Latest / Wits & Weights | Strength & Fat Loss Over 40 / How to Lose Fat Without Giving Up Foods You Enjoy (The 20% "Eat Anything" Rule) | Ep 410

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How to Lose Fat Without Giving Up Foods You Enjoy (The 20% "Eat Anything" Rule) | Ep 410 · Wits & Weights | Strength & Fat Loss Over 40

• 0:01
  Philip Pape: If your fat loss strategy involves eating quote unquote perfectly clean, and you find yourself swinging between strict dieting and blowing it on the weekends, this episode is for you.
• 0:13
  Philip Pape: Today I'm gonna show you why rigidity is sabotaging your fat loss, how the 20% eat anything rule actually gives you sustainable flexibility while still hitting your body composition goals, and why this middle ground beats both extremes of all junk and all clean eating.
• 0:31
  Philip Pape: I'm your host, certified nutrition coach, and the founder of Fitness Lab, Philip Pape.
• 0:53
  Philip Pape: And today we're tackling something that I see as one of the biggest derailers of fat loss phases, and that is the all or nothing approach to eating.
• 1:02
  Philip Pape: It's a pattern that comes up in all of us, and even if you know that flexibility is the way to go, there's always a pressure toward trying to be cleaner or eating higher quality food, you know, avoiding what we might think of as junk or bad food.
• 1:19
  Philip Pape: And when you do that, you inevitably slip up.
• 1:22
  Philip Pape: You feel like you've then ruined your plan, and then things start to fall apart, especially this time of year around the holidays.
• 1:29
  Philip Pape: Or maybe you've seen the it if it fits a macro, if it fits your macros crowd, right?
• 1:34
  Philip Pape: Who eat the Pop Tarts and pizzas and donuts, and they're like, you could just eat anything and lose fat and live that way, and it's great.
• 1:41
  Philip Pape: And you're like, that can't be right either, can it?
• 1:44
  Philip Pape: And so the 20% eat anything rule, the idea of 80-20 from a whole foods to anything goes perspective, still stands up as a really good practical middle ground that works quite well for those of us who live real life, who are busy, who we still want the results, we still want to lose fat to build muscle, we still want to have a life.
• 2:07
  Philip Pape: And it connects directly to our philosophy here, this physique engineering we like to call it, where we use evidence-based, flexible strategies that are backed by research to make sure the whole process is sustainable.
• 2:20
  Philip Pape: And sustainable just means you can sustain it for months, years, or potentially the rest of your life.
• 2:25
  Philip Pape: That's what we want to do.
• 2:27
  Philip Pape: And I see so many comments on the YouTube videos and in Spotify about clean eating and well, I cut out all this stuff.
• 2:35
  Philip Pape: I cut out all sugar and all this, all carbs, whatever, and I feel great, and that's the way to go.
• 2:40
  Philip Pape: And usually my first reply is do you enjoy that?
• 2:44
  Philip Pape: And is that working for you long time?
• 2:46
  Philip Pape: Long time.
• 2:47
  Philip Pape: Is that working for you long term?
• 2:49
  Philip Pape: Right.
• 2:49
  Philip Pape: And that's what sustainability is.
• 2:50
  Philip Pape: So I'm gonna give you a quick preview of what we're gonna cover today.
• 2:53
  Philip Pape: The first thing is why chasing this is a problem.
• 2:57
  Philip Pape: Okay, what psychologically and based on this the evidence, what it what it prevents or what it holds us back from.
• 3:04
  Philip Pape: Secondly, what the 20% rule truly means, right?
• 3:08
  Philip Pape: If you want to put it into practice daily and weekly, what it looks like.
• 3:11
  Philip Pape: And then third, are the guardrails that you need so this doesn't turn into a free-for-all, a binge restrict, emotional eating, cheat days, all the things that I see this devolve into often.
• 3:24
  Philip Pape: And then I'm of course going to end up with troubleshooting when things aren't working to keep it really practical.
• 3:29
  Philip Pape: So let's start with the why behind this.
• 3:32
  Philip Pape: Why is this concept of eating clean or perfect eating or all high-quality foods killing your progress?
• 3:38
  Philip Pape: Because I do still see on social media even some people I respect who kind of lean toward this as if any junk food at all is somehow a problem or opens the door to everything falling apart.
• 3:50
  Philip Pape: And I think it's the opposite.
• 3:51
  Philip Pape: I want to start with a hard truth.
• 3:53
  Philip Pape: If you're trying to eat perfectly, you are absolutely setting yourself up for failure.
• 3:58
  Philip Pape: Maybe 1% of people can do this, maybe with a lot of quote unquote discipline and willpower.
• 4:04
  Philip Pape: And even them, I wonder if they're completely miserable doing it.
• 4:06
  Philip Pape: That's a separate issue.
• 4:08
  Philip Pape: But I've definitely worked with hundreds of clients at this point, thousands of people through listening to the podcast and telling me their stories.
• 4:15
  Philip Pape: And I see this pattern all the time.
• 4:16
  Philip Pape: So anecdotally, it's there, but in the evidence we see the difference between rigid and flexible dieting presents this as well.
• 4:23
  Philip Pape: And that usually looks like this: you want to lose fat, so you have all the motivation in the world.
• 4:29
  Philip Pape: And then you decide I'm gonna do it by cutting something out.
• 4:32
  Philip Pape: It's always a either a quick fix magic pill approach, or these are the foods I can eat, these are the foods I can't, right?
• 4:41
  Philip Pape: And for many people, that's no sugar, no more sugar, no more alcohol, no more eating out, clean eating only, the word clean.
• 4:48
  Philip Pape: And for a week or two, maybe three, maybe four, you know, you crush it, you do it, you stick to it.
• 4:53
  Philip Pape: But then that one Friday night rolls around, or the holiday, or there's a work event, or a family dinner, or just a long, stressful week, or, or, or you have a drink and some appetizers.
• 5:04
  Philip Pape: And in your mind, you failed, right?
• 5:07
  Philip Pape: You're already like, ooh, the door is opening now to, you know, blowing this thing, and I might as well keep going, at least for this dinner, and then I'll start again tomorrow.
• 5:15
  Philip Pape: Now, I'm all for starting tomorrow, but I'm not for sabotaging yourself now because you're thinking ahead to, well, I can start tomorrow.
• 5:22
  Philip Pape: And so, what was one drink or one appetizer or one snack or one piece of candy or one whatever think thing you think is, you know, a bad choice becomes an entire weekend of eating without any structure because you've already set in your mind that you didn't follow what you intended to do.
• 5:42
  Philip Pape: And so why continue, at least for now?
• 5:45
  Philip Pape: And then by the end of the weekend, you've undone most of the week's deficit if you're trying to mean a calorie deficit.
• 5:50
  Philip Pape: And this is what happens very commonly.
• 5:52
  Philip Pape: This is the perfection trap, right?
• 5:54
  Philip Pape: The belief you have to be 100% compliant or adherent, or you failed, and it creates a false dichotomy.
• 6:00
  Philip Pape: It creates a binary, binary thinking that doesn't actually exist in reality, because your body doesn't care about perfect days, right?
• 6:08
  Philip Pape: Like it doesn't care that the entire day you ate quote unquote clean.
• 6:12
  Philip Pape: It just cares about the overall inputs over time, the accumulation of it, the compound interest, let's say, your energy balance, your protein, your training stimulus, all of the little behaviors that add up over time, even when they're not perfect.
• 6:25
  Philip Pape: They're far better than zeros, they're far different than what you would have done in the past as a sedentary non-athletic individual.
• 6:31
  Philip Pape: And this is where the 20% rule comes in.
• 6:33
  Philip Pape: And honestly, 20%, an 80-20 philosophy can apply to a lot of things in life.
• 6:38
  Philip Pape: We've talked about the 80-20 rule for the Pareto principle, where 20% of the effort produces 80% of the results.
• 6:45
  Philip Pape: We see this ratio a lot in reality.
• 6:47
  Philip Pape: And whether it's 20% or 15% or 25, that's not the point.
• 6:51
  Philip Pape: The point is instead of chasing 100% of something and then inevitably falling short, right?
• 6:58
  Philip Pape: You build flexibility into the system from the start.
• 7:01
  Philip Pape: And therefore, you're never really breaking a rule, are you?
• 7:04
  Philip Pape: When you have dessert, when you have that ice cream, when you have that slice of pizza.
• 7:09
  Philip Pape: You are using the flexibility you planned for.
• 7:12
  Philip Pape: You have a buffer, you're operating within that already.
• 7:15
  Philip Pape: And so that connects back to what I've talked about on the show regarding like all junk versus all clean eating, right?
• 7:22
  Philip Pape: Both extremes fail.
• 7:24
  Philip Pape: The all-junk approach, where you just eat whatever you want and track your macro, track your macros and calories, while technically possible for weight loss, for energy balance, it tends to leave you starving, low energy, nutritionally depleted, not feeling great, not great digestion, et cetera.
• 7:42
  Philip Pape: Whereas the all clean approach that leads to rigidity, stress during social situations, and eventually you just blow up or blow out, right?
• 7:51
  Philip Pape: And so the middle ground is to build in some of that.
• 7:56
  Philip Pape: If you want to use the word junk, 20% junk, 80% clean, fine, but I wouldn't even use the labels.
• 8:02
  Philip Pape: I would say the whole thing together, the idea of 80% whole foods and 20% other, which we're gonna get into next, is itself a healthy approach or nutritional pattern, dietary pattern, right?
• 8:16
  Philip Pape: It's not about the individual foods.
• 8:18
  Philip Pape: So let's move on to what the 20% rule means specifically.
• 8:22
  Philip Pape: Let's define it clearly.
• 8:23
  Philip Pape: It means that roughly 80% of your weekly intake, this is calories if you want to turn it into numbers, comes mostly from nutrient-dense, higher protein, we'll say minimally processed foods, generally things you get in the produce aisle or the meat department or the dairy department, right the edge of the grocery store, that supports satiety, that's keeping you full, supports your performance, like lifting and you feeling great, your biofeedback, and of course your body composition at the same time.
• 8:56
  Philip Pape: The remaining 20% can be foods you enjoy simply because, now here's a shocking concept: you enjoy them.
• 9:05
  Philip Pape: That's it.
• 9:07
  Philip Pape: As long as your total calories and protein targets are still met.
• 9:10
  Philip Pape: So I don't like pigeonholing that 20% into your macros per se.
• 9:16
  Philip Pape: I want to make sure that you are on track to hit your calories, macros, micros, all those things with the 80% so that the 20% truly has maximum flexibility.
• 9:26
  Philip Pape: Now, let me be very direct about what this is not.
• 9:29
  Philip Pape: It is not 20% of the time going completely off the rails.
• 9:34
  Philip Pape: It is not an excuse to ignore energy balance.
• 9:37
  Philip Pape: So it's not like you're saying, well, 20% of my week in terms of, I don't know, time or number of meals, I'm just gonna go hoggle out and eat thousands and thousands and thousands of calories.
• 9:47
  Philip Pape: No, it's it's 20% roughly of the calories for your week are taken up by this flexible framework that still respects the hierarchy, right?
• 9:59
  Philip Pape: Still calories first, protein second, food quality third, timing and preference fourth, and not always in that order, right?
• 10:08
  Philip Pape: So think of it like a system with built-in margin.
• 10:12
  Philip Pape: When we design systems, we did we don't build them to handle exactly the expected load, right?
• 10:18
  Philip Pape: We don't design a bridge to handle just the expected amount of traffic.
• 10:23
  Philip Pape: We build in safety factors for real world conditions.
• 10:27
  Philip Pape: So the 20% is your margin of error for being a human with a social life, stress, cravings, everything else that comes with it.
• 10:35
  Philip Pape: Now let's turn it into numbers.
• 10:37
  Philip Pape: So let's say you're in a fat loss phase eating 1800 calories.
• 10:40
  Philip Pape: All right, and you can just scale this up or down depending on who you are.
• 10:43
  Philip Pape: 80% of 1800 is 1440 calories coming from nutrient-dense staples.
• 10:49
  Philip Pape: Lean proteins, vegetables, fruits, whole grains, fat, you know, fats from whole foods.
• 10:55
  Philip Pape: The remaining 360 calories, that's your 20%.
• 10:59
  Philip Pape: Now, 360, this is in a given day.
• 11:01
  Philip Pape: That's not nothing.
• 11:02
  Philip Pape: That's still a decent amount of calories to allocate.
• 11:06
  Philip Pape: And, you know, whether you drink alcohol or not, that's part of the calories.
• 11:10
  Philip Pape: Maybe it's a small dessert, maybe it's a slice or two of pizza, a couple slices of pizza could fit in there, alongside, you know, your lean foods, whatever.
• 11:20
  Philip Pape: And you can think about this either daily or weekly, depending on your personality and your schedule.
• 11:25
  Philip Pape: If you're very routine-oriented, I think daily 80-20 works great.
• 11:30
  Philip Pape: You know that each day you've got that buffer.
• 11:33
  Philip Pape: And then if your life is a little bit more variable, if you tend to shift calories around, if you have a lot more challenges on the weekends, let's say, if you have social events that are clustered on the weekends, like many, then thinking weekly could make more sense, where you hit the 80% mainly during the weekdays.
• 11:51
  Philip Pape: And then the 20% is more on the weekends.
• 11:55
  Philip Pape: And that works for a lot of people.
• 11:57
  Philip Pape: And again, I want to think of cheat days here.
• 11:59
  Philip Pape: Cheat days are like unfettered, nonstop, zero control.
• 12:03
  Philip Pape: This still has a sense of control to it and planning and intention.
• 12:07
  Philip Pape: Now, here's what belongs in the 80% versus the 20%, just to give you specifics.
• 12:12
  Philip Pape: The 80% is gonna be lean meats, eggs, Greek yogurt, cottage cheese, whey, heck, tofu, if you're you know vegan or you like tofu, and that's where you get protein.
• 12:21
  Philip Pape: Your fiber and micronutrient sources like vegetables, fruits, legumes, whole grains, your fats like olive oil, avocado, nuts, fattier cuts of meat, all the foods that keep you full, that support your training, that help with the hormones and digestion, that make hitting your targets practical in terms of your macros, your calories, all of those things.
• 12:40
  Philip Pape: That's the 80%.
• 12:41
  Philip Pape: It's still a lot of delicious, amazing foods.
• 12:44
  Philip Pape: And for many of us who start to eat that way, we almost don't feel we need the 20% as much because of the 80% tasting so good.
• 12:52
  Philip Pape: The 20%, however, that would be ice cream, pizza, burgers, fries.
• 12:57
  Philip Pape: And again, there's there's some wiggle room here.
• 13:00
  Philip Pape: Like when I say burger, I mean a little bit more on the greasy spoon fast food side, right?
• 13:05
  Philip Pape: If you're making your own burger at home, it could still fit into the 80%, depending on what's in there, right?
• 13:10
  Philip Pape: How processed it is, etc.
• 13:12
  Philip Pape: So French fries, candy, chocolate, chips, pastries, maybe alcohol for some people.
• 13:17
  Philip Pape: Again, I discourage alcohol as much as possible because we know it has no benefits, but it's part of many people's lives.
• 13:24
  Philip Pape: And so I put it in this category.
• 13:26
  Philip Pape: Uh, restaurant meals that are more indulgent.
• 13:28
  Philip Pape: And I say it that way because some restaurant food or meals, you know, still may fit in your 80%.
• 13:33
  Philip Pape: So whatever you actually enjoy eating that doesn't fit the nutrient-dense category, the key is to fit these into your framework, and that's calories, macros, micros.
• 13:45
  Philip Pape: You're not adding them on top, you're just keeping room or space for them.
• 13:50
  Philip Pape: So I hope that helps define the 80-20.
• 14:18
  Philip Pape: Now, I want to get to the next section on how why this works so well, why psychologically and physiologically this actually works just fine.
• 14:26
  Philip Pape: And you've got to stop listening to the extremists out there who are like, nope, I cut sugar, that's gonna solve it.
• 14:32
  Philip Pape: Nope, diabetes is caused by too much red meat.
• 14:34
  Philip Pape: I don't know.
• 14:34
  Philip Pape: Nonsense claims that you hear online all the time.
• 14:37
  Philip Pape: Just insane claims that are either you know patently incorrect or they are inferring from something and interpreting the research incorrectly.
• 14:48
  Philip Pape: So, does this actually work for losing body fat?
• 14:51
  Philip Pape: Absolutely, absolutely.
• 14:52
  Philip Pape: I mean, if look, if eating just Pop-Tarts can lose for work for losing body fat, even though it's not at all optimal for many other reasons, then we know anything less extreme than that can also work.
• 15:04
  Philip Pape: And when we talk about fat loss, we're not just talking about energy balance.
• 15:08
  Philip Pape: We're also talking about the process of going through that deficit over several weeks or months.
• 15:14
  Philip Pape: And can you do that successfully mentally, physiologically, and practically?
• 15:20
  Philip Pape: And so the answer is yes, AD20 works, and it usually, in fact, almost always works better than a more restrictive approach in either direction.
• 15:30
  Philip Pape: And here's why.
• 15:31
  Philip Pape: First, energy balance is at the end of the chain what drives fat loss, not how clean or high quality or quote unquote good your food is.
• 15:41
  Philip Pape: The type of food actually doesn't matter just for pure fat loss.
• 15:45
  Philip Pape: Okay, you can eat the cleanest diet in the world.
• 15:47
  Philip Pape: And if you're in a surplus, you're gonna gain fat.
• 15:49
  Philip Pape: You can gain fat eating too much of anything.
• 15:52
  Philip Pape: You can include less than optimal foods, and if you're in deficit and you have enough protein, remember, protein's still important here, you're gonna lose fat and preserve muscle.
• 16:01
  Philip Pape: That's the physics of it.
• 16:02
  Philip Pape: Calories always determine whether you lose weight, whereas protein and lifting determine whether you keep the muscle while losing fat so that you change your body composition.
• 16:11
  Philip Pape: So that's that's a simple thing to understand.
• 16:15
  Philip Pape: But second, and maybe most more importantly, is the psychological sustainability.
• 16:20
  Philip Pape: And that's as, if not most important as the precision of your diet.
• 16:25
  Philip Pape: In fact, I'm coming to find over the years that if you can get this part right, it often takes care of the first part, the energy balance, the calories, the macros.
• 16:34
  Philip Pape: Believe it or not, you can shift your diet to be sustainable and feel great.
• 16:40
  Philip Pape: And then naturally it's a lot easier to hit the calories and macros.
• 16:44
  Philip Pape: And so this is something that I emphasize all the time.
• 16:46
  Philip Pape: If I'm going to go back to positive psychology, the perma model, I did a whole episode on this in the past.
• 16:53
  Philip Pape: Oh man, what does that stand for?
• 16:55
  Philip Pape: I'm not gonna go through it here, but the perma model where basically positive emotion and enjoyment are part of any plan that lasts.
• 17:04
  Philip Pape: And if people say, Oh, you you shouldn't think of food as enjoyment, right there, you've lost me.
• 17:09
  Philip Pape: I'm sorry, you've lost me.
• 17:11
  Philip Pape: If you're, and by enjoyment, it doesn't mean it, it doesn't mean hedonism or unfettered indulgence, right?
• 17:17
  Philip Pape: There's a difference between that and thinking of food as a positive aspect of meaning in your life because we eat food every day.
• 17:24
  Philip Pape: We need it to survive and to thrive.
• 17:26
  Philip Pape: So if your fat loss approach doesn't include some element of reward and pleasure, it is not going to stick.
• 17:33
  Philip Pape: That I am unequivocal about.
• 17:35
  Philip Pape: And the 20% bucket is your built-in positive emotion lever.
• 17:40
  Philip Pape: It lowers the guilt, it reduces the all or nothing thinking, and it supports your long-term adherence.
• 17:48
  Philip Pape: Right?
• 17:48
  Philip Pape: We're not talking about 100% compliance, we're talking about adhering to what you've set up for yourself, where if you set up an 80-20 approach, it's gonna be a lot easier to adhere to that and to be quote unquote compliant to that.
• 18:01
  Philip Pape: And then the third piece here, so we we, you know, first was energy balance, second was psychological sustainability.
• 18:07
  Philip Pape: The third piece is that this adherence over time, this consistency, right?
• 18:12
  Philip Pape: Not perfection, but just consistency, is what compounds into your real body composition changes.
• 18:20
  Philip Pape: A moderate deficit that you stick to for 12 weeks is always gonna be an aggressive, restrictive diet that you can only maintain for three or four weeks before you have inevitably have that binge episode.
• 18:34
  Philip Pape: And the 20% rule increases your probability of sustaining the approach.
• 18:39
  Philip Pape: That increases your probability of reaching your goal.
• 18:43
  Philip Pape: You see how this all ties together so nicely.
• 18:46
  Philip Pape: Now, I want to be clear, this is not permission to be sloppy.
• 18:50
  Philip Pape: The 20% still fits within your structure.
• 18:53
  Philip Pape: If you're eating 1800 calories for fat loss and your 20% eat anything foods push you to 2,500 calories regularly, well, you're not doing the 20% rule, are you?
• 19:03
  Philip Pape: That 20% has now become a bigger percentage of the total pie because you're just overconsuming.
• 19:09
  Philip Pape: You're eating without awareness.
• 19:11
  Philip Pape: The flexibility exists within the boundaries, not instead of them.
• 19:16
  Philip Pape: Does that make sense?
• 19:17
  Philip Pape: So it's always like intention, flexibility, and planning, but the flexibility is built into the plan.
• 19:23
  Philip Pape: So speaking of flexibility within structure, I think this connects perfectly to something that we are kicking off today.
• 19:31
  Philip Pape: All right, we're kicking it off today.
• 19:33
  Philip Pape: It technically starts Wednesday, but we're kicking it off today.
• 19:35
  Philip Pape: It's called the three-week strong finish challenge.
• 19:38
  Philip Pape: This is specifically designed to help you make progress, be focused, maintain your strength and body composition through the rest of the year, through the holidays, from this Wednesday the 10th through the end of the year, right before New Year, when everyone else is backsliding, right?
• 19:55
  Philip Pape: And it's perfect with this topic today, because instead of trying to be perfect during the craziest time of the year, the highest chaos time of the year, when everybody else is starting to gain all their weight and get off track and everything goes out the window, we're using what I call the flex framework.
• 20:09
  Philip Pape: Talked about it before, not gonna go into it here, but it's having three different levels optimal, minimum, and bailout to keep you moving forward no matter what December throws at you.
• 20:20
  Philip Pape: Plus, you're gonna get two coaches that are gonna coach you.
• 20:24
  Philip Pape: You're gonna have accountability, weekly check-ins, lots of great resources, strength training templates to lose fat and build muscle.
• 20:31
  Philip Pape: All of these things are included in this challenge to end the year.
• 20:36
  Philip Pape: And the kickoff call is today, Monday, December 8th at 5 p.m.
• 20:41
  Philip Pape: Eastern.
• 20:42
  Philip Pape: Now, if you're hearing this too late for that, the there is a replay that you will get if you register anyway.
• 20:48
  Philip Pape: So we're giving you a couple day buffer before the challenge starts.
• 20:51
  Philip Pape: And heck, even if you're listening to this Thursday or Friday this week, you could still join because it's a three-week challenge.
• 20:57
  Philip Pape: Okay, the kickoff calls today, live.witsandweights.com.
• 21:00
  Philip Pape: The actual challenge starts uh Wednesday, so we're gonna get you all the resources and answer your questions to get ready for that.
• 21:06
  Philip Pape: You've got two days then to join us, grab one of the 50 spots, and watch the replay if you can't make the live call.
• 21:14
  Philip Pape: Live.witsandweights.com.
• 21:16
  Philip Pape: This challenge is about proving to yourself that you can maintain and even gain new progress at the end of the year, even when life is messy.
• 21:24
  Philip Pape: And we're not gonna make you do a restricted diet.
• 21:27
  Philip Pape: We're not gonna make you do a fat loss phase if this isn't the right time, which for most people it's not, with all the holidays happening.
• 21:33
  Philip Pape: You're not trying to have three perfect weeks.
• 21:35
  Philip Pape: That's the whole point.
• 21:36
  Philip Pape: We're trying to help you build the system to survive the imperfect conditions.
• 21:40
  Philip Pape: So go to live.witsandweights.com to register for the challenge.
• 21:44
  Philip Pape: Kickoff is today, Monday, December 8th at 5 p.m.
• 21:48
  Philip Pape: Eastern.
• 21:48
  Philip Pape: But if you can't make it, the replay will be there.
• 21:51
  Philip Pape: And the actual challenge starts Wednesday.
• 21:52
  Philip Pape: You're gonna have full accountability and support in our community.
• 21:56
  Philip Pape: It's a private community just for people who register at live.wits and weights.com.
• 22:00
  Philip Pape: Link in the show notes, and you'll get everything you need to succeed, including direct access to coaches, a custom nutrition plan, strength training templates designed for this time of year, including if you have limited equipment or are traveling, all of that, live.witsandweig.com.
• 22:17
  Philip Pape: All right, now that we've covered the what and the why, let's talk about these guardrails.
• 22:22
  Philip Pape: Let's talk about this idea of structure with flexibility, because without the guardrails, the 20% can become 40%.
• 22:29
  Philip Pape: And then you're confused about why you're not losing fat and why I just did what Phillip said and it's not working.
• 22:34
  Philip Pape: The first guardrail is that protein and calories are still gonna rule the day when it comes to energy balance and holding on to muscle.
• 22:46
  Philip Pape: Your 20% flexibility exists within those targets.
• 22:49
  Philip Pape: So you'd still have to know generally what calories you're hitting.
• 22:52
  Philip Pape: Now, I've mentioned before, even if you're not tracking calories and protein and you're making sure that you are eating predominantly whole foods that are high satiety, high nutrients, you're gonna naturally be able to hit calories and protein anyway.
• 23:05
  Philip Pape: But of course, I'm a big fan of tracking as much data as you want or need.
• 23:08
  Philip Pape: So if including the dessert means you're over 400 calories for the day, that's not the 20% rule working for you.
• 23:16
  Philip Pape: That's just adding extra food.
• 23:17
  Philip Pape: So let's be clear.
• 23:19
  Philip Pape: The hierarchy doesn't change.
• 23:21
  Philip Pape: Okay, we have the energy balance, it is really the first driver weight loss.
• 23:25
  Philip Pape: Protein is the driver of body composition, and everything else supports that.
• 23:28
  Philip Pape: The second guardrail is this is a starting point.
• 23:32
  Philip Pape: It's not a law.
• 23:33
  Philip Pape: I know I've used the word rule, but in this case it's colloquial.
• 23:37
  Philip Pape: It's not a law that you have to stick to 20%.
• 23:39
  Philip Pape: For some people, 10% might be better, right?
• 23:42
  Philip Pape: Because they just love eating whole foods and 10% is more than enough, and that's all they need.
• 23:47
  Philip Pape: For others, they might want to creep it up a little bit, 25 or 30%.
• 23:50
  Philip Pape: We're still not talking 50, 60% processed foods like the average American.
• 23:54
  Philip Pape: We're still talking far more shifted in the direction we want to be.
• 23:58
  Philip Pape: The principle, remember, what is the principle?
• 24:01
  Philip Pape: Is that most of your intake is aligned with your goals, and the minority of the intake is very, very highly flexible.
• 24:07
  Philip Pape: And let's be honest, even the intake that's aligned with your goals, the 80% is still super flexible.
• 24:12
  Philip Pape: There's a lot of foods that fall under there.
• 24:14
  Philip Pape: You're not cutting out any food groups or macros, right?
• 24:17
  Philip Pape: You can still have bread and pasta and other potatoes and fruits and stuff like that in there, but that more highly processed stuff fits into your 20%.
• 24:26
  Philip Pape: You get to choose, really.
• 24:27
  Philip Pape: And it's an experiment.
• 24:29
  Philip Pape: You treat it as an experiment, and then you adjust based on the actual results and how you feel.
• 24:35
  Philip Pape: Okay.
• 24:36
  Philip Pape: And if you're in our challenge, if you're in a three-week challenge, that's a great place to test and share with the world what's happening and get feedback.
• 24:43
  Philip Pape: Like, hey, I'm having trouble sticking in this 20%.
• 24:45
  Philip Pape: It's creeping up much higher than I expected.
• 24:47
  Philip Pape: What do I do?
• 24:48
  Philip Pape: And we can give you some great ideas.
• 24:50
  Philip Pape: The third guardrail is to just distinguish between this deliberate flexibility and what I'll call chaotic eating.
• 25:00
  Philip Pape: So eat anything within your system means you choose foods that you enjoy and you account for them and you adjust your day around them accordingly.
• 25:11
  Philip Pape: So again, there's planning and intention.
• 25:13
  Philip Pape: Maybe you want a 400-calorie slice of cheesecake at dinner.
• 25:17
  Philip Pape: So you look at where 50 to 60 grams of carbs and 10 to 15 grams of fat come from your day and make it work, right?
• 25:27
  Philip Pape: Keep the protein high because now obviously the protein's not going to be in the cheesecake.
• 25:30
  Philip Pape: Well, it'll be a little bit, but not very much.
• 25:32
  Philip Pape: And that's how you are deliberate about it.
• 25:34
  Philip Pape: So this idea of eating anything is deliberate and it's not chaos.
• 25:40
  Philip Pape: Chaos is when you're not tracking or thinking, you're not aware, you're using it as an excuse, etc.
• 25:46
  Philip Pape: And that's the classic, you know, I was in a deficit Monday through Thursday, and I undid it on the weekend.
• 25:52
  Philip Pape: Pattern that we're trying to avoid.
• 25:54
  Philip Pape: All right.
• 25:54
  Philip Pape: The fourth guardrail is if you are someone with a history of binge eating, emotional eating, very rigid kind of mindset or dieting, the 20% might need extra structure.
• 26:07
  Philip Pape: And what this looks like is pre-deciding, pre-planning what the 20% is.
• 26:13
  Philip Pape: Maybe it's one dessert per day, right?
• 26:15
  Philip Pape: A lot of us are in that mode.
• 26:16
  Philip Pape: I'm often in that mode because my wife cooks dinner and we like to have a little dessert most days.
• 26:22
  Philip Pape: And so I just plan it in.
• 26:24
  Philip Pape: Maybe it's two indulgent meals each week, right?
• 26:28
  Philip Pape: You get to decide what that 20% is.
• 26:30
  Philip Pape: And then you eat those fun foods mindfully.
• 26:33
  Philip Pape: You know, you sit down, you eat them, you portion them out, whatever makes sense, you put them in a bowl.
• 26:37
  Philip Pape: You know, you don't just chaotically graze and say, well, okay, I'm up to my 20% now.
• 26:42
  Philip Pape: Where's the bag of Cheetos?
• 26:43
  Philip Pape: Let me just start eating.
• 26:44
  Philip Pape: It's not that.
• 26:46
  Philip Pape: So you can start with a smaller percentage if it helps you feel more structured.
• 26:50
  Philip Pape: If you have a history of this, start with 5% or 10%.
• 26:54
  Philip Pape: If you're a classic, like clean eater and you always try to eat clean, maybe for you mentally, it's better to not jump right to 20% because you might feel like you lose control.
• 27:04
  Philip Pape: Just titrate it up to the right level for you.
• 27:07
  Philip Pape: And for some people, it might always be 5%.
• 27:10
  Philip Pape: You just love to eat a lot of Whole Foods.
• 27:11
  Philip Pape: It's fine.
• 27:12
  Philip Pape: I know farmers and ranchers that eat that way.
• 27:14
  Philip Pape: This connects to what I've discussed in other episodes about hidden triggers and emotional eating.
• 27:21
  Philip Pape: We want to use data and awareness to diffuse those triggers.
• 27:25
  Philip Pape: We won't want to create new triggers.
• 27:28
  Philip Pape: And then a quick note for special populations like if you have celiac disease or severe food allergies or medical conditions that limit food choices.
• 27:36
  Philip Pape: And I've spoken to a lot of you out there who I feel really bad, right?
• 27:40
  Philip Pape: Because there's a lot of foods you just can't eat.
• 27:42
  Philip Pape: Your 20% still exists, but it's within your safe options.
• 27:45
  Philip Pape: You're not going to just use the 20% to say, well, now I'm going to eat the thing that I don't usually feel great with, but it's my 20%.
• 27:50
  Philip Pape: Well, that by definition, you're not going to enjoy that, are you?
• 27:54
  Philip Pape: So the principle of flexibility remains even when your specific foods happen to be constrained.
• 28:00
  Philip Pape: So let's make this all practical.
• 28:02
  Philip Pape: Let's tie this up into some practical guidance for some different situations, which I know people have been asking about with these podcasts.
• 28:09
  Philip Pape: So in a fat loss phase, we're going to do fat loss maintenance or body recomp, muscle building, and let's say chaos like travel and holidays coming up.
• 28:17
  Philip Pape: Okay.
• 28:17
  Philip Pape: In a fat loss phase, the 20% rule is going to help you stay on that deficit and not feel as deprived, right?
• 28:25
  Philip Pape: Your calories are already lower.
• 28:27
  Philip Pape: So by so math-wise, the 20% portion is still smaller in absolute terms than when you're not in fat loss, right?
• 28:34
  Philip Pape: The actual calories are less because it's still 20% of a smaller amount of calories.
• 28:38
  Philip Pape: And that's fine.
• 28:40
  Philip Pape: It just means that your flexible foods are going to be a smaller amount of stuff or a smaller portion of the ice cream, or you know, it's not a pint, but it's a small bowl, etc.
• 28:51
  Philip Pape: It's the psychology of knowing that you can have something you enjoy that's more valuable often than the actual food itself.
• 28:58
  Philip Pape: Let's be honest.
• 29:00
  Philip Pape: Now, you can just quick side tangent.
• 29:02
  Philip Pape: You can almost trick yourself here by picking something that you find enjoyable that's actually not a 20% food, let's say strawberries with some homemade whipped cream, and it's really not that many calories, but it actually psychologically feels like part of the 20%.
• 29:20
  Philip Pape: That's a really cool trick to use for yourself as you start to shift and make swaps, especially in fat loss when the calories are lower.
• 29:27
  Philip Pape: Okay.
• 29:28
  Philip Pape: So you're still kind of thinking 20%, but some 80% stuff's leaking over into that 20% if it makes sense.
• 29:35
  Philip Pape: All right.
• 29:36
  Philip Pape: Now, what about if you're at maintenance or what if you're doing body recomp?
• 29:39
  Philip Pape: Well, you obviously have more room to work with because the calories are a little bit higher.
• 29:43
  Philip Pape: So your 20% is a little bit more generous.
• 29:45
  Philip Pape: And this is a lot of times where people find their sustainable long-term eating pattern, kind of that routine that they can stick with for a long time.
• 29:56
  Philip Pape: They're not restricting for fat loss, right?
• 29:58
  Philip Pape: They're not keeping the calories tight.
• 30:00
  Philip Pape: They're also not pushing calories and trying to eat extra for muscle gain.
• 30:04
  Philip Pape: You're just living your life while maintaining your physique.
• 30:07
  Philip Pape: This is a nice place to try this out and see what that is for you.
• 30:11
  Philip Pape: Okay, because effectively you should be able to do it without tracking eventually and just maintain your physique that way and your weights.
• 30:17
  Philip Pape: Well, it may not be your body weight.
• 30:18
  Philip Pape: Your body weight's gonna flex up and down.
• 30:21
  Philip Pape: And then during a muscle building phase, the 20% helps with that.
• 30:25
  Philip Pape: Coherence as well, but in a different way.
• 30:28
  Philip Pape: Because when you're eating more food in general, it's easier to hit your protein and then still have room for enjoyment.
• 30:37
  Philip Pape: Right.
• 30:38
  Philip Pape: Because that's a little bit more of a challenge in fat loss.
• 30:40
  Philip Pape: When you're doing the 20%, you're like, but I still need to make sure I get my protein in.
• 30:43
  Philip Pape: The challenge during a surplus is making sure the 20% doesn't creep up just because you have the calorie budget for it.
• 30:50
  Philip Pape: I've seen this with, you know, some people struggle to get enough food, but a lot of people will get enough and they'll actually start eating more and more and more and kind of feel like the there are no more guardrails because, oh, well, I need so many calories.
• 31:02
  Philip Pape: I'm not going to exceed my calories.
• 31:03
  Philip Pape: So I'm just going to eat more, you know, chips ahoy cookies and more ice cream and more Pop-Tards and more of these snacks.
• 31:08
  Philip Pape: And it ends up being just a lot more processed food in your diet than you really want long term, because it's going to be hard to back off from that.
• 31:15
  Philip Pape: And I'm not saying there's not more room in general for that stuff.
• 31:18
  Philip Pape: There is, just numbers-wise.
• 31:20
  Philip Pape: But you still want 80% of your intake to support your training, performance, and recovery because you're trying to build muscle and you're trying to partition those nutrients to the best place in your body, right?
• 31:31
  Philip Pape: You're still moving, you're still building, all of that.
• 31:33
  Philip Pape: And then the last scenario here is travel, holidays, just busyness in general.
• 31:38
  Philip Pape: And again, as we end the, as we end the year strong here, joining our challenge is a great way to test all this out.
• 31:45
  Philip Pape: But this 8020 really shines during this time of the year because if you think of it as a week, you know, think of it on a weekly basis over the rest of the year.
• 31:59
  Philip Pape: You know that you have, for example, a work dinner on Thursday and a family event on Saturday.
• 32:03
  Philip Pape: Well, maybe those two days become your 20% for this week.
• 32:07
  Philip Pape: And then you have the Christmas holiday here and the New Year's thing here.
• 32:09
  Philip Pape: Those are your 20% for that week.
• 32:11
  Philip Pape: Or, you know, Monday through Wednesday, you're at 90% nutrient dense, and then you're at like 70% on the weekends, right?
• 32:20
  Philip Pape: So as long as it averages out over the seven days.
• 32:23
  Philip Pape: So what what about how do people mess this up?
• 32:26
  Philip Pape: Because I want to tell you about four mistakes, actually, that that um I see a lot.
• 32:31
  Philip Pape: The first mistake is I've alluded to this already, but it's the 20% turning into 40%.
• 32:36
  Philip Pape: And this usually happens when you're not tracking or when you've jumped into this for the first time and kind of not even sure what 20% is, if that makes sense.
• 32:45
  Philip Pape: You don't even know how many calories you should be eating.
• 32:47
  Philip Pape: And then you rationalize a lot of your choices that are you're not super happy with as part of the 20%, and then it ends up blowing up.
• 32:54
  Philip Pape: So the fix here is simple.
• 32:55
  Philip Pape: Just measure.
• 32:56
  Philip Pape: Just measure.
• 32:57
  Philip Pape: Okay.
• 32:57
  Philip Pape: If you're eating 2,000 calories a day, that's 400 calories of foods.
• 33:00
  Philip Pape: And you don't have to do this forever.
• 33:02
  Philip Pape: Like measure for a bit, for a few weeks.
• 33:04
  Philip Pape: You know, use my app Fitness Lab or use MacroFactor or just do it manually, it doesn't matter.
• 33:10
  Philip Pape: And track everything and see where it falls in terms of the percentage.
• 33:16
  Philip Pape: Okay.
• 33:16
  Philip Pape: Is it 20%-ish or are you creeping much higher than that?
• 33:19
  Philip Pape: All right.
• 33:20
  Philip Pape: Mistake number two is using the 20% as an emotional coping tool instead of genuine enjoyment.
• 33:29
  Philip Pape: And this is why I mentioned positive psychology earlier.
• 33:31
  Philip Pape: I think there's a difference between meaningful positivity and enjoyment and hedonistic emotional coping type, where you say it's enjoyment, but it's not really.
• 33:42
  Philip Pape: That is emotional eating that's dressed up as some sort of strategy.
• 33:58
  Philip Pape: Don't let yourself fall for it.
• 34:00
  Philip Pape: The 20% should be deliberate choices that you make for enjoyment, not reactive eating to numb your feelings.
• 34:09
  Philip Pape: So if you're if you're if you're aware of this pattern, as I say it out loud, be honest with yourself that that's what's happening, because that'll allow you to disconnect the two.
• 34:19
  Philip Pape: All right, mistake number three is not adjusting when the data says that your progress is slower than you're expected.
• 34:26
  Philip Pape: So, for example, if you're doing the 20% and you're trying to lose fat, but your weight trend is pretty much not changing, like you're not losing fat, then something's off with energy balance.
• 34:39
  Philip Pape: Okay, either your total calories are higher than you think, or your 20% estimate is actually more calorie dense than you think.
• 34:45
  Philip Pape: I have seen this interesting phenomenon where it seems like it's you could be more accurate tracking whole foods than tracking processed foods.
• 34:52
  Philip Pape: You would think it's not the case because of barcodes and such, but it happens.
• 34:57
  Philip Pape: It happens for a variety of reasons, because of extra bites, because of mislabeled packaging, and you're you end up eating a lot, if you're eating a lot more processed foods, it tends to throw the error off even more.
• 35:09
  Philip Pape: So if it's not working for you, don't blame the 8020.
• 35:14
  Philip Pape: Look at energy balance and tracking and some of the other things, right?
• 35:18
  Philip Pape: Look at the data and figure out where that gap is.
• 35:20
  Philip Pape: All right, and then the last mistake, number four here, is using cheat day language.
• 35:25
  Philip Pape: Please don't do that.
• 35:27
  Philip Pape: Please don't.
• 35:28
  Philip Pape: I don't like the word cheat at all because it implies you're breaking a rule.
• 35:31
  Philip Pape: Well, with the 20% rule, you're not cheating.
• 35:35
  Philip Pape: And again, maybe this is a problem of even me using the word rule for this.
• 35:39
  Philip Pape: You're actually using flexibility built into your system.
• 35:42
  Philip Pape: And I mentioned already it could be 10%, 15%, 30%.
• 35:45
  Philip Pape: It's not really a hard and fast rule, is it?
• 35:48
  Philip Pape: It's just a guideline.
• 35:49
  Philip Pape: Cheat days, however, come with a different mindset.
• 35:53
  Philip Pape: It's like a permission mindset.
• 35:55
  Philip Pape: Like, oh, I have permission to do this, and uh, and then that leads to excess.
• 35:59
  Philip Pape: Whereas the 20% rule keeps you in control even with flexibility.
• 36:05
  Philip Pape: So if you didn't pick up what I'm putting down, notice that this isn't about food.
• 36:11
  Philip Pape: The 20% rule is not about food, it's about your identity.
• 36:15
  Philip Pape: It really is.
• 36:16
  Philip Pape: Because when you follow rigid diets and rules, which are the vast majority of diets promoted in the space today, I mean, have always been, then your identity is I'm someone on a diet.
• 36:25
  Philip Pape: I am on a diet.
• 36:26
  Philip Pape: And diets end.
• 36:28
  Philip Pape: And when you use a flexible system instead, your identity becomes, I'm someone who knows how to manage my nutrition, or something like that.
• 36:35
  Philip Pape: That's a permanent thing.
• 36:37
  Philip Pape: Whereas a diet is a temporary thing.
• 36:39
  Philip Pape: The person who can have a slice of pizza at their kid's birthday party and log it or at least be aware of it and plan for it, and then adjust their day around it, and then be move on without any guilt or anxiety.
• 36:51
  Philip Pape: That person has a very different, fundamentally different relationship with food than the person who skips the party or eats half the pizza because they already blew it, or even goes to the party and deliberately withholds from eating pizza, thinking it in terms of a guilty pleasure or something that they cannot do.
• 37:11
  Philip Pape: All right.
• 37:11
  Philip Pape: So that's why we do what we do build building systems that work for real life.
• 37:17
  Philip Pape: Right.
• 37:18
  Philip Pape: It's a it's like a pressure valve.
• 37:20
  Philip Pape: It keeps the whole thing sustainable because you got a pressure release valve.
• 37:23
  Philip Pape: And then when you combine that with the right lifestyle, lifting weights, adequate protein, moving, getting your steps, right?
• 37:31
  Philip Pape: Those basic things that take work and effort, they do, they're not automatic.
• 37:36
  Philip Pape: Nobody's gonna do them for you.
• 37:38
  Philip Pape: And then you track some level of data that gives you that awareness.
• 37:42
  Philip Pape: And then guess what?
• 37:42
  Philip Pape: You adjust based on that data and feedback.
• 37:45
  Philip Pape: That's how you build yes, a body, but also a relationship with food, with yourself that is going to serve you for the rest of your life.
• 37:54
  Philip Pape: So here's your action for this week.
• 37:56
  Philip Pape: Just look at your eating pattern and estimate what percentage of your intake is genuinely nutrient dense versus flexible.
• 38:05
  Philip Pape: Because if you've been trying to be 100% clean, then think about what it would mean to build in 20% deliberately that's maybe not so clean, if I'm gonna use that word, even though I don't like that word.
• 38:19
  Philip Pape: And if you've been all over the place, start tracking, see where you land, and then adjust from there, right?
• 38:24
  Philip Pape: There are things that are gonna move the needle that you have to be aware of calories, protein, food quality, flexibility, they all work together.
• 38:31
  Philip Pape: And this is exactly again why the three-week strong finish challenge is going to happen.
• 38:36
  Philip Pape: All right, kicking off today starts Wednesday.
• 38:39
  Philip Pape: We are heading into the hardest three weeks of the year for most people, trying to at a minimum maintain what they've got.
• 38:46
  Philip Pape: And for many, they don't want to backslide, but most people do.
• 38:51
  Philip Pape: And so instead of pretending that you can be perfect this holiday season, we're giving you a system that works when things are messy and chaotic like they are.
• 39:00
  Philip Pape: And you'll get coaching from human beings, you'll get training programs, custom nutrition plan, you get all that great stuff, along with the accountability, the ability to check in and say, hey, how are we doing?
• 39:12
  Philip Pape: Are we winning here?
• 39:13
  Philip Pape: So that we're ready for the new year.
• 39:15
  Philip Pape: And no guilt, no shame.
• 39:17
  Philip Pape: You're gonna feel great about yourself, you're gonna have more energy, be super, super confident.
• 39:21
  Philip Pape: So the kickoff is today, 5 p.m.
• 39:22
  Philip Pape: Eastern.
• 39:23
  Philip Pape: Challenge starts Wednesday, but definitely join at live.witsandweights.com so you get in in time and get all the resources and figure out, hey, what strength training program do I want to follow?
• 39:32
  Philip Pape: If you're not already following one, we can give you some guidance on that.
• 39:35
  Philip Pape: And by the end of the three weeks, you're gonna know your sustainable baseline.
• 39:40
  Philip Pape: You're gonna know it.
• 39:41
  Philip Pape: You're not gonna wonder about it and think that you have to white knuckle it in the new year, because you'll be ready to go.
• 39:46
  Philip Pape: Go to live.witsandweights.com, link in the show notes.
• 39:49
  Philip Pape: Let's finish the year strong while everyone else backslides.
• 39:52
  Philip Pape: Go to live.witsandweights.com.
• 39:54
  Philip Pape: Until next time, keep using your wits, lifting those weights.
• 39:58
  Philip Pape: And remember, the best approach is not the strictest one.
• 40:01
  Philip Pape: It's the one that you can sustain.
• 40:03
  Philip Pape: This is Philip Tape, and I'll talk to you next time here on the Wits and Weights Podcast.