Dynamic Dialogue with Danny Matranga - 133: Maintenance Calories, Protein Intake, Training Once/Week + More (Q&A)

Episode Date: October 18, 2021

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Hey, everybody, welcome into another episode of the Dynamic Dialogue podcast. As always, I am your host, Danny Matranga. And in today's episode, I'm going to be answering your questions. These are questions that I fielded over on my Instagram. If you're a listener on the podcast and you're not following me over on Instagram, please do me a favor and toss me a follow over there. That's where the majority of my content is created. Whether it's long form posts, stories where I go over questions like this,

or even reels where I try to get creative and informative. Definitely check things out over on my Instagram at danny.matranga. Additionally, just to keep the bills paid, the lights on, and the food on the table, also consider checking out my coaching company, Core Coaching Method. Core Coaching Method is the brainchild

of almost 10 years working with clients in person and online all over the world. Personal training in person is something I'm super passionate about. And that's why I waited for over five years of training people in person, in the gym, for bodybuilding goals, weight loss goals, moms who just want to be in better shape, seniors who just want to feel better. I've trained pretty much everybody you can imagine. And I wanted to bring that to the online space and create an online coaching experience that would be as close to the real thing as possible, whether you want to end up on stage or whether you just want to move and feel better. So corecoachingmethod.com is where you can go to check that out. You can work with me directly or my team of awesome qualified coaches, whether that be in English or in Spanish, online or on Zoom from the comfort of your very own home. We have a variety of different offerings.

We even offer consultations. If you're just somebody who wants help getting your macro set, offerings we even offer consultations if you're just somebody who wants help getting your macros set you can sit down with a coach for 45 minutes have them walk you through how to set some nutritional targets some realistic training targets we have both nutritional consults and training consults in addition to full spectrum online coaching online nutrition coaching zoom one-on-one personal training sessions and even in-person personal training sessions local if you are in the Sonoma County area. So that should do it, guys. Without further ado, I'd love to get into your questions here. First question comes from at Michelle Easy, and she asks, rest days, do you recommend active recovery days or just full-on rest days. So I think both of these are great.

I think we should define the difference between an active rest day and a traditional full rest day. So if we equate a training day to be a day in which we're training pretty darn hard, somewhat close to failure, whether that be anaerobically or aerobically pushing our limits, whether that be anaerobically or aerobically, pushing our limits. And a rest day is the complete, let's say, abstinence from that kind of activity, meaning staying away from activity done close to failure or vigorously, so much so that you're not doing much additional movement at all. I think an active rest day falls somewhere in the middle. We're still trying to remain active. We're still trying to move our body. But overall, we're staying as far away from things as possible that would be strenuous. So things like walking, hiking, swimming at very low levels might be considered active recovery. And what we're going for with active recovery is a few things. Moving our body,

right? We want to move around. We want to circulate things like oxygen and blood might even help us recover faster. Maybe we want to keep our movement up. Maybe we have things to work on that are active that will supplement the majority of the work we're doing. For example, low-level aerobics like walking, mobility, stretching, technique work, whatever it may be that we need to work on. an active rest day can be a pretty good idea. But the reason I flag the differences here is because I find the people who almost always ask the question, should I do active rest day or rest day? The answer is do the damn rest day. A lot of people train obsessively. They train habitually and they train neurotically. And what I mean by that is there are a lot of people out there who, if they do not go to the gym and they do not move their body, they are pretty damn anxious.

They feel like they're missing something. They feel like they're failing. And I think that that is really tricky. It's something I found is much more prevalent amongst women than men, but it is a kind of neurotic obsession with going to the gym and taking a day off, not being okay. And I think that coming to terms with the fact that it's very normal and very healthy to be able to step away from the gym, take a break, focus on the other things that life has to offer beyond just pounding the pavement or hitting the iron. I think there's a lot of value there and not always feeling like you need to exercise is, I think, a valuable skill. Now, especially if guilt or shame set in

if you miss a day. However, some people genuinely do feel better if they get some kind of movement in every day. And I do think it's valuable to get some kind of movement in every day. So I would say I would focus on getting more active rest days than total rest days, but not to punish yourself if you need to take a total rest day. And if you are somebody who trains really damn hard all the time, definitely consider taking more total rest day. And if you are somebody who trains really damn hard all the time, definitely consider taking more total rest days. Okay, next question comes from Rhi McCaldwell, and she asks best foods to keep up with protein intake. So I think that in general, protein intake is extremely important, whether your goals are fat loss, muscle gain, performance, body composition,

and longevity. Now, how much protein you take in is going to be highly variable. For normal weight adults who want to focus on body composition, I usually say 0.7 to 1 grams per pound. For heavier or larger adults, I tend to drop that down because formulaically 0.7 to 1 grams per pound doesn't work super well. So if you have a lot of weight to lose, you can do 0.7 to 1 grams per pound of lean body mass. I find that that works pretty well for larger adults. If your goal is just longevity, and I just, hey, I'm not really concerned about putting on muscle, I just know I need to get more protein, you can aim to have protein with every meal, a small serving of protein with every meal. Now, some additional things to focus on are spacing your protein out across the day, preferably into three feedings

versus like one and having some foods around. And this is what we'll go into. This is a question that help you actually hit your protein can be really hard. It can be really tricky. Some people are plant based. Some people are vegetarian, some people don't love snacking on protein all the time. So I wanted to kind of borrow from what works for me, what works for my clients. Starting with the animal proteins, assuming that most of you are not opposed to having that, you obviously have meat, fish, poultry, right? Those are things worth having around. Hopefully you prepare some meals in advance with those things and build your meals around some large protein sources from those pretty nutritious areas now you can do things like deli meat those tend to be just fine to have on hand or jerky even prepared meat or canned tuna prepared fish

things that are quick and on the go another great source of dietary protein is dairy things like cheese whey protein shakes and yogurt cottage cheese is a very low-fat form of cheese that's very high in protein. Those are things that you can keep around and snack on. For the plant-based options, I find that plant-based protein powders tend to be pretty good. So do things like nuts and seeds, although there are a lot of associative fats and calories that come with those, so you do need to be mindful there. You can also snack on things. Again, you can add, if you're a vegetarian, not full-blown plant-based, eggs and snacks that include egg can be a really good option for upping your protein. I love,

and I know I mentioned this in the dairy category, Greek yogurt. That's one that I keep around all the time. I find that these lower fat Greek yogurt options often have upwards of 15 grams of protein, and I can grab one on the go with a piece of fruit and get a pretty good meal with some nutrition and some protein. But my list is fairly simple. It is meat, chicken, or meat, poultry, fish, all of the dairy proteins I quite like. I even like things like nuts, seeds, and whole grains that often can yield some protein as well. But I think the best thing you can do is have a variety of protein sources around you, whether that be at work, at home, in the kitchen, you know, the places that

you find yourself, keep some in your gym bag so that you can keep your protein intake up and try to get it in early so you're not playing from behind. All right, this question comes from at Mary underscore jinx. And she asks, where can I learn the order of taking supplements when and how to take them? So this is a great question, because I think many people wonder, how do I do this whole supplement thing? Right? Because it seems to be a space that's full of a lot of bullshitters. That's full of a lot of charlatans and people are making a lot of money. And anytime you get that combination of a lot of money coming in and out, ethicality of people involved being,

let's say, questionable, you know that a lot of the people who are selling supplements, whether it be influencers or supplement companies, are making great returns because the margins are so high. It just kind of reeks of stickiness. So I love questions like this because I think it's important to practice skepticism and to bring your best self and to think, okay, let me think this thoroughly before I spend my money because we live in an opportunity cost world. And what you're spending on this is money you're not spending on food. It's money you're not spending on a personal trainer or a coach. It's money you're not spending on enhancing the trainer or a coach. It's money you're not spending on, you know, enhancing the quality of the things in your bedroom to help you sleep.

A lot of things go by the wayside if you spend a lot of money on supplements. So first things first, a lot of it's going to depend on your budget, what you're comfortable spending and your needs, what you actually need to supplement. But for most people, I find it's very worthwhile to supplement with creatine monohydrate, five grams, two to five grams a day. That's going to cost you between 10 and $30 a month, depending on the creatine you take. I recommend taking that around your workout. Don't worry, we'll get to where you can learn more about this in a minute. Protein powder, that's a big one. Okay. I definitely recommend keeping a high-quality protein powder on hand. You can have it daily, multiple times a day even. The more you use it,

right, generally speaking, the faster you'll go through it, the more you'll have to pay to keep the supply up. But those are the big two that I think are worth having if your goals are body composition and performance related pretty much at all times. An additional supplement I might add to that is omega-3, whether that be fish oil or algae omega-3 for my vegetarians and vegans, because I do think many of us struggle to get omega-3s in our diet. And there's a big link to a variety of different positively increased health markers from omega-3 supplementation. So those are the three I would focus on. And I think you could probably get all three for less than $50 a month from a company like Legion. If you're using your protein once a day, your creatine once a day and your fish oil once a day, I think that's very reasonable. And I think that that's the best

place to start. And that's what I would recommend most people take. If you want to learn more about what to take, I think it becomes really imperative that you parse out who you listen to. So even somebody like myself who tries to be as transparent and honest with you guys as possible, I do work with Legion. Now, they're not throwing a ton of money at me to say anything. In fact, for the majority of the time we've worked together, they haven't thrown any money at me. So that's a good thing. You can generally look to people who you trust, who you think are straight shooters, and ask them questions just like this. But you should still practice skepticism when they answer. I don't recommend getting supplement advice from manufacturers of supplements unless they're citing their sources. So if a supplement company is going to say that a supplement can do something,

I would strongly recommend checking in the actual product marketing copy on the website to see if they include the sources. If not, be a little skeptical. That's something that Legion does extremely well and probably the biggest reason I choose to work with them over other companies because I do think we need to move our space into one of being more transparent and open access. As for open access, a lot of science is kind of behind paywalls and closed doors, and you can't just go read all the studies on a given supplement whenever you feel like it. However, there are a few resources that I love. The first is examine.com. Examine.com has a lot of free literature, and they actually source the different studies,

randomized clinical trials, meta-analyses on various different supplements, source them all in one place, and that will show you on a scale, hey, this is the actual, let's say, plausibility of this claim. So you'd say the supplement vitamin D, and then you give the variety of different things it might help with. So it may be skin, mood, sleep, recovery, muscle strength, you name it, testosterone production. An examine will say there are 17 studies that show a weak correlation or 31 studies that show a strong correlation. And there will be a color coded, almost like your cell phone bar service that shows you, hey, five bars, high correlation,

very likely that this does produce the outcomes, or one bar, low correlation. We need to ask more questions. So examine is definitely a phenomenal resource. Hey guys, just wanted to take a quick second to say thanks so much for listening to the podcast. And if you're finding value, it would mean the world to me if you would share it on your social media. Simply screenshot whatever platform you're listening to and share the episode to your Instagram story or share it to Facebook. But be sure to tag me so I can say thanks and we can chat it up about what you liked and how I can continue to improve.

Thanks so much for supporting the podcast and enjoy the rest of the episode. I also learn a lot about supplementation from the Stronger by Science podcast, which is an awesome resource. And I'm happy to plug them here on this show because I learn a ton from those guys. So first things first, you don't need to take as much as you think. How much you take has a lot to do with what you're willing to spend and what parts of your diet actually need supplementation. You can learn a little bit from manufacturers if they're transparent. You can learn a lot from sources like examine.com and stronger by science. Always practice skepticism. I think that's really important. And I think in general, we could just do better bringing some

skepticism into every area of our life. Okay, next question from at muscle Mitchell. He asks set slash volume for a one time a week client focusing on primarily compound movements. So I don't necessarily look at this as a sets per week thing, because again, we're only seeing this person one time a week. We're going to assume that this is an in-person personal training client, but let's just say you only have time to work out for one time a week. If it was a personal training client, probably 45 minutes to an hour. And let's say you only have 45 minutes to an hour to work out. So what would I do in that time? That's the real question. Cause sets volume rep volume is going to undulate depending on their fitness level, depending on how we structure the workout. Hopefully we got five to 10 minutes to do some type of tissue elevation warmup, meaning like we're going to actually elevate our tissue

temperature. We're going to do some light aerobic work, an incline walk, a little bike work, a little row machine to get the body actually warmed up. And if you have tissue that needs to be treated because it's too tight, if you have tissue that needs to be treated because maybe it's tender, you need to get prepared for training. You save a little time for that, for stretching, rolling, whatever you need to do to get in a groove. But hopefully you can do that without cutting into your total workout time. If not, we might have to reduce set volume just to make sure that you're warmed up and ready to go. After we've gotten you ready, like let's assume that you showed up to the gym and you got all that done in five minutes and we have about, let's say 50 minutes to work out. I would recommend trying to train a pushing movement, a pulling movement,

a squatting movement, and a hinging movement, no matter what. And not necessarily in that order. In fact, I might do it in the opposite order where I did a squatting movement, a hinging movement, a pulling movement, and a pushing movement because I find the complexity neurologically for the hinging and squatting movements as well as the actual architecture and size of the musculature we use there to be more fatiguing. So I want to front load that and do most of my lower body stuff earlier when I'm freshest and maybe save that upper body stuff that tends to be less loading, less overall musculature used for the back end. But I would want to train those four movement patterns because I know for a

fact, if I train a knee flexion or a squatting based pattern, I'm going to train quads, core, glutes. I know for a fact, if I train a hinging pattern like a deadlift or a kettlebell swing or a Romanian deadlift, I'm going to be training hamstrings, glutes, low back, core. Okay, so that right there takes care of my core and my whole lower body. If I train a pushing movement, for example, a barbell overhead press, I'm going to be training my chest, my shoulders, and my triceps. If I train a pulling movement, for example, a row, I'm going to be training my back, my biceps, obviously getting a little bit of core in there too. So just selecting for four movements that are compound

movements that train those fundamental patterns, I'm going to be training the entirety of my body. Now, the more time I have and the more advanced I am, the more sets I might be able to do. For example, if you're a total novice, I might have you do TRX row, TRX squat, TRX pushup, and like a kettlebell deadlift, something something super rudimentary and if it's so sub-maximal because we're just getting you moving we're just integrating things we're just getting you coordinated we could do that as a circuit where we do 30 seconds on 30 seconds off for the whole time and not do another damn thing and just get your body moving get you comfortable for somebody who's super deconditioned that could could be a great place to start. But if you've been training for a while and you're

ready to ramp things up and take it to the next level, you might consider doing three to four sets of six to eight reps, eight to 10 reps, 10 to 12 reps, and 12 to 15 reps, and constantly change the rep ranges you're training in. You might choose to train all in one rep range. There's really no hard and fast way to assign a set in a rep goal unless we know a client goal. But my guess is if they're one time a week total body, the best thing we could do is try to increase their movement competency. So maybe for the first two weeks, we select a push, pull, squat, and hinge that are really up to their fitness level. And then in the next two weeks, we change those out. So I'll take you through a little continuum. Like let's say you're

total novice. So for two weeks, we're going to do TRX row, kneeling pushup, body weight squat, and kettlebell deadlift. After you've gotten competency there and you look good, then next week we're going to move to dumbbell chest press, cable row, dumbbell Romanian deadlift and goblet squat. And then after you show some competency there, we're going to move to a standing dumbbell overhead press, a bent over dumbbell row, a lunge, that would be our squat variant or a barbell squat and a barbell RDL or, you know, something else for the posterior chain. You can work people through a continuum. All this to say, when you're training somebody one time a week, you've got to get a lot

of muscle groups trained in a short amount of time. It's unfortunate. So sticking to compounds and sticking to those four things, in my opinion, works best. So this question comes from at Chelsea Nell, and she says, when sick with a virus, do you need to be at maintenance? So, again, I'm not a epidemiologist, I'm not a virologist, and despite everybody in the motherfucking fitness industry thinking they are, I'm not going to front and act like I know everything about what your body is doing when it's fighting off a virus. But here's what I will tell you, and this is the advice I've given for years. I tend to find that it's very sound and my friends who work in the medical field have signed off on it. If you are fighting off a virus, if you are fighting off a bacterial infection, if you are recovering from

a surgery, if your body is focusing on, let's say, any type of repair, recuperation, recovery, immune fighting, immune response, you name it. Being at maintenance or in a surplus and giving your body everything it needs is probably better than being in a big ass deficit. So I would say maintenance or surplus with a good amount of protein, a good amount of micronutrients, a lot of water, a lot of sleep, minimize your intake of processed foods, increase your intake of whole foods, and you're going to be good to go. So this question comes from Chris Lynch for, she says, or she asks, how do we figure out my actual maintenance calories? So your maintenance

calories is also referred to as your TDEE or your total daily energy expenditure. And that is exactly what it sounds like. It's the total amount of energy in the form of calories that you expend every single day. So what is exactly your total daily energy expenditure composed of? Well, it's composed of four things, the largest of which, and this represents something called your REE or your resting energy expenditure, is your BMR. And your BMR is about 70% of your TDEE. BMR is basal metabolic rate. These are the things that happen whether you're moving your body or not. So running your brain, running your kidneys, running your liver, etc. The next largest percentage of your TDEE is your NEAT. And when somebody says they

have a fast metabolism or somebody says, oh, I have a slow metabolism, this is the area of metabolism that tends to be the most variable. Meaning when you look at people who are the same size, same weight, same age, their BMR might be the same. The other components that we'll talk about in a second of TDEE might be the same. But NEAT that we'll talk about in a second of TDE might be the same. But NEAT has the largest flux, meaning it can be really high or really low, depending on a lot of things. But NEAT is non-exercise activity thermogenesis. So that's things like tapping your foot or fidgeting. So if you're listening to this podcast on a walk, or you're listening to it in the car while you tap along on the steering wheel, or you're listening to it at your desk at work while you tap your foot on the ground. Those are all examples of NEAT.

Just small involuntary movements over the course of an entire day really add up. And NEAT is actually a larger contributor to your total daily energy expenditure than your EAT, your exercise activity thermogenesis. The last piece is, oh, excuse me. The last piece is your TEF or the thermic effect of food. And so NEAT, T-E-F and E-A-T, non-exercise activity thermogenesis, thermic effect of food and exercise activity thermogenesis paired with your BMR make your T-D-E-E. So all those things added together is how many calories you burn in one day.

If you eat less than your T-D-E-E, you're in a deficit. If you eat more, you burn in one day. If you eat less than your TDEE, you're in a deficit. If you eat more, you're in a surplus. In theory, we all have a hard line number that would be our TEE. That'd be really nice. That'd be really clean. My TDEE, for example, let's say hypothetically, is exactly 3,000 calories. If I eat 2,999, I'm going to lose weight. If I eat 3,001, I'm going to gain weight. But of course,,001, I'm going to gain weight. But of course, things like TEF, the thermic effect of food, how many calories we burn based on what we're eating, our eat, how much we exercise, and our need all fluctuate day to day.

So a calculation is in order here. And you can find a variety of good TDE calculators online. And again, if you want to lose weight, you should eat 200 to 500 calories below that because going one below doesn't do you any favors with the variability. If you want to gain weight, you might want to eat 200 to 500 calories above that. There are a lot of different good calculators to determine your TDE. We use the Mifflin-Saint-Jor method at Core Coaching Method to calculate TDE when we go over that with you. And again, what we're looking at, we're looking for things like height and weight and age and activities.

And usually the more active you are, you have a larger multiplier number, but those things can never be a hundred percent accurate. So when you ask, how do I figure out my quote unquote actual maintenance calories? I don't know if you ever do. I think you just get pretty close and maintain your weight right around that range. Hopefully that makes some sense as to how you might go about formulating your TDEE for yourself. But usually when we do that, we're trying to formulate TDEE to get close to a deficit or a surplus. So do what you can with that. We got a lot of questions about TDEE, by the way. So that was, I think, the one that had the most opportunity for further discussion. And last question comes from at Crystal Sirens.

They ask, what do you usually eat every day? So my diet is fairly consistent right now. I'm currently waking up, getting a big glass of water with electrolytes in, and that's usually what I will do from about 6 to 9, 9.30. Usually don't eat anything around 9.30. I will have my first meal. I have a whey protein shake with one scoop of whey, one scoop of collagen protein. I've added that in to see if I notice any differences with skin and hair. A lot of people were hyping that up, so I wanted to see the end of one outcome of adding that in, any scoop of greens powder. And I'll usually pair that with a piece of fruit.

I just don't have a big appetite in the morning for my second meal. I will usually have a couple slices of multigrain bread, a few eggs and a thing of yogurt. Again, probably some more fruit for snacks, things like jerky, things like fruit. Usually going to be including yogurt in there as well. I quite like yogurt. When it gets to dinner time, evening, when I'm done with my sessions, when I'm done communicating with my clients online, when I'm done doing things like recording podcasts, I do enjoy cooking. So I try to cook protein-heavy dinners that are also enjoyable. And those can really fluctuate. So for example, tonight I'm going to cook protein heavy dinners that are also enjoyable. And those can really fluctuate. So for example, tonight I'm going to cook a pizza on my Traeger. I will, you know,

turn the Traeger to 450, put the pizza stone in there, roll out some dough, you know, make a traditional pizza, but I'll do like a pesto chicken and I'll use chicken breast. So it's a little bit higher in protein and I'll pair that with a nice salad. You know, get my greens in late in the evening or maybe tri-tip in salad and rice. My dinners tend to be decent, not amazing. I do enjoy food and I like to make room for it at the end of the day to have some variety. And probably two, three nights a week, I'll eat out or order DoorDash because I just don't want to cook. And that tends to work for me. I'm heading to Mexico with my girlfriend here for Thanksgiving. Going to go to Cancun for a week. And I don't want to be, let's just say I'd like to lose a little more body fat than what

I have right now. And so this is what I'm doing right now. And I've started the month, or I started September at like 191. About September 12th, I started focusing on monitoring my calories. And I'm down to on October 12th. It's been about a month unironically, and I'm down to 181. So about 10 pounds in a month. That's not challenging for me to do at all. I'm sure I took that first weigh in in the evening. So I'd say closer to like six, maybe seven pounds down, um, and just go from there. Uh, so guys, that will do it for today's

Q and a, I'm actually going to answer some more of these questions on a follow-up episode. So do stay tuned. Just wanted to get you a quick rapid fire Q and a for you. You'll be hearing this on Monday. I hope you have a phenomenal week. If you haven't yet hit that subscribe button, please share this. Please leave me a five-star rating and review on iTunes if you can. And thanks again so much for listening, for sharing, for continuing to tune in. I'm really enjoying this two times a week upload frequency, and I'm going to do my best to continue to keep it up. Thanks so much. Have a good one and stay tuned.