Dynamic Dialogue with Danny Matranga - 157: 7 Lifetime Fitness Habits to be Fit Forever (Great for Beginners!)

Episode Date: January 26, 2022

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Welcome in everybody to another episode of the Dynamic Dialogue podcast. As always, I'm your host, Danny Matranga. And in today's episode, I'm going to go over seven of my favorite tips for a healthier life. and probably unique to every single one of us, right? For those of you who are fitness enthusiasts, you might picture health as looking a certain way or moving a certain way or being able to perform certain tasks at a certain level. But for a lot of people out there, the idea of being and living healthier looks something like being able to move more freely, losing a little bit of weight, being more comfortable in your skin, eating foods that losing a little bit of weight, being more comfortable in your skin, eating foods that are a little bit more nutritious, and perhaps staying away from some of the foods that we all know aren't as nutritious, maybe that are hyper palatable, and they're very processed. And so when I made this podcast, I was thinking to myself, okay, one of the things I want to do,

in addition to nurturing the audience of people who already follow me that are already fit, is I want to create easy to digest, really easy to access content for people who are just getting started on their fitness journey too. And so this podcast is for two groups of people. It's for those of you who are already fit and looking to help more people find the same joy and find the same passion that you have for leading a fit and healthy life. And it's also for those of you who might be listening at this point that are inspired, you're just lacking direction. And so what I wanted to do is create a simple list of habits, things that are lifestyle related, nutrition related, training related, that you can come back to, that you can look to implement slowly and methodically over time to live a healthier life, a life with

more strength, a life that will hopefully last longer, be more free from disease, one that is more confident, one that allows you to feel comfortable in your skin and confident in what your body is capable of doing. So without further ado, you guys, let's go ahead and get into seven habits that I think are vital and easy enough to implement with patients that will help you live healthier, perform your best, and build confidence. So this might not surprise many of you, but the first habit on the list is to find a training program or a fitness routine that works really well for you.

Now, we're certainly going to get into the details and the action items as to what this might look like. But the first thing is first, you need to get really clear on something that you like, something that you are motivated to do, something that inspires you to want to get up and move your body. You see, there's a lot of friction, especially today, around getting up and doing the hard thing. We live in a society where we champion convenience, where instant gratification runs rampant, and getting up, putting clothes on, getting in the car, driving to the gym, getting out of the car, walking into the gym, training, taking a shower, putting clothes on, getting in the car, driving to the gym, getting out of the car,

walking into the gym, training, taking a shower, putting your clothes back on, getting back in the car and driving home is an awful lot to ask. And so some of you do this, some of you work out from home, some of you might not work out at all. But one of the things that's really important is to understand that it is absolutely critical to your mental health and your physical health that you move your body. This is undeniable. This is scientifically proven. There isn't one way that's best. I will share with you the ways that I think are best here in a minute, but you need to get really clear on something that you are willing to do. So if you're not willing to go to the gym, you've got to find something that you can do from home. If you're not willing to train at home,

you've got to find something that you're willing to go out into the community and go do. You've got to find something. Now, there is no one size fits all here, but I do have some recommendations. The first thing is that you find a way to incorporate resistance training at least two times a week. Now, the majority of the clients that we work with at my coaching company, Core Coaching Method, we're training anywhere between three and six times a week. Those of our clients that are training closer to six tend to be a little bit more driven. They tend to have body composition specific goals. Many of them are competitive in that they either compete in a sport like bodybuilding or powerlifting or an athletic type competition like obstacle course racing.

But many of the clients we have just simply want to look better. But one thing that we've noticed that's really, really cool is you can change how you look, feel, and perform training as few as two times a week if the program that you're following is intelligent. So you've got to find something you can stick to, ideally two to three days a week. And if you can, try to get at least two resistance training sessions in. If there's only going to be two of them, make them total body. If you can get three, I would still stick with total body. If you can get four, you might do upper lower. We've talked about this many times on the podcast before, how you might split up your routine. If you have more questions, you can scroll back a little bit through the queue of podcasts that we've already uploaded and you will

find plenty on those different training routine and different split ideas. But additionally, to be fit for a lifetime, I think it's also really important to include at least 90 minutes of aerobic work per week, preferably in zone two of the cardiovascular zone system. So basically, the easiest way to describe this is do three 30 three 30 minute sessions of cardio, one 90 minute session, two 45 minute sessions, six 15 minute sessions, or just generally elevate the amount of movement you do across the day. But to get into that zone too, you should be working hard enough that you can talk, but not easily, right? Like you could potentially go on a brisk walk with a friend and you should be able to talk, but it should be right? Like you could potentially go on a brisk walk with a friend

and you should be able to talk, but it should be right on the edge of what's comfortable. And so those two things I think are your baseline, no matter what. Look to implement at least two lifts, hopefully more, and look to implement between, you know, anywhere between 60 to 90 minutes, 90 minutes being preferable, uh, with that low to moderate intensity cardiovascular activity. Those are the bare ass minimums. If you ask me when it comes to physical activity, and if you want to live healthy and fit for a lifetime, the science will show you that a combination of aerobic and anaerobic fitness will help a lot, not just because of what it does for your physical health, but what it does for your confidence, what it does for your freedom from metabolic disease,

from muscle wasting, from bone density loss that we commonly see specifically with women when it comes to aging. It's phenomenal for your ability to age gracefully and require less help. So many of the clients that I have the pleasure of working with in person that are in their 60s, 70s, and 80s are living happily, independent, without any need for help or assistance, well into, like I said, many of them are in their 80s, thanks to their fitness and their strength. And so that is something that I don't think many of us really have the opportunity to comprehend or even think about on a daily basis, unless you spend time with older parents or perhaps grandparents. It's really something that we all take for granted, but it is a hugely, hugely lost thing societally, which is the ability to age gracefully, to maintain your independence.

And I think that resistance training specifically will help with that as well. So moving on to point number two, and that is to establish some keystone nutritional habits that are correlated with nourishment and making sure that you're getting adequate supply of the right macro nutrients. So let's talk about some of these keystone nutrition habits, these bare-ass minimums that I think every single one of you can implement. So for those of you who are already fit, this is the kind of podcast that you might share with your mom, that you might share with your cousin

who's trying to get in shape. Maybe you share it with coworkers. These are easy, simple, actionable things that you can do every single day. You can implement one or a few of these things slowly, start to form habits, start to form behaviors, and you can make some serious change. So the first is drink half of your body weight in ounces of water every single day. Not soda, not juice,

not coffee, water every single day. Hydration is critical. Your body is upwards of 70% water. Not getting enough water every day is not good for you. It's not going to kill you in the short term, but it's not ideal for you in the long term. We know that water plays a vital role in the health of your musculature, plays a vital role in the health of your kidneys, and every cell in your body, like I said, is comprised of upwards of 70% fluids. So get plenty of water every single day. That is a keystone nutritional habit. Another keystone nutritional habit is eat a variety of plant foods every single day if you can. This means fruits.

This means vegetables. This means things like sweet potatoes, white potatoes, rice, whole grains are absolutely included here. Foods that are high in fiber, that are from a variety of different families in the plant kingdom, that look different, that are different colors, that have different textures, so that you can have a diverse array of micronutrition. We get so many vitamins, minerals, antioxidants, and polyphenols, things that we need to function well from plants that simply focusing on eating a diverse array of them is a really good way to cover your micronutrient basis. Kind of big keystone nutrition habit number three, get a little bit of protein a few times a day. So I would generally recommend for our clients

who are more body composition focused, who are higher level, that you focus on some specific protein targets. When we write macro nutrition plans for our core coaching method clients, we are looking specifically for a certain amount of protein that's correlated with that client's specific goal, whether that's body fat reduction, muscle gain, and we love to be very, very diligent about spacing that out evenly across the day. Because for people who are looking to build muscle, that can be really valuable. For people who are looking to lose fat, that can be very valuable for some of the same reasons, but also it's very satiating to do this. So getting

protein spaced out across your day, for those of you who are just getting started, looking to better control your body composition, looking to better manage your blood sugar, looking to live a little bit healthier, can be really valuable. It will keep you full. It will help you build and maintain muscle. And you can get quite a bit of micronutrients from protein if you diversify your sources. So think about things like animal protein, right? You've got meat, fish, dairy. If you're not an animal protein eater, perhaps you're vegan or vegetarian, you might, if you're vegetarian, pursue things like eggs as well. Very good source of protein. For those vegans out there, you have tempeh, you have quinoa, you have the various whole grains. Of course, you have soy. There are so

many options. But one of the things you can do is get a variety of different proteins in your diet at a variety of different times of day in semi-decent quantities so you can make sure you're getting enough. Number four on those keystone nutrition habits is to minimize your exposure to processed food and minimize your intake of processed food. So what do I mean by minimize exposure? Well, to keep it simple, it means buy less of it and bring less of it into your home. That's simple. Processed foods are fine in small amounts, right? But high levels of processed foods are correlated with appetite dysregulation. They are oftentimes hyperpalatable and very easy to

overeat. And they're generally correlated with higher BMIs and higher body fat levels. Because again, these foods are not that nutritious. They're very easy to overeat. They're oftentimes very high in calories. And while I would never tell you not to include them in your diet, I think that completely restricting things can be a slippery slope. I think you should be mindful of how much you are exposed to them, how many decisions you have to make a day not to eat these things. So for example, having a cookie jar in your front walkway, right when you walk in the door. Imagine you have a cookie jar staring you in the face every day when you walk through the front door. I know that's a silly place to think of a cookie jar, but every time you walk through the front door and every time you walk out the front door,

you're going to look at that cookie jar and that's going to require a decision on your part not to open the jar and eat a cookie. This is obviously an extreme example, but you can design your environment so that you have less exposure to these foods by either not bringing them in the home, putting them in a place where they're not necessarily as frequently visible. These can be really, really effective tools for managing your intake of these highly processed foods. 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. Big nutrition tip number five. This is the last keystone nutrition habit that I think is fairly easy to implement. And that is to learn to cook foods from home that are nutritious and that you enjoy. Eating out is awesome. It can be social. It can be a really, really valuable experience. Eating food, I think, is important. I think it's something that we should enjoy. We were blessed with a sense of taste for a reason. But learning to cook nutritious meals from home that match our goals and that nourish our body is a really, really good habit to get into if you're

looking to have better control of your fitness for the course of your life. Okay, moving on to habit number three. Again, habits number two are mostly keystone nutrition habits that you can implement, either all of them or just a few of them here and there. Of course, the first habit was finding an exercise program you enjoy with the BAM or bare ass minimum being 90 minutes of cardio and two lifts a week. But number three is to maintain your aerobic health, your strength, and your mobility as you age. So what this means is your aerobic fitness, we touched on this a little bit in point one with our 90-minute cardio recommendation, you should maintain your heart health. You should regularly examine metrics like your blood

pressure. Try to keep your blood pressure in a reasonable range, something like 120 over 80 or 115 over 75. Do what you can to manage and maintain your cardio metabolic health. Get regular checkups from your doctor, right? Listening to personal trainers like myself on podcasts like this that are giving tips and tricks is only one part of taking good care of your health. You should have a good relationship with your physician and you should monitor your cardiometabolic health at all times. Part two of this, maintain your strength. You can do a lot of this with lifting in the same way that you can maintain a lot of your aerobic health with the cardiovascular recommendations I give. However, maintaining your strength, lifting heavy, challenging your limits, pushing yourself

can be really, really valuable in the maintenance of your independence as you age, in your confidence, in your ability to do the quote unquote hard thing. So if you're not including substantial amount of strength training, you can still challenge your body physically to maintain strength doing a variety of different activities, but that is something that is really, really valuable. And then the last one is your mobility. And so when I talk about mobility, I'm talking about your movement quality. Are you free of pain? Are you limber? Do you have dexterity? And you can train this with a variety of different mobility practices. I think that lifting weights with good form through a full range of motion is a mobility practice. I think stretching is a mobility and mindfulness practice. I think yoga is a mobility and mindfulness practice. I think you have joint specific forms of mobility, like functional range

conditioning, which are pretty cool. Various forms of body specific movements where like you're getting into challenging ranges of motion, like perhaps something like Pilates or even something like rock climbing, where you're going to be exploring new ranges of motion. I think just generally moving your body in unique ways, getting outside, getting barefoot, moving on grass, moving in nature, right? Moving and playing, these kinds of things can be really valuable for the maintenance of your athleticism, your mobility as you age. So those are three things that I think are absolutely critical to monitor as you age. Pay attention to your aerobic health. A great metric for this is your blood pressure and also your resting heart rate. Maintaining your strength through various forms

of physical activity that challenge you and maintaining your mobility and athleticism through fun, engaging forms of movement, particularly things that involve different forms of stretching. Okay, tip number four to be fit for a lifetime is never sell tomorrow for today. And there are a lot of examples of this, so I'll give you some short-term ones that make a lot of sense. Steroid abuse, not steroid use, but steroid abuse, meaning you're using them without being mindful, without looking at your labs, without paying attention to various metrics, to look good today without paying attention to the long-term ramifications of steroids and using them without being mindful or cognizant of the ramifications and being mindful of the different metrics you

need to pay attention to, that is selling tomorrow, right? You're probably long-term hormonal health, you're long-term cardiometabolic health, you're long-term lipid and cholesterol health, right? You're selling that out to look better today. Generally not the best idea. Can you recover from these things? Sure. But in the short term, you're playing it a little bit fast and loose. Another example would be following extreme fad diets that are very restrictive and they can be damaging in multiple ways, whether it's damaging to your endocrine system through metabolic downregulation, damaging to your skin by various forms of malnourishment and running low on things. You can oftentimes lose hair. You can ruin your

relationship with food. So staying away from extremes in the dieting world, staying away from extreme routines, whether they're unsustainable fitness routines, unsustainable work routines where you don't create time for self-care or you don't create time for rest and recovery, not getting enough sleep every single night, overly relying on supplements and stimulants, and then of course various forms of cosmetic surgery and procedures that are designed to enhance the way your body looks that perhaps maybe don't have the best long-term health outcomes or might not be sustainable in the long run. So these are all things that I would strongly recommend considering very, very thoroughly and consulting with a

medical professional before you implement any of them., again, you do not want to sell your short-term health or your long-term health for short-term gain. Okay, moving on to number five, and that is take care of the organisms that live inside of you. And so what am I talking about here? I'm specifically talking about the microbiome of your gut or the intestinal microbiome. You have microbiomes that exist in various different places in different parts of your body, but the intestinal microbiome is particularly unique. You see, these are the bugs that live in our gut that help us with nutrient assimilation, and they've been shown to have an incredibly, incredibly integral role in a surprisingly high number of systems. They can influence our behavior. They

can influence serotonin secretion. They can influence our mood. They are correlated with different diseases, certain bacteria. And what you want to do is you want to take care and feed the good ones. We talked a little bit earlier about incorporating more fruits and vegetables. This is one of the best ways to take care of the good bacteria in your body. So incorporating more fresh fruits and vegetables and prebiotic fiber, that's what these good gut bugs eat. You can include fermented foods like kimchi, kombucha, and sauerkraut. You can take a symbiotic like the one our amazing partners over at SeedMake. You should generally look to avoid eating highly refined carbohydrates,

particularly sugar, in high dosages. Not that sugar is bad, but high amounts of sugar can be bad for various different things, whether that be things like the pancreas. Diabetes, of course, is generally associated with very, very high levels of sugar intake. But the bacteria that aren't as beneficial for us tend to eat a little bit more of the sugar. And so if you eat a lot of sugar, what you do is you end up creating a lot of food for bad bacteria, which can then force out the good bacteria because they're competing for the same space. So focus on getting lots of fiber, eating fermented foods on occasion, right? Maybe supplementing with a high quality symbiotic

or probiotic like seed. But as a general rule of thumb, it's never a bad idea to take good care of your microbiome. Okay, moving on to point number six or habit action item number six for you is to go on more outdoor walks. Now, I know what you're thinking. You're like, what the heck, dude? Like, how can an outdoor walk be helpful? Well, we already talked about the benefits of doing that zone two cardio and of maintaining your aerobic health. But in particular, being outdoors

is associated with better creativity, better mood, and reduced stress. When you're outside and there's sun, you're also getting, you're going to be able to synthesize vitamin D, which is an incredibly important hormone. It's valuable for a variety of different systems in the body, right? It's easy, in my opinion, to find peace when I am outside and peace is something that I think we are all after. I think

many of us are looking for happiness, but when in fact we're truthfully looking for peace, we want to be free of stress. And going on a walk outdoors can really, really do that for you in a pretty beautiful and unique way. So that is something that I would absolutely look to integrate on a semi-regular basis. Get outdoors. Find nature if you're fortunate enough to live near places that are naturally beautiful. If there's trees, if there's oceans. And I know I maybe sound a little hippy-dippy.

But if you can get out there and experience and see the beauty of the natural world while you move your body, I think that is generally a healthy habit that will help you live a fit life with a lot of peace and hopefully help you manage things like stressors and anxieties that just come at us really quickly in the modern world. Okay, And the last tip I have is to use the sauna or some form of cold exposure. So some form of high temperature variability in your day-to-day life. So whether that be sauna exposure a few times a week, if you're fortunate enough to have one at home or in your gym, a cold plunge, maybe once or twice twice a week if you can set something like that up for yourself. These forms of highly, let's call them extreme temperature exposure, can be valuable for

a variety of different reasons. I recorded a really good podcast with Dr. Mike T. Nelson about all this stuff, but sauna use has been shown to be anti-inflammatory. It's good for mood, can be good for, I think the mood thing is largely subjective, right? It releases heat shock proteins, it releases growth hormone, and it's correlated with reductions in all-cause mortality. Cold exposure is also very anti-inflammatory. It's been shown to increase dopamine, it can increase your mood, make you feel better, and decrease muscle soreness, enhancing recovery. So these are things, you guys, that you don't have to implement all at once. But if you are new to this, and even if

you're not, and you just want to live healthier and longer, these are the big rock things that I would recommend. So let's run through them again really quick. Number one, get clear on a training program that you will enjoy, that you're willing to do, and hopefully you can hit those bare minimum requirements of lifting weights at least twice a week and getting 90 minutes of zone two cardio. Number two is to nail down some big rock keystone habits when it comes to your nutrition. Drink enough water, get lots of fruits and vegetables, eat your protein, minimize alcohol consumption, which I actually didn't mention earlier on, but those are all examples. Number three is to keep close and mindful eye on your aerobic and cardiometabolic health using metrics like blood pressure and resting heart rate, to

keep a close eye on your strength and muscularity as you age, and to prioritize play and mobility training so that you can move freely and you don't ever lose that natural innate athleticism that we have as human beings. Number four, never sell your long-term health for short-term gain. Number five, take care of your intestinal microbiome. Number six, get outdoors, get your steps and get into nature. And number seven, experiment with various forms of temperature exposure. Thank you all so very much for listening. If you listen to this and you're like, wow, I wish somebody just told me that earlier, please share this with somebody

who is looking to start taking better care of themselves. I think it's very, very challenging today for people to know where to start. And I think there are some easy to kind of implement action items here that have a lot of value. If you enjoyed the podcast, please consider subscribing

and leaving me a five-star rating. If you listen on iTunes, you can leave me a written review, which makes a humongous difference. You can also leave rating. If you listen on iTunes, you can leave me a written review, which makes a humongous difference. You can also leave a review if you listen on Spotify. Thanks again so much for tuning in, and I will catch you all on the next one.