A Busy Dad's Unscripted Guide to Fatherhood, Fitness, and Family | Bonus Episode

Can you really balance fitness, family, and personal well-being without dropping the ball on any of them?

Join me for a special Father's Day weekend bonus episode where I share my raw, unscripted journey as a father of two daughters attempting just that. From the everyday joys and hurdles of fatherhood to practical tips on integrating health and fitness into a busy lifestyle, this episode is packed with my real-life experiences. Whether you're a dad or simply striving to harmonize your health and family life, this conversation is for you.

As we age, maintaining an active lifestyle becomes even more crucial. Learn about my personal fitness approach and teaching kids healthy habits through leading by example and staying active together. From the role of sleep and self-care to balancing extreme fitness lifestyles with family commitments, this episode provides some much-needed guidance for fathers and anyone committed to lifelong health and well-being!

Share your questions and stories on fatherhood by sending me a text 👇

Transcript

Philip Pape: 0:00

Hey everybody, this is a special bonus episode coming out the day before Father's Day and I thought what better way to share my experience as a father than to put it out for this weekend and celebrate fathers everywhere, whether you are a father, have a father, might be a father, or even if you're a mother or someone who's not a father and want some inspiration on how we integrate, balance all of these different things, some practical tips, some real life stories. This is predominantly unscripted, but a bit of inspiration to help everyone out there, fellow dads and everyone else, stay strong, stay healthy and, of course, stay present with the people that you love the most. So stick around. I think you will enjoy my unscripted look into fatherhood. 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.

Philip Pape: 1:12

Welcome to a special bonus episode, a Saturday episode, and happy Father's Day if you're listening to it the day it comes out, or even the next day, 2024. Happy Father's Day to my own father. I will be giving him a call on Sunday, of course, and if you're listening to this, you're probably going to have something in this episode that will resonate with you, whether or not you're a father. We all have had a father at some point, you know at least born from a father. Maybe we didn't know our fathers. We're all in different situations. I get it, but we're really trying to just make the most of this whole family situation and balance it with our fitness, but also teach our kids, love our kids, raise them to be the best people they possibly could be, and I think a lot of the things I'm probably going to talk about today are valid for anybody anyway and come from a lot of the principles that I espouse, regardless.

Philip Pape: 2:01

As you know, the host of this podcast, as a nutrition coach, founder of Wits and Weights, all the people I talk to in the community and through this podcast and this is completely unscripted, and I mean completely All I did was came up with a bunch of potential topics that I might talk about and I'm going to freeform it, and I don't know how long this is going to be, so strap in and enjoy the ride, all right. So one topic that comes to mind is that I get asked all the time is how do you do it all right? How do you balance it all? So quick background I am a father of two daughters and we don't like to share a lot of their information um on uh, online or through any medium. We resolved right from the time they were born that we wouldn't share anything of theirs on social media other than you know stories, but we wouldn't share their photos or background information until they were old enough to make the choice to do that for themselves. They are 12 and 10 and they don't have smartphones, they don't have iPads and they don't miss that, by the way, and you're going to hear me say a lot of things that you might think are like well, I don't do that. Or is he judging me? I want you to know in this whole episode, I am not judging or giving advice or telling people what to do in any way, shape or form. I am sharing my experience and if something strikes you as like an idea that you wanna try or you have questions about it, reach out to me. Instagram at what's in weights? Yeah, at what's in weights or whatever other links I have in the show notes, just reach out.

Philip Pape: 3:26

But as far as balancing, I get this question on the podcast all the time because, between business and being a father, and then working out and leading by example, how do I do it without just outright neglecting them? And this is where I would apply the same principle. I would if you said how do I work out, like, how do I fit in enough gym sessions in my schedule? And it's simply prioritizing what's important to you first and foremost. And so the funny thing is what you're going to hear me say now is one of the most important things for me is my health.

Philip Pape: 3:58

And it's always tricky when I say put your health first before everything, even your kids, even your wife, because what I really mean is put your ability to physically and mentally show up every day for them first, so that you can physically and mentally show up for them. Right, it's kind of a chicken and egg, but not really, because if you don't have your health, if you don't have your fitness, what does that mean? It means you're going to be sick, you're going to be weak, you're not going to be able to do things. You're going to be, you know, down for the count. You're not going to be productive and you're not going to have energy on and on and on Right. And what kind of father would that make you? Or mother, or whatever, and nobody's perfect. We're simply talking about recognizing that health has to be near, if not at the top of the list, and you'll find that everything else gets easier, gets more productive. You know you have a better mental state, like everything flows from that.

Philip Pape: 4:50

So when I hear about this balance, I think prioritization and I think integrating it into my life. I want my kids to see me working out, know why I'm working out, know why I like to cook and meal prep and plan and do all the things, not because I have to, not, and meal prep and plan and do all the things, not because I have to, not because I'm punishing myself, but because these things make me a better person, a better man. They make me show up, they allow me to live a long time, to be for them and their kids and their grandkids, right, and I'm just smiling thinking about it, because I know that those four lifting sessions a week, when I spend an hour and a half in my home gym are worth it, and I try to include them in in some of those activities, right, if they want. Right, sometimes they're off doing their own thing, they're coloring, they're playing, they're reading, or my wife is doing their the school with them, because we homeschool, you know. But, um, focusing on my health first, then it makes everything else easier.

Philip Pape: 5:39

And I'll tell you what a day that I don't work out and I don't have as much energy and I'm not actively recovering. I just don't have as much in me as the other days. Not that I don't still show up, right, a lot of it is my discipline and honed, you know, desire to do that. But the health, the positive physical, mental health, makes it so much better. So what that looks like, I'm not going to go into health and fitness advice on this show, but it definitely looks like you know lifting weights so you're strong. You know building muscles so you're metabolically healthy, and doing all the meal prep, planning, tracking, awareness with your diet and so that you know you are, you've got the nutrients you need and you've got the fuel you need, all right. So I do want to talk about a little bit on the training side with kids and then some nutrition stuff with kids as well, uh, in terms of how they are involved and then how that affects me personally.

Philip Pape: 6:31

So when it comes to strength training, my kids are. They're too young to be doing any structured, uh training program. My oldest just turned 12 and she's not super interested in it, like I think she will be, and I'm I'm pegging 14 as the year where we we get in there and try to do some actual programming together. But we've got to make it fun. Like the worst thing you could do is make this, um, a forced thing that you have to do, and so making it fun and safe and all that which means letting your kids just be in the gym with you if you're at home or if you're able to take them to the gym, but which may not be possible, but when you're at home and having they could do their own thing is, you know, my kids I'll be doing stuff with a barbell and I'll give them the dumbbells and I'll say, here, try this movement. And they have fun. And I'm like how do you do this? How do you do this? I test them on like anatomy. You know what is this part of your muscle? Why does your elbow move this way? What being engaged when you do that? Right, like it's all about just including them?

Philip Pape: 7:24

Kids aren't this separate thing that's growing up on their own. We try to spend as much time as possible with them. It's one of the reasons we homeschool and again, I don't want to get judgmental, I know if you're listening and your kids go to public school, which is the majority of parents. There's lots of reasons for the choices you make. We made the choice so that one of the things that comes out of that is just us having more naturally, more quality time with the kids. But, um, training together, exercising together, can be a bonding experience.

Philip Pape: 7:54

Right, walking, going on walks. We go on walks with the kids all the time. Um, I do go for my own brisk, you know, like this is my uh, solo stress time walk. And then I go for, hey, my wife and kids, let's go out just for a stroll around the neighborhood. Um, and yeah, it's in my head, I'm thinking, and I also get more steps out of it but and it's okay to have it stack kill two birds, two birds with one stone, but include them, don't force them, make it fun.

Philip Pape: 8:20

And then, when they're old enough and, by the way, kids are old enough when they're as young as like 12 or 13, to start lifting weights. There's no issues with that, there's no. You know, they're not going to get stunted, their growth stunted or anything crazy like that, but just make it fun, enjoyable, safe and know that kids at that age will not be progressively overloading for quite a while, right, because of the hormonal situation and puberty, and it's just not going to work. It's not going to work until they hit that point in their later teens, where then it would start to take off. Okay, so just keep that in mind.

Philip Pape: 8:54

Um, mental health, you know, comes into this as well, because I think fatherhood can be high pressure, motherhood's definitely high pressure, and getting your lifting sessions and walking and things like that in will help you, uh, be a little bit more resilient on the mental side. Um, however, there are lots of other stressors and for us fathers who are hard workers like I'm a hustler, I'm an action taker, I work a lot and I could easily get carried away of of working another half hour, another hour, instead of just reading with my kids, or if my kids are trying to get my attention. This is a. This is a thing that I work on is when they come over to me and say hey, daddy, do you have time for this? Can you show me this? And sometimes I it breaks my heart a little when I realized that they think that they're imposing on me. They're being polite, right, we taught them to be polite but I also sometimes feel like, ooh, am I, have I done things in the past that show them that I'm not going to give them the time? And I, you know, because I'm aware of it and I think self-awareness is step one Um, every day now, when they do something like that, immediately I stop what I'm doing and I give them the attention. Now there might be things where I'm like in a crunch has to get done. I communicate that to them, but I'll say, hey, I would love to look at that. That is awesome. It's amazing. Put it right here, give me five minutes to finish, and then I'm absolutely going to come, give you all the attention for this, right, like, sometimes you have to do that and it's a matter of communicating, not just saying no, I don't have time, right, or or responding emotionally, responding negatively, right, that's the thing that's really going to like give a gut punch to the kid and over and over and over again uh, does not help the relationship, as opposed to being uh positive about things and like explaining, and I think it is good to explain to your kids.

Philip Pape: 10:40

Um, I grew up in a generation kind of crossing the the boundary between when you know there was definitely what do you call it, corporal punishment or, you know, spanking, and parents hitting their kids and also, um, like kids are meant to be seen, not heard, those kinds of philosophies of you know, don't explain to your kid. And um, and I was a big question asker as a kid you could imagine, right, you're probably not surprised Like why, why, why, why, why. And my mom would get frustrated but she would still be patient about it. My dad and you know, try to answer the questions more or less. I'm sure I pushed, I pushed it a bit, but I always think, like with my kids, if they're asking a question, that's curiosity, that's learning, that's them growing, that's them trying to come to for answers, and so why would I clamp that down, right?

Philip Pape: 11:25

And and I'm kind of going again, I'm rambling, this is unscripted, but when it comes to mental health and fatherhood and stress, this is all part of our physical health as well and also showing up for your kids and showing them what it takes to cope to cope with the pressures Now there are lots of pressures. We have dads right, with finances right. If you're the breadwinner like I'm, the breadwinner for our family, you know it's on my mind Like I need to take care of us. Make sure we are protected. Also, make sure I budget. Make sure I do all the things just like I do with my food and my training, but also with my money right. Make sure I'm really smart about it, that I'm not doing anything stupid, that I'm taking the appropriate risk and not too much risk. That I've set my wife and kids up If something happens to me, if I die today. I know they have life insurance. I know I have a file set up that has it's all categorized with all the things that they need, and I'm actually reminded as I record this. It's probably my annual checkup where I need to revise my step by step document that I have, which is a shared file in the cloud that my wife knows.

Philip Pape: 12:36

I'm saying all this to you guys because if you don't have something like that, if you're not prepared for you not being there, um, due to unforeseen circumstances, you're also not taking care of your family and your kids that way. And it's also a way to reduce stress, right? Because when you go through that, you go through the exercise of figuring out your budget, figuring out your debt, figuring out your assets and liabilities, figuring out your insurance, all that stuff. I know it sounds for some of you that don't like finance. You're like, oh, why is he talking about this on a fitness podcast? You can then identify any potential roadblocks or issues. Now, right, you can take care of them, and then you can make decisions that are good for your stress and your mental health, like, hey, you may need to have more income, you may need to downsize your house, you may need to cut expenses All of which contribute to mental health and reducing stress. And that's where being an entrepreneur and things like that can always add to the stress, and I understand.

Philip Pape: 13:30

Now nutrition, so I'm just kind of going from topic to topic here. Um, when it comes to nutrition, I did an episode recently a quick wits about that and, um, heather and Katie they're the hosts of stronger than your boyfriend podcast they recently gave me a shout out. Uh, in an episode they did a Q and a where they talked about kids and eating and they referenced the interview. I was on their show a long time ago and one of the topics was um, eating with your kids, um, I'm not going to rehash all of that stuff. You just go listen to the recent quick wits I did about it. It was like how to get your kids to eat well or something. But the main principle is making it positive and having your kids eat what you eat.

Philip Pape: 14:10

That's really what it comes down to Not creating a poor relationship with food, calling things good and bad, saying that I don't eat sugar because it's bad, I don't eat this because it's bad. No, I add these things in because they fuel me, they help me build muscles, they help me get strong, they help me be my best, they help you do your homework, whatever it is right To promote quote unquote healthy eating. But really it's just being open to eating anything that's out there, like all the whole foods. All the whole foods, right, the meats, the dairy, the fruits, the vegetables. Whatever you are, you know philosophically, value aligned, right If you're. If you're vegan, that's fine. That's you. I'm not. I'm not calling you out.

Philip Pape: 14:48

This is just for me, we're omnivores, so, um, involving them in baking and cooking and picking things out Heck. We just had a um, hot fudge Sunday bar. Today it was their, or um, yeah, it was their last day of school for the year and we always celebrate with a whole bunch of different little rituals which, by the way, are awesome to have rituals, because kids love routine like that and they picked out all the ingredients and they helped make it. It was just so much fun and it's ice cream, so what. But the process of involving them in this is what makes it healthy. Does that make sense? I think that's a great example, because there's an example that's eating an indulgent, high calorie food, you know, with candy and all this other stuff in it, but it was a healthy process of involving them. And we do the same when it comes to making, you know, lasagna or salad, or bulk cooking or food on the weekend, right, or even when we pick restaurants to go to and what to order in the restaurant. Okay, so enough about, enough about that.

Philip Pape: 15:45

Um, I mean, the other thing I could talk about is if you're a really busy dad and you want to talk about meal prep and things like that, keep it simple, guys If you like meat and you like some sort of starch or vegetable, just bulk cook a whole bunch of meat, right. Buy it in the value, family size, or go to Costco or whatever. Buy the massive size of chicken thighs or chicken breasts or the huge pork roast or the beef roast or the pork loin, right. Bulk cook it Crock pot, instant pot, oven, whatever and bulk cook one or two other things, right. You could bulk cook rice or quinoa or whatever. You could bulk cook vegetables. Green beans are easy. You could buy huge bags of green beans or Brussels sprouts and just toss them on a roasting pan, drizzle a little bit of olive oil and seasoning, cook them. You're done Super easy. The whole meal can take like 40 minutes to cook on a Sunday and now it gives you like eight meals during the day. Okay, so enough about that.

Philip Pape: 16:40

Let me see I had a thing here about realistic fitness goals. I'm going to skip that one. Teaching healthy habits to kids I mean having your kids see movement as a positive and having a love for movement is super important. What that looks like is not sitting around on the couch all day on their iPad or playing video games or watching TV. I'm sorry, like that is a non-negotiable. If you're, you want your kid to be what you aspire to be, with a culture of health, of wellness, of movement.

Philip Pape: 17:12

And we know guys, we know guys and ladies whoever's listening to this right, because there's all sorts of flexible families today. So not calling out any specific type of family here. We know that for ourselves. If we're not lifting weights and we're not walking and we're not moving, we are leaving something on the table when it comes to our long-term health. We know that sitting around a lot is bad for your health, it's bad for your joints, it's bad for your gut health, it's bad for your hormones. We know that not walking enough isn't great for your metabolic health and your energy flux. And then, of course, of course we know lifting weights is non-negotiable If we are to live a long life and be functional and strong to the day we die. And if we're going to be a father till then, as long as we can be, you've got to do those things. And guess what? Your kids have to emulate that and see it. They have to see it. And if that means you're moving around all day and doing stuff and you're letting them sit around all day. That's going to be a problem.

Philip Pape: 18:06

Now, my kids they love to do crafts and they play with dolls and they play with magnet blocks on the ground, they play board games, they read. So, admittedly, a lot of what they do is still, but we are constantly having them get up and do physical things like run around, you know, run around the house, chase the dogs, go walk the dogs, go take the eggs. Down to the end of the driveway we have chickens right. Go take care of the chickens. Um, it's a lot of chores. Like we involved them in chores. Go, let's do the laundry, let's let's um, go clean, go play outside. Like there's a lot of. Just go play outside, I don't care what the weather is. Go, it's raining, go play outside.

Philip Pape: 18:42

Um, those kinds of things where it's a culture of, of movement, of activity, and there's never a thought that, like just sitting around for two hours is okay, like they just don't have that in their mind. You know they they don't see mom and dad after they go to bed sit around and watch Netflix, but guess what? That right. And usually one of us is like folding clothes, one of us meeting usually my wife. I'm exhausted by then, but but then she sits down next to me on the couch and, hey, we watched some you know silly show or documentary or whatever on Netflix and that's our time together, um, before other time later on, uh, in the bedroom, all right. So then, which is important, guys, it's important, very, very important to make time for that on a regular basis as well.

Philip Pape: 19:21

But we're talking about fatherhood today and that is part of it. That is part of it for many of us as well. Um, what else? So I wish I did like a Q and a and reached out and said hey, guys, like, what are the big things on your mind? Um, I just listened to a podcast on. I think it was a 3d MJ podcast called dads who lift. Definitely check that one out, like cause, I don't want to take any credit. I did get the idea from them. I saw it. I said, oh, wouldn't it be great to do a father's day show. But they talked a lot about more of the bodybuilding culture and how they balanced that little bit more extreme lifestyle, if you want to call it that, with fatherhood. Um, and a lot of what they said, you know, made sense and resonated with me, but some things they said I'm not as familiar with because I have never competed or gone to that extreme level of leanness. That requires a lot more focus and discipline and possibly like eating things that the rest of your family is not eating, and so on, but I still thought it was a great episode for that.

Philip Pape: 20:14

Another thing that comes to mind is you know, self-care right, like just finding time for yourself and many of us may not have that. Who are fathers? We may have, like you know, work, we're making money. We're making money. We're making money. We might lift weights, take care of food, right. Have some time with the kids and go to sleep. You know, kids, wife, whatever. Go to sleep, um. Do you have a half hour in your day to like do nothing? Or an hour in your day to do nothing and by nothing I mean dealer's choice. Like you could read, you could, um, play video game. Maybe you go for a walk by yourself, like whatever it is to you right. Go for a massage guys. Like how many of your fathers listening get a regular massage or something like that I do once a month. It's awesome.

Philip Pape: 21:08

I mean, talk about like the one time that I let go of tension and it makes me realize that I'm like tense all day, for the most part, from the time I lift to the time I work to the time I go to bed. I'm like always. Just my muscles are tense, right. I'm like doing stuff, and here I'm like I just got to. You know, veg out for for an hour and a half, prioritizing your self-care and doing something for yourself. That is non-negotiable. Planning it in if you have to, it could be a nap. I mean heck, if you're able to fit in a nap somewhere, take a nap. You know what I mean. Just stuff like that.

Philip Pape: 21:34

Here's another thing. That's something I used to take for granted or not take for granted. I didn't used to do as much, but now I have more men in my life who I connect with, very important, and some of you know who you are Carl, alan and others. Dustin I'm not sure you listen to this podcast, but and some guys that I need to reach out to that I haven't talked to in a while. I'll be honest, and I think that's important Right now reach out text somebody you haven't said hi to. In fact, you know what I'm going to do, that I'm putting myself a note to do that with someone that I know would appreciate me reaching out and we haven't talked in a few months, and so I'm going to do that.

Philip Pape: 22:09

I think it's really important to have that social connection, that family support or friend support, people who are health-minded, like you, right, or at least somebody who gets you and can either help you on you know, you could unload on them without any issues, you can share emotions, um, they can call you out right, they could give you a spot, they can, um, give you feedback. Things like that are very, very important. Um. So other things that we do personally, cause I know I've talked a lot in generalities, uh, I have something. So two things that we do every single day that I think are important for us and you might want to find an equivalent for you.

Philip Pape: 22:50

One we have dinner at the table. I know it's a novel concept these days. When I grew up, we had TV trays and I think we would eat at the table occasionally and then we would eat in front of the TV and if my mom or dad are listening to this, I'm not calling you out Super common. My wife's family did that, like a lot of families did that, and still probably families do that, but we eat dinner at the table and with no devices, with no distractions, no TV, nothing. And it's amazing how much space that gives you just to catch up, because you're like, what do we talk about? Okay, let's ask each other questions and connect, right. And oftentimes people don't even do that until they go on a vacation, right, or they or they do something on the weekend, it's like the whole week. It's just not really connecting, um, so dinner at the table and that, and again, you don't have to have dinner at the table to do that. There could be many other ways to do that.

Philip Pape: 24:13

Um, and then after that, what we do is, uh, I have something called daddy time. I spend about an hour where it's completely a hundred percent reserved for my daughters and me to do something, and we're, we are starting to get routines where, like one day a week is our watch a movie together, and lately we've been watching Star Trek Voyager, and before that it was the great British bakingaking Show. It's like, whatever they're interested in, we scroll through the streams and we find a show, we add it to the list and then they're excited for the next episode, you know, and they're watching some of the stuff that I used to watch back in the nineties, like the science fiction stuff I liked. So we'll watch that one night, one or two nights a week. We'll read and what's cool is I'll usually read to them and these days it's like the longer books, the chapter books, or they will read to me. So they love to read. They read like so many books, way more books than I read as a kid. They're just constantly reading books.

Philip Pape: 25:05

The other day my oldest daughter was next to me and she put a book down. She picked another book up. I said what you finished that book already? She's like, no, no, no, I have three books that I'm reading at the same time. Like, oh, my gosh, like I can't even do that. I have to focus on one. But she's able to just mentally task between them and she's like, yeah, it adds variety. Okay, you do, you, that's pretty cool.

Philip Pape: 25:23

But they will get books from the library and then they'll want to read to me the books. And what's funny is they will pick up um, they'll pick up a Kate. They pick up like books their age. But then they also pick up some like books for little kids and they actually like to. They read them to me with voices and stuff, as if they're a parent and like I'm their kid. But also they kind of um, conspiratorially, you know, laugh at how it's written for little kids, like, oh, isn't that cute, you know, cause they're at that age now where they're they're far beyond that intellectually, but they enjoy how it was written and the fact that we used to read books like that to them.

Philip Pape: 25:59

So that's a couple nights and then the other nights are things like hide and seek or tag, you know, like physical games or board games. We love board games and I really like the board games that involve, you know, words like Scrabble and um, what, what's the other one? Uh, scattergories and things like that. Because you know I'm like way older than them and you would think I'd be a lot quote unquote smarter than them. Man, they are catching up fast and I love to challenge them and see, like how their brain is developing over time. So they're going to have their far the vocabulary will far outstrip mine well before. Um, you know, it's gonna, it's gonna catch up to mine, let's say quickly, like probably by their twenties, Um, and then, uh, yeah, so that's what we do. It's called daddy time. We do it every night. It's a lot of fun. And then on the weekend we actually replaced that with like all together family time watching a movie. So it's kind of fun, it's nice to them over and over.

Philip Pape: 26:47

Here's the other thing. I'm in my early forties, okay, and when I was I've told this story before, but it's probably been a while when I was in my late twenties, turning 30, I decided to get a little more serious about fitness. I had not really been into fitness at all, I'd been doing diets and I decided to join CrossFit and I did CrossFit for a long time. I did it for like eight years. It wasn't very consistent, but it definitely moved the needle a little bit in helping me get a little more conditioned, a little bit stronger, a little bit Okay, but it wasn't enough to, I'll say, kind of keep up with my biological age, if that makes sense. So as I was aging, started to get a little more sore, the joints, this and that I'm thinking parts of CrossFit probably weren't helping when you have to like slam big barbell lifts for speed, not really caring too much about form, right. So that's part of it.

Philip Pape: 27:49

But anyway, long story short, almost 10 years later and this is the story I've told many, many times in other podcasts is when I got serious about lifting weights, the right way for strength, for muscle fueling myself and it took a good two years of lots of reading with intentionality, right, listening to podcasts with intentionality, and I think this is important as a father of any age like taking the time to develop skills and learn about specific things and try to master specific areas and really do it with intention and don't think that, okay, my life is just, it's going to coast from here to the rest of my the time I die, always be improving and pick something to kind of latch onto, to get a little bit of obsessed about, even, of course, it's usually something you like or you're interested in. In this case, I wouldn't say I was very passionate about it, but I became passionate once I saw what it could do for me. And I think that's part of the aging process as well, especially when it comes to fitness and being active, is that Now that I'm in my 40s, I realize that the parts of age that do start to creep up, like your connective tissue, and you're prone to injury. And you know I've had a couple surgeries and none of it was caused by my lifting. If anything. The lifting has kept me strong and resilient in the face of those things, because I've seen plenty of peers and I know people in their 50s and 60s who just kind of let it go and, man, they're in much worse shape in terms of, like, low back pain and all sorts of weird injuries, and when they fall it's a lot worse than if I fell because of just the lack of strength and it gets worse and worse as you age. So the whole aging thing is important.

Philip Pape: 29:28

I recently did an episode about over 50, uh, an over 50 blueprint, but really all the principles we talk about are important and so really for me again going back to the first thing I mentioned early on, if you're a father, it behooves you to be strong and capable, if nothing else, then to scare your daughter's future boyfriends. No, that's, that's a joke, kind of, not kind of. Uh, from my perspective. I want you know if, if and when my daughters start dating, and even when it's a male, maybe it's female, I don't know, no, it's but um, that I will be kind of intimidating to them and they'll respect me and they'll see me as like a big, strong guy. But also maybe I can get them into lifting and we can go to the gym together. Who knows, who knows, I'm just like imagining the future here, but it's super critical to stay healthy, stay active, and not just active but to lift weights, all right. So enough about that.

Philip Pape: 30:18

Um, sleep, we didn't even talk about sleep, but I'm not the poster child for sleep as much as I coach people all the time about getting enough sleep. I get on average six hours and 40 minutes. Now, that's not abysmal, right, I would say sub six hours gets a little bit tougher for people. Um, but of course I quote unquote ideally it's between seven and nine hours. What I do do, however, that, I think, has helped me a lot, and I see it in my numbers, like in my aura ring, and I feel it is.

Philip Pape: 30:48

I go to bed at the same time every night, right, even on the weekend, same time. I'm not up doing you know, weekend benders or anything. I never did that, but I wouldn't do it now for sure. We're not even going to talk about alcohol, but I go to sleep at the same time every night. I wake up the same time. Now it might shift by a half hour, an hour on the weekend, but my body is so attuned to it now that when I get that like roughly six hours and 40 minutes of sleep, everything seems pretty good, like I feel good, um, and I and I do mean objectively feel good, because I've had lower sleep and I've had inconsistent sleep and I know the difference at this point.

Philip Pape: 31:26

But I also know that occasionally, if I like, if I go on vacation, I'm able to sleep seven hours a day, cause I'm not going to go much past seven or eight. My, my body at this point just is used to that Um, I will definitely feel a little more rested. But there's other things at play that come in when you're on vacation. Right, like that also improve your that, reduce your stress, you know like you're not working as hard and all these other things and you're having fun, you're in a new environment. But sleep is definitely like way at the top of the list when it comes to um, your activity and your recovery and your health and also your ability to manage your weight and your fat loss and all that. And so sleeping at the same time is important, and then what you do in a couple hours before are important, and this is really the only tips I'm going to give you. But, like I wear blue blocking glasses and I have the filters on my screens and then I read for about half an hour before I go to sleep. Occasionally I'll watch TV and I know when I do I'm going to get poor sleep quality and inevitably it happens every time and that is great feedback to tell me stop doing that, stop doing that. So, find whatever that is for you, because improving sleep quality will help everything else as well.

Philip Pape: 32:36

Okay, I've covered a lot of things. Um, I don't know if you guys think like, hey, why didn't you cover X, y, z? But I'm happy to cover that in a future episode as, like specific topics or tangents off of those topics in context of fatherhood, I can always do that. I didn't want this episode to be too long and it looks like I'm going past half an hour. So, uh, hope you enjoy this. If it resonated with you in any way, if you thought it was interesting or not, let me know.

Philip Pape: 32:59

Either way, um, and I hope you have fathers have a wonderful father's day and wish your fathers if, if they're around, you know, if, if you, if you have the chance to do that, if you're able to um, happy father's day and that is it. I hope everyone stays strong. We'll talk to you next time. 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.