Latest / Wits & Weights | Strength & Fat Loss Over 40 / How to Eat Thousands of Calories to Gain Muscle and Weight (Not Just for Hardgainers) | Ep 269

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How to Eat Thousands of Calories to Gain Muscle and Weight (Not Just for Hardgainers) | Ep 269 · Wits & Weights | Strength & Fat Loss Over 40

• 0:01
  Philip Pape: Have you ever felt frustrated trying to gain weight and muscle where, no matter how much you think you're eating, the scale just won't budge?
• 0:08
  Philip Pape: Maybe you've been told just eat more, but you feel stuffed and sick every time you try.
• 0:13
  Philip Pape: Or maybe you're dealing with certain dietary restrictions that seem to make everything harder.
• 0:17
  Philip Pape: Today, I'm giving you 12 specific strategies that make eating more calories not just doable, but actually enjoyable.
• 0:25
  Philip Pape: You'll learn exactly how to break through your plateau without force-feeding yourself or feeling miserable.
• 0:30
  Philip Pape: These are proven methods that work, whether you're 20 or 70, whether you have dietary restrictions or not.
• 0:36
  Philip Pape: So if you've struggled to gain weight and build muscle, stick around.
• 0:40
  Philip Pape: You're about to learn exactly how to make it happen.
• 0:42
  Philip Pape: You're about to learn exactly how to make it happen.
• 0:52
  Philip Pape: Welcome to Wits and Weights, the podcast that blends evidence and engineering to help you build smart, efficient systems to achieve your dream physique.
• 0:55
  Philip Pape: I'm your host, philip Pape, and today we're tackling a challenge that doesn't often get enough attention how to actually eat enough calories to support muscle growth.
• 1:06
  Philip Pape: I want to give a special shout out to Jim from Wayne, michigan, who inspired today's episode.
• 1:12
  Philip Pape: He sent in a text message and he wrote hey, philip, I've been listening to your Wits and Weights podcast for about six months.
• 1:18
  Philip Pape: It's great.
• 1:18
  Philip Pape: I realized that the majority of people want to lose weight.
• 1:21
  Philip Pape: I've been skinny my entire life 5'9", 140 pounds.
• 1:25
  Philip Pape: I'm still active.
• 1:27
  Philip Pape: I play in an over 70 ice hockey league once a week.
• 1:30
  Philip Pape: I was diagnosed with celiac disease 20 years ago.
• 1:32
  Philip Pape: Not fun, but it could be worse.
• 1:34
  Philip Pape: I know I need to be in a calorie surplus, but I usually struggle to eat 2,000 calories a day.
• 1:39
  Philip Pape: Could you please do a full-length podcast on how to gain weight and muscle?
• 1:43
  Philip Pape: So thank you, jim.
• 1:45
  Philip Pape: This is exactly the kind of specific problem or challenge that I want to hear from you as listeners about, so I can deep dive into it.
• 1:52
  Philip Pape: On the show, and while we recently covered some fundamentals of gaining weight to improve your body composition, that was episode 257 at the end of 2024.
• 2:03
  Philip Pape: I'm going to link that in the show notes.
• 2:06
  Philip Pape: Today we're going to focus specifically on 12 strategies to get the calories in, just to be able to eat them all when you struggle with appetite or dietary restrictions.
• 2:15
  Philip Pape: By the way, this could apply to anyone at any calorie level, not just hard gainers, even if you're, say, a woman who's trying to get back to maintenance for the first time and you feel like it's too many calories, these strategies can still apply.
• 2:28
  Philip Pape: So before we get into it, though, you might be wondering okay, that's great, but why do I even want the calories in the first place?
• 2:36
  Philip Pape: How do I build muscle?
• 2:38
  Philip Pape: What is the strategy there?
• 2:39
  Philip Pape: For that, I'm going to ask you to download a free guide that I have called Muscle Building Nutrition Blueprint, and that's going to give you the exact steps for doing that, for setting up your muscle building phase, from the optimal surplus and rate of gain to the macros, to what to track and even a specific example of a real bulk.
• 2:57
  Philip Pape: So click the link in my show notes or go to witsandweightscom slash muscle to download that free guide, and that'll set up your muscle building phase for success.
• 3:06
  Philip Pape: And then, when you're running that, you'll say okay, now let me listen to this episode to understand how to get all that food in, because it's not working for me quite yet.
• 3:15
  Philip Pape: All right, so I'm going to break down these 12 strategies into three sections.
• 3:19
  Philip Pape: First, we're going to cover four strategies to add calories without feeling stuffed.
• 3:24
  Philip Pape: We're going to cover four strategies to add calories without feeling stuffed, then four strategies for the timing and habits that could make eating easier.
• 3:29
  Philip Pape: And then, finally, four strategies to implement it sustainably.
• 3:33
  Philip Pape: So let's start with adding calories without feeling stuffed.
• 3:37
  Philip Pape: Strategy number one is pretty straightforward, and that is adding calorie-d dense foods to your meals.
• 3:43
  Philip Pape: This is about making every bite count, focusing on foods that pack in as many calories as possible into as little volume as possible, which you'll find that a lot of these strategies are the opposite of what you would do during fat loss.
• 3:57
  Philip Pape: So keep that in mind in case it sparks some curiosity there.
• 4:00
  Philip Pape: So I'll give you some example Add avocado to things, if you like avocado.
• 4:04
  Philip Pape: They're very calorie dense and we're talking mostly whole foods here.
• 4:08
  Philip Pape: By the way, doing it with whole foods.
• 4:10
  Philip Pape: Obviously, you can add in processed foods and we're going to touch on that occasionally here but there are calorie dense whole foods.
• 4:15
  Philip Pape: So avocado, egg sandwiches.
• 4:17
  Philip Pape: You can drizzle olive oil over just about anything, but I'm thinking vegetables or rice.
• 4:22
  Philip Pape: You know, when you're making rice, add olive oil in there, or a tablespoon of olive oil is 120 calories.
• 4:27
  Philip Pape: You can add butter when cooking, which makes it taste great anyway, like even better.
• 4:33
  Philip Pape: I love putting butter on steak.
• 4:35
  Philip Pape: When I'm cast iron, I'm frying it in a cast iron skillet and then I finish it off in the oven.
• 4:40
  Philip Pape: Always keep in mind saturated fat intake, of course, but again, we're trying to get more calories here.
• 4:43
  Philip Pape: And then nuts and seeds, incorporating them into everything.
• 4:47
  Philip Pape: You can put them in salads, you can put them as a side, you can eat them straight up.
• 4:50
  Philip Pape: And remember that fat, as a macro, has more than twice as much calorie density as protein and carbs.
• 4:58
  Philip Pape: It has nine calories per gram instead of just four for the others.
• 5:02
  Philip Pape: So take advantage of that macro.
• 5:06
  Philip Pape: So that's number one is calorie dense foods.
• 5:07
  Philip Pape: Strategy number two is to incorporate liquid calories.
• 5:11
  Philip Pape: All right, liquids just don't fill you up like solid food.
• 5:15
  Philip Pape: There's a reason for that they are effectively pre-digested.
• 5:18
  Philip Pape: You think that's gross.
• 5:19
  Philip Pape: I'm sorry, but that's.
• 5:20
  Philip Pape: You know, when we're having liquid, anything that would normally be a food, you're taking a step out of the process and so you're able to eat more of it.
• 5:28
  Philip Pape: So we're thinking shake, smoothies, whatever, and honestly I'm not going to be giving you a million recipes here but a base of some beverage like whole milk has a lot of calories.
• 5:39
  Philip Pape: I love whole milk, just in general.
• 5:40
  Philip Pape: When you're trying to gain weight, it goes down easy.
• 5:43
  Philip Pape: And then there's brands like Fairlife that have higher protein and Fairlife chocolate milk that has even more calories.
• 5:49
  Philip Pape: So whole milk, a banana, some peanut butter.
• 5:56
  Philip Pape: So that's our calorie density right there.
• 5:57
  Philip Pape: A couple tablespoons of peanut butter.
• 5:58
  Philip Pape: So let's see 150 calories for the milk, 100 calories for the banana, 200 calories for the peanut butter, and then whey protein.
• 6:03
  Philip Pape: Even a scoop of whey protein is 120.
• 6:06
  Philip Pape: So that's over 500 calories that you can drink in just minutes.
• 6:09
  Philip Pape: And if you have dietary restrictions, like Jim's celiac disease, just make sure it's gluten-free, okay.
• 6:16
  Philip Pape: Strategy number three is adding extra calories to existing meals by just enhancing what you already eat with some smart swaps.
• 6:25
  Philip Pape: So like cooking eggs right in a slab of butter instead of using a spray just to make sure you add those calories.
• 6:33
  Philip Pape: Adding an extra slice of cheese to your sandwich, mixing nuts into your oatmeal, using coconut milk in whether it's a curry or a soup, something like that.
• 6:41
  Philip Pape: So that's a very simple one of just like seeing how you can add calories that are almost unnoticeable and don't really fill you up in any way to existing meals.
• 6:48
  Philip Pape: So strategy number four is to focus on foods you enjoy.
• 6:54
  Philip Pape: Now, this might seem obvious, but it's one of the top factors of a sustainable diet.
• 7:02
  Philip Pape: No matter what you're doing fat loss or gaining You're going to eat more consistently when you actually like your food period.
• 7:08
  Philip Pape: So it's one of the tenets Don't be guilty with what you eat.
• 7:12
  Philip Pape: Make sure food satisfies you, make sure it meets your goals and make sure you enjoy it.
• 7:15
  Philip Pape: So you don't want to force feed yourself bland chicken and rice if you hate it.
• 7:21
  Philip Pape: I don't care if you're in fat loss or gaining right.
• 7:24
  Philip Pape: Force feeding of any kind is not going to be good and I hear oftentimes people say how do I get more calories?
• 7:29
  Philip Pape: Or I feel like I have to force feed myself, or calories, or I feel like I have to force feed myself, or I need to force feed myself to get the calories.
• 7:37
  Philip Pape: What do I do?
• 7:37
  Philip Pape: And it's like no, you don't need to force feed yourself.
• 7:38
  Philip Pape: Let's listen to this episode, all right.
• 7:40
  Philip Pape: So that was it for strategy number four, just focusing on foods you enjoy, because that, mentally, is going to cause you to be able to eat more.
• 7:47
  Philip Pape: Just a simple one there, in case you're trying to force feed anything.
• 7:50
  Philip Pape: Now I want to move on to the second group of four, which is related to timing and habits.
• 7:56
  Philip Pape: So strategy number five.
• 7:58
  Philip Pape: And so, not to confuse you, but I'm keeping the numbering from one to 12, but I separate into four groups of or three groups of four.
• 8:05
  Philip Pape: Strategy number five is to increase your meal frequency.
• 8:09
  Philip Pape: Just as simple as that.
• 8:10
  Philip Pape: But again, a lot of people are not doing that.
• 8:12
  Philip Pape: People get in a rut and the way you eat is just the way you've always eaten and it's based on your work schedule or how you pack your lunch or whatever.
• 8:21
  Philip Pape: But you've got to be creative and say okay, instead of three huge meals, I'm going to have five meals.
• 8:26
  Philip Pape: I'm going to have three modest meals and two small snacks, right, or six or even seven.
• 8:32
  Philip Pape: I mean, you'd be surprised how many you could fit in if you're creative about it.
• 8:36
  Philip Pape: And a lot of people are stuck in this, like intermittent fasting mindset or feeding window mindset, or not eat too early, too late.
• 8:42
  Philip Pape: It's super flexible.
• 8:44
  Philip Pape: It's super flexible.
• 8:45
  Philip Pape: So meal frequency itself can be effective for you because you won't get too full on any one meal and, again, you won't feel like you're force feeding yourself.
• 8:52
  Philip Pape: So if you're only eating three times a day and you're trying to gain weight, you're going to have to eat at least four or five, just almost across the board, no matter who you are.
• 9:00
  Philip Pape: I'm still in my gaining phase now.
• 9:02
  Philip Pape: I definitely eat six times a day, maybe seven, and it just makes it so much easier because then each feeding is reasonable in size, it goes easy on your stomach, it digests well, you feel great throughout the day, and so on.
• 9:14
  Philip Pape: All right.
• 9:20
  Philip Pape: Strategy number six is don't drink water before your meals.
• 9:22
  Philip Pape: Now, some people would advocate for this strategy in general for a number of reasons I'm not going to go into.
• 9:24
  Philip Pape: But it's a good one here, because most people don't think about this.
• 9:29
  Philip Pape: They just drink when they drink.
• 9:31
  Philip Pape: Water fills your stomach.
• 9:32
  Philip Pape: It reduces appetite.
• 9:33
  Philip Pape: Drinking water before your meals could be a great technique when you're in fat loss, but to try to get in the calories it's going to be very tough.
• 9:42
  Philip Pape: So just start with the food and then fill it in with the liquid, unless you're just having a liquid meal, like we talked about earlier.
• 9:48
  Philip Pape: So don't drink water before meals is strategy number six.
• 9:52
  Philip Pape: Strategy number seven is to embrace calorie timing by taking advantage of your body's natural hunger windows.
• 10:01
  Philip Pape: So what I mean by this is you're going to be hungry, even in a gaining phase, at certain times.
• 10:07
  Philip Pape: You know when that is, and for a lot of people that is first thing in the morning.
• 10:10
  Philip Pape: So don't skip breakfast, pre and post workout right Now you may not be that hungry before your workout, but you should be have some hunger after your workout.
• 10:18
  Philip Pape: Take advantage of that to really gobble up the fuel.
• 10:21
  Philip Pape: And then before bed, and you're like, well, that's shocking.
• 10:24
  Philip Pape: Before bed, I don't mean like eat at 9pm and then go to bed at 10pm, I mean, like you know, 6 or 7pm, like as late as you can push it where it doesn't affect your digestion or your sleep, and it may be a smaller feeding, it may be an extra kind of dessert slot or a pre-bed meal, that's like two hours before bed.
• 10:43
  Philip Pape: That's smaller, right.
• 10:44
  Philip Pape: Think like Greek yogurt with berries, that kind of level.
• 10:45
  Philip Pape: Or I like a casein pudding with almond milk protein, where it's kind of light but it's still got a decent amount of protein in there and some calories, maybe a couple hundred, 300 calories to finish up your day.
• 10:57
  Philip Pape: And it goes well with the frequency thing, right, I mentioned eating more frequently, because then you might have, okay, first thing in the morning, pre-workout, post-workout, lunch, afternoon snack, dinner and then pre-bed, and that's like seven feedings right there, and that's on a training day.
• 11:13
  Philip Pape: Maybe on a rest day you have one fewer feeding and then you have to just be aware of the fact that you need more calories per feeding.
• 11:20
  Philip Pape: All right.
• 11:22
  Philip Pape: Strategy number eight is to make your food more appealing visually and socially.
• 11:29
  Philip Pape: I would say we naturally eat more when food looks good, right.
• 11:33
  Philip Pape: Why do you think we love going to restaurants and having somebody else make these nice plates of food?
• 11:38
  Philip Pape: It comes out heck, even going to like a greasy diner, and it comes out.
• 11:43
  Philip Pape: You're like oh, this looks delicious because you didn't make it right.
• 11:45
  Philip Pape: Or when you eat off of somebody else's plate, somehow it tastes better.
• 11:49
  Philip Pape: We went to Montreal years ago and I was amazed at the delicious food there.
• 11:55
  Philip Pape: But not just that, it's how they plated everything.
• 11:57
  Philip Pape: I was like everybody is a chef, is a culinary gourmand over here.
• 12:01
  Philip Pape: We would just go to a diner for breakfast and the fruit was like cut up into, was sculpted into fancy shapes.
• 12:10
  Philip Pape: Everywhere we went was like this.
• 12:11
  Philip Pape: It was like an expectation and we wanted to eat it.
• 12:14
  Philip Pape: Let's just put it that way.
• 12:15
  Philip Pape: So when food looks appetizing, when we're eating with other people, when we're relaxed, when we're not rushing and even sometimes when we're distracted, which normally is a big no-no because we want to eat mindfully.
• 12:26
  Philip Pape: But when we're talking about a positive distraction, I'll say, like eating with our family at the dinner table.
• 12:32
  Philip Pape: We can potentially eat more that way.
• 12:35
  Philip Pape: So how you take advantage of that is obviously, besides going to restaurants when you're at home is the food just looking good, being food that you enjoy, being a good, interesting combination, fun recipes and eating with other people, and making sure to kind of load up on the food when you're doing that, because that's kind of tricking yourself to eat more without realizing it.
• 13:00
  Philip Pape: If you will, it's just very interesting.
• 13:02
  Philip Pape: And even being relaxed and not rushing and being mindful, sometimes you can actually eat more naturally because of the lower stress.
• 13:10
  Philip Pape: It kind of depends on the person.
• 13:11
  Philip Pape: So make food visually and socially appealing is the overall tip there.
• 13:15
  Philip Pape: So make food visually and socially appealing is the overall tip there.
• 13:16
  Philip Pape: All right, let's go to the final segment here, which is really about, I'll say, implementation and sustainability.
• 13:23
  Philip Pape: So these are some more day-to-day practices that you can have.
• 13:27
  Philip Pape: So strategy number nine here is to have high-calorie snacks always available, like to pre-prep to meal prep.
• 13:37
  Philip Pape: High calorie snacks, simple right.
• 13:39
  Philip Pape: Always have ready to eat calorie dense foods available trail mix, protein bars, nut butter packets, pre-made sandwiches there's so many things and, yeah, I'm okay with protein bars.
• 13:53
  Philip Pape: You don't want to be eating five a day, but look for those opportunities.
• 13:55
  Philip Pape: Trail mix is a great one, because then you can get like nuts, dried fruit, even throw in some M&Ms in there the kids' version of trail mix.
• 14:02
  Philip Pape: Again, we're trying to gain weight here, so we've got this flexibility.
• 14:07
  Philip Pape: Think about that and pre-make your snacks, just like in a fat loss phase, where I recommend that you pre-make high-protein, low-calorie, like lower-fat snacks.
• 14:16
  Philip Pape: Same idea here Just prepare higher-calorie snacks for yourself and easy things to grab and pack and go on a hike with or throw in the car or whatever.
• 14:25
  Philip Pape: All right, that brings us to.
• 14:27
  Philip Pape: We got three strategies left.
• 14:28
  Philip Pape: Strategy number 10 is to sneak calories into drinks.
• 14:34
  Philip Pape: So we talked about sneaking calories into food earlier.
• 14:38
  Philip Pape: This is really when you have a drink that you're already having, like coffee, have it with whole milk.
• 14:44
  Philip Pape: Now, if you like your coffee black, and that's just how you drink your coffee.
• 14:47
  Philip Pape: But a lot of us put cream or something in there.
• 14:49
  Philip Pape: Put the most calorie dense thing in there.
• 14:51
  Philip Pape: Now, right, put whole milk or heavy cream.
• 14:54
  Philip Pape: Put heavy cream in there there, actually, almost.
• 14:56
  Philip Pape: I don't want you to go bulletproof coffee because I don't like that huge amount of MCT oil in there.
• 15:00
  Philip Pape: But that's a high calorie beverage.
• 15:03
  Philip Pape: You know.
• 15:04
  Philip Pape: Protein shakes made with whole milk instead of water or almond milk, having juice juice is okay occasionally, right Between your meals, you know, combining this with the liquid thing that we mentioned earlier.
• 15:17
  Philip Pape: So just sneaking calories into everyday drinks that you already drink.
• 15:21
  Philip Pape: Now I wouldn't want to go to like regular soda, for example.
• 15:25
  Philip Pape: I'm not going to go that far.
• 15:26
  Philip Pape: It's more of, I'll say, whole food type additions to what you already drink.
• 15:30
  Philip Pape: Actually, tea works for that as well.
• 15:32
  Philip Pape: My wife loves having milk with tea, kind of British style.
• 15:35
  Philip Pape: I actually joke with her.
• 15:36
  Philip Pape: I'm like, oh, are you having some tea with your milk?
• 15:39
  Philip Pape: And she knows that and it tastes great.
• 15:41
  Philip Pape: I get it All right.
• 15:43
  Philip Pape: Strategy number 11 is to plan your meals around fats.
• 15:49
  Philip Pape: Because fats are the most calorie dense, I want you to build meals around them.
• 15:54
  Philip Pape: So salmon with butter sauce, pasta with cream-based sauce, nut-crusted chicken or fish Meaning.
• 15:59
  Philip Pape: What I mean by that is, unlike the earlier tip of just like adding fat, this is making sure that you pick meals and recipes that are fat-centric, that are fatty, that are rich.
• 16:11
  Philip Pape: You're like oh, that's what I'm hearing on this podcast is very interesting, right, because it kind of flies in the face of sometimes what you think about with nutrition advice, but it's about your goals, it's about your context.
• 16:22
  Philip Pape: We're trying to get more food in here, so enjoy the rich foods you know.
• 16:25
  Philip Pape: Eat like the French, let's say right, whole eggs are great during this time.
• 16:29
  Philip Pape: So think about fat centric meals as opposed to the protein and carbs, because you're probably going to get enough protein anyway if you're already there when you're not gaining.
• 16:40
  Philip Pape: And then the fats are where the calories come, and then the carbs are everything else.
• 16:45
  Philip Pape: Your carbs shouldn't be low, unless you're deliberately on a low-carb diet.
• 16:49
  Philip Pape: But people forget about the value of fats for increasing calories.
• 16:55
  Shonnetta: Hi, my name is Sharnetta and I want to give a big shout out to Philip of Wits and Weights.
• 16:59
  Shonnetta: I discovered his podcast just a few short months ago, but I quickly realized how valuable his content is.
• 17:05
  Shonnetta: With all the many fitness and nutrition influencers out in the world today, I often suffer from information overload, but Philip poses careful questions to his guests that get to the meat of the subject matter, while most everyone offers free guides to this, and that what I found most unique about Philip is his live training and weekly Q&A sessions.
• 17:23
  Shonnetta: If I can't make it live, I can always catch the replay.
• 17:26
  Shonnetta: I am very grateful to find someone I feel is so passionate and genuine to his purpose, while also being hands-on within the Wits and Weights online community.
• 17:35
  Shonnetta: He is truly only a click away.
• 17:37
  Shonnetta: Thanks, philip, for all you do.
• 17:40
  Philip Pape: And then the last strategy is to track and adjust by keeping it simple but systematic.
• 17:46
  Philip Pape: I want you to think of progressive overload for your calories.
• 17:49
  Philip Pape: Okay, first you have to understand your baseline.
• 17:52
  Philip Pape: How many calories do you actually need?
• 17:54
  Philip Pape: Hopefully, you're tracking and you know what your surplus is and you know what your maintenance calories are.
• 17:58
  Philip Pape: So you know that you're burning, say, 2,600 calories and you're in a 300 calorie surplus.
• 18:03
  Philip Pape: You're going to eat 2,900 calories and you feel stuffed when you eat even just a little bit above your maintenance.
• 18:11
  Philip Pape: Well, aim for not quite the full amount on week one, right?
• 18:16
  Philip Pape: Aim for 2,700 and then 2,800, then 2,900, right?
• 18:20
  Philip Pape: Very simple thing.
• 18:20
  Philip Pape: I do this with clients all the time.
• 18:21
  Philip Pape: I give them a very achievable goal for the next couple of weeks before their next check-in so that we're not feeling like we're overreaching and feeling like we failed just because we didn't miss it.
• 18:30
  Philip Pape: Focus on one meal at a time, right, and one day at a time and a really good way to do this is if you're using a food logging app like Macrofactor is to take what you normally eat and then, for tomorrow, pre-plan and pre-log one change to a meal or one additional snack or meal per one of the strategies we talked about today.
• 18:53
  Philip Pape: So don't change everything all at once, just tweak and add, tweak and add and it might be adding more fat, it might be adding an extra feeding, might be adding a shake in there, whatever makes sense, so that you're not obsessing or worrying too much about doing all of this.
• 19:09
  Philip Pape: And then you're gonna adjust based on how well you feel.
• 19:11
  Philip Pape: This is where biofeedback can come into play, like your hunger signals, and it's the opposite of during fat loss.
• 19:17
  Philip Pape: So our goal here is not to feel like we're force feeding, like we're stuffed.
• 19:20
  Philip Pape: So anyway, that's really putting it all together.
• 19:26
  Philip Pape: The way I categorize these in the three groups may be a little bit arbitrary, but I wanted to keep it organized for you as you go through this and then you could use the timestamps to find each strategy.
• 19:35
  Philip Pape: We'll just list the strategies right there in the show notes for you to make it easy so you can dive in.
• 19:40
  Philip Pape: Now.
• 19:41
  Philip Pape: The one thing that you might be missing that has nothing to do with food and I wanted to address it and it could be the best way to increase your intake is managing your stress and recovery, just like during fat loss, when you're in a gaining phase but you are chronically stressed or you're under-recovered, right, that might be due to a lack of sleep, maybe overtraining, although that's not usually the issue.
• 20:04
  Philip Pape: Your body actively suppresses your appetite and digestion.
• 20:07
  Philip Pape: Now I've told you many times the opposite, that it can cause you to have a higher appetite and actually over-consume.
• 20:14
  Philip Pape: But remember, we're in the opposite.
• 20:16
  Philip Pape: We're in the opposite world here, the mirror world, alternate reality of gaining, where everything kind of flips on its head and when you're really stressed you may actually have trouble eating and your digestion might be off your gut health, things like that.
• 20:29
  Philip Pape: And so sometimes, if you can barely eat 2000 calories and then you go on vacation and you relax, you're like I had no problem putting away 3000 plus calories a day without thinking about it.
• 20:39
  Philip Pape: Why is that?
• 20:40
  Philip Pape: It's because you're relaxed, you're not stressed.
• 20:41
  Philip Pape: So it kind of goes both ways and I want you to keep that in mind, which is great because it means we should always be striving to manage our stress and recovery that way.
• 20:50
  Philip Pape: It's not like we have to change the principle during a gaining phase.
• 20:55
  Philip Pape: So I want to just recap the 12 strategies for you just to reinforce in your mind real quick.
• 20:59
  Philip Pape: I'm just going to list them.
• 21:00
  Philip Pape: Number one calorie-dense foods.
• 21:02
  Philip Pape: Simple, very high-level strategy.
• 21:05
  Philip Pape: Number two liquid calories.
• 21:07
  Philip Pape: Number three enhance your existing meals.
• 21:11
  Philip Pape: Tweak them.
• 21:13
  Philip Pape: Number four make sure you're eating things you enjoy.
• 21:15
  Philip Pape: Number five add more meals or feedings.
• 21:19
  Philip Pape: Increase your meal frequency.
• 21:20
  Philip Pape: Number six don't drink water before meals.
• 21:23
  Philip Pape: Number seven use the eating windows that you are already hungry with, like first in the morning, after your workout, before bed, you know, afternoon whatever Take advantage of those to add in the calories.
• 21:37
  Philip Pape: Number eight make sure it's visually and socially appealing when you're eating.
• 21:41
  Philip Pape: Number nine pre-plan or pre-prepare calorie-dense snacks, like think the trail mix, for example.
• 21:48
  Philip Pape: Number 10 is to tweak your everyday drink that you already drink, like your coffee or tea, and add in some calorie-dense liquid to that, like heavy cream.
• 21:57
  Philip Pape: Number 11 is to prioritize fatty foods in general.
• 22:01
  Philip Pape: Just think of rich, creamy, fatty, nutty cheese, all those things.
• 22:06
  Philip Pape: Prioritize those.
• 22:07
  Philip Pape: And then the last one is to track and adjust systematically and use a form of progressive overload to kind of ease into this and work your way up.
• 22:15
  Philip Pape: Now do you remember Jim's question about struggling with celiac disease?
• 22:19
  Philip Pape: Notice how all these strategies they work with any dietary restriction.
• 22:23
  Philip Pape: It's about the principles, right?
• 22:25
  Philip Pape: Not the specific foods.
• 22:26
  Philip Pape: I gave you some examples, but we're not about specific foods here, so you can, no matter what you're dealing with.
• 22:31
  Philip Pape: You can apply these principles All right.
• 22:33
  Philip Pape: If you want to put all these strategies into action in a gaining phase, remember I have a free muscle building nutrition blueprint that builds on everything we covered today in terms of the setup, like what are the calories and macros, what is the surplus, what should I be tracking, what is the biofeedback, what are the measurements, and then an example of a real bulk.
• 22:52
  Philip Pape: To get your copy, click the link in the show notes or go to witsandweightscom slash muscle to download that right now.
• 22:59
  Philip Pape: Until next time, keep using your wits lifting those weights and remember, building muscle isn't just about lifting heavy, it's about fueling heavy too.
• 23:09
  Philip Pape: This is Philip Pape and you've been listening to Wits and Weights.
• 23:12
  Philip Pape: I'll talk to you next time.