Latest / Wits & Weights | Strength & Fat Loss Over 40 / Junk Food vs. Clean Eating for Fat Loss (Lyle McDonald) | Ep 356

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Junk Food vs. Clean Eating for Fat Loss (Lyle McDonald) | Ep 356 · Wits & Weights | Strength & Fat Loss Over 40

• 0:01
  Philip Pape: Yes, you can lose fat eating pop tarts and ice cream.
• 0:04
  Philip Pape: You could also get ripped eating nothing but chicken, broccoli and sweet potatoes.
• 0:08
  Philip Pape: Both statements are true and both approaches could derail your progress in ways most people don't think about.
• 0:13
  Philip Pape: Today, we're exploring one of the most important concepts in modern nutrition science the false dichotomy, and why the fitness industry's obsession with extremes traps you in these cycles of all-or-nothing thinking that undermine your long-term success.
• 0:28
  Philip Pape: You'll learn why the solution lies in the unsexy middle ground, how rigid dietary rules increase your risk of binge eating, and the exact framework to build a sustainable approach that delivers results without turning food into a moral battleground.
• 0:53
  Philip Pape: Welcome to Wits and Weights, the show that helps you build a strong, healthy physique using evidence, engineering and efficiency.
• 0:59
  Philip Pape: I'm your host, certified nutrition coach Philip Pape, and today we're examining one of the most persistent problems in nutrition culture the false choice between eating like a garbage disposal or like a monk.
• 1:12
  Philip Pape: If you've ever felt torn between influencers pushing if it fits your macros, all junk food diets and clean eating gurus demonizing everything a single cookie, a Pop-Tart you're experiencing exactly what researcher and author Lyle McDonald calls excluding the middle, and it's probably costing you results.
• 1:34
  Philip Pape: By the end of this episode you're gonna understand why both extremes miss the point and how to build your sustainable approach to work in the real world.
• 1:42
  Philip Pape: Now, if this all-or-nothing pattern sounds familiar, there's always a faster way forward with more support, wits and Weights.
• 1:49
  Philip Pape: Physique University gives you a system to eat with confidence and deal with these issues while building the physique you want.
• 1:56
  Philip Pape: And we are all about sustainability and we are all about meeting you in the middle and allowing you to enjoy your life and have fun and eat things you enjoy but still make progress on your goals.
• 2:05
  Philip Pape: Physique University gets you that framework the community and, of course, a custom nutrition plan built by me, if you use the link in the show notes and that is specific to your goals Link in the show notes to check that out.
• 2:17
  Philip Pape: I just wanted to mention that.
• 2:18
  Philip Pape: But now let's get into how we build a sustainable system for our nutrition.
• 2:23
  Philip Pape: First, we're going to break down this concept that I've already alluded to.
• 2:27
  Philip Pape: It came from an article I read by Lyle McDonald called Excluding the Middle, and why it is a very important idea when it comes to modern nutrition.
• 2:33
  Philip Pape: Second, we're going to examine the two extremes the all junk food diet, the rigid clean eating.
• 2:38
  Philip Pape: What they get right, what they get very wrong and why both can cause problems, and where the middle ground is.
• 2:45
  Philip Pape: Third, we're going to explore what the research says about the middle ground and why it's not just more effective, but that is where sustainability happens.
• 2:51
  Philip Pape: And then, of course, I'm going to give you some practical tips to implement this in your own life, complete with some real numbers and specific strategies.
• 2:58
  Philip Pape: So definitely stick around for the whole episode to get the whole context and then the practical tips as well.
• 3:04
  Philip Pape: So let me start by giving credit where it's due.
• 3:06
  Philip Pape: This entire discussion is built on an article by Lyle McDonald from bodyrecompositioncom.
• 3:11
  Philip Pape: It's called Excluding the Middle.
• 3:12
  Philip Pape: I heard him mention it on an episode recently with Brandon DeCruz and, of course, brandon DeCruz and I just did a back and forth Q&A episode on both of our shows.
• 3:21
  Philip Pape: So kind of coming full circle here Now.
• 3:23
  Philip Pape: Lyle's been researching body composition and nutrition for a long time, for decades.
• 3:27
  Philip Pape: Some would argue he's one of the godfathers of flexible eating and this particular article it's a bit on the older side when he wrote it, but it still is highly relevant and it, you know, in his own style of cutting through the noise and calling people out, it's pretty clear.
• 3:42
  Philip Pape: The core idea is that in any debate, but particularly these nutrition debates, people are constantly framing issues in extreme black and white terms.
• 3:50
  Philip Pape: They are ignoring the nuance, they're ignoring the middle ground, where the real solutions exist, and they use it as a straw man.
• 3:57
  Philip Pape: They use it to suggest that, if you don't agree with their position, you must be talking about the opposite extreme, as opposed to something more nuanced.
• 4:05
  Philip Pape: I just wanted you to think about it.
• 4:07
  Philip Pape: When was the last time you saw a social media post on Instagram about eating mostly whole foods with some flexibility?
• 4:13
  Philip Pape: Well, you probably see them if you follow the people I follow, but most people don't see these, so I'm not going to say that you never see them.
• 4:20
  Philip Pape: The more people you follow that do have that kind of nuance in their language, the more you'll see.
• 4:25
  Philip Pape: But it doesn't get clicks, it doesn't get views, it doesn't get virality.
• 4:28
  Philip Pape: What does is hey, I ate nothing but donuts for 30 days and look how he did it and how shredded I got, or you know, these toxic foods are destroying your metabolism and whatever it is, whatever the food of the day is it could be seed oils, it could be broccoli, doesn't matter and it's not just annoying.
• 4:44
  Philip Pape: I mean, it's very annoying, but it is actively harmful, actively harmful.
• 4:48
  Philip Pape: I want you guys to realize that, and that's why it's so important who we follow and who we trust, because when we exclude the middle, we're creating that false dichotomy, we're creating false choices that lead to the all or nothing thinking, to dietary extremism, to failing at what we're trying to do in the first place.
• 5:07
  Philip Pape: It's funny I just went to a book fair at our local library and I looked at all these old school books on dieting and weight loss and they've always had that same messaging it's this diet or that diet, and it's always an extreme.
• 5:19
  Philip Pape: It's like here are the rules, here's how you cut things out, and it's based on psychology, because our brains love certainty.
• 5:27
  Philip Pape: We want clear villains and heroes.
• 5:28
  Philip Pape: We want clean versus dirty.
• 5:30
  Philip Pape: In fact, one of my villains for the podcast is both the clean and the dirty camps.
• 5:35
  Philip Pape: Right, that is my boogeyman, and it's a hard one to have because it's hard to be a hero of nuance.
• 5:41
  Philip Pape: Let's just say but that's where we've got to be.
• 5:43
  Philip Pape: So you've got healthy versus toxic, you've got good versus bad, and nutrition doesn't work that way.
• 5:50
  Philip Pape: We can't force it into boxes, because what that does it ends up forcing what decisions we make and those decisions practically move us further from the goals.
• 6:00
  Philip Pape: So what are those extremes?
• 6:03
  Philip Pape: That's what I want to break down.
• 6:04
  Philip Pape: Next, and hence the title of this episode, let's talk about the all junk food extreme.
• 6:09
  Philip Pape: This is the, I'll say, energy balance.
• 6:13
  Philip Pape: Calories a calorie if it's a macros idea, but taken to the logical extreme.
• 6:19
  Philip Pape: And this is where the straw man comes in, because it is true that a calorie is a calorie from an energy perspective, but it doesn't mean that that is the only variable at play when it comes to our nutrition.
• 6:31
  Philip Pape: Right, it may be the only variable at play when it comes to strictly gaining or losing weight in a vacuum, but that's barely scratching the surface and the argument goes like this Since weight loss is about calorie balance, you can literally eat anything pop tarts, ice cream, fast food as long as you stay within your calorie targets.
• 6:50
  Philip Pape: And they're not entirely wrong about the calorie part.
• 6:55
  Philip Pape: I saw an article in.
• 6:56
  Philip Pape: Where was this?
• 6:57
  Philip Pape: Oh yeah, our local newspaper has this wraparound to celebrate like 200 years of the paper or something, and there was something from the I want to say early 1900s, and it basically talked about, you know, eating less than you burn if you want to lose the weight that you added on Right, and so we've.
• 7:12
  Philip Pape: We've known this for a long time.
• 7:13
  Philip Pape: We have studies that show people losing weight on diets composed of just about anything, including all or mostly processed foods.
• 7:21
  Philip Pape: You know the famous Twinkie diet professor Mark Mark, how, how, how?
• 7:25
  Philip Pape: He lost 27 pounds eating mostly those Twinkie you know survive into the apocalypse snack cakes while staying in a calorie deficit.
• 7:33
  Philip Pape: So we know that that part works.
• 7:34
  Philip Pape: But what?
• 7:35
  Philip Pape: What it gets wrong and it gets a lot wrong is, first, micronutrients do matter.
• 7:40
  Philip Pape: You know macros matter too, but micronutrients also matter.
• 7:43
  Philip Pape: Your body needs vitamins, minerals, fiber, phytonutrients all of these things compounds from plants to function optimally.
• 7:50
  Philip Pape: This is why I don't even like you know the carnivore diet, for example, that excludes so much of that from plants, because it's the same idea.
• 7:56
  Philip Pape: It's like we're trying to get a result from looking at one variable excluding the rest, and good luck getting adequate nutrition from pop tarts, and you'll be deficient in dozens of essential nutrients if you do that.
• 8:08
  Philip Pape: Second, satiety being full is so crucial for adherence.
• 8:13
  Philip Pape: It's probably the number one variable for adherence.
• 8:16
  Philip Pape: Processed foods are engineered to be hyper palatable and very easy to overeat.
• 8:22
  Philip Pape: That's what they're designed for.
• 8:23
  Philip Pape: I'm not going to blame the companies for doing that.
• 8:25
  Philip Pape: They make them that way on purpose.
• 8:27
  Philip Pape: Good luck staying in a calorie deficit when you're fighting food addiction or binging or lack of satiety because you're eating mostly processed foods right, sure, we want to be in a calorie deficit to lose weight, lose fat, but it's very hard to do so when you're eating mostly processed foods.
• 8:46
  Philip Pape: Third, the health markers beyond weight.
• 8:50
  Philip Pape: Right, weight, I guess, is a health marker, but there are so many health markers beyond weight that matter that we often ignore in these discussions.
• 8:57
  Philip Pape: We're always talking about weight loss.
• 8:58
  Philip Pape: Now I'll be the first to say that losing significant weight if you're unhealthy, in and of itself is probably the biggest factor toward lots of things improving from inflammation to gut health, to immunity, to even just it helps you lose body fat.
• 9:12
  Philip Pape: But we also have to think about blood sugar control and cardiovascular health and muscle mass and function and all of those things that are influenced by how we move, how we train and how we eat right.
• 9:25
  Philip Pape: And so just reducing it to if it fits your macros is not enough.
• 9:30
  Philip Pape: It will get you to a certain extent and it will allow you to put some structure and control over your diet, but only to a point if you're not paying attention to all these other things.
• 9:38
  Philip Pape: And control over your diet, but only to a point if you're not paying attention to all these other things.
• 9:40
  Philip Pape: And then the last thing about the all junk food approach is it ignores the psychological component.
• 9:46
  Philip Pape: Food is more than fuel.
• 9:48
  Philip Pape: Right, it should be fuel, but it also is tied to our emotions and our culture, our ethnicity, our social connections.
• 9:54
  Philip Pape: And so this, even if it's not the all junk food, but if it's, if it's your fit, your macros, we're reducing it to pure mathematics.
• 10:01
  Philip Pape: We tend to miss that human element, and I've gotten caught in that trap where I'm very focused on even even focused on hitting the numbers that I want to hit, and it causes me to make weird decisions in social situations that aren't always aligned with my bigger goal as being a human in society or with my family.
• 10:19
  Philip Pape: Now, sometimes it is, sometimes that does come first, but when we reduce it to something like just calories or just macros, this can often happen.
• 10:28
  Philip Pape: So that's the all junk food diet extreme, I'll say, where it doesn't matter, quote, unquote what you eat.
• 10:35
  Philip Pape: The other extreme, the other side, is clean eating, and I'm actually going to pound on these guys a lot more, because that's where I see a lot of the toxic behavior coming from, as well as the emotional issues around food that get developed.
• 10:49
  Philip Pape: The obsessiveness around it tends to be more on this side.
• 10:51
  Philip Pape: Yes, we have a little bit of obsessiveness on the other side, but when people have created moral categories around food right, chicken breast is good, cookies bad One cheat meal means you failed, need to start over tomorrow.
• 11:03
  Philip Pape: I don't even use the term cheat meal, but you get the idea and I've heard on podcasts people trying to go the other direction and say, well, all these new diet people saying nutrition, people saying that there are no good versus bad foods Of course there's good versus bad, right, and you hear that false dichotomy come up over and over again and I probably said, hey, there's no good or bad, but we wanna add some context and nuance to that.
• 11:25
  Philip Pape: So what does it get right?
• 11:27
  Philip Pape: Well, whole foods are generally more nutrient-dense foods.
• 11:31
  Philip Pape: They are more satiating per calorie.
• 11:34
  Philip Pape: They support better health.
• 11:36
  Philip Pape: The food quality piece is extremely valid.
• 11:39
  Philip Pape: It is.
• 11:40
  Philip Pape: I don't want to deny that.
• 11:41
  Philip Pape: That's the point.
• 11:41
  Philip Pape: I don't want to deny that.
• 11:42
  Philip Pape: That one piece of it is great.
• 11:44
  Philip Pape: In fact, I will tell people hey, eat 80, 85% whole foods and you're golden as long as they meet your other goals, right, as long as they meet your calories and macros and the other things.
• 11:53
  Philip Pape: It's kind of a blend of the two.
• 11:55
  Philip Pape: But where this whole clean eating philosophy goes way off track is the first thing is it moralizes the food in a way that is psychologically damaging.
• 12:05
  Philip Pape: Period when you label foods as good or bad.
• 12:08
  Philip Pape: This is the thing.
• 12:08
  Philip Pape: When you do that, you are setting yourself up for guilt and for shame and for an unhealthy relationship with eating.
• 12:14
  Philip Pape: I don't care if you think seed oils are harmful and processed foods harmful and therefore a Pop-Tart is quote-unquote bad, simply by labeling that, moralizing it instead of just saying it is a food that has these characteristics.
• 12:26
  Philip Pape: Does that align with what I'm trying to do?
• 12:28
  Philip Pape: That is what creates that unhealthy relationship.
• 12:31
  Philip Pape: Secondly, it's just unnecessarily restrictive.
• 12:35
  Philip Pape: There is no evidence that 100%, quote unquote clean eating is required for health or body composition goals, right, and in fact the stress of trying to eat perfectly is often more harmful mentally than the occasional treat, and we know that people inevitably will binge their foods again and again anyway when they try to keep them away 100% and try to abstain with everything.
• 12:56
  Philip Pape: The third thing here is that restriction leads to binge episodes, which I just alluded to.
• 13:02
  Philip Pape: So I kind of jumped the gun.
• 13:03
  Philip Pape: Research is consistent in showing that rigid dietary constraint increases the likelihood of binge eating period.
• 13:11
  Philip Pape: Hey, this is Philip, and before we continue, I want to talk about cookware.
• 13:15
  Philip Pape: We all love to make our own food.
• 13:17
  Philip Pape: I love nonstick pans.
• 13:18
  Philip Pape: The problem is I've avoided them for years because when they get scratched, when they get heated, they can release microplastics, pfas small particles that can accumulate over time in the body and some studies have shown them to be linked to health issues.
• 13:32
  Philip Pape: If you're optimizing your nutrition and making lots of food for you and your family at home, it doesn't make sense to compromise that with questionable cookware.
• 13:40
  Philip Pape: So that's why I was interested when Chef's Foundry, who is sponsoring this episode, showed me their ceramic cookware.
• 13:47
  Philip Pape: It's called the P600 and uses Swiss engineered ceramic coating which has no Teflon, no PFAS, no plastic components.
• 13:55
  Philip Pape: It is nonstick, it works on all stovetops, it goes straight into the oven All the things you need if you're trying to cook a lot of your meals at home.
• 14:03
  Philip Pape: Right now you can get the P600 at 50% off by going to witsandweightscom slash chefsfoundry.
• 14:10
  Philip Pape: You'll also get a bunch of accessories with that.
• 14:12
  Philip Pape: There's a whole page that explains what you'll get for that discounted 50% off.
• 14:16
  Philip Pape: Go to witsandweightscom, slash chefsfoundry or click the link in the show notes.
• 14:22
  Philip Pape: All right, let's get back to the show.
• 14:23
  Philip Pape: Tell someone they can never have ice cream again, and what's the first thing that they're going to crave all the time?
• 14:28
  Philip Pape: Ice cream.
• 14:29
  Philip Pape: Of course we know this.
• 14:30
  Philip Pape: This is pretty intuitive by now.
• 14:32
  Philip Pape: And then, finally, the restrictive mindset here is socially isolating.
• 14:39
  Philip Pape: When you can't eat at restaurants, you can't enjoy birthday cake, you can't participate in the party and eat what's provided or what your grandmother bakes for the holiday, you're just trading all of these moments of social connection for dietary purity right Now.
• 14:54
  Philip Pape: Again, I alluded to the fact before you don't have to be all or nothing here.
• 14:57
  Philip Pape: There are cases where, if someone is pushing something on you over and over and over again, you have to create some balance and boundaries.
• 15:04
  Philip Pape: That's fine.
• 15:04
  Philip Pape: I'm talking about the idea that you can't ever a hundred percent, just because you feel like you have this false dichotomy in your head that you have to stick with.
• 15:11
  Philip Pape: So if both extremes are problematic, what does the research actually support?
• 15:16
  Philip Pape: And the answer is beautifully boring A diet primarily based on nutrient-dense whole foods with room for some discretionary calories from foods you enjoy.
• 15:28
  Philip Pape: That's it.
• 15:28
  Philip Pape: I know it sounds simple.
• 15:29
  Philip Pape: You probably hear it a lot.
• 15:30
  Philip Pape: You hear 80-20, right, and it actually works.
• 15:34
  Philip Pape: But it has to work for you in the way that you want to construct it.
• 15:38
  Philip Pape: So if I give you some numbers, right, research says that getting 80% to 90% of your calories from minimally processed nutrient-dense foods provides most of the health and satiety benefits you're looking for.
• 15:49
  Philip Pape: The remaining 10% to 20%, that is your flexibility buffer.
• 15:53
  Philip Pape: That's like your buffer that solves all those other issues, including the psychological ones.
• 15:57
  Philip Pape: And this is not just theory.
• 15:59
  Philip Pape: There have been studies on this that look at flexible versus rigid dietary constraint and they're always showing better outcomes for the flexible approach.
• 16:06
  Philip Pape: It just kind of makes sense, right?
• 16:08
  Philip Pape: But I know we can't just rely on common sense and anecdote.
• 16:10
  Philip Pape: It helps to have data as well.
• 16:12
  Philip Pape: But people who allow themselves that little bit of wiggle room, some freedom in their diet, have better long-term maintenance of their weight.
• 16:19
  Philip Pape: They have lower rates of binge eating.
• 16:21
  Philip Pape: They have better psychological relationships with food.
• 16:23
  Philip Pape: Right, and again, we're not talking about the extremes.
• 16:27
  Philip Pape: Don't take this to mean, oh, you can eat whatever you want.
• 16:29
  Philip Pape: Of course not.
• 16:31
  Philip Pape: I just set the whole context of why.
• 16:32
  Philip Pape: That's not what I'm saying.
• 16:48
  Philip Pape: We know that metabolic ward studies show us that, while calorie balance of course drives weight change it always does they naturally just eat more calories.
• 16:58
  Philip Pape: When they eat more whole foods, they naturally eat fewer calories.
• 17:01
  Philip Pape: In other words, the quality of your overall diet will affect the quality of your diet.
• 17:05
  Philip Pape: Isn't that kind of interesting, right?
• 17:08
  Philip Pape: And you know this.
• 17:09
  Philip Pape: It's not that you're addicted.
• 17:10
  Philip Pape: It's not that, oh, I just had some candy and all of a sudden I'm just going to go crazy on candy.
• 17:16
  Philip Pape: It's more of your overall dietary pattern.
• 17:19
  Philip Pape: If you eat mostly whole foods, you know what you are going to crave mostly whole foods.
• 17:22
  Philip Pape: You're not going to have as much of a sweet tooth.
• 17:23
  Philip Pape: That's how I am today.
• 17:25
  Philip Pape: I used to love candy.
• 17:26
  Philip Pape: I used to love sweets.
• 17:26
  Philip Pape: I almost had to force myself to just enjoy a couple gummy worms or something that my kids offer me.
• 17:33
  Philip Pape: It's like, oh, that's okay, that tastes good, that's sweet, that's fine, and you know, whatever not like, it used to be right.
• 17:39
  Philip Pape: You lose those inhibitions Now.
• 17:42
  Philip Pape: That doesn't mean you're not going to have specific foods that you want to binge to the day you die.
• 17:46
  Philip Pape: That that's definitely the case with some people, and there's tools that you can support that.
• 17:50
  Philip Pape: We're also not saying you have to have all foods that are in the indulgent spectrum as part of your 10 or 20%.
• 17:57
  Philip Pape: You can abstain from certain foods if that's helpful to you and allow in other foods that serve the same purpose for you, if that makes sense, whether it's a craving or an experience or what have you.
• 18:09
  Philip Pape: So this is a nuanced, evidence-based approach and that's exactly what this podcast is all about.
• 18:15
  Philip Pape: That is what we teach inside the physique university.
• 18:17
  Philip Pape: You know, we see people all the time that are tired.
• 18:21
  Philip Pape: They're just exhausted of bouncing between this diet and that diet and, oh, now it's my hormones, and now I have this condition, and now it's my thyroid, and so now I have to be in this diet.
• 18:32
  Philip Pape: This person on social media said this doesn't support my thyroid, this doesn't support this.
• 18:36
  Philip Pape: What about when I'm trying to build muscle?
• 18:38
  Philip Pape: What about when I'm trying to lose fat?
• 18:39
  Philip Pape: Right, it's exhausting.
• 18:41
  Philip Pape: And then none of those things ever stick because it feels like these very specific, highly restrictive solutions for specific problems rather than an overall sustainable system that just works no matter what you do long-term.
• 18:54
  Philip Pape: You can change the levers and dials.
• 18:55
  Philip Pape: Right, you can change the calorie dial, but just start scaling things up and down.
• 18:59
  Philip Pape: When I'm in a fat loss phase and I'm eating only, say, 1800 or 2000 calories, of course I'm going to eat a lot fewer just food and a lot less food in general, including processed food than when I'm eating 3,500 or 4,000 calories.
• 19:12
  Philip Pape: Maybe the percentages are similar, maybe not.
• 19:15
  Philip Pape: It depends on what I need to make me successful.
• 19:20
  Philip Pape: But there's a lot of flex in there.
• 19:21
  Philip Pape: So I'm just mentioning that that is so important and sometimes it helps to have people in your corner to support you.
• 19:25
  Philip Pape: That's why we have Physique University it's just 27 a month free nutrition plan included, if you use my custom link in the show notes.
• 19:32
  Philip Pape: And I want to continue here talking about behavioral psychology, because I think that is really crucial here and we have to talk about it.
• 19:39
  Philip Pape: Flexible dietary restraint, where you have guidelines but not rigid rules Okay, guidelines but not rigid rules is going to correlate with better long-term outcomes.
• 19:51
  Philip Pape: Again, it's not eat whatever you want.
• 19:53
  Philip Pape: It's not intuitive eating.
• 19:54
  Philip Pape: It's guidelines instead of rules.
• 19:57
  Philip Pape: Rigid restraint that is where foods are strictly forbidden.
• 20:02
  Philip Pape: That correlates with higher rates of eating disorders and weight regain.
• 20:06
  Philip Pape: So we want flexible restraint, not rigid restraint.
• 20:10
  Philip Pape: Think about those terms.
• 20:12
  Philip Pape: The word restraint is in both.
• 20:13
  Philip Pape: There's guidelines in both, there are boundaries in both, but one is flexible, one is rigid, and this does make intuitive sense when you think about it.
• 20:22
  Philip Pape: If you tell yourself you can never have pizza again, what happens when you inevitably do have pizza?
• 20:26
  Philip Pape: You feel like you've blown it.
• 20:28
  Philip Pape: It often leads to well, I might as well keep going, I'll get back to it on Monday and then a full binge episode.
• 20:35
  Philip Pape: But if pizza is just one food among many in your overall dietary pattern, having a slice or two, it's not a moral failing.
• 20:42
  Philip Pape: It's just Tuesday Decided to have pizza on Tuesday, all right.
• 20:47
  Philip Pape: So now we get to the implementation.
• 20:49
  Philip Pape: How do we implement this middle ground approach?
• 20:51
  Philip Pape: I'm gonna give you a few guidelines as part of a framework.
• 20:54
  Philip Pape: Okay, the first one is the 85-15 rule.
• 20:57
  Philip Pape: Now, I mentioned we're not having rules, but rule here is, in the colloquial sense, as in a rule of thumb right, a thumb suck.
• 21:04
  Philip Pape: You're going to go up and down depending on what you need.
• 21:07
  Philip Pape: Now I talk about 80-20 a lot, but I think 85% is a good place to aim for, especially when you are in a fat loss phase and when you look at the numbers.
• 21:16
  Philip Pape: When you look at the numbers, okay, so if you get 85% of your calories from minimally processed, nutrient dense foods right, which gives you all the health and satiety benefits you want, leaves 15% for pure enjoyment foods.
• 21:28
  Philip Pape: What does that look like?
• 21:29
  Philip Pape: Well, if you're eating 2000 calories a day, that's 300 calories of flexibility.
• 21:34
  Philip Pape: That could be a few cookies, a muffin, a big chunk of dark chocolate, like whatever you enjoy.
• 21:41
  Philip Pape: 300 calories a day is actually a decent amount when you think about it, when you're planning it in and thinking in this flexible way, as opposed to just ad hoc, intuitively eating whatever you want and snacking right, snacking is a big challenge too for folks.
• 21:53
  Philip Pape: Now, you could do 80-20, you could do 85-15, you could do 90-10.
• 21:58
  Philip Pape: Even that is flexible, based on the number of calories.
• 22:02
  Philip Pape: You have to work with what you like to eat.
• 22:04
  Philip Pape: I have clients who just love whole foods, so almost all their foods are whole foods and then occasionally they have a really indulgent treat.
• 22:10
  Philip Pape: So that's the first one.
• 22:11
  Philip Pape: Just have a ratio for yourself in numbers, in other words, know what calories you're eating.
• 22:17
  Philip Pape: If you're in a fat loss phase, eating, let's say, 1500 calories, then maybe 200, it's 200 calories of flexibility a day, all right.
• 22:27
  Philip Pape: The second principle here is having macro targets, yes, but with food quality guidelines.
• 22:33
  Philip Pape: So, instead of just tracking macros or just focusing on food quality, do both right.
• 22:39
  Philip Pape: Have your targets, use something like Macrofactor to track your food, and have targets for your body composition goals, right, and your calorie goals.
• 22:47
  Philip Pape: So you've got your calories and, within that, your protein, fat, carb targets, but you're trying to hit those through whole food sources to focus on food quality.
• 22:57
  Philip Pape: That's really all it is, and your protein might come from chicken, fish, eggs, greek yogurt most of the time, with the occasional protein bar when life gets busy.
• 23:06
  Philip Pape: Your carbs are going to be mostly from fruits, vegetables, grains, starches, most of the time, with some room for ice cream on the weekend.
• 23:13
  Philip Pape: And remember most of these indulgences pizza, ice cream, muffins are usually a combination of macros and not very much protein.
• 23:20
  Philip Pape: Very often, right, even pizza, unless you get, like it, loaded with lean meats, which is a very rare thing, let's be honest.
• 23:27
  Philip Pape: Usually it's sausage and pepperoni.
• 23:29
  Philip Pape: You know, very fatty meats, a lot of fatty cheese.
• 23:31
  Philip Pape: Right, it's going to have a lot of fats and carbs in there.
• 23:33
  Philip Pape: So you're kind of covering both with that.
• 23:36
  Philip Pape: But on the indulgent flexibility.
• 23:38
  Philip Pape: So if you're really to sum this all up, I would say the vast majority of protein is going to come from whole foods.
• 23:42
  Philip Pape: Some of your fats and carbs might be where the reserved calories come from.
• 23:46
  Philip Pape: For the indulgences Maybe.
• 23:47
  Philip Pape: Again, unless it's like a protein bar, then it's kind of a neat little hybrid.
• 23:51
  Philip Pape: So that's.
• 23:52
  Philip Pape: The second one is macro targets with food quality guidelines.
• 23:54
  Philip Pape: The next one is the principle of context.
• 23:58
  Philip Pape: The same food can be appropriate or inappropriate depending on context, on the situation.
• 24:05
  Philip Pape: This is why I don't like this rejection of no foods can't be good or bad.
• 24:10
  Philip Pape: Yeah, foods can't be good or bad, which is what I generally say.
• 24:14
  Philip Pape: And then people are like rejecting that, saying no, no, no, they absolutely can't.
• 24:16
  Philip Pape: No, it's context.
• 24:19
  Philip Pape: A Gatorade during a two-hour training session where you didn't get your pre-workout and you're short on carbs, could be extremely helpful.
• 24:28
  Philip Pape: But if you just get that as an indulgent drink while you're sitting on the couch watching Netflix, probably not.
• 24:34
  Philip Pape: I mean, I shouldn't have to explain this, but I think it does help to understand that, that you shouldn't beat yourself up based on the context.
• 24:41
  Philip Pape: I mean, don't beat yourself up at all, but understand this.
• 24:44
  Philip Pape: You know, post-workout fast food because you're genuinely hungry and it's your only option might be okay in that context Now, maybe it's Chick-fil-A with grilled chicken, with some of the waffle fries or something I don't know versus something that is farther away from your macro goals.
• 25:02
  Philip Pape: But if you have that every single day because you don't plan for your food and because you get stressed, that's not optimal.
• 25:07
  Philip Pape: There are differences here, and even the first example, where you're hungry and it's your only option, you probably could have planned better.
• 25:14
  Philip Pape: But we always have our next best choice.
• 25:16
  Philip Pape: That is my point, and that's context is everything.
• 25:18
  Philip Pape: And so that segues into the last piece of practical implementation here, which is planning ahead.
• 25:28
  Philip Pape: Like, planning ahead is the thing that glues everything together.
• 25:30
  Philip Pape: If you can plan for the flexibility and I know that sounds counterintuitive, but it's not, because, remember, we're talking about flexible restraint, not anarchy, not quote unquote intuitive eating anything goes and eat whatever you want.
• 25:42
  Philip Pape: We're talking about planned in restrained flexibility, rather than trying to spontaneously make perfect choices.
• 25:49
  Philip Pape: Do you see the difference?
• 25:50
  Philip Pape: A lot of us, we think we have a plan in our head and then in the moment, we're going to make great choices.
• 25:56
  Philip Pape: No, it doesn't work that way.
• 25:57
  Philip Pape: We're human beings.
• 25:57
  Philip Pape: We get stressed, we get distracted.
• 26:00
  Philip Pape: Right, it doesn't work.
• 26:01
  Philip Pape: That way we get fatigued.
• 26:03
  Philip Pape: Plan for that flexibility.
• 26:05
  Philip Pape: If you know you're going out for pizza Friday night, work that in to your plan.
• 26:09
  Philip Pape: Whether that's your calories, your macros, your micros, whatever you feel like it is or isn't going to serve, pizza is going to give you some of the things you want and need.
• 26:21
  Philip Pape: It will, but not everything, and it might take away from others.
• 26:23
  Philip Pape: So make make the indulgence part of your, say, 15%.
• 26:25
  Philip Pape: Don't pretend that it's not going to happen when every single Friday night you know you end up going out, even when you don't think you're going to, and then feel guilty when it does happen.
• 26:34
  Philip Pape: Right, it's like don't pretend that Christmas isn't going to happen and therefore you didn't save up to buy gifts, right, it always happens.
• 26:42
  Philip Pape: The stuff in your life happens, and this could mean a whole bunch of different things to plan around it.
• 26:47
  Philip Pape: It could mean eating a bit lighter during the day, friday, and starting with your lean proteins and vegetables.
• 26:53
  Philip Pape: It could be, you know, shifting your training day around or getting some extra walking in.
• 26:58
  Philip Pape: I mean, I don't like to move the calories or to burn the calories through movement, right, but just thinking about how you're moving things around and accepting that one day of higher calories in the context of a week of appropriate eating is completely fine.
• 27:11
  Philip Pape: And when we say 15% of your 100%, it doesn't have to be daily.
• 27:15
  Philip Pape: Some people have a very boring Monday through Friday with their planned out meals, and it's all whole foods, and then they quote unquote, save their indulgences all for the weekend.
• 27:26
  Philip Pape: You can do whatever you want, absolutely enjoy it.
• 27:28
  Philip Pape: That's the whole point Flexible restraint.
• 27:31
  Philip Pape: Now, when you think about this middle ground, it's really a game changer.
• 27:37
  Philip Pape: I mean this is the thing that changed my life when it comes to nutrition, because when you stop moralizing food, you start making better choices automatically.
• 27:44
  Philip Pape: Again, it sounds counterintuitive, but I see it with clients all the time.
• 27:47
  Philip Pape: Somebody finally gives themselves permission to have the ice cream and then they stop thinking about ice cream constantly.
• 27:54
  Philip Pape: When cookies are not forbidden, they become less interesting, right?
• 27:57
  Philip Pape: I mean it's fascinating how that works.
• 27:59
  Philip Pape: It's like that old saying the best way to get someone to do something is tell them they can't do it.
• 28:04
  Philip Pape: Right?
• 28:05
  Philip Pape: That's when we remove the forbidden fruit aspect from foods.
• 28:08
  Philip Pape: That is where they lose their power over us.
• 28:10
  Philip Pape: So instead of spending your mental energy fighting the cravings, feeling guilty about food choices, you can redirect that energy toward things that matter, like your training, like your sleep, like managing your stress, because the middle ground isn't just about these physical outcomes, which are definitely real.
• 28:27
  Philip Pape: It's going to improve your physical outcome, but it's the food freedom.
• 28:30
  Philip Pape: It's being able to go to a restaurant with friends without anxiety and say no, I can't have that, I can't have that, I can't have that.
• 28:35
  Philip Pape: It's about enjoying birthday cake without guilt.
• 28:37
  Philip Pape: It's about building a sustainable relationship with food that serves you for life and not just the next dieting phase, and that, more than any macro split or food rule, that's what separates the people who maintain the results long-term from those who end up yo-yo dieting forever.
• 28:53
  Philip Pape: There you go.
• 28:55
  Philip Pape: All right, if you enjoyed this episode, I want you to check out episode 194, why macros might be all you need to streamline your nutrition.
• 29:03
  Philip Pape: It's an interesting one.
• 29:04
  Philip Pape: That sounds contradictory to what I talked about today, but it's actually a gateway into this idea of flexible restraint from both angles from the macros angle and from the food quality angle.
• 29:16
  Philip Pape: So I think it's a good companion to the discussion today about finding that balance Link is going to be in the show notes to that, to episode 194.
• 29:23
  Philip Pape: Until next time, keep using your wits lifting those weights, and remember the most radical thing you can do in today's extreme dieting culture is to be boringly moderate.
• 29:33
  Philip Pape: I'll talk to you next time here on the Wits and Weights podcast.