: Different framing.
• 29:17
  Philip Pape: One shuts you down, one opens up problem solving.
• 29:20
  Philip Pape: Focus on the process, not the outcomes.
• 29:22
  Philip Pape: We've mentioned this already.
• 29:23
  Philip Pape: Instead of I need to lose 20 pounds, I gotta get that last 10 pounds off.
• 29:27
  Philip Pape: It's I'm gonna train four times this week and I'm gonna hit my protein, you know, five out of the seven days of the week, whatever your goal is.
• 29:33
  Philip Pape: You control the process, you don't control the outcome.
• 29:37
  Philip Pape: So if you're gonna judge yourself at all, it's on the things you can control.
• 29:41
  Philip Pape: And it then it tends to be more of an objective rather than a moral judgment.
• 29:45
  Philip Pape: Another thought I have here is to use approach goals, not avoidance goals.
• 29:51
  Philip Pape: In other words, not avoidance goals, in other words, what the approach is.
• 29:54
  Philip Pape: So instead of saying I need to stop eating junk food, say I'm going to include a Protein source and a vegetable at every meal.
• 30:02
  Philip Pape: You know, you're creating a goal on your approach, not something you're trying to avoid.
• 30:06
  Philip Pape: And they're more motivating that way.
• 30:08
  Philip Pape: Another one is self-compassion.
• 30:10
  Philip Pape: I mean, a lot of you I know can probably do better here.
• 30:13
  Philip Pape: And I know I could have in the past as well.
• 30:16
  Philip Pape: This is not the same as self-indulgence.
• 30:19
  Philip Pape: Self-compassion is recognizing that struggle is part of the human condition.
• 30:24
  Philip Pape: And so you're going to treat yourself with the same kindness you would show your best friend.
• 30:29
  Philip Pape: And you're going to commit to do better without the spiral into shame.
• 30:33
  Philip Pape: It's okay to want to do better, but you don't have to shame yourself for it.
• 30:36
  Philip Pape: Self-indulgence, on the other hand, is giving up on your personal standards because you don't feel like meeting them.
• 30:42
  Philip Pape: All right.
• 30:42
  Philip Pape: That there is a difference.
• 30:44
  Philip Pape: I don't want you to do that.
• 30:45
  Philip Pape: Whereas self-compassion improves behavior change.
• 30:48
  Philip Pape: I mean, the research is clear on this.
• 30:49
  Philip Pape: People who practice self-compassion have better long-term adherence to health behaviors than people who rely on self-criticism.
• 30:57
  Philip Pape: If you're a natural optimist, great.
• 30:59
  Philip Pape: If you're not, this is something to work on.
• 31:00
  Philip Pape: All right.
• 31:01
  Philip Pape: Think about it this way.
• 31:02
  Philip Pape: If you had a coach who constantly told you you were garbage, that you never succeed, that you're worthless every time you make a mistake, would you want to keep working with that coach?
• 31:09
  Philip Pape: Of course not.
• 31:10
  Philip Pape: Well, guess what?
• 31:11
  Philip Pape: You are your own coach right now.
• 31:12
  Philip Pape: You would quit, you would fire that coach, you would talk bad about them probably if anybody asks.
• 31:17
  Philip Pape: So why would you treat yourself like that coach?
• 31:19
  Philip Pape: You you shouldn't.
• 31:20
  Philip Pape: All right.
• 31:21
  Philip Pape: So just to wrap this in a bow, I want to tackle some of the objections related to body positivity.
• 31:27
  Philip Pape: And the big one is is it anti-health?
• 31:30
  Philip Pape: No.
• 31:31
  Philip Pape: I think the issue is not acceptance of your body, it's whether the messaging detaches from the behavior and the health marker.
• 31:36
  Philip Pape: So you can respect your body and still work to improve your fitness and your nutrition, your sleep, et cetera.
• 31:42
  Philip Pape: They're not in conflict.
• 31:43
  Philip Pape: Body positivity becomes problematic, in my opinion, when it denies that the behaviors matter or when it shames people for wanting to improve their health.
• 31:54
  Philip Pape: All right, now what about the debate about you can be fat but fit?
• 31:57
  Philip Pape: Well, the research shows that higher fitness attenuates risk, whatever your size is, but it doesn't mean the risk vanishes.
• 32:06
  Philip Pape: Fitness is protective, it's mitigating, but it's not the only thing.
• 32:09
  Philip Pape: Your behaviors will drive reducing that risk because a person with obesity who lifts weights, does cardio, eats well, manages stress, is healthier than a sedentary person who doesn't do those things, even if they're at a normal quote unquote normal BMI.
• 32:22
  Philip Pape: But lower body fat, all else equal, confers quite a few additional benefits.
• 32:28
  Philip Pape: So the point here is to focus on the behaviors because those are what you control and drive most of the benefit.
• 32:32
  Philip Pape: And it's also going to lead to fat loss anyway, if that's what you need.
• 32:35
  Philip Pape: All right.
• 32:36
  Philip Pape: And then one more thing I want to address here is you know, this comment if we stop talking about weight, people will never change.
• 32:42
  Philip Pape: And I think that's backward.
• 32:43
  Philip Pape: I think stigma reduces change.
• 32:45
  Philip Pape: I think shame makes people less likely to engage in health behaviors, more likely to avoid medical care, more likely to binge eat, right?
• 32:53
  Philip Pape: Behavior-first coaching, where we focus on the actions and the markers rather than weight, often works better.
• 32:59
  Philip Pape: So I don't think we need to, I think we can stop talking about weight in the way that a lot of people talk about it, and and it and the world's gonna be a better place, right?
• 33:08
  Philip Pape: So the goal isn't to never talk about weight or body conferences, is to remove the moral judgment from the conversation and use multiple metrics, not just one.
• 33:16
  Philip Pape: So, what do you actually do with all this information from a practical standpoint?
• 33:19
  Philip Pape: All right, I'm gonna give you some simple tips.
• 33:21
  Philip Pape: The first one is pick two fitness metrics to improve over the next two months.
• 33:28
  Philip Pape: Very simple.
• 33:29
  Philip Pape: You test them now, you retest later, and you make these your primary progress measures.
• 33:35
  Philip Pape: Cut out all the noise, just stick with those two over the next two months.
• 33:39
  Philip Pape: For example, hitting your protein and fiber if you're if nutrition's important to you.
• 33:44
  Philip Pape: And then just build your meals you enjoy around those targets until you hit them on a regular basis.
• 33:48
  Philip Pape: And it and it kind of simplifies the process.
• 33:50
  Philip Pape: Or replace a self-critical thought each day with a neutral observation, like we talked about.
• 33:56
  Philip Pape: This is a practice, it takes work, but you have to be intentional about it and say, this is the thing I'm going to do each day.
• 34:01
  Philip Pape: Or track a health marker with your doctor every few months.
• 34:06
  Philip Pape: Obviously, these are going to change more slowly, but being, again, intentional or doing our performance blood work service, for example.
• 34:13
  Philip Pape: So you right now have a baseline and have interventions, and then you can do what I'm talking about right now, focus on one or two.
• 34:19
  Philip Pape: I will put together a performance plan for you that really narrows the list to at most, let's say 12 interventions maximum to help you focus.
• 34:29
  Philip Pape: You know, you use these information to guide your decisions and not the mirror and not the scale weight.
• 34:34
  Philip Pape: And it's defining success more broadly, even though it's more intentional and therefore, ironically, it's more precise.
• 34:41
  Philip Pape: Your training performance, your energy, your sleep, your labs, your measurements, whatever makes sense for you right now.
• 34:46
  Philip Pape: Obviously, if you're working a coach, if you were working with me, we would go all in on multiple measures, but we would do it in a way that was sustainable, where you had me to lean on.
• 34:55
  Philip Pape: If you're doing it yourself, I really recommend focusing on one or two things at a time.
• 34:59
  Philip Pape: And I won't say perfecting those, but making them consistent.
• 35:02
  Philip Pape: And that's how you'd build a system.
• 35:04
  Philip Pape: All right, so I think to wrap this up, what is very powerful about all of what we're talking about today?
• 35:09
  Philip Pape: Why are we even talking about it?
• 35:11
  Philip Pape: I think it to use a cliche flips the script on how we think about body change and body positivity.
• 35:18
  Philip Pape: A lot of people start with the end goal in mind.
• 35:20
  Philip Pape: Maybe it's the physique, the body weight, and then they work backward.
• 35:24
  Philip Pape: And I try to define physique as something more than just the body, let's say, but I understand that that's the standard definition.
• 35:32
  Philip Pape: And people say, look, I want to look like this, so I need to do these behaviors.
• 35:35
  Philip Pape: And then when things don't change fast enough to look like that, they quit, right?
• 35:40
  Philip Pape: You quit.
• 35:40
  Philip Pape: You're like, okay, this isn't working.
• 35:41
  Philip Pape: I got to do something else because you were measuring the outcome.
• 35:44
  Philip Pape: But if you start with, again, this phrase, dignity first, performance engineering, interesting mesh of two concepts.
• 35:51
  Philip Pape: You start with the behaviors and the values.
• 35:54
  Philip Pape: You say, hey, I want to be strong and capable, I want to be healthy.
• 35:59
  Philip Pape: These are the behaviors that can build those qualities, like what are X, Y, Z.
• 36:04
  Philip Pape: And as a side effect, my body will probably change in ways that I like.
• 36:08
  Philip Pape: The physique becomes a bonus, right?
• 36:11
  Philip Pape: It's not the prerequisite for feeling good about yourself or your self-worth.
• 36:16
  Philip Pape: And then what happens when you make that shift is guess what?
• 36:19
  Philip Pape: You're gonna be able to stick to it.
• 36:20
  Philip Pape: Then we have that A word, adherence, which is the foundation of everything.
• 36:24
  Philip Pape: But you don't get to that until you accept yourself right now.
• 36:28
  Philip Pape: You're not waiting for the future version of yourself.
• 36:30
  Philip Pape: You are acceptable right now.
• 36:32
  Philip Pape: You accept yourself, and then you're building on that foundation of where you are right now.
• 36:36
  Philip Pape: And I think the research backs this up.
• 36:38
  Philip Pape: I think, you know, programs and approaches that focus on health behaviors and remove weight stigma are absolutely at least or probably far better long term with their outcomes compared to traditional quote unquote weight loss programs.
• 36:53
  Philip Pape: And more importantly, they have better psychological outcomes.
• 36:56
  Philip Pape: Mental health is so important here, guys.
• 36:58
  Philip Pape: That means you get the same health benefits, who doesn't want that, but less suffering.
• 37:03
  Philip Pape: Who doesn't want that?
• 37:04
  Philip Pape: So great.
• 37:04
  Philip Pape: That's what engineering is all about.
• 37:06
  Philip Pape: You know, performance engineering, maximum output, minimum waste, efficiency.
• 37:10
  Philip Pape: We talk about it all the time.
• 37:11
  Philip Pape: So the question is not, can I love my body and still want to change it?
• 37:16
  Philip Pape: The question is, what kind of change am I pursuing and why?
• 37:20
  Philip Pape: That's it.
• 37:20
  Philip Pape: That is your question now.
• 37:22
  Philip Pape: Obviously, you love yourself and you love your body and you want to change your body because you love it, most likely.
• 37:27
  Philip Pape: You want to improve in some way.
• 37:29
  Philip Pape: And if you're pursuing strength or fitness, energy, longevity, capability, and then the body composition change happens along the way.
• 37:37
  Philip Pape: That is what I mean by dignity first performance engineering.
• 37:42
  Philip Pape: So if you're pursuing a body weight right now because you think it will make you the person you can accept, that is shame-based fitness culture.
• 37:51
  Philip Pape: It does not work.
• 37:52
  Philip Pape: Choose the first one.
• 37:54
  Philip Pape: Okay, choose the first one.
• 37:56
  Philip Pape: And that is dignity, accept yourself now, and then go after the improvement and make it happen.
• 38:03
  Philip Pape: And that is kind of a better approach, in my opinion.
• 38:05
  Philip Pape: So what let me bring my thoughts together because I'm kind of rambling a little bit.
• 38:10
  Philip Pape: I think you can practice self-acceptance and still pursue measurable health improvements, and they're not in conflict.
• 38:14
  Philip Pape: That is the message today.
• 38:15
  Philip Pape: The conflict only exists when we start latching on moral value to scale weight, or we use a single metric to judge success.
• 38:25
  Philip Pape: Whatever that metric is, maybe it's not scale weight, maybe it's something else, but still you lack nuance and context.
• 38:31
  Philip Pape: And removing that stigma is not equivalent to removing the standards.
• 38:35
  Philip Pape: We still keep high standards for our behaviors, for our biomarkers, for the process, right?
• 38:41
  Philip Pape: While removing the moral judgment about our body in the moment.
• 38:45
  Philip Pape: So fitness capacity, I think, is a good term to use here.
• 38:49
  Philip Pape: It's one of the strongest health levers that can exist, regardless of body size.
• 38:54
  Philip Pape: If you can focus on getting stronger, on building muscle and getting fitter overall, the rest tends to follow.
• 39:01
  Philip Pape: The rest tends to follow.
• 39:03
  Philip Pape: And remember that behavior change tends to carry most of the load, not weight loss.
• 39:09
  Philip Pape: The behavior change is what carries the load.
• 39:12
  Philip Pape: All right.
• 39:12
  Philip Pape: Mindful tools, smart training, having structure can all reduce all of that backlash and that yo-yo, you know, what am I trying to say, weight regain that everybody's worried about from rigid dieting, and instead shifted more toward these sustainable habits.
• 39:29
  Philip Pape: You just have to build your dashboard, like we talked about today.
• 39:31
  Philip Pape: Coach yourself with the same respect you chose someone you care about.
• 39:34
  Philip Pape: Be kind to yourself.
• 39:36
  Philip Pape: It's not soft, it's not woo.
• 39:38
  Philip Pape: It's smart, it is effective, it is sustainable.
• 39:40
  Philip Pape: All right.
• 39:41
  Philip Pape: If today's episode clicked for you, I want you to do me a favor and just text this to a friend who needs to hear it.
• 39:46
  Philip Pape: Hopefully, I gave this the treatment it deserved, some nuance, some empathy, not a toxic level of delusion or anything like that, I hope.
• 39:53
  Philip Pape: And it was what you needed to hear.
• 39:55
  Philip Pape: I know I needed to say it, I need to hear it myself sometime.
• 39:58
  Philip Pape: So text this to a friend who's been stuck between, you know, like wanting to respect themselves and wanting to improve their health.
• 40:05
  Philip Pape: It's not a false, it's a false dichotomy.
• 40:07
  Philip Pape: We don't have to have, it's not mutually exclusive, right?
• 40:10
  Philip Pape: So text it to a friend who's tired of the all or nothing.
• 40:13
  Philip Pape: Text it to a friend who needs to hear this.
• 40:16
  Philip Pape: And then if you want to go deeper on any of this, if you want help building your own system with coaching, a community, anything like that, we do have Wits and Weights Physique University, where you can learn more physique.wits and weights.com.
• 40:30
  Philip Pape: That's physique.wits and weights.com.
• 40:32
  Philip Pape: But really just send this to a friend who needs to hear it.
• 40:34
  Philip Pape: And until next time, keep using your wits, lifting those weights.
• 40:37
  Philip Pape: And remember, your body is capable of amazing things when you give it the right stimulus, the right fuel, and the right respect.
• 40:44
  Philip Pape: This is Philip Pape, and you've been listening to Wits and Weights.
• 40:48
  Philip Pape: I'll talk to you next time.