How can you overcome feeling aimless and frustrated with recovery issues in your training , especially if you're over 40 and with a family ? Find out on today's weekend Q&A bonus episode . Welcome to the Whits and Weights podcast . I'm your host , phillip 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 .
Speaker 1Hello and welcome to the special weekend Q&A edition of the Whits and Weights podcast , where we supercharge your Saturdays and Sundays with an answer to one burning question so you can put it into action this weekend . These questions are taken from the weekly Ask Phillip thread in our free Whits and Weights Facebook community . If you're feeling overwhelmed by the endless amount of information and , let's be honest , misinformation online and just want a straight up answer without the jargon , that's what this free service is for . With the weekly Ask Phillip thread , you can post a specific question relevant to your unique individual situation that week and have it answered live by me on Friday . If you'd like to experience it yourself . I invite you to use the link in the show notes to join the Whits and Weights Facebook group . It's totally free and you'll quickly find out what a positive and supportive community it is .
Speaker 1With that , let's get to today's Q&A . Thanks for taking my question . Let me think I'm not sure exactly what it is , other than I feel like something I'm doing is stalled out , potentially . Okay , very common right Having some sort of plateau . We deal with that all the time . So let's look into the details here . I am 46-year-old mom and have been weight training since May 2022 . Congrats , that's now what .
Speaker 1Year and a half Focused on body re-comp , with at least one muscle building phase last spring . I've never done a fat loss phase . I have slowly but steadily put on muscle and lost body fat down about seven pounds on the scale over the year and a half . Now that's interesting , right , because when you say you've never done a fat loss phase but kind of have been in a slow fat loss phase , like a slow deficit and I'm down to around 22% body fat now , big caveat , right . As I always say , there's really no way to tell your body fat percentage accurately , no matter what device or method you use . So I'm not going to say when you say 22% and then my goal is to get to 18% . My first recommendation , before even reading your question , is , if you're going to think about body fat at all , focus on the trend using something like the Navy formula or calipers . You know , don't use a Ren post scale or a body impedance device or in body or any of that . The trend is okay on that . What I'd rather you go by is how you look and feel , how your clothes fit , how you're performing your energy , your confidence in your body , all those kinds of things , because nobody cares about body fat percentage . You are and we can't really know what it is right . So I'm not trying to be dismissive in any means . I'm trying to help you get to using very objective , measurable outcomes , and body fat tends to not be one of those as we move forward . So all good , though I get what you're trying to do right . We're trying to lose body fat , so let's keep going .
Speaker 1Question continues . I've loved weight training and getting stronger , and I've also loved stepping away from restrictive diets and the regosit binging that accompanied them and the fasting that I've done in the past Awesome . My macros have fluctuated a bit over time , but I'm currently doing 140 grams protein , 230 grams carbs and 49 grams fat . So that sounds a totally reasonable balance for a lot of people because you've got plenty of protein . You didn't say what your weight is , but I'm going to assume kind of average size female , maybe 130 , 150 , 160 , kind of in that range . So 140 is probably around 0.8 to 1 grams per pound of protein . The 49 grams of fat is probably , I'm going to guess , 20% or so calories , and then 230 grams of carbs makes up the difference . I think this is probably right about it .
Speaker 1Maintenance , maybe a little bit of deficit , since I'm very , very , very slowly dropping weight . Agree , you are probably in a deficit . Where I'm feeling stuck is that my arms constantly feel sore and inflamed and I feel stiff and creaky and it's starting to make me dread upper body days . This has been going on for a few months . I've actually backed off training these last few weeks , dropping down to just two days a week of training and sometimes even only doing one set of everything . I typically do two heavy sets of everything in the six day rep range because I just feel inflamed and weak . I haven't been able to do anything related to my biceps in months . I just skipped those exercises entirely . It has crossed my mind . Maybe I need to increase calories to help with recovery , but I'm going to be going on vacation .
Speaker 1We use that as my motivation to stay strict with my food tracking and weights and I don't want to gain weight right now . Let's see I was doing 160 grams protein , 270 grams carbs , 49 grams fat until a few weeks ago , but I dropped down when I backed off training . This may have been a slight deficit as I was still slowly losing during that time , but I'm not sure . Anyway , I would love another set of eyes on this . I guess I'm feeling a little aimless at the moment and a little frustrated by this recovery issue and would love to refocus Now . I've got a lot of really solid thoughts on this because I think a lot of people listening can relate to this 100 percent the idea of feeling like the energy is not there , feeling sore , not sure if you've been in a deficit or not , energy those kinds of things we're going to address that I did follow up in the thread and I said what are you using to track ?
Speaker 1You said I'm using an app that is proprietary to the coaching program . I'm doing because that way my coach can see and adjust my macros on her end . My coaching program is in February and I'm not renewing . I think it's time to venture out on my own . Finally , I'm definitely going to look into Macro Factor to track it for my program ends . Then I said got it and love that you knew exactly where I was going , because anyone who listens to my show or follows us here in the community knows that I recommend Macro Factor as the one and only food logging app that everyone should use , only because it's the only one that adapts to your metabolism . I would just start tracking that right away , even though you're using another app . Just start getting used to it and setting it up and at least getting the data in there so that you have that information , because you shouldn't have to have a coach adjust your macros honestly nowadays , like any nutrition coach listening or wanting to get into the business , if they are tracking your macros for you , honestly that is a non-value added activity .
Speaker 1I would prefer that something like Macro Factor , which can see your metabolism track , adjust the macros , but that the plan and your goals and your strategy are what you work on your coach with . I know you said you're not going to be working with a coach anymore , and that's awesome because you've probably developed some of that skill set Going forward . If you ever do work with a coach , like me , we would take a higher level approach in terms of personalizing this to you and dealing with some of these issues like the soreness . I'm going to try to answer your question here anyway . Here we go .
Speaker 1First of all , the Given your training intensity right and given that you've had this frustration now for a while , it sounds like you're not enjoying working out , like you're not looking forward to it , and we don't want that . So it sounds like an energy issue , absolutely . You alluded to that three or four times in your response , the idea that not only are you in a deficit , but you get this constant soreness and pain . So right there , right away . My suggestion would be come out of that deficit altogether and go to maintenance Even more .
Speaker 1I would suggest going to what I call the top side of maintenance , which means , if you're using macro factor , you would be slightly overshooting your maintenance or you would even set it to a very , very tiny gain , and the reason for that is to allow you to recover as quickly as possible . We don't need to reverse out of it . You just want to recover as quickly as possible . I suspect , if you do that and do it by increasing carbs because you already get plenty of protein and honestly , actually , I'm gonna take that back Increase some fats and carbs . I know you've got 50 grams of fat . I suspect that represents something like 20% or less of your calories . Try bumping that up to about 30% of your calories and eating more fat as well . I'd be curious to see how you respond to that .
Speaker 1But regardless , as long as the calories come up to over maintenance , I think you need to see a big recovery in your energy , and it might not happen instantly , like in the next session or two , although it might , but very quickly you should not feel this soreness anymore and be able to go back to the volume you were doing before , assuming there's not something else going on right , like an autoimmune condition or something else that's affecting you . I would also look at sleep and stress . If those are all good , we can rule those out right , like if you're just not getting enough sleep . But what's the other thing I was gonna say about energy ? I'm kind of losing track of my thought here . Okay , so we talked about rest and recovery , training , volume , intensity , hydration , electrolyte supplementation .
Speaker 1If all of that is good , then I seriously think it's an energy concern here , and you said you don't wanna gain weight . What I think is happening is you're losing weight , but even if you weren't losing weight and you were maintaining , chances are you still could be in a low energy state even while maintaining your weight . So a lot of people don't realize this , but your metabolism's highly adaptive , right , and there's this kind of tolerance around your maintenance where , if you were under eating but not enough to lose weight , and again you are losing weight , so you are definitely in a deficit . A lot of people are listening to this and like I don't have energy , I'm getting sore , I don't know what's going on , but I'm not losing weight . You could be in a suppressed state , right , where your metabolism is suppressed because you are slightly under eating but not enough to lose weight , or you're under eating most of the time and then you over consume some days and it kind of evens out to maintenance , but overall you're lacking energy . So that's one bringing the calories up .
Speaker 1The second thing is this is what I had forgotten a few minutes ago is the timing around your workouts . So are you fasted training ? That's one question I would ask Are you training fasted ? Because if you are stop doing that , start eating before you work out At a minimum , a banana and a whey protein shake half an hour before . But if you have like an hour or two before you work out , you can have any sort of balanced meal that has proteins and carbs . I would limit the fat in that meal , just because fat will slow down digestion and you want a lot of carbs around your workout . So for you , two , 70 grams of carbs , I would have at least 100 grams of those carbs around your workout .
Speaker 1So I think that's the long and short of it is getting more energy and workout timing and listen to your body right , like if your body is telling you that it can't produce , it can't perform . We have to look at the energy needs and we can also look at the training . So what I want you to do , lyric , is , if you take my advice , let us know here , respond to this video or post in the group that you up your calories . That included both fat and carb increases , and that you are having peri workout carbs . That's the main thing peri workout nutrition , carbs and protein , but mainly the carbs . And let us know if that changes anything and we can go from there .
That's it for today's weekend Q&A bonus episode . Remember , this is just a small part of the weekly Ask Philip live Q&A in the Wits and Weights Facebook group , which you can join totally free using the link in the show notes . I invite you to join us as we improve our health and physique together . 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 there 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 .