Wits & Weights | Fat Loss, Nutrition, & Strength Training for Lifters

Today’s topic may not seem exciting, but it could be the critical missing ingredient to your nutrition and recovery, whether everything else is dialed in or not.I’m talking about sleep: too little sleep, low quality sleep, irregular sleep, and poor sleep habits.Many people suffer from insomnia or a sleep disorder, and a lack of sleep can lead to terrible consequences like medical errors and car accidents. A lack of sleep can increase hunger, reduce your metabolism, impair memory, affect hormone balance, and even accelerate aging.Yet there is hope. In a paper published in 2019 by Vitale et al., called Sleep Hygiene for Optimizing Recovery in Athletes: Review and Recommendations, the authors reviewed the effects of sleep deprivation and extension on athletes to see how applying sleep hygiene methods could improve their performance.In this episode, I am shamelessly borrowing from their list of sleep hygiene recommendations. First, we talk about the tremendous benefits of improving your sleep, even just a little bit. Then, I review the list of 25 ways to improve sleep recommended by the authors, sharing some of my personal anecdotes and strategies along the way.Timestamps:00:00 - Intro01:56 - Benefits of sleep03:49 - Mindset (changing just one habit)06:02 - Top 10 ways to improve sleep hygiene13:41 - 15 more tips and tricks to improve sleepRELATED LINKSSleep Hygiene for Optimizing Recovery in Athletes: Review and RecommendationsSupport the show🎓 Join Physique University for just $27/mo + get a FREE custom nutrition plan with this special link: bit.ly/wwpu-free-plan 👥 Join our Facebook community for Q&As & support👋 Ask a question or find me on Instagram📱 Try MacroFactor 2 weeks free with code WITSANDWEIGHTS (my favorite nutrition app)

I have the honor of hosting a very special guest, Tyla Serro, for the first ever interview on this podcast. Tyla is not only an engineering colleague of mine—we work for the same aerospace company—she finds time to train and compete as a raw powerlifter, placing second this March in the 2022 USPA Connecticut state championship in her weight class…and only missing first in a close tiebreaker against her training partner.I invited her on the show because I think her story is very relatable to those of us who are working professionals with busy lives, maybe a full-time job and a family, who still want to find a way to get “big, strong, jacked, swole, ripped, fit, tone, lean, healthy” whatever term you want to use. Tyla juggles work, family, and the challenges of life using a sustainable approach to training and nutrition, so I wanted to pick her brain on how she makes it all work.RELATED LINKSTyla Serro on Instagram @tylaserroRTL Powerlifting TrainingSupport the show🎓 Join Physique University for just $27/mo + get a FREE custom nutrition plan with this special link: bit.ly/wwpu-free-plan 👥 Join our Facebook community for Q&As & support👋 Ask a question or find me on Instagram📱 Try MacroFactor 2 weeks free with code WITSANDWEIGHTS (my favorite nutrition app)

Last year, I went under the knife for a microdiscectomy, a type of minimally invasive spine surgery where a portion of a herniated disc is removed using microsurgical tools.In this episode, I share my story of what happened, how I dealt with low back pain in the context of health and fitness, the surgery and recovery process, and lessons I learned along the way. I hope my story sheds light on some productive ways to think about pain and injury and even inspires you to consider multiple options when faced with a situation like this.Medical DisclaimerOne last thing. I am NOT a medical practitioner and am NOT dispensing medical advice in this podcast. Everything I say is my personal opinion and experience. Do NOT use this podcast as medical advice to treat any medical condition. Consult your own physician for any medical issues! Timestamps:00:00 - Intro06:18 - Different types of pain10:18 - Book recommendation for lifters dealing with pain12:10 - Things to try before considering surgery13:53 - My surgery process19:27 - Movement is the key to recovery20:51 - A surprise surgery two months later21:48 - One year after back surgeryRELATED LINKSBook about dealing with pain through screening and corrective movements:Rebuilding Milo: A Lifter's Guide to Fixing Common Injuries and Building a Strong Foundation for Enhancing Performance (by Dr. Aaron Horschig)Starting Strength article about "pin firing" for elbow tendinopathy:Elbow Tendonitis: How It Occurs and What to Do About ItSupport the show🎓 Join Physique University for just $27/mo + get a FREE custom nutrition plan with this special link: bit.ly/wwpu-free-plan 👥 Join our Facebook community for Q&As & support👋 Ask a question or find me on Instagram📱 Try MacroFactor 2 weeks free with code WITSANDWEIGHTS (my favorite nutrition app)

Let’s say you’re a busy, working professional, perhaps in your 40’s with a family, a mortgage, and a high-stress job. But you want to improve your health through lifting and nutrition. That’s why you’re listening to this podcast!The last thing you want is a one-size-fits-all training program that has you lifting six days per week with 90-minute-long sessions. Something so out of whack with your current lifestyle is not exactly sustainable, and it’s a surefire way to bomb out within weeks if not days.On this podcast, we focus on maximizing your time, inside and outside the gym, for a sustainable, long-term approach you can stick to consistently. Results only come with steady application over time. That is the “first principle” of this whole deal, or else the rest is irrelevant.Therefore, you’ll probably want a training program that has you in the gym maybe 3 or 4 days a week (of course, if you can swing more and that makes sense for YOU, go for it) for maybe an hour, not counting commute time. Although we talked about the benefits of a home gym back in Episode 8, today I want to cover how to maximize your lifting sessions regardless of where you train so you can get the most out of your workout without it taking forever, while also producing the results you want.Timestamps:00:00 - Intro02:09 - Having a plan before you leave your house04:25 - Avoiding distractions and focusing on the work09:09 - Selecting programming that fits your schedule11:51 - Warmups: do you need them and how to do them19:16 - Supersets: a valuable time-saving approach for some movements21:52 - Rest periods: how long, avoiding distractions, and some hacks to save even more timeSupport the show🎓 Join Physique University for just $27/mo + get a FREE custom nutrition plan with this special link: bit.ly/wwpu-free-plan 👥 Join our Facebook community for Q&As & support👋 Ask a question or find me on Instagram📱 Try MacroFactor 2 weeks free with code WITSANDWEIGHTS (my favorite nutrition app)

As a follow-up to the last episode on losing weight without losing muscle, I want to address the frustration many of us have experienced with either not being able to lose weight or hitting a plateau, usually in the form of scale weight no longer going down.This is a complex, nuanced topic that ultimately comes down to understanding the root cause behind being unable to lose weight and taking back control so YOU can do something that will nudge your fat loss back in the right direction.That’s not to say this is your “fault” but rather that, 99% of the time, we just need to identify the problem so we can apply the right solution, and YOU are empowered to uncover the problem with the right tools and information. That is the goal of this podcast!Every fat loss phase is just a bit different, even for an individual. You may sail through and shed the pounds with ease, or you may struggle with fits-and-starts, ravenous hunger, and the feeling that there’s just something else going on beyond calories in, calories out.However, at the end of the day, it really is about energy balance. The challenge is identifying which SIDE of that balance (diet vs. metabolism) and accounting for recent changes and other factors that could mess with this balance, often in subtle ways like a sneaky ninja trying to sabotage your hard-earned progress.Before I get into the list, a few caveats. First, these reasons aren’t always in a vacuum: you may be experiencing more than one at the same time, and some of these may be interrelated. Second, I want to reiterate this isn’t a blame game; while a weight-loss stall ultimately comes down to energy balance, it can indeed be challenging to identify the true root cause, which often stems from something out of your control. My intent is to empower you to take back control.Timestamps:00:00 - Intro02:42 - The 20 common mistakes that sabotage your fat loss goalsRELATED LINKS:MacroFactor app for food logging and calculating expenditure (use discount code "WITSANDWEIGHTS")Support the show🎓 Join Physique University for just $27/mo + get a FREE custom nutrition plan with this special link: bit.ly/wwpu-free-plan 👥 Join our Facebook community for Q&As & support👋 Ask a question or find me on Instagram📱 Try MacroFactor 2 weeks free with code WITSANDWEIGHTS (my favorite nutrition app)

The last episode covered why gaining weight while training hard is an effective way to get lean by packing on muscle, increasing metabolism, and making it easier to lose fat later.Today we’re tackling the “losing fat” part of getting lean. If you haven’t listened to episode 12, go back and do that first. If you’re a newer lifter who is not extremely overweight, your best gains will come through hard strength training and eating at maintenance or in a slight surplus to improve your body composition. I recommend focusing on building muscle before you worry about losing fat.However, if you’re a late novice or intermediate lifter who has spent time in a building phase and is ready to “lean out” through a fat-loss phase, this episode is for you. After all, most of us want to maintain a healthy weight, and we can’t keep packing on muscle (along with some fat) forever. The body adapts, muscle-building slows down, and sometimes we need to “rev the engine” by taking a break, cutting some weight, and resetting ourselves for the next building phase.The challenge is losing weight at a reasonable pace while retaining as much of that hard-won muscle as possible through appropriate training and nutrition choices. Just as we want to maximize muscle size and growth while gaining weight, we want to minimize muscle loss and maximize fat loss while losing weight.Timestamps:00:00 - Intro02:39 - When to enter a weight-loss phase03:57 - How fast you should lose weight11:42 - Training and diet strategies to retain muscle17:29 - Metabolic adaptation and "diet breaks"21:58 - Biofeedback, especially as you get really lean23:35 - Recent and current fat-loss phasesRELATED LINKS:MacroFactor app for food logging and calculating expenditure (use discount code "WITSANDWEIGHTS")Support the show🎓 Join Physique University for just $27/mo + get a FREE custom nutrition plan with this special link: bit.ly/wwpu-free-plan 👥 Join our Facebook community for Q&As & support👋 Ask a question or find me on Instagram📱 Try MacroFactor 2 weeks free with code WITSANDWEIGHTS (my favorite nutrition app)

It seems that everyone wants to get “lean” these days. There’s almost an obsession with six-pack abs, visual muscularity, and thinness if you’re to believe the legions of fitness influencers who appear ready for an instant photo shoot on any given day.I’ve got nothing against maintaining a healthy weight, and in fact this podcast is all about finding a sustainable way to get stronger, build muscle, and stay healthy. But if you were to ask yourself, “what exactly is my goal when it comes to body composition?,” most of us would answer that we want to be lean, as in lower our body fat percentage.The reasons why are many, from improved performance and cardiovascular health to just feeling and looking good, often measured by whether we can fit into our favorite pair of pants again.But it often leads to a cycle of aggressive dieting and gaining back the weight (and then some) in an attempt to “see our abs” rather than a steady, consistent approach that results in “leanness” without the extreme dieting, hunger, and disappointment at failing to reach this coveted goal.Today I want to talk about a refreshingly sustainable, enjoyable approach to getting lean by gaining weight! This episode is all about the benefits of using a nice, long building phase to develop muscle, increase your metabolism, and set yourself up for a much easier dieting phase later on. You’ll be able to perform better in the gym, eat more, and eventually reach your goal without (as much) suffering.Timestamps:00:00 - Intro02:47 - The right and wrong ways to get "lean"09:22 - Why gaining weight is the sustainable approach20:58 - Recent successful 15-week building phase39:11 - Listener Q&A: wearables, calories, and dietingSupport the show🎓 Join Physique University for just $27/mo + get a FREE custom nutrition plan with this special link: bit.ly/wwpu-free-plan 👥 Join our Facebook community for Q&As & support👋 Ask a question or find me on Instagram📱 Try MacroFactor 2 weeks free with code WITSANDWEIGHTS (my favorite nutrition app)

You decided to get stronger, improve your body composition, and become more healthy. You selected a simple but effective barbell-based strength training program and committed to consistent training. During your first year of lifting, there will be many new things to learn, habits to develop, and temptations to lead you off your chosen path.After going through the process myself and talking with hundreds of other lifters, I wanted to share some thoughts to help you keep making progress and avoid some common pitfalls that could derail you. When I started lifting seriously and intelligently a few years ago, it was thanks to those who came before me that I could avoid making some big mistakes while still figuring out what worked for me as an individual. I hope these ideas help you in your first year of lifting or really any time during your fitness journey!Timestamps:00:00 - Intro01:36 - Set yourself up to develop successful new habits04:13 - Objectively measure your progress05:55 - Avoid program hopping07:59 - Stop obsessing about getting "lean"10:06 - Start obsessing about form and technique11:14 - Get feedback through a coach or online group14:39 - Prepare for early gains, things getting hard, and not failing reps18:43 - Use biofeedback for health and avoiding injury22:06 - Learn as much as you can about liftingSupport the show🎓 Join Physique University for just $27/mo + get a FREE custom nutrition plan with this special link: bit.ly/wwpu-free-plan 👥 Join our Facebook community for Q&As & support👋 Ask a question or find me on Instagram📱 Try MacroFactor 2 weeks free with code WITSANDWEIGHTS (my favorite nutrition app)

Sometimes advice from the fitness industry can be overwhelming. There are so many ways to program your lifting, eat your food, and meet your goals that we often get lost in the small details.At the end of the day, it’s the BIG details, applied consistently, that contribute the most to your progress and result in sustainable habits of success in getting big and strong, losing or gaining weight, and sculpting a healthier version of you.In this episode, I wanted to take it to a higher level, so to speak, and go over 7 “big priorities” for strength and fitness that, if you can do these at least 80% of the time, will help you accomplish your goals.Timestamps:00:00 - Intro01:23 - Get moving!03:17 - Keep programming simple and fun04:54 - Get enough sleep (recovery)06:44 - Get enough protein (as part of hitting calories)10:53 - Make your own food for most meals13:21 - Track progress16:18 - Enjoy the PROCESS (the results will follow)Support the show🎓 Join Physique University for just $27/mo + get a FREE custom nutrition plan with this special link: bit.ly/wwpu-free-plan 👥 Join our Facebook community for Q&As & support👋 Ask a question or find me on Instagram📱 Try MacroFactor 2 weeks free with code WITSANDWEIGHTS (my favorite nutrition app)

Today I share some helpful and sometimes counterintuitive things I’ve learned over the last year about fitness and nutrition that either changed my mind or were completely new to me.As a forty-something-year-old lifter who has only been training seriously and effectively for the last few years, I used to believe a lot of nonsense—ideas, myths, preconceptions, assumptions, whatever you want to call them—that often held me back from progress or, even worse, were counterproductive.Chances are that you’ve heard some of these too, and it’s quite possible you’ll be surprised by some of my thoughts in this episode—or perhaps not. At the very least, I hope you’ll learn something new that will help you continue to remain skeptical, ask questions, and become even more informed on your journey to greater strength, better health, and long-term consistency.Timestamps:00:00 - Intro01:35 - #1 More muscle means you can eat more04:09 - #2 Metabolism is determined by body composition05:55 - #3 Genetics are no excuse07:00 - #4 Calories are the LEAST important reason to exercise08:47 - #5 Walking has more benefits than you think12:17 - #6 Carbs are not the enemy (they are crucial for training)14:34 - #7 Losing weight is as "simple" as being in a caloric deficit15:51 - #8 There are multiple ways to make objective progress17:52 - #9 Being strong makes it easy to recover from injury or surgery19:14 - #10 We don't know everything yet but learn new insights every day!Support the show🎓 Join Physique University for just $27/mo + get a FREE custom nutrition plan with this special link: bit.ly/wwpu-free-plan 👥 Join our Facebook community for Q&As & support👋 Ask a question or find me on Instagram📱 Try MacroFactor 2 weeks free with code WITSANDWEIGHTS (my favorite nutrition app)