Latest / Wits & Weights | Strength & Fat Loss Over 40 / Metabolism Slowing Down with Age? What is REALLY Happening (and How to Reverse It) | Ep 302

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Metabolism Slowing Down with Age? What is REALLY Happening (and How to Reverse It) | Ep 302 · Wits & Weights | Strength & Fat Loss Over 40

• 0:01
  Philip Pape: Your metabolism is slowing down.
• 0:03
  Philip Pape: They say you can't eat like you did in your 20s.
• 0:06
  Philip Pape: It's all downhill after 30.
• 0:08
  Philip Pape: But what if I told you that most of what you heard about aging and metabolism is completely wrong.
• 0:13
  Philip Pape: Aging does not inevitably doom you to weight gain and energy loss.
• 0:17
  Philip Pape: The latest research shows that your basal metabolic rate stays remarkably stable from your 20s until your 60s.
• 0:24
  Philip Pape: So why are so many people struggling with weight gain and energy loss as they age?
• 0:28
  Philip Pape: Today, we are uncovering the real culprits behind what feels like a slowing metabolism, and they're not what you think.
• 0:34
  Philip Pape: You'll discover the shocking truth about what's actually happening to your body as you age and the eight evidence-based strategies that can not only prevent metabolic decline but potentially reverse it.
• 0:56
  Philip Pape: Welcome to Wits and Weights, the show that helps you build a strong, healthy physique using evidence, engineering and efficiency.
• 1:02
  Philip Pape: I'm your host, philip Pape, and today we're tackling one of the most persistent myths in the fitness world the idea that your metabolism inevitably slows down as you age.
• 1:13
  Philip Pape: We've all heard it or said these things ourselves Just wait until you hit 30, 40, 50.
• 1:19
  Philip Pape: Your metabolism just isn't what it used to be, and these are the kind of statements that seem to make intuitive sense when you notice changes in your body composition and your energy levels as you get older.
• 1:31
  Philip Pape: But the thing is that research tells us a different set of facts and both are not mutually exclusive.
• 1:38
  Philip Pape: In other words, you're both right, and when we look at the data, we discover that the relationship between aging and metabolism is more complex and it's more within our control than conventional wisdom or the industry might suggest.
• 1:50
  Philip Pape: And today I want to break down what is happening.
• 1:53
  Philip Pape: What is happening with your metabolism as you age, why you might be experiencing changes in your body composition getting fluffier, getting more belly fat, things like that and, most importantly, strategies, of course, strategies that you can implement, starting today, to maintain or even boost your metabolic rate, regardless of your age.
• 2:11
  Philip Pape: And it is never too late, before we get into it, if you are right now feeling like you're struggling with your metabolism or your body composition or your energy, I've created something that can help Wits and Weights.
• 2:24
  Philip Pape: Physique University is my coaching community.
• 2:26
  Philip Pape: It's where I've taken the best from my private clients, my one-on-one process, and put it into a group program that's more, let's say, affordable and accessible to a lot more folks.
• 2:35
  Philip Pape: And we tackle these kinds of issues by giving you a roadmap, an onboarding plan to follow.
• 2:41
  Philip Pape: It personalizes the nutrition and training based on the evidence.
• 2:46
  Philip Pape: And right now I'm offering two weeks free so you can kick the tires.
• 2:50
  Philip Pape: You get access to your first challenge free when you join and within those two weeks you could take full advantage of the program.
• 2:55
  Philip Pape: No strings attached, nothing blocked off, including the customized nutrition plan, training programs designed for your goals, direct access to me, our community for support, for accountability.
• 3:05
  Philip Pape: So much more.
• 3:06
  Philip Pape: Just go to whitsonwastecom, slash physique, or click the link in the show notes to get started.
• 3:11
  Philip Pape: And I just want to get back into the topic now and let's talk about what's happening with metabolism as you age.
• 3:17
  Philip Pape: First, we have to understand what we mean by metabolism.
• 3:20
  Philip Pape: Your total daily energy expenditure, tdee, which we also call our metabolism, is the amount of calories you burn every day.
• 3:29
  Philip Pape: It consists of several components and if you have to break it down, we typically use four components so you can understand what happens as we age.
• 3:37
  Philip Pape: So the first component is your BMR, your basal metabolic rate.
• 3:40
  Philip Pape: This is the energy your body needs just to maintain your basic physiological functions while you're just going about your business your heartbeat, your breathing, your cell turnover, your brain function, your organs and so on.
• 3:54
  Philip Pape: For most people, this represents about two-thirds of your total daily calorie burn, so that's very important to understand.
• 4:00
  Philip Pape: Next is the thermic effect of food, or TEF.
• 4:03
  Philip Pape: That's the energy your body expends to digest, absorb and process the nutrients you consume.
• 4:08
  Philip Pape: Tef typically accounts for about 10% of your total calorie burn.
• 4:13
  Philip Pape: And then, finally, we have two pieces that are often lumped together but they're quite distinct that are related to your physical activity.
• 4:20
  Philip Pape: One is eat and the other is neat.
• 4:23
  Philip Pape: Eat is exercise activity thermogenesis that is, the calories you burn during planned exercise, which represents just 5% of your daily burn, and non-exercise activity thermogenesis, or neat, and that is all the spontaneous movements you make throughout the day fidgeting, doing chores, standing instead of sitting, and including walking in there, which, yes, can be deliberate, but it's distinct from eat.
• 4:47
  Philip Pape: So if you combine those, you got the other rest chunk of your metabolism.
• 4:52
  Philip Pape: Like I said, 5% for neat, maybe as much as 15 to 30, 40, 50% for neat, depending on how active you are.
• 5:00
  Philip Pape: The surprising thing that floors a lot of people and it surprised me when I learned this a few years ago is the research published by Herman Ponser.
• 5:07
  Philip Pape: Now, his initial research was in 2021 in the journal Science, very well-respected journal.
• 5:12
  Philip Pape: He later wrote a book called Burn and he showed based on doubly-labeled water, which is a very accurate way to determine someone's metabolism that when adjusted for fat-free mass put a pin in that because we're gonna come back to it it's actually a really important caveat.
• 5:29
  Philip Pape: When adjusted for fat-free mass TDEE, your expenditure, your metabolism remains relatively stable from age 20 to age 60.
• 5:38
  Philip Pape: It's only after age 60 that we start to see a noticeable decline in the metabolic rate, and this is important.
• 5:45
  Philip Pape: I want to repeat that because it's so contrary to popular belief and you might not even believe it based on how your own body has responded with age.
• 5:51
  Philip Pape: Your metabolism doesn't automatically slow down just because you're getting older, at least not until you're well into your 60s.
• 5:59
  Philip Pape: But if that's true, why do so many people experience weight gain and difficulty losing fat as they get older, even though they're eating the same amount?
• 6:09
  Philip Pape: And so the answer really lies in the physiological and lifestyle changes that often accompany aging.
• 6:16
  Philip Pape: And remember what we said adjusted for fat-free mass, so this is going to be relevant here Fat-free mass includes muscle tissue, okay, so it is not simply aging that is causing your metabolism to slow.
• 6:30
  Philip Pape: Let's look at the actual mechanisms that lead to, I'll say, what feels like metabolic decline and in actuality, does reduce your metabolism, and it's tied to fat-free mass.
• 6:41
  Philip Pape: The first and perhaps most significant factor is just that it is muscle loss.
• 6:46
  Philip Pape: You are losing your fat-free mass.
• 6:48
  Philip Pape: That is known as sarcopenia when you lose muscle.
• 6:51
  Philip Pape: With age, this is a natural process.
• 6:52
  Philip Pape: With aging Starting in your 30s, we begin to lose our muscle mass gradually, and then it accelerates after 50.
• 6:58
  Philip Pape: And since muscle tissue burns a lot more calories, not only at rest versus fast tissue, but for many other reasons that having more muscle burns calories, which I discussed in a past episode, episode 291, 10 reasons muscle burns even more calories than you think.
• 7:16
  Philip Pape: Losing muscle directly then impacts your BMR, your basal metabolic rate, and research shows the average person loses three to 8% of their muscle mass per decade after age 30.
• 7:29
  Philip Pape: And then this rate accelerates after age 60.
• 7:33
  Philip Pape: And what's causing the muscle loss?
• 7:34
  Philip Pape: A big part of it is hormonal changes.
• 7:35
  Philip Pape: Right as we age, we have decreases in our anabolic hormones like testosterone, growth hormone, igf-1, which is insulin-like growth factor one, and these are all critical in building and maintaining muscle.
• 7:47
  Philip Pape: So you don't have the same hormonal milieu, as they call it, as when you were in your 20s when you're just raging with hormones.
• 7:54
  Philip Pape: Also, changes in thyroid hormone activity can reduce your metabolic rate, and declining sex hormones affect fat distribution and our body's ability to preserve muscle.
• 8:05
  Philip Pape: Another reason is mitochondrial dysfunction.
• 8:09
  Philip Pape: Mitochondria, as you might have heard, are the powerhouses of your cells.
• 8:12
  Philip Pape: They produce energy, and as we age they become less efficient.
• 8:15
  Philip Pape: That results in a reduced cellular metabolic rate, and then that is compounded by increased oxidative stress, increased inflammation, and then that further impairs mitochondrial function.
• 8:29
  Philip Pape: Then there's the increase in fat mass.
• 8:31
  Philip Pape: So, unlike muscle, fat tissue is far less metabolically active, which means it contributes minimally to calorie burning.
• 8:40
  Philip Pape: And then, as you age, there's usually a shift toward visceral fat accumulation.
• 8:45
  Philip Pape: That's the dangerous fat that accumulates around your organs, and this type of fat releases inflammatory cytokines that can negatively impact metabolism throughout your body.
• 8:55
  Philip Pape: But perhaps the most significant factor that most people don't consider outside of muscle mass is the reduction in physical activity and neat, as we age we often become more sedentary, we sit more, we move less.
• 9:10
  Philip Pape: Spontaneous activities like taking the stairs, walking to the store, fidgeting, tend to decrease, sometimes dramatically, and this reduction in daily movement can account for hundreds of fewer calories burned each day.
• 9:22
  Philip Pape: And then there's sleep quality.
• 9:24
  Philip Pape: Sleep quality declines with age.
• 9:26
  Philip Pape: Many older adults have disrupted sleep patterns shorter sleep duration, poorer sleep quality.
• 9:31
  Philip Pape: You know, life just gets in the way, right?
• 9:33
  Philip Pape: We get busy, we have kids, we have family.
• 9:36
  Philip Pape: Work gets more stressful.
• 9:38
  Philip Pape: Poor sleep is not great.
• 9:40
  Philip Pape: It impairs your glucose metabolism and elevates your stress hormones.
• 9:44
  Philip Pape: It increases your cravings, increases belly fat storage.
• 9:47
  Philip Pape: It reduces fat oxidation and all of those things functionally slow your metabolism.
• 9:53
  Philip Pape: And then finally, kind of related to this, but separate is chronic stress.
• 9:57
  Philip Pape: Right, I could put this at the top of the list for some of you.
• 9:59
  Philip Pape: Yes, it becomes more common because we have complexities as we get older.
• 10:04
  Philip Pape: I sometimes daydream about those times when I was a child and I could just frolic outside in the summer in the grass on my bare feet without a care in the world.
• 10:13
  Philip Pape: I look at my pets and I think the same thing.
• 10:15
  Philip Pape: I'm like if only I could be a dog for a day.
• 10:17
  Philip Pape: Now, in my 40s, I know what stress is like.
• 10:21
  Philip Pape: We have elevated cortisol from this chronic stress.
• 10:23
  Philip Pape: That encourages fat storage again, especially in the abdominal region.
• 10:27
  Philip Pape: It also promotes muscle loss, insulin resistance.
• 10:29
  Philip Pape: So it's a laundry list of things and it's not that your metabolism is just slowing down mysteriously.
• 10:36
  Philip Pape: It's that all of these factors, many of which are lifestyle-related, are creating the conditions for metabolic decline, driven largely by the reduction of fat-free mass, the reduction in muscle, combined with all the stressors that I just talked about.
• 10:51
  Philip Pape: The good news is that, since many of these are within our control, we can take action to prevent or reverse this decline right now.
• 10:59
  Philip Pape: No matter what age you are Obviously the younger the better, but you are where you are, so don't make any excuses.
• 11:04
  Philip Pape: As you're listening to this show.
• 11:05
  Philip Pape: If you are not active, if you are not strengthening, if you are not doing the things we're going to talk about in the next section, this is your wake-up call.
• 11:12
  Philip Pape: This is your clarion call.
• 11:14
  Philip Pape: This is the moment where you cross the Rubicon and you say I am finally going to prioritize myself so that I can live a long, healthy life.
• 11:23
  Philip Pape: I have not just a lifespan, but a health span.
• 11:26
  Philip Pape: I can fulfill.
• 11:27
  Philip Pape: What?
• 11:28
  Philip Pape: The deeper why is my purpose in life when it comes to my physical and mental being on this planet?
• 11:34
  Philip Pape: What is that for you?
• 11:36
  Philip Pape: And so I want to get to the part you've been waiting for here.
• 11:39
  Philip Pape: What can you do about this?
• 11:41
  Philip Pape: And I've identified, for this episode, eight evidence-based strategies that can maintain or increase your metabolic rate, and you're going to have heard this many times on the podcast in one stage or one form or another.
• 11:53
  Philip Pape: And these are principles.
• 11:55
  Philip Pape: These are foundational, but I want to break them down for you.
• 11:57
  Philip Pape: Strategy number one can you guess it?
• 11:59
  Philip Pape: I'm going to give you a pause.
• 12:00
  Philip Pape: Of course, strength training.
• 12:03
  Philip Pape: Without strength training, almost all of this goes out the window and you join the mass of the population who ends up in metabolic decline, frailty and diseases of aging.
• 12:13
  Philip Pape: Inevitably it will happen.
• 12:15
  Philip Pape: It will happen if you are not strength training.
• 12:18
  Philip Pape: Sorry to say it, but I'm not sorry, because strength training is amazing.
• 12:21
  Philip Pape: It can be fulfilling, enjoyable and you're gonna feel like a badass if you do it.
• 12:26
  Philip Pape: Okay, resistance training will combat sarcopenia, because why You're building and you're preserving muscle mass I mean, it's as simple as that.
• 12:35
  Philip Pape: You're doing what the human body was evolved I don't want to say designed, evolved to do is push against loads in the real world, and this has so many benefits.
• 12:45
  Philip Pape: It enhances the mitochondrial density and function we talked about in the real world, and this has so many benefits.
• 12:48
  Philip Pape: It enhances the mitochondrial density and function we talked about at the cellular level.
• 12:50
  Philip Pape: It boosts your metabolic efficiency.
• 12:52
  Philip Pape: It increases your anabolic hormones, all the things right, not to mention making you functional and strong and capable and building muscle mass, just in general.
• 13:03
  Philip Pape: And of course, side effect is you have a more athletic, lean physique.
• 13:06
  Philip Pape: So it mitigates the age-related hormone declines like nothing else.
• 13:11
  Philip Pape: I mean, it is incredible how many people I've worked with and I will put myself in that category who are in their 40s or 50s or 60s have had mostly a sedentary lifestyle, start strength training and it is like they are a completely new, young, fit person.
• 13:29
  Philip Pape: It is incredible, and the research is clear on this.
• 13:32
  Philip Pape: Strength training is non-negotiable if you want to maintain your metabolism as you age.
• 13:37
  Philip Pape: So how do you do this?
• 13:40
  Philip Pape: Well, I would start where you're at, if you're not training at all.
• 13:43
  Philip Pape: Two to three strength training sessions per week.
• 13:46
  Philip Pape: Focus on compound movements like the squat, the deadlift, the bench press, the overhead press.
• 13:50
  Philip Pape: Eventually you've got pull-ups or chin-ups in there, maybe you have some rows in there and then eventually you can branch out into machines or bodybuilding work or whatever.
• 13:58
  Philip Pape: But you're going to start simple with basic compound movements that engage multiple muscle groups for the most muscle mass efficiently.
• 14:06
  Philip Pape: Full range of motion that gets you stronger.
• 14:09
  Philip Pape: Don't be afraid to lift heavy.
• 14:10
  Philip Pape: Progressive overload is key to stimulating growth and maintenance.
• 14:14
  Philip Pape: Okay, I've talked about this on other episodes, I'm going to leave it at that.
• 14:17
  Philip Pape: It is so important that you get into this.
• 14:20
  Philip Pape: You start training, you learn how to do it properly.
• 14:22
  Philip Pape: I mentioned earlier we have something called Physique University.
• 14:25
  Philip Pape: We will teach you how to do that.
• 14:26
  Philip Pape: We not only teach you how to do it and give you programs, we're gonna show you how to program for yourself so you have the skill to do it for the rest of your life.
• 14:33
  Philip Pape: That's number one.
• 14:35
  Philip Pape: Strategy number two is to prioritize high-protein nutrition.
• 14:39
  Philip Pape: Protein-rich diets support the muscle synthesis and they prevent what's called catabolism, which is the breakdown of muscle tissue.
• 14:47
  Philip Pape: They prevent this.
• 14:47
  Philip Pape: You don't need a massive amount of protein, but you probably need a lot more than you have today.
• 14:52
  Philip Pape: Protein also has the highest thermic effect of food among the macros protein, fats, carbs.
• 14:58
  Philip Pape: Protein will burn more calories being digested than carbs or fats, and so you get a lot of benefits with protein for muscle, for maintaining your diet, for feeling full, for being satisfied, for having delicious food and for adults over 40, research suggests you need even more protein, and we're talking again, not a massive amount.
• 15:19
  Philip Pape: I would start at 0.7 grams per pound and work your way up to as much as one gram per pound and you're fine.
• 15:25
  Philip Pape: You'll never really have to go beyond that, except for special cases or advanced strategies.
• 15:30
  Philip Pape: All right, spread it across your meals and you're golden.
• 15:33
  Philip Pape: Of course, you should be tracking your food so you know how much protein you're getting.
• 15:36
  Philip Pape: That's, that's a, that's a side method that supports getting enough protein.
• 15:41
  Philip Pape: Um, if you want to do that accurately, precisely and easily, I would use macro factor.
• 15:46
  Philip Pape: Link is always in my show notes at the bottom.
• 15:48
  Philip Pape: Use my code witsandweights all one word to get two weeks free.
• 15:55
  Philip Pape: But that will be a game changer for you.
• 15:57
  Philip Pape: All right.
• 15:57
  Philip Pape: Strategy number three is to boost your NEAT, your non-exercise activity thermogenesis.
• 15:59
  Philip Pape: This is also a game changer for people.
• 16:01
  Philip Pape: I've had clients who are desk jockeys, lawyers, accountants, engineers.
• 16:06
  Philip Pape: They might get 3,000 steps in a day because they're not thinking about it and they've gotten in a rut of just working all day.
• 16:12
  Philip Pape: Going from three to even six or seven massively improves your health, your calorie burn, your longevity and lots of other things like blood sugar control, hormones, et cetera, insulin resistance the list goes on and again.
• 16:27
  Philip Pape: Start where you're at Small, frequent movements throughout the day can, by themselves, significantly increase your calorie burn right.
• 16:33
  Philip Pape: Using a standing desk, taking short walks, pacing between meetings or during all meetings, if you can doing your chores, gardening right, not, you know doing things with your hands outside instead of hiring everybody to do stuff.
• 16:45
  Philip Pape: Going up the stairs, parking farther from the store and that's just not even going for deliberate walks, which are the next level to this All these contribute meaningfully to your calorie expenditure.
• 16:57
  Philip Pape: So what does that sound like?
• 16:57
  Philip Pape: It sounds like not sitting on your butt all day.
• 16:59
  Philip Pape: Sitting itself is its own mortality risk.
• 17:03
  Philip Pape: So not sitting combined with regular movement throughout the day is going to mortality risk.
• 17:05
  Philip Pape: So not sitting combined with regular movement throughout the day is gonna be huge.
• 17:08
  Philip Pape: And we know that NEAT can vary by up to 2,000 calories per day between individuals of the same size based on their lifestyle right.
• 17:17
  Philip Pape: And we're not talking 30,000 steps a day, we're talking about being fairly sedentary to being somewhat active.
• 17:22
  Philip Pape: So this could potentially be the most impactful factor in the short term, especially for your daily energy expenditure, which will make then eating easier, getting more calories easier or being in a deficit easier when you're going for fat loss.
• 17:34
  Philip Pape: In fact, we just did a mini challenge in the Physique University to help everybody increase their set count.
• 17:39
  Philip Pape: So if you join, you can go grab that.
• 17:41
  Philip Pape: We're done with the challenge.
• 17:42
  Philip Pape: But the challenge document and guidance is there.
• 17:45
  Philip Pape: It's a lot of fun, we gamify it and we do challenges every month.
• 17:49
  Philip Pape: So another reason to join, all right.
• 17:51
  Philip Pape: Strategy number four is to improve your sleep hygiene.
• 17:53
  Philip Pape: Hygiene just a nice fancy word for all the aspects of your sleep ritual, your routine.
• 17:59
  Philip Pape: To improve the quality of the sleep, yes, we want to have sufficient duration, sufficient hours of sleep.
• 18:05
  Philip Pape: Like you don't want to be so deprived that you're just exhausted and, whatever you do, it's not going to matter.
• 18:10
  Philip Pape: We're talking five to six hours of sleep is really that threshold where you start to get deprived.
• 18:16
  Philip Pape: But if you, if you're over, say, six and a half, and you're aiming for that, seven to nine hours, you know nine, nine is almost nobody I've worked with, other than retired people, are going to get nine hours of sleep.
• 18:26
  Philip Pape: Let's just admit it.
• 18:27
  Philip Pape: Okay, that's fine.
• 18:28
  Philip Pape: Raise your hand, you know who you are.
• 18:29
  Philip Pape: Um, the vast majority of us are going to get maybe seven or eight, and that's fine, as long as you focus on quality, because the quality is what really impacts the hormonal function and your thyroid, your metabolic health, your cravings, your, your belly fat.
• 18:42
  Philip Pape: And along with that comes consistency.
• 18:44
  Philip Pape: If you, the number one hack I have for you, if you want to call it that, is going to sleep and waking up at the same time.
• 18:51
  Philip Pape: Even if you only get six hours of sleep, I would rather you first get a consistent six hours of sleep, at the same sleep and wake times, even on the weekend, than try to get an extra hours of sleep if that's not, let's say, accessible or sustainable for you.
• 19:05
  Philip Pape: So consistency is actually the biggest game changer for people.
• 19:09
  Philip Pape: Then there's the environment.
• 19:10
  Philip Pape: You know the dark, quiet, cool environment.
• 19:16
  Philip Pape: Sleep mask I'm a big fan of a sleep mask.
• 19:17
  Philip Pape: I like the pressure that it puts on your eyes.
• 19:18
  Philip Pape: It creates a sense of safety to your body, especially if you're a side sleeper and you're trying to sleep on your back.
• 19:21
  Philip Pape: It's yet another way to create that pressure on top of you to keep you on your back.
• 19:26
  Philip Pape: And we know that just poor sleep is a game changer in the negative sense, like it's a link to reduced insulin sensitivity, increased hunger hormones, decreased satiety hormones.
• 19:36
  Philip Pape: I mean, you get, you could.
• 19:37
  Philip Pape: You're starving and craving high sugar, high fat foods, when you don't get enough sleep.
• 19:43
  Philip Pape: You know this, like if you're listening to this, you know this, and even if you're tracking your food, you're going to be hungry, hungrier, a lot hungrier.
• 19:50
  Philip Pape: Even if you have the so-called discipline or willpower not to eat the extra calories, you're doing yourself a disservice by not getting enough sleep.
• 19:59
  Philip Pape: So if you're gaining a bunch of weight, if you have metabolic dysfunction, if your metabolism is declining, sleep is a big part of that.
• 20:05
  Philip Pape: Strategy number five is managing chronic stress.
• 20:08
  Philip Pape: Now, this one is a tough one for a lot of folks.
• 20:11
  Philip Pape: Yet it could be the most important aspect, because a lot of us can't change the job we have or the family we have, and those things cause stress for us.
• 20:22
  Philip Pape: And you've heard all the tricks you know mindfulness, meditation, deep breathing, yoga, doing things you enjoy, play, doing a hobby right, you've got to find what that thing is for you.
• 20:34
  Philip Pape: For some people, it's just adding in some time for short breaks throughout the day and just not go, go, going forever throughout the day.
• 20:41
  Philip Pape: It's finding time for yourself.
• 20:42
  Philip Pape: Just like I encourage you to carve out time for training, I encourage you to carve out time for nothing, and by nothing I mean you've got no obligations or priorities in that time you've scheduled with yourself.
• 20:55
  Philip Pape: It could be 15 minutes and you're just going to do something for yourself to lower your cortisol or make it more consistent, to improve your mental health, and this could be going for a walk, which kills two birds with one stone and increases your NEAT.
• 21:08
  Philip Pape: It could be simply sitting down and enjoying a nice book, having a coffee, whatever that's for you to decide, but this is going to be massive when it comes to your metabolism.
• 21:18
  Philip Pape: And if you've done all the other things, later this week I'm doing an episode with Adam Badger Shout out to him Great guy, fellow coach, and he's really an expert in chronic stress.
• 21:31
  Philip Pape: And what I like about him is he doesn't approach it from reducing your stress or coping with your stress, but rather how do you change your perception of stress?
• 21:40
  Philip Pape: Ah, so I want you to listen to that episode on friday or, if you're listening to this later.
• 21:46
  Philip Pape: It's two episodes after this one Because we all face the same kinds of stressors, but we don't all react to them the same way.
• 21:55
  Philip Pape: Right?
• 21:55
  Philip Pape: We don't all react with road rage when someone cuts us off in traffic.
• 21:59
  Philip Pape: Some of us are able to just let it slide, understand that maybe that person's having a bad day and, honestly, do we care and just move on, and your reaction to that causes a physiological stress reaction or not?
• 22:12
  Philip Pape: And there's a long list of things like that.
• 22:14
  Philip Pape: So understanding how you respond to the stressors can be a game changer, even if you don't eliminate the stress or do a stress coping hack.
• 22:22
  Philip Pape: All right, stress coping hack All right.
• 22:31
  Philip Pape: Strategy number six is, I'll say, cardiovascular exercise or training or activity.
• 22:34
  Philip Pape: Now, I got to be careful here because many of you are doing too much cardio, but I think there's a place for activities like play sports, sprinting, that, especially when they're anaerobic, like sprinting that can enhance insulin sensitivity.
• 22:48
  Philip Pape: They actually can contribute to your metabolism, your energy flux and your training and recovery.
• 22:54
  Philip Pape: I know that most health organizations recommend 150 minutes of moderate intensity activity per week.
• 23:02
  Philip Pape: That's what, two and a half hours but a lot of people misconstrue that to be like running.
• 23:06
  Philip Pape: I do not subscribe to that.
• 23:08
  Philip Pape: I think your strength training provides a lot of the purpose of that in terms of cardiovascular health and even conditioning.
• 23:15
  Philip Pape: Yes, I think walking is the next thing that gets you to let's say, 90, 95% in this, in this uh bucket, and then the other five 10% could be the play, the sports, the sprinting.
• 23:26
  Philip Pape: I would avoid medium to high intensity chronic type exercise like running, unless it's something you really enjoy.
• 23:34
  Philip Pape: But that's a whole separate topic, because some people think they have to do it, some people are addicted to it.
• 23:38
  Philip Pape: That's all a separate topic, but I would prioritize lifting, then walking and then a little bit of player sprinting.
• 23:43
  Philip Pape: All right.
• 23:44
  Philip Pape: Strategy number seven is to actually spend time with your diet not in a deficit and potentially a lot of time in a slight surplus, to support the first thing we talked about, which is strength training.
• 23:57
  Philip Pape: I really should have coupled them together, but I don't wanna do that because they're separate skills that have to be developed.
• 24:04
  Philip Pape: One skill is strength training, which you could do regardless of your diet, and then the other is your diet itself, which will support your strength training and the building of the muscles.
• 24:12
  Philip Pape: So I wanted to include this in here because, yes, in the short term, eating more food will increase your metabolism.
• 24:19
  Philip Pape: That's not what I'm talking about.
• 24:20
  Philip Pape: I'm talking about fueling yourself and giving yourself the energy to support your hormones, to support your muscle building, to an extent where you develop metabolic health over the years and you're able to support muscle building much more efficiently.
• 24:32
  Philip Pape: What do I mean?
• 24:33
  Philip Pape: I mean not dieting all the time, or even that frequently.
• 24:36
  Philip Pape: So when I work with clients, what we do is we learn how to control our physique development and control our diet in a structured way where we don't feel it's restrictive, but instead it's fuel, it's energy and we spend.
• 24:49
  Philip Pape: Most people end up, after they've gone through the first year or two of this fat loss with understanding how to build muscle as well will start getting into yearly cycles where they might be dieting as little as, say, six, six weeks and, as the most, the maximum you would be dieting on a regular basis is maybe three months at the most.
• 25:11
  Philip Pape: Okay, in a 12-month period.
• 25:13
  Philip Pape: So what does that leave you?
• 25:14
  Philip Pape: Well, that leaves you with at least nine months of not dieting.
• 25:17
  Philip Pape: Now, that doesn't mean you have to be in a calorie surplus in those nine months building muscle, but it does mean you're not dieting.
• 25:23
  Philip Pape: I, however, would encourage people to spend a decent amount of time in a calorie surplus early on, as they're doing this for the first time.
• 25:30
  Philip Pape: As a noob, you know, a novice, late novice, intermediate for the first couple of years, maybe even three years, have two or three muscle building phases in there.
• 25:38
  Philip Pape: Doing that will give your body the best chance to pack on all that lean tissue and set yourself up for the rest of your life.
• 25:45
  Philip Pape: To just maintain that muscle right, you've got to go through the building process once at least once or twice, I should say.
• 25:51
  Philip Pape: You could do it a few more times if you're really into this.
• 25:53
  Philip Pape: You really want to add even more muscle.
• 25:55
  Philip Pape: But even just doing it once or twice is going to be a game changer for you, because now you'll have that extra lean mass, you'll have a higher metabolism just walking around, you'll be able to carry a little more body weight, eat a little bit more food and again, that is a game changer.
• 26:11
  Philip Pape: That is how you increase your metabolism, especially for women in peripost-menopause and men who have a decline in testosterone.
• 26:14
  Philip Pape: It is going to counteract all the things you are concerned about that cause issues Because, for example, the drop in estrogen causes extra belly fat storage and a drop in muscle mass and an increase in body fat.
• 26:24
  Philip Pape: Well, if you're strength training and you're eating, you're going to counteract that.
• 26:30
  Philip Pape: You're going to build muscle, you're going to lose body fat and therefore you are going to thrive in peri and postmenopause, where everyone else is struggling and that's what you want, all right.
• 26:37
  Philip Pape: The last strategy, number eight, is also nutrition related.
• 26:41
  Philip Pape: It's really your timing and your meal frequency.
• 26:44
  Philip Pape: So the way I like to think of this is meal timing and frequency is more about consistency for your current phase.
• 26:55
  Philip Pape: So what do I mean by that?
• 26:56
  Philip Pape: You're going to be in a phase when do you have a goal?
• 26:58
  Philip Pape: Your goal might be fat loss, it might be to maintain, it might be to build muscle, maybe you have an athletic pursuit, it doesn't matter.
• 27:03
  Philip Pape: You're in a phase, right, and within that phase, you're going to have a certain amount of calories and macros and you'll come up with a decent meal structure for that, right.
• 27:12
  Philip Pape: I want to eat four times a day, mostly protein, and here are my feeding windows, or my feeding times the.
• 27:18
  Philip Pape: The goal, then, is to be consistent with that.
• 27:20
  Philip Pape: Consistent not just with quantity, but also with timing, right, we're not talking about fasting here.
• 27:27
  Philip Pape: I'm not talking about anything fancy.
• 27:28
  Philip Pape: Just like the sleep wake times, and sleep times should be consistent.
• 27:31
  Philip Pape: Your eating should be as consistent as possible.
• 27:33
  Philip Pape: Now, calories can fluctuate.
• 27:35
  Philip Pape: They can fluctuate naturally and they can fluctuate intentionally, and I think the body is okay with that, as long as you do that consistently as well, like if you have three high days and four low days every week.
• 27:44
  Philip Pape: If you just keep doing that like clockwork, your body will get used to it and we've seen that that can improve your body's I'll say safety that it feels and it will jack up your metabolism.
• 27:56
  Philip Pape: In many cases it probably has to do with insulin sensitivity Again, mitochondrial function your cells.
• 28:03
  Philip Pape: It probably has to do with insulin sensitivity Again, mitochondrial function your cells, guys, your cells.
• 28:08
  Philip Pape: You want to baby them and treat them like pets that you're trying to take care of, and by cell I mean just everything in your body.
• 28:12
  Philip Pape: This includes your gut health, everything else, yes, and I don't want you to think that you have a lot of control directly over the cell, but the things you do, your cells are watching and listening and learning.
• 28:22
  Philip Pape: They're reacting to it.
• 28:23
  Philip Pape: Your whole metabolism is derived from how they function, and how they function is derived from what you're putting in your body, how much energy you're giving it and what you're doing.
• 28:34
  Philip Pape: It's lifestyle.
• 28:35
  Philip Pape: All the diseases we're concerned about that are the biggest killers cardiovascular disease, diabetes, et cetera.
• 28:40
  Philip Pape: All all you know all come from obesity and that all comes from lifestyle.
• 28:44
  Philip Pape: Right, we have control over this.
• 28:46
  Philip Pape: We may need help.
• 28:48
  Philip Pape: Sometimes we need pharmacology totally understandable, that's fine, but it's in our control.
• 28:53
  Philip Pape: That's the point at some level.
• 28:55
  Philip Pape: So when you've got this I'll call it metabolic flexibility and improved efficiency and insulin sensitivity you're going to burn more fat, you're going to have better fat oxidation, you're going to have more easily preserved lean tissue and avoid catabolism.
• 29:08
  Philip Pape: Right, I hope I'm not throwing around too many technical terms here, but really this is what it comes down to.
• 29:13
  Philip Pape: If you understand physiology, biology, anatomy, you understand that you are almost in total control of this, even though to get that level of control may require guardrails, structure learning and yes, for some people, pharmacology.
• 29:26
  Philip Pape: It depends.
• 29:26
  Philip Pape: I'm not ruling out lots of tools for the job.
• 29:29
  Philip Pape: We just got to get the job done right.
• 29:31
  Philip Pape: The effectiveness is going to vary from person to person because of genetics, but it's largely within your control.
• 29:37
  Philip Pape: You just have to find out what works for your body and works for your lifestyle, and you don't have to implement all these eight strategies at once.
• 29:44
  Philip Pape: Please don't do that.
• 29:45
  Philip Pape: Start with the foundational ones, the first three I talked about Strength training, protein intake, moving more.
• 29:51
  Philip Pape: Just start there, and even there you could just do one at a time if you'd like, pick the one that's most accessible to you.
• 29:57
  Philip Pape: Start doing it.
• 29:58
  Philip Pape: If you want to increase your protein, what do you do first?
• 30:00
  Philip Pape: Well, you got to track how much you eat and how much protein you eat.
• 30:03
  Philip Pape: So you go, use macro factor to do that and log it, and then you'll know within a few weeks how much protein you actually have and how much you need.
• 30:09
  Philip Pape: Boom, you have the gap.
• 30:11
  Philip Pape: You work up to the gap, you get there.
• 30:12
  Philip Pape: New habit Strength training.
• 30:14
  Philip Pape: Well, you need to know how many days a week you're going to do it, what equipment you have access to, and then what program are you going to follow?
• 30:21
  Philip Pape: Again, in Physique University, we make that super easy for you.
• 30:23
  Philip Pape: Come join us, try it out for a couple weeks.
• 30:24
  Philip Pape: Steal all my stuff in that first two weeks.
• 30:27
  Philip Pape: Get your custom nutrition plan, cut and run.
• 30:29
  Philip Pape: You could do that if you want.
• 30:30
  Philip Pape: I hope you don't.
• 30:30
  Philip Pape: I hope you stick around and see the value of it and want to actually learn and grow and develop your system.
• 30:35
  Philip Pape: It's kind of like going to college that's why we call it university, but in a good way.
• 30:43
  Philip Pape: Well, not good.
• 30:43
  Philip Pape: I liked college.
• 30:44
  Philip Pape: Some people, you know, find it difficult.
• 30:45
  Philip Pape: Um, I found it difficult and I enjoy it, but anyway.
• 30:46
  Philip Pape: Uh, it's like going to nutrition and training school, um physique university.
• 30:50
  Philip Pape: What's in weightscom slash physique.
• 30:51
  Philip Pape: All right, the cool thing.
• 30:53
  Philip Pape: I wanted to give you one more fascinating little fact here.
• 30:55
  Philip Pape: Okay, about metabolism and aging related to muscle, because we think of muscle as for strength and aesthetics, but your muscle is an endocrine organ.
• 31:04
  Philip Pape: When you contract it during exercise, your muscle releases compounds called myokines that regulate your metabolism and your inflammation.
• 31:12
  Philip Pape: And the myokines communicate with your fat tissue, with your liver, your brain, all your organs, and create a cascade of positive metabolic effects.
• 31:21
  Philip Pape: And that is why training itself not just building muscle, but the training itself improves insulin sensitivity, your hormones, your fat oxidation, reduces inflammation, supports brain health.
• 31:34
  Philip Pape: There is a still understood, like less understood, aspect of building muscle that seems to burn more fat than not building muscle, independent of all these other factors that we think we know about already.
• 31:48
  Philip Pape: And it's incredible.
• 31:49
  Philip Pape: And this means when you engage in strength training, you're not just building muscle to be strong, to look better, you're activating a signaling system that's just sitting there ready to be used.
• 31:58
  Philip Pape: That's going to improve your health at the cellular level.
• 32:01
  Philip Pape: See, we're back to the mitochond improve your health at the cellular level.
• 32:02
  Philip Pape: See, we're back to the mitochondria again, at the cellular level, and that's why I often tell my clients muscle is your metabolic currency, right, the more you have, the richer your metabolic health will be.
• 32:12
  Philip Pape: And, unlike the inevitable decline in certain hormones with age that you would have if you didn't train, you're going to increase this signaling through strength training well into your 80s and 90s.
• 32:24
  Philip Pape: Isn't that amazing?
• 32:26
  Philip Pape: So when you pick up those weights, you're not just fighting against age-related muscle loss, you are reprogramming your metabolism at the molecular level period.
• 32:35
  Philip Pape: That is the power that you have over your aging process, regardless of what conventional wisdom might suggest.
• 32:42
  Philip Pape: All right, so as we wrap up, remember aging does bring certain changes, right, that is biology.
• 32:48
  Philip Pape: We can't avoid it.
• 32:48
  Philip Pape: You're eventually going to die.
• 32:49
  Philip Pape: We have to reconcile with that.
• 32:51
  Philip Pape: But this narrative that your metabolism is doomed to slow down dramatically, it's just not supported by the science.
• 32:56
  Philip Pape: I actually get a little bit annoyed and irked when I see memes about this stuff, just like I do when people make fun of how much they love cookies.
• 33:05
  Philip Pape: You know, like it's this inevitable thing.
• 33:06
  Philip Pape: I actually get annoyed by that.
• 33:08
  Philip Pape: Now, I probably shouldn't, but it's kind of a defense mechanism people have because they're not doing the work, they're not focusing on their nutrition and they're not training.
• 33:16
  Philip Pape: Maybe they don't know what to do.
• 33:17
  Philip Pape: If so, if you know someone like that, give them a link to the podcast.
• 33:21
  Philip Pape: But what the research shows is that many of the metabolic changes we associate with aging are heavily influenced by the lifestyle factors within our control.
• 33:29
  Philip Pape: So if you implement the strategies we discussed today, especially strain training, protein intake and increased movement, you can maintain or improve your metabolic health regardless of your age.
• 33:39
  Philip Pape: Your age no longer becomes a factor.
• 33:41
  Philip Pape: You're going to get younger as you get older.
• 33:42
  Philip Pape: That's my philosophy.
• 33:43
  Philip Pape: Right now, I'm 44 and I'm way younger physically than I was at 25.
• 33:48
  Philip Pape: And you could be that too.
• 33:50
  Philip Pape: I don't care what age you are right now.
• 33:52
  Philip Pape: Your metabolism does not have to decline just because you're getting older.
• 33:55
  Philip Pape: Remember that small, consistent actions are going to compound over time.
• 33:59
  Philip Pape: This is really about habits.
• 34:00
  Philip Pape: This is a process that's going to take time.
• 34:01
  Philip Pape: You're not going to overhaul your entire lifestyle overnight.
• 34:04
  Philip Pape: So start by focusing on just one strategy today that seems most accessible to you and build from there.
• 34:11
  Philip Pape: If you rush the process, if you're impatient, you're not going to make it and you're going to be relegated to the vast majority of people who do see the decline in their metabolism.
• 34:20
  Philip Pape: But if you do these things, your metabolism will thank you.
• 34:24
  Philip Pape: Your cells will thank you for decades.
• 34:26
  Philip Pape: Right and again, maybe the most important takeaway is you have far more control over your metabolic not only your rate, but your fate than you may have believed, because your metabolism is not at the mercy of when you were born.
• 34:40
  Philip Pape: It is responding to the signals you give it through your daily choices and habits.
• 34:43
  Philip Pape: All right, if you found value in today's episode, if you want personalized guidance on optimizing your metabolism, your training, your nutrition, your body composition, your health, just join us already.
• 34:53
  Philip Pape: What are you waiting for?
• 34:54
  Philip Pape: You're gonna regret not joining us at Wits and Weights Physique University I have a link in the show notes.
• 34:59
  Philip Pape: Or go to winstonwatescom slash physique.
• 35:01
  Philip Pape: You're going to get two weeks free to just try it out.
• 35:04
  Philip Pape: Open kimono.
• 35:05
  Philip Pape: I will even give you a demo if you'd like.
• 35:07
  Philip Pape: I want you to know what it's all about and what you're going to get, because I'm kind of sad when people come in and they are there for maybe a week and they don't really do anything and then they leave.
• 35:18
  Philip Pape: I'm like, oh, you just missed out on something that is going to change your life.
• 35:22
  Philip Pape: Yeah, there's a lot of bells and whistles in there, right?
• 35:28
  Philip Pape: You get a customized nutrition plan from me based on your specific goals.
• 35:29
  Philip Pape: You get workout programs.
• 35:31
  Philip Pape: You get workout philosophy.
• 35:32
  Philip Pape: There are courses on physique development.
• 35:34
  Philip Pape: There's the community, there's the coaching calls.
• 35:36
  Philip Pape: We're going to have some live workshops.
• 35:40
  Philip Pape: We're also going to have some guests on our lives and, of course, a supportive community.
• 35:45
  Philip Pape: Just go to witsandweightscom, slash physique or click the link in the show notes.
• 35:49
  Philip Pape: What are you waiting for?
• 35:50
  Philip Pape: Let's create that sustainable approach that works with your physiology, so that you can combat metabolism with age.
• 35:57
  Philip Pape: All right, until next time, keep using your wits lifting those weights and remember, when it comes to your metabolism, age is just a number, but what you do with your body every day is what truly counts.
• 36:07
  Philip Pape: I'll talk to you next time here on the Wits and Weights Podcast.