E638 - Philip Pape - How to Build Muscle, Lose Fat, and Optimize Your Health in Your 30s and 40s

**Philip Pape** (0:00)
If something's really important to you, if it's the number one thing you want to go after right now, maybe it's lifting weights, maybe it's getting more sleep, you've got to prioritize it in your schedule as if it is the most important appointment with yourself before any business meeting, before any other appointment of the week, it's got to be scheduled in there. I think that's important for anything, but if you're gonna lift weights, for example, it takes time, you've got to go to the gym, you've got to have that session built in. When are you going to do it? And if you're listening to this episode, you're like, I gotta start doing that.
Don't just leave it there. Get out your calendar and take a look. Does the morning work? Does the lunchtime, does afternoon? Usually the morning works great for people, even if you're not a morning person, because it sets the stage for the rest of the day. It actually helps with your stress to lift weights. It reduces that cortisol curve, and it just pumps you up. Like, you're ready to go. You've accomplished some massive win for the day.

**Junaid Ahmed** (0:52)
Thank you for tuning in to Hacks & Hobbies with your host, Junaid. We're visited by our amazing guests coming from all walks of life. Want to learn their story, their struggles and their journey on how they got to where they are today. So stick around.
In this episode, I get to speak with Philip Pape. Philip is also a host of the top 1.5% nutrition podcast, Wits & Weights, is a certified nutrition coach known as the Physique Engineer. Through his own transformation, Philip discovered the power of strength training and evidence-based nutrition to maximize your health, performance and physique. He is passionate about helping ambitious individuals in their 30s, 40s and beyond build muscle and lose fat, break through plateaus and optimize their hormones and metabolism without restrictive diets, tons of cardio or wasting time. With additional training in hormones, positive psychology, gut health and thyroid health, Philip is passionate about helping you unlock your full potential both inside and outside the gym using science-backed strategies for your best health, physique and well-being. This is going to be an awesome conversation. Philip, thanks so much for coming on to the podcast.

**Philip Pape** (2:17)
Junaid, thanks for having me on, man. This is quite a setup here, so I appreciate being on here with you.

**Junaid Ahmed** (2:23)
Absolutely, man. I want to make sure that I bring the best to the best. You are doing some amazing things and I cannot wait to learn more. Like, is hormones really a thing for men? I heard mostly it was for women, but I guess we all have some kind of things in our bodies.

**Philip Pape** (2:42)
We all have testosterone and that's really pivotal to building muscle. And it's more about when I say optimizing the hormones, I'm more talking about how chronic dieting can suppress your hormones and cause all sorts of side effects. So that's where I'm coming from there.

**Junaid Ahmed** (2:57)
So are there different types of hormones in body? Or is testosterone a type of a hormone?

**Philip Pape** (3:03)
Testosterone is a hormone, cortisol, right? The stress hormone. We all have insulin, which we hear about. We talk about blood sugar and insulin sensitivity and diabetes. And then there's thyroid hormone, which appear in our neck, which actually is the metabolic regulator for us. So they're extremely important as signalers for the body.

**Junaid Ahmed** (3:21)
Wow. So hormones is basically a group of type of chemicals in our bodies?

**Philip Pape** (3:27)
Yeah. They're chemical signalers, is what they are.

**Junaid Ahmed** (3:30)
Signalers. OK, Philip. Now, talk to me about how you got into this. What gave you the insight, hey, I want to do this or I want to help people. Was it something that you're going through it yourself? Give us a little background.

**Philip Pape** (3:45)
Yeah, that's exactly right. So my background is in engineering, software engineering and then engineering management for big, high performing teams at an aerospace company. And you're like, what is this guy doing talking about nutrition? But I was a dad, I became a dad 12 years ago, and I started to get that dad bod and some of the insecurities that come along with poor health, not to mention blood work and other indicators, autoimmune condition that I have and others that said there's a wake up call, I've got to do something different. But like many people out there, you may be in this ballpark. There's a lot of misinformation in the industry. And even if you are an action taker, I'm a hustler, I'm an action taker. If you tell me to do something, I'll do it. But if what I do doesn't work, that kind of breaks the feedback loop and discourages from wanting to do that again. Or worse, you think that it can't work for me. So when I finally, I'll say figured it all out, and this was only about five years ago, four or five years ago, a lot of that was during the pandemic and started to have my own transformation. Eventually, I wanted to share about it, created a podcast, and that eventually led to coaching because I wanted to help people like me, and I'm in my 40s as well, so I get it. And I've learned a lot about men and women now in that age group.