Your metabolism might recover during that time you're taking the refeed, but it's gonna go right back to where it was. There's no way to shift it up, right? Or to fix your metabolism or restore it to some higher number so that when you continue fat loss, it's somehow easier calorie-wise. So that's a big misconception. Welcome to the Wits and Weights podcast. I'm your host, Philip Pape, and this twice-a-week podcast is dedicated to helping you achieve physical self-mastery by getting stronger, optimizing your nutrition, and upgrading your body composition. We'll uncover science-backed strategies for movement, metabolism, muscle, and mindset with a skeptical eye on the fitness industry so you can look and feel your absolute best. Let's dive right in. Wits and weights community, welcome to another bonus solo episode of the Wits and Weights Podcast. Today's episode is called One Simple Way to Stay Motivated During Fat Loss. And it's part of a recent live training that I gave to my private Facebook group about using refeeds. What are refeeds? What are the common mistakes that people make with them, and how can you incorporate them successfully as a way to take the edge off during fat loss, help you perform better so you can get to your goal as quickly and painlessly as possible. Okay, here we go. All right, everybody, welcome to a training about refeeds. Refeeds are a strategy that you can use during fat loss. And if you don't know how to properly go through a fat loss phase, if you don't even know what I'm talking about, um, and you've done traditional dieting and you haven't looked at my other stuff, I encourage you to listen to this and watch this, but then go back into the Facebook community, the Wits and Weights group, go under guides and look at the free trainings that we have. There are quite a few there that describe the entire process. So the purpose of today's strategy with refeeds, and as you can see, I have no slides, I have an old-fashioned whiteboard, is to allow you to get through a fat loss phase successfully and consistently. Because one of the biggest struggles that I see with clients and with others is the level of fatigue, uh, the mental challenges, and sometimes the issues with performance, with energy, and all of those things that come with fat loss. Okay. So I'm gonna define refeeds and then I'm gonna go through four different um aspects of refeed so you know exactly what to do from top to bottom. So the four things we're gonna cover today are the mistakes and misconceptions that people make. Okay, I see these all the time. I want to clarify them, get them out of the way, what refeeds are for, what they're not for. The second thing is strategy. What are the three different elements that you can do at home? This is an exercise for you to figure out exactly how you would like to implement refeed days, if you need them at all, if you need them at all. So we'll talk about that. The third area is the phases of fat loss. So as we go along fat loss, there's different needs and reasons for using refeeds. And then finally, we'll talk about metrics that you can track and how to optimize them. Okay. So I want to define what a refeed is if you've never heard of it before. Um, you might you might be able to tell from the word itself, refeed, you're feeding yourself again. Uh, but really what it is, is a strategically planned day. All right. So planned, it's a strategically planned day during fat loss to increase carbs. Okay, this is key. Carbohydrates, okay. You're increasing calories and carbs for psychological relief and possibly increased performance. So I'm gonna repeat that again. A refeed is a strategically planned day during fat loss to increase carbs for psychological relief and possibly increased performance on training days. So we're gonna jump into the first section today, which is five mistakes that people make that I see all the time. I'm gonna write them on the jump board as I go or a jump board. I'm gonna write them on the whiteboard as I go through them. So the first mistake people have is thinking that a refeed will reduce your metabolic adaptation or jumpstart your metabolism. So when you go into a fat loss phase, as you're losing body mass and as you're moving less, um and as your body tries to preserve its energy, your metabolism decreases. This happens to everybody, okay? Depending on your energy levels, your activity levels, how much you're eating, and so on. And part of this process is metabolic adaptation. That is, your body just adapts as you get smaller and as you as you move less. And there's nothing we can do about it. So sorry to say, there's nothing we can do about it. The only thing you could do long term is have more muscle mass. And the only thing you do short term is offset the metabolic adaptation by moving more, usually by walking or some some cardio. Okay. But you cannot, if you take a refeed, so if you take a strategically planned higher carb day for two days, three days, four days, even a week or two, your metabolism might recover during that time you're taking the refeed, but it's going to go right back to where it was. There's no way to shift it up, right? Or to fix your metabolism or restore it to some higher number so that when you continue fat loss, it's somehow easier calorie-wise. So that's a big misconception. All right. The second one is thinking of refeeds as cheat days. The idea of cheating is losing control, is saying that I'm just gonna eat whatever I want. I'm not gonna track, I'm not gonna think about it, I'm just gonna go hog wild. Instead of planning a deviation. So there's actually a term called planned deviation or planned hedonic deviation, if you want to get technical. Hedonic meaning hedonism, like you get to enjoy yourself and indulge, but it's planned. Okay. And we are doing them again to mitigate the mental side of dieting, which usually has to do with hunger and being on low calories for days and weeks on end. Okay, but they are not cheat days. They are plant, strategically plant. The third mistake or misconception that people have, they change their the foods that they eat on these refeed days. They choose calorie-dense or highly processed foods instead of just scaling up the foods that they're already eating, primarily the carbs. Okay, and we'll talk a little bit later about um food choice and food selection. But this is a mistake that a lot of people make, is they go through refeed and they're like, all right, I'm just gonna eat all the junk food that I've been missing out. Now, there's definitely a place for a little bit of indulgence on a refeed day for sure, but it's got to be strategic. All right, number four, overeating during refeed days, which means going past your maintenance calories. So we're gonna talk about how to implement a refeed day, but the idea isn't again a cheat day where you just go hog wild. It's uh strategically planned and it's to a controlled level, going from a deficit up to maintenance. The last mistake that people make, and this is this is actually very important, okay, they don't um change their refeed days with their goals. Uh, people always want to be told what to do and have a prescription, and this is how you do a refeed day, but it's gonna depend. So I have two stories of clients. The first client, she uh had a very long, successful fat loss phase, and I say long because she had extra weight to lose. So it was a little bit longer than the typical 12 to 16 weeks, but she was doing great. And then all of a sudden, one time she said, You know what? I'm kind of going crazy here because every time I get to a weekend, I feel like I have to have just complete discipline and willpower to get through it and hit my numbers. And I don't want you to feel that way. I don't want you to feel like it's it requires everything in your power uh in terms of discipline and willpower to do that. And I said, Well, why don't we just shift some calories to the weekend, right? Your your everyday routine is pretty boring and consistent and you're working, so you don't think about it. But your weekends are the time when you go out to eat. You go out with family and friends, you want to have a little alcohol, maybe you want to have an indulgence or two. You know, there's room for these things, even in a fat loss phase, at least the way that I like to do it with clients. And we said, let's just shift your calories, and she did, and she was uh she was blown away that such a simple change could all of a sudden unlock her mental uh game when it came to fat loss, because then she now could eat more on the weekend. She felt renewed, she felt like she had energy, she could look forward to the weekend, not in the way that you look forward to a cheat day, like that's all you think about, but more like, hey, I know the weekend's coming and I'm gonna be able to accommodate my lifestyle, and then we'll get back to our routine and we'll alternate back and forth while continuing to stay in a deficit for her fat loss phase. So she adjusted by adding refeeds. I have another client who started with refeeds right off the bat, right? So the weekends were higher than the weekdays. In fact, I think it was like Fridays and Saturdays. But um, this client uh did not need them. So, oh, not only that, he didn't need them, and they actually threw off his ability to be consistent. So, what we did is we said, let's just make them even across the board, get rid of the refeed, make the progress go a little faster. And what happened is he ended up getting into a nice routine where the weekends were no different than the weekdays, and that actually helped him. So, again, we all respond differently. So these are the mistakes that people make using refeeds. All right, so now how do we actually use them? And this is where we get into strategy. So you can do this on your own. You can create a simple table with three columns, okay, and you're gonna use three labels. Timing. I hope you can hear me with my microphone. Timing, food, and the last one is strategy. Okay. Getting used to this whiteboard and where everything is placed here. So timing. Um, here's what I want you to think about. So the question I often get is when do I do a refade? Do I do it on the weekends? Do I do it for a whole week? Do I do one day, two day, three day? And so what you want to think about is number one, here, let me use a different color. What is your routine? Okay. What is your specific routine? So if you work a nine to five job Monday through Friday and then the weekends are off, that's one routine. Maybe you're a shift worker. Maybe you have, you know, two days on, one day off. That's gonna be important. Number two, oh, uh yeah. Number two is gonna be training days. Uh, and by the way, if you're watching this and you don't strength train currently, um, you have no business being in a fat loss phase, in my opinion. Honestly, um, go back and learn how to train, reach out to me, go in our group and learn about it and start strength training and make sure that you've got that in place before you even think about fat loss. Okay. So training days, you might work out four days a week: Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday. Uh, and this is where a refee day might align with the days where you have the uh toughest workouts, usually a leg workout, right? Where you're doing your squats and deadlifts or something like that. Um, now you might you might be familiar with this concept because it's also called carb cycling, right? Where you just increase carbs on training days and keep them low or average on non-training days. And it's it's a it's been around for many years. But I will tell you that a lot of people don't need to do that. Okay. Um, if you work out in the morning, you definitely don't need to do it because your carbs come from the day before, primarily. And then if even if you work out later in the day, you may not want to deprive the other days where you're recovering of calories that you need for recovery. So it really does depend on the individual. But if you're going to experiment with this, this is one way to do it. So you've got your your routine. Um, if you've got boring days versus exciting days that you go out to eat all the time or something, you've got your training, and then you've got your social events. Um, so actually, I kind of combined one and two when I was talking just there. But social events. So if you know that there is a party coming up, if you know that you are going on a trip, if you know you are traveling for work, um, account for that in your timing for refeed days. Okay. All of this stuff, we don't want surprises. We don't want to come to Thursday and be like, oh, I'm going on that trip Saturday and Sunday, and I haven't really thought ahead for um how I'm going to handle my eating routine. This is where refeeds can be really important. The second category is your food choices. The whole purpose of a refeed day is to increase your carbs for energy for recovery. Um, and that helps you with the mental side as well. So the psychological impact is the most important, but it could also help with training, as we talked about before. And when you add foods in to a refeed day, I want you to think of your favorite nutrient-dense carb-rich foods. I hope you enjoyed this clip from my recent workshop in the Wits and Weights Facebook group. If you want to watch the entire training where we talk about the strategy for implementing refeeds, positioning them intelligently at different phases of your fat loss journey, and how to measure and track their effectiveness to get the best results, head over to our free Facebook community at the link in my show notes. Our free Facebook group is a fast-growing community of people who want to upgrade and optimize their nutrition using evidence-based principles to finally get results. So, again, if you want to build muscle, lose fat, increase your metabolism, and crush your body composition goals, join the Wits and Weights Facebook group using the link in my show notes. If you can't access the show notes, just go to witsandweights.com and click community at the top. Again, go to witsandweights.com and click on community at the top. Last thing, make sure to follow or subscribe to Wits and Weights right now to automatically download tomorrow's episode number 80 with none other than Alan Aragon, where we talk about flexible dieting, evidence-based nutrition, and protein strategies. As always, stay strong and I'll talk to you next time here on the Wits and Weights podcast. Thank you for tuning in to another episode of Wits and Weights. If you found value in today's episode and know someone else who's looking to level up their wits or weights, please take a moment to share this episode with them. And make sure to hit the follow button in your podcast platform right now to catch the next episode. Until then, stay strong.