Dynamic Dialogue with Danny Matranga - 153: 6 Easy Tips to Lose Fat & Live Healthier in 2022 (Implement TODAY)

Episode Date: January 12, 2022

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Hey, everybody, welcome in to another episode of the Dynamic Dialogue podcast. As always, I am your host, Danny Matrenga, and I want to thank you for joining me today as we discuss what I think are some really actionable tips that you can leverage to help with body compositional change, more specifically specifically body fat reduction, that will also enhance your health, your exposure to a variety of different micronutrients, your exposure to things that can be good for your mental health and wellness. I think too often in the fitness space, coaches and trainers share tips and tricks related to body fat reduction and body composition that while highly effective

aren't necessarily habit-based or aligned with health. And many years ago, I heard a quote that stuck with me, and I don't know who the original person was who said this quote, so I do apologize for not being able to give credit where credit is due, and I'll probably butcher it a little bit too, but it was something along the lines of, if you pursue body fat loss, aesthetics, or muscle growth at all costs, it will probably cost you your health. But if you pursue your health and your wellness, you might see improvements in body composition, muscle growth, etc. And so one of the things I've learned to do that I think works really well, especially for the clients that we work with, with my coaching company, Core Coaching Method, or even the private

clients I work with one-on-one in that, you know, most intimate setting, is focusing on habits and behaviors that help people feel better, that help people move better, that help people, you know, perform better, that will also help with their fitness goals. So today we are going to talk about six easy tips to lose fat and live healthier in 2022. And I think these are things that all of you can implement as early as tomorrow. So very much actionable, very much things that you can add to your list of resolutions. You are in fact one of those people. But again, buckle in because whether your goals are body fat loss, health, performance, etc., there's something in here for all of you. My first tip, the first easy thing that you can do to live healthier and lose body fat in 2022

is aim to eat a diverse array of plant matter. Fru vegetables, grains, legumes. But particularly here, I'd like to highlight fruits and vegetables. And I'll give you an actionable goal, which is to aim for between 20 and 30 different plant foods per week. And I know what you're thinking, that sounds like a lot. But theoretically, if you eat three different plants per day, maybe you have fruit with lunch, you have a little bit of vegetables as a snack in the afternoon, and then you have something like a sweet potato for dinner. That is three, and if you do that for seven days, that puts you at 21. Now, it can be hard to get 20 unique or 30 unique fruits and vegetables across your week. or 30 unique fruits and vegetables across your week. It might require some shopping and some creativity, but this is very, very good for the diversification of your micronutrient portfolio,

if you will, right? Vegetables and fruits of different colors will often yield different micronutrients and different polyphenols. Now, that's not to say that they're all unique, right? You can get a lot of a vitamin C from an orange. You can get a lot of vitamin C from a strawberry. And they're completely different colors. So some things, regardless of color, yield certain vitamins and certain minerals. It's not to say that just because something is orange, it's going to be high in vitamin C. And just because something is red, it's going to be high in a polyphenol like lycopene. Not necessarily always the case. But when you diversify like this, and you expose your body to different plants

from different places, from different types of actual species, right? We're not just talking about eating a bunch of different berries or a bunch of different cruciferous greens. We're talking about eating berries, citrus fruits, cruciferous greens, perhaps things like tubers or root vegetables.

All of these things will yield fiber, which is phenomenal for your gut microbiome, and a diversity in those different types of vegetables and fruits will yield a lot of different micronutrients. Additionally, one of the absolute best things you can do for your intestinal microbiome. And I want to be clear here when I say intestinal microbiome because the microbiome is not just your gut bacteria, right? You will hear this all the time. The gut microbiome, the gut, gut health, the microbiome. No, you have a microbiome on your skin, you have a microbiome on your mouth. Women have a vaginal microbiome, right? All of these different microbiota, these different organisms that work together synergistically with our body. But the one that we're the most, let's say, aware of, the one that we have the best understanding of, well, we're still in a very rudimentary place of just beginning to kind of crack the code here, is that gut microbiome. These organisms that live synergistically with our bodies in our intestinal tract that help us with nutrient absorption, that help us with overall

well-being. And we know that many ways our gut is integrated with our health, right? We have the gut brain access, right? We have a lot of leaky gut or what we might call gut permeability issues that are more prevalent. People deal with different things like digestive distress from Crohn's disease all the way to something that might be more, let's call it digestive specific, like irritable bowel syndrome, right? There's an increased prevalence of gut health issues and it's a really messy space. It's really sticky and not a lot of people, including myself, are super qualified to talk about it. And I do think that the best thing you can do to take care of the health of the organisms that occupy your gut is feed them the things that they like to eat. And it seems like they like to eat plant matter, specifically from

fruits and vegetables that are fibrous, and resistant starch. So things like potatoes that have been cooked and then cooled. So if you prep potatoes in advance, rice in advance, and then cool it and then heat it up again, there will still be some resistant starch there that these good gut bugs can eat. And that will really, really help in the formation of a generally more, let's call it disease resistant body. I think in the long run, the gut brain access, the general integration of our gut health and the protection of the organisms that live in our gut is vital for taking good care of our body. And we're just beginning to understand it. But one of the things that I think you can do

that is really, really cool is supplement with a symbiotic or a high quality probiotic. And there are not many of these on the market. In fact, most probiotic supplements are terrible, right? They're not yielding a lot of AFUs or active fluorescent units, things that we can actually see and go, wow, these organisms that we're hoping populate our gut, right? These things that we're hoping, you know, become the helpful bugs in our gut that help us do what we're looking to do. Are they even alive? Are they even getting there? And most of them don't. Most of them just show up in your fecal matter. And some probiotic supplements can be extremely expensive. And if you're relying on a probiotic supplement to populate your gut and you're not eating adequate amounts of fibrous fruits and vegetables, you're probably

not even giving the gut bugs you already have enough of what they need. And one of the things you can do if you're already being mindful of your intake of cruciferous greens and you'd like to hopefully enhance your overall health with a high-quality probiotic supplement is you can look to one of our new partners, Seed. Seed is an unbelievably climate forward, science forward company that has an incredibly unique blend of available probiotic strains in their symbiotic supplement, Seed. It has a digestive health blend, a gut immunity blend, a dermatological health probiotic blend, a cardiovascular health probiotic blend, a micronutrient synthesis probiotic blend, and microbiota accessible polyphenolic precursors. So all of these different things in combination have the ability to not just help the bacteria in the capsule get into your system, right? What's cool about seed is it's a dual

capsule model. So there's an exterior capsule that helps this probiotic survive the stomach, which is really challenging because most don't. The stomach is an incredibly acidic environment that makes it hard for things like live bacterial strains to survive and get to your intestines where they'll eventually populate. But seed is a capsule inside of a capsule. So imagine first you have the first capsule, which is made of prebiotic fiber that will actually help feed these bacteria. And you have all of these unique strains that have been clinically shown to work in human, not just bifidobacterium, right, that are great for the digestive health and gut,

the stuff that we think of when we think of probiotics, but also things like lactoplantibacillus plantarum, which has been shown to help with cardiovascular health. And they even have five specific strains that have been shown to work in humans to help with dermatological health. So this is a supplement that you might consider taking, not just if you want to bolster the overall integrity of your gut, but also it could have some overreaching benefits to other things, which I think is really cool. So you have that probiotic rich capsule that are prebiotic rich capsule full of probiotics. And then that is surrounded by another capsule to help this stuff get into your system. And I think that that is really, really cool. And in a world where evidence-based supplementation is really, really rare, I think Seed does it right. They have a phenomenal scientific advisory board. Everything is clear as day. They're one of the few supplement companies I know of that has an active working

relationship with the FDA, and they're very climate forward, finding ways that they can use the new science of microbiomes to help influence a better world and a better climate by helping us protect honeybees with probiotics that can improve bees' immune resilience and protect against the harmful effects of pesticides, climate change, disease, and habit loss. They're actively working on the formation of probiotics for coral to help produce greater resilience against increasing temperatures and all the fragility of our reef ecosystems. Really, really cool stuff.

So if you'd like to do something for your health, for your skin, for your gut in the new year, start first, of course, with eating a greater diversity of plants. But you can also head over to seed.com and check out using the promo code DANNY15 to save 15% off of your first order of what I believe to be the best probiotic supplement on the market. So heading here into our second tip, and this should come as little to no surprise, but this will help with your overall wellness and it will also help tremendously with your fat loss, and that is aiming to get 7 to 10 hours of sleep per night. I understand 9 and 10 is pretty way up there and likely impractical for many of us,

but hey, if you can do it, it's probably not a bad idea. For most of you though, probably somewhere between 7 to 8 hours is practical. And it's not always practical for those of you who have very busy jobs. Maybe you have children, particularly infants. But if you don't have those responsibilities and you can afford to get this much sleep, I would strongly recommend it. There's no shortage of studies that show sleep can help with the maintenance or even reduction of body fat, right? A 2022 analysis found that adults who slept fewer than seven hours per night had a whopping 41% increased risk of developing obesity. And sleeping longer than seven hours didn't necessarily

increase that risk. 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. So what we find specifically here is that a reduction in sleep is correlated with obesity, right? And this could be due to hormonal factors, exercise motivation that would obviously be decreased if your sleep is deprived.

Additionally, though, sleep deprivation increases levels of ghrelin and decreases levels of leptin. These are hormones that are specifically involved in our hunger and satiety responses, right? And we've also seen in various studies that individuals who are sleep deprived generally have dysregulated appetites and can increase their desire to eat more calories. Getting enough sleep can improve your concentration as well as your productivity. It's great for athletic performance. It has correlated quite heavily with increased cardiovascular health in fact one analysis found that compared to seven hours of sleep

when you decrease sleep by one hour so seven hours down to six down to five right each one hour decrease is associated with a six percent increase of all cause mortality and heart disease. So do the math on that. If you are getting five hours of sleep, that is two notches, nodules, whatever you want to call them, two deviations from this seven-hour baseline, right? That is a 12% increase or likely to elicit a 12% increase in all-cause mortality and heart disease. That's not good. Additionally, getting low amounts of sleep will dysregulate blood sugar and increase the risk of things like type 2 diabetes. It's linked to depression and poor mood. Getting enough sleep has been shown to help with immune response. Obviously, that is something that is incredibly important, specifically right now. There's even some preliminary data that

shows that getting enough sleep before and after receiving the COVID-19 vaccination can improve the efficacy of said vaccination. So lots of really interesting stuff here. And you've heard me talk about sleep a lot, but I wanted to bring some evidence into the fold here. Third tip that you can use to help with fat loss and living a better, healthier life in the new year is to add one morning walk per day to set your circadian biology. And additionally, you might try having walks after meals to help with blood sugar regulation. So let's talk a little bit about this in detail. on walks in the morning and exposing your eyes specifically to sunlight, most any light will do, but sunlight might be best, communicates through the eye to a part of the brain called the super chiasmatic nuclei that, hey, it's daytime. This is the same mechanism we are trying to hack, if you will, with blue light blockers. By blocking blue light from hitting the eye and the retina and

getting into the super chiasmatic nuclei, we can let our body know that it is nighttime. And so starting your day off with a little bit of movement and a little bit of sun exposure is great. And I know what you're thinking, what if I wake up before the sun? Even waking up and getting a little light on your face is beneficial here. Setting that circadian biology, getting extra steps is great for your non-exercise activity thermogenesis. Walking outdoors and being in nature has been shown to be good for your mood health or your mental health, your creativity as well, your mood, right? And so these are all things that can be really, really easy. I am a huge fan and a big advocate of the after meal walk, specifically

the after dinner walk. If you're somebody who enjoys a large dinner, which many of us do, and that might be your largest meal of the day, going to sleep with elevated blood sugar can be suboptimal for getting deep, restful sleep. A more balanced blood sugar might be better. And so going for a walk is a great way to kind of gobble up some of the free circulating glucose.

And for those of you who are trying to manage your appetite, having a stable glucose response or insulin response can be really, really valuable. So a post-meal walk is never a bad idea, but I love the idea of bookending one's day with a morning walk to get things going and an evening walk after your largest meal. Okay, my fourth tip is to add one big salad per day or one big micronutrient smoothie. That one might not be as ideal for those of you who are looking to lose fat as smoothies generally go down easier than their whole food counterpart. Meaning if you were to take a salad with all the things I'm going to recommend and try to eat it, it would be much

more filling and likely you wouldn't be able to get as much down as if you were to do the same thing in a smoothie, right? Because a smoothie is already pre-digested. But the point here is piggybacking off that first point of across our week aiming for 20 to 30 plant foods, we want to have one large plant food serving a day to help with satiety, to help with fiber intake, to help with micronutrient diversity, to help with fullness, right? These are all helpful things for your health and your wellness, but they are very helpful when you're trying to lose fat and maintain that calorie deficit. So a smoothie recipe that I have loved for many, many years comes from Dr. Rhonda Patrick, who I'm sure many of you are familiar with. And you can turn this smoothie into a salad. And I've made this smoothie very, very, very often. It tastes quite poor.

It's not good, but it is very dense in micronutrients. It's eight leaves of kale, two to three cups of flax milk, four leaves of rainbow chard, including the stems, three cups of spinach, two carrots, one apple, one tomato, one avocado, one banana, one cup of blueberry, and you can add things like hemp seeds or flax seeds. The kale is high in magnesium, zeaxanthin, lutein, sulforaphane, several of which are beneficial for eyesight and reducing deterioration of the eye-related aging. Spinach, of course, is high in folate, which is good for the production of blood cells and healthy cell growth. Rainbow chard offers a lot of vitamin K, which many of us have a hard time getting. And of course, the various fruits offer a range of

valuable micronutrients, including beta carotene, potassium, vitamin E, lycopene. You could turn this thing I just mentioned into a salad too, but I find it's relatively low in calories. I have done the macros on MyFitnessPal and without having my phone in front of me, I can tell you that it's a fairly calorie-friendly smoothie, specifically if you avoid adding things like the seeds. And maybe you might use a half of an avocado instead of one whole avocado. And if you want to make this, you could easily split it into a couple of servings or add something like whey protein or collagen to enhance the protein available. Moving on to tip number five. And this is a challenge. And I know that this might come across as semi-restrictive, but I do recommend trying it. And that is eliminating alcohol consumption. Now, I know for many of you, that's not something

you're willing to consider. You enjoy alcohol, You have a healthy relationship with it. But I know many of you do not. And alcohol is a stage one carcinogen that is not particularly good for you. If you'd like to hear me speak more in detail about why I do not recommend alcohol for my clients when they are trying to lose fat, I would strongly encourage you to head over to my friend Jordan Lips page. That's Jordan, just like you'd expect it to be spelled. Lips, like the lips I'm talking through right now. And his podcast is called Where Optimal Meets Practical, or WOMP. Where Optimal Meets Practical. W-O-M-P. Womp, womp, womp. We did an episode talking about the deleterious effect of alcohol

on things like performance, muscle growth, and fat loss. And it's a really nuanced conversation, the least biased version of the conversation I could give you, because I will admit, I am biased. Alcoholism runs in my family. I've seen it kill some of my family members. I've seen it ruin the lives of many of my family members. And it's something that I enjoy on a very, very rare occasion, maybe once or twice a year. And it's genuinely not good for you, okay? It really impacts the quality of your sleep, like we've talked about many times before on this podcast.

It is a stage one carcinogen, which I mentioned before. It makes dietary adherence challenging, which is probably suboptimal if you're trying to lose body fat. It's not particularly good for performance. And I think when you work it out for a while and you get a break from it, if you're somebody who consumes it regularly, you will notice some of the benefits of not having it in your system. And I would just encourage you in the new year, if you're open to it, try to do a dry month or a sober month. I've had many clients that I've worked with over the years that have incorporated a sober January or a sober

March. I remember I had one client last year who did January all the way to March and then just stuck with it. And so what I might recommend here, probably by the time you're hearing this, it's second week of January. If you're open to the idea of finishing January and having a dry rest of January, start there. Try it. See how you feel. See how that affects your food decision-making, your sleep quality, your training quality. I think you'll find almost exclusively positive impacts from reducing your alcohol consumption. And the sixth and final tip, you guys, is to eat one gram of protein per pound of body weight if you are at a relatively normal weight and to eat one gram of protein per pound of your goal weight if you are larger, heavier, and trying to lose body fat. And I say eat because

while protein shakes are great, I do think that getting a diverse array of protein from animal sources, plant sources, dairy, all of the different places you can get protein can yield quite a bit of benefits from a micronutrient standpoint. Now you might want to be mindful of the saturated fat from certain animal sources, of course, and you might be somebody who's concerned about the ethicality of eating a ton of meat, which I think is very reasonable. But try to eat a little bit more protein. It's phenomenal for building muscle and maintaining muscle. It's great for satiety. It helps you leverage the impact of what we call the thermic effect of food, which is the actual

energy required to break food down. It's good for elevating muscle protein synthesis, which for long-term health and living forever, having chronically elevated like mTOR and muscle protein synthesis markers is probably not ideal. But for body composition, for temporary like performance, eating a little bit of protein is a really good idea. So the six tips I have for you, you guys, for a healthier 2022 that are actionable and that will help you stick in the calorie deficit, something that is required for body fat loss, is aim for 20 to 30 plant foods a week and consider supplementing with a high-quality probiotic like seed. Number two, get lots of sleep, preferably seven to nine hours. If you can go up to 10, better. If you can't get quite to seven, try to aim for seven. Number three,

add a walk in the morning and then a walk after your largest meal. Number four, add one large salad per day or a micronutrient-dense smoothie to replace a meal. Number five, reduce or eliminate alcohol intake. And number six, try to eat around a gram of protein per day. Hey, I want to thank every single one of you who has tuned in, who continues to listen, who comes to me for advice, who has sent me a message, who has shared a post, who has shared this podcast. You are all incredibly valuable to my growth as a professional and the message that I am trying to get out there to the world, which is that we can make a difference in this obesity epidemic and this

health epidemic and this mental health epidemic that we're living in the middle of. And people like you who are interested in your health, who are interested in optimizing it, can take the things that you learn and you can turn them into actionable small tips that you can share with the people who maybe aren't as far along on their journey or they're afraid to get started or they don't know where to start. And so I want to thank every single one of you for being a part of my team, for amplifying my message and for sharing my message as we head into the beginning of a new new year here. And I think there's a lot of amazing things in store for us. This podcast has been a blessing for me. And one of the things you could do to continue to help me is leave me a five-star rating and review if you're listening on iTunes,

and leave me a five-star rating and review if you are listening on Spotify. Those are the two things you can do that will help my podcast grow more than just about anything, and it would be greatly appreciated. You can check out the links in the show notes where you can purchase supplements from our partners at Legion, electrolytes from our partners over at Elemental Labs, and even our newest partner, Seed,

if you are interested in a really comprehensive, phenomenal symbiotic product that is very, very much not like anything I'm sure you've ever seen before in the probiotic space. So thank you all so much for listening, for tuning in. Many more episodes coming your way. I have some guest episodes in the pipeline right now that I'm very excited to share with you. They are headed your way momentarily. I've got them off for editing. I'm talking specifically about entrepreneurship, motherhood, training while pregnant, female hormones. I've got some great guests talking about that stuff, as well as a

few awesome guests scheduled for the month of February. So stay tuned. Please hit subscribe if you have not already, and I can't wait to see you on the next one.