Dynamic Dialogue with Danny Matranga - 176: SIX Framework Hacks That Make Weight Loss Easier

Episode Date: March 23, 2022

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Welcome in everybody to another episode of the dynamic dialogue podcast. This is episode 175. I cannot believe that we are 175 episodes deep so far. This podcast actually started ironically, the week of the pandemic. And when I say the week of the pandemic, I mean, the week of March 15 2020, the week that the pandemic as we know it began, and I guess you could say the week of the pandemic, I mean the week of March 15th, 2020, the week that the pandemic as we know it began. And I guess you could say the week that the lockdowns and mandates as we came to know them began. That being said, this has been something that I've had a lot of time to work on and develop and to get better at. And looking back at 175 episodes, I think I'm substantially better at this than I was in April or March of 2020. And I want to thank every single one of you for being along for the ride. I want to share some reviews with you before we get into the six mental hacks that I think can make weight loss and body fat reduction a lot easier. And I'm going to go ahead and I up or I'll read the names of those

of you who left the reviews. I really would encourage if after you left a review, whether you're doing this on Apple podcasts or Spotify, that you put your actual name. Sometimes the usernames are hard to read, but this one is from Allie Borey. And she says, not only is this podcast rich in information, but the way that Danny explains it makes it very detailed and simple to understand five stars. That's something that I try to aim for in every single one of these reviews and or I should say in producing the podcast. I'm looking for simplicity. And anytime that I see that show up in a review, it makes a big difference. So thank you, Ali, for that. This one comes from Steve. Steve says, I love Danny's podcast. I always learn something from every

episode. He's well-spoken and makes it simple to understand. Really great content. Thanks again, Steve. Again, I'm trying to capture a simplicity and directive and be as directive as I can and intentional with each and every episode, knowing that you have so many podcasts you can listen to. There's so many fitness content producers out there. I want this to take and distill what I've learned as a coach, repackage it and deliver it to you in a succinct, easy to understand format. This one comes from Barka12HL. Coach Danny really knows his stuff and I always find his podcast very informational. Can't wait for the next one to come out. And the final one from ButterflyFitWithViv. Again, if you guys just put your name, I can thank you directly. She said, found Danny's page on Instagram a few months ago,

and I wish I would have found this podcast sooner. Always giving us the goods. Thanks, Danny. Keep it up. So guys, reviews just like that are what helps this podcast grow more so than anything else. Organic reviews help it fly up the charts on both iTunes and Spotify. So whoever your primary podcast servicer is, whether it's iTunes, Spotify, Google Play, taking one to two minutes to leave a review like that can make all the difference in the world. So without further ado, let's get into the nuts and bolts of what you can expect in today's episode. We're going to go over six hacks or frameworks that I think you can leverage to make weight loss easier from a mental standpoint, because I do believe

that losing body fat and losing weight in general is a challenging and arduous process. Many people set out to do it, and most people who set out to do it fail, because it is difficult. If it were easy, everybody who wanted to lose weight would simply lose the weight and they'd have no problem keeping it off, but it's quite challenging, in large part due to the fact that people are battling against a lot of preconceived notions, a lot of misunderstandings as to how these things work, and quite frankly, they're fighting against having the wrong framework. So what we'll work through today are six frameworks and mental models that I think will make this easier for you. And you can apply

this to almost any diet, whatever you're into. If you are somebody who likes to diet with reduced carbohydrates, you like a higher fat, low carb approach, maybe you like a plant-based approach, maybe you're somebody that's working directly with my coaching team and you're doing a non-restrictive macro-based high protein approach, that's what we find works best. But different strokes for different folks, These are some mental models and frameworks that will help a lot. So the first is to shift your approach mentally from a low calorie food selection bias to a high volume food selection bias. So what do I mean by that? The first thing is when you want to lose body fat or you want to lose weight, it's very likely that you know you need to maintain a calorie

deficit. That is an integral part of the process. It has to happen. Meaning if you are not creating a deficit of energy by which your body is then forced to metabolize stored fat, you're probably going to end up in a situation where you're not losing much body fat. You have to be in a deficit for a substantial amount of time so that your body has to get that energy that it needs to function from stored body fat. And a smart way to do this is to reduce your calorie intake and eat foods that are lower in calories. So staying away from high calorie, hyper palatable foods, which are oftentimes processed and packaged foods, fast foods, alcohol, all of these things is a good approach to reducing your calorie intake. But oftentimes it leaves people feeling hungry because their primary focus is on avoiding high

calorie foods and focusing on low calorie foods regardless of the volume of those foods. So something that I have found works really well for clients is to shift their focus from focusing on low calorie foods to focusing on finding high volume foods while still maintaining a deficit. So an example of a high volume food, this is a food that is going to be low in calories while still having an actual high volume weight or size associated with it. So for example, 100 grams of strawberries has the same caloric weight as two strawberry candies. The actual volume of the 100 grams of strawberries is substantially more than like the 10 grams of strawberry candies. So the volume is greater, the calories are the same. So a lot of high volume foods are things like fruits, vegetables,

particularly green vegetables, lean proteins. These are foods that you can eat quite a bit of that are going to also oftentimes bring with them quite a bit of nutrient density. They're oftentimes going to bring a decent amount of protein or fiber and they'll help keep you full while helping you maintain a deficit. If you only focus on low calorie foods, you might end up in a situation where you're opting for foods where the volume is small and therefore the calories are small. For example, I have rice krispies that I eat post-workout and they're very small, 90 calorie rice krispies. Less than a hundred calories makes it pretty small, but I can eat one of these in literally three bites. If I were to have the same 90 calories

of sliced watermelon, I can have four to five times the volume or weight while getting essentially the same macronutrient breakdown of about 20 or 30 carbs. So my point is, if you focus exclusively on opting for low calorie foods while not paying any attention to the volume of your foods, you might have a hard time maintaining the deficit because you're not going to feel full or satiated. You'll kind of just feel like you have a hole in your stomach and you're hungry all the time. So high volume foods are very, very powerful. And this is a very good framework to shift to. Instead of focusing on, okay, I'm trying to maintain a deficit by eating the lowest calorie foods possible. Instead, try to maintain a deficit while incorporating more high volume foods and leaving some space for the foods you enjoy. But a list of my favorite high volume foods

are cantaloupe, honeydew, watermelon, strawberries, blackberries, raspberries, spinach, chard, kale, chicken breast, lean ham, lean turkey, and lean fish. All of these things, in my opinion, are really, really easy to incorporate and build meals around or include in meals to increase the volume to use these foods as snacks. Again, also low-fat cottage cheese and low-fat yogurts can be added to the mix. These foods work great. So framework one is shifting your focus from low-calorie foods to high-volume foods. Framework two, whenever possible, try to take a longer-term approach to your fat loss. And when I say this, I say this in the,

hoping to not come across as too condescending, but I've worked with a lot of people over the years attempting to help them lose weight. And it usually takes longer than most people like, because most people can't stick to their diet with a hundred percent compliance. That's reasonable. If you ever start any project, and if at any point during that project, you became either derailed, had to start over, had to restart, you made a mistake and you had to go back and fix it, it's going to take longer than you planned for. And that's how a lot of people's diets tend to go. They start out hot, they're in a deficit for a couple of weeks, they have a social event, they fall off, they fall off for a week, they get back

on, they start to get some momentum, they fall off again, they got to travel. So starting, stopping, starting, stopping. I think that what a lot of people do is they set expectations from the jump that are unreasonable and unrealistic. And when they don't meet them, they feel as though they have failed. When in truth, I think that when you plan to fail, or at least planned for something to take longer, especially something like weight loss that is challenging, that does take a while, you'll actually set yourself up more for success. So what does a long-term approach to weight loss look like? Well, I'll tell you that the clients that we work with at my coaching company, Core Coaching Method, for average size adults, we're looking to lose about

one pound a week. And a lot of people go, a pound a week, that's boring. That's 50 pounds a year, that's 100 pounds in two years. Most people spend 32 years of their life dieting. The average woman spends 32 years of her life on a diet, 32 fucking years. Think about that. If you lost one pound a week for 32 years at 50 pounds a year, whatever 50 times 32 is, that's some absurd number. 50 times 10 is 500. So 50, this is like, we're talking about like, you could lose in theory, like over 1500 pounds. So no human being has 1500 pounds to lose if they just lost a pound a week. So if you found something that you could stick to and lose a pound a week, that's 50 pounds in a year. Almost every single client that signs up to work with me or my

coaching company has a weight loss goal that falls in the category of less than 50 pounds. Many of the clients we work with do want to lose more weight. In fact, some clients come to us with over 100 pounds to lose. And again, the math still works. If I told you it would take two years, but you could lose over 100 pounds, a lot of people would be thrilled with that. If I tell you, hey, in a year, you can lose 50, a lot of people would be thrilled with that. But they're absolutely petrified by the notion of only losing a pound a week because taking a longer term approach isn't appealing. One pound a week sounds worse than 50 pounds a year.

For a smaller individual, even a half a pound a week still over the course of a year is going to equate to 25 pounds or over six months, over 12 pounds. 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. For larger individuals who have a lot of weight to lose, like the people that I mentioned that

might have north of 100 pounds to lose, you can even set the goal at two pounds a week. That's not uncommon. We see this all the time. And I know that it's not necessarily fun or convenient to break these goals down into weekly or even monthly goals Because people say look I need to lose x number of pounds But in theory if you have determined what that number of pounds you'd like to lose is When you go for a framework that allows you to say hey I'm looking to get a pound off a week on average one pound a week or a half a pound a week because i'm smaller Or two pounds a week because i'm larger that'll get you there It's slow. It's long-term thinking, but that'll get

you there. Especially when you bake into that the fact that it's probably going to be at some point okay to maintain for a little while. So think about this. Think about around the holidays. A lot of our clients do really well dieting like February through October. And then in November and December, because of Thanksgiving, because of Christmas, because of holiday parties, work parties, etc., it's harder to maintain a deficit. So in those months, we focus more on maintaining the weight that we've lost and practicing the integration of habits like eating more protein, drinking more water, reducing alcohol consumption, but not necessarily focusing on the deficit. So like there's a good two months out of the year where being on a diet or dieting or trying to

maintain a deficit is inconvenient when you consider the general social direction most people's lives take towards the end of the year. So take a long-term approach. That's the second framework. The third framework, don't freak out when the scale goes up. Remember, the scale is telling you what you weigh the moment that you step on it. Your weight is going to be very transient. It is going to go up. It's going to go down. It is going to shift. Things like stress, things like food choices, things like carbohydrate or sodium intake, things like elevation, things like hormones all affect what you weigh. You might be losing body fat, stepping on the scale and seeing it go up because you had a high sodium meal that led to a lot of water retention or a lot of

stress that led to a lot of water retention. And when you step on it and you see that and you see the number go up, you freak out, you panic, and you assume that you have failed. This is probably the number one reason people quit dieting because they give the scale way too much power. The scale is a tool. It should not be used independently of things like measurements, how you look, how you feel, how you're performing in the gym. It is just one of many metrics.

So what do you do when you're using it as a metric and you see it go up? Well, I have five things that you should ask yourself anytime you step on the scale and you see it go up. The first is, did I weigh under the same conditions? Meaning, did I weigh at the same time of day as normal? Did I weigh in with an average amount of sleep, less sleep, more sleep? Did I use the same scale? Have I used the bathroom yet, right? Make sure that you're standardizing when you use the scale. Second question, how's my stress been the last three to five days? Third question, have I consumed a lot more sodium or carbohydrates than normal,

particularly at night before I stepped on the scale in the morning? Fourth question, what's my hydration status? Am I hydrated or dehydrated? And fifth question for the ladies is where am I at on my cycle? Am I in my PMS week? Am I actually menstruating? Am I in that kind of golden space between my follicular and luteal phase where I can really power through? Where am I at on my cycle? So there should be a series of questions that you have to ask yourself. So anytime you step on a scale and you see it go up. And the last and perhaps most important is, have I honestly been tracking my food properly? Have I been sticking to my diet? Or am I kidding myself? Because if you're one of those people who only half tracks and only half

follows a diet, you might not even need to ask any of those other questions because the answer is you're not doing the work. And that seems insensitive perhaps, but that's the honest truth. Like you do have to do the work, but for many people, they're doing the work just fine. They step on the scale, they see it go up and they throw the whole thing down away. They're like flushing a project away that was going great. So please do not do that. Number four, this is a big one. Leverage the power of your non-scale victories. Going back to the idea of not giving the scale more power than you need to, understand that your ability to sustainably lose weight over the course of many, many months is going to have to occur in the absence of motivation. You're going to have to stick to

your diet when you don't want to. You're going to have to go to the gym when you don't want to or don't feel like it. But here's the thing. You can generate motivation temporarily by celebrating when you win and when you succeed. And this is something that we do with our clients at Core Coaching Method all the time. We ask our clients when they check in, share with us some of the things that you've done well this week that may or may not be related to your gym or your nutrition protocol. And this might mean making some PRs in the gym, right? These are non-scale victories. So hey, a good example. I hit a PR this week. Awesome. Let's celebrate it. Or hey, I got all five of my workouts in this week. That's awesome. Look at how well my arms came out in this picture. They look so sleek, so toned. Or dude, look how much my chest is popping on this

beach photo. Like these kinds of things. Oh my gosh, I put on a pair of pants that I couldn't put on for the last two years and they fit great. Or hey, I lost two inches around my waist. Or I haven't missed a workout or a day of tracking in a week. These are non-scale victories. If you use that scale as the singular end-all, be-all way to gauge your progress, it might not work out too well. So lean into the power of what I call the non-scale victory. And I gave you some examples, but really what these are going to do is they're going to allow you to generate momentum, and they allow you to kind of set up a base camp.

When you're climbing up a mountain, it's nice every once in a while to set up a base camp so that you can rest for a while before you continue the climb. And I find that stopping, smelling the roses, celebrating some of the victories is a great time to refresh and recharge. You go, hey, I've been doing this for one or two months. I've lost like four to five pounds, which isn't as much as I want,

but I'm getting stronger. My clothes are fitting better. I look better in pictures. This is awesome. Let's go ahead and recalibrate, tighten things up before we make our climb to the next base camp. You know, these are really effective ways that you can go about maintaining motivation across the diet. Number five is not to focus too much on individual metrics, but to focus more on the trends associated with said metrics. So for example, your weight every

single day will likely trick you because of the transient nature of body weight. But if you zoom out and you look at the trends, it's pretty darn easy to see the direction things are going. It's a lot like the stock market. If you look at the price of a stock for one day, you might be tricked. But if you look at the price of a stock and the financials of a company over the course of like 10 years, you get a really good picture. you get a really good picture. So zooming out, you can look at your weight trends. And if you see that line gradually going down, that's awesome. But if you look at it day to day, the big spikes in the big drops can give you a little bit too much to work with. And that like, if you see it jump up two pounds, you might freak out. Or if you see it drop three pounds, you might think you've got it all figured out when in fact, what you really want to be looking at are these trends. So another thing you can look at is you can look at your trends weekly. You can look at your trends monthly on the scale in the gym with your workout compliance. These are exciting things that I can't wait to share with you in the upcoming workout

app that we've got the actual ability to gauge your workout progress week to week, as well as across the blocks, meaning that like multiple weeks or the mesocycles. So you have a micro cycle, which is like a week of training, and you can compare your lifts micro cycle to micro cycle or week to week, but you could also compare your lifts across mesocycles, meaning from week one, the beginning of the mesocycle to week four, the end of the mesocycle. Those are probably going to be better metrics looking at week one's progress all the way to week four than just looking at week one to week two, but you can look at those trends nevertheless, right? Trends are valuable. You can also look at the trends for how you're

eating during the week, like how do I eat Monday through Friday compared to how do I eat on the weekends, right? So how you compartmentalize and how you use the power of trends is important. And for those of you who, again, I've mentioned this before, but for those of you who are menstruating or you're at that phase of your life where you have a regular cycle, you want to look at the trends during PMS. If you have PMS, most women do, you want to look at the trends during your actual menstruation period. You want to look at the trends in the second week of your follicular phase, the first week of your luteal phase, and you want to say, hey, what do I notice about how my body looks, feels, and performs across this cycle that seems to be pretty consistent? That can be a really valuable trend to monitor.

And number six, the final thing that I think you should focus on, a mental framework or a shift final thing that I think you should focus on, a mental framework or a shift on your journey to losing weight, is not to be afraid to take or schedule maintenance periods ahead of time. I think if you have a lot of weight or even not so huge amount of weight to lose, planning periods of time where you're going to set a base, like I mentioned, and just maintain can be really valuable. So for example, things like vacations, things like holidays might be a better time to focus on maintaining than to powering through weight loss so that you can really just focus on getting the most out of your life and enjoying the many different social things that life has to offer. You don't want to be like, oh, I dieted all through my vacation and I dieted

all through Christmas. If those are things you enjoy, if you can do that, more power to you. And some people want that. Some people do well with never deviating. I have a couple of clients that I might describe as quote unquote type A who excel on vacation and during the holidays because they're just ballers like that. But for most people, that's a great time to focus on maintaining. And that might look like, hey, on my vacation, I popped into the gym when I could, but I really just focused on eating a good amount of protein, walking as much as possible, getting some sun, getting lots of good sleep. Then I might've gained a pound or two, but I'm ready to hit it hard when I come back. That is awesome. Going, hey, I have a hundred pounds to lose. I'm going to lose two pounds

a week for a year to get there. And I'm going to take a two week refeed, or I'm going to take a two week diet break at the three, six, nine, and 12 month mark, where I just eat at maintenance, that could be planning ahead or, hey, I'm going to be in a hard deficit for a week and a half. And then I'm going to take a two day refeed. I'm going to repeat that. You can do things like that. Giving yourself breaks can be really, really valuable. Almost never do I see somebody lose all of the weight they want to lose in a purely linear fashion, and I find that taking time for breaks can be really valuable. So let's go through these mental models frameworks again. The first is shifting your focus away from focusing exclusively on finding low-calorie foods to focusing on finding high-volume low-calorie foods while, of course, maintaining a deficit.

finding high volume, low calorie foods while of course maintaining a deficit. The second is to take the longer term approach you can, breaking things down into weekly and monthly goals and understanding that it's unlikely that you'll stick to your diet perfectly throughout the duration of your goal. Number three, have a plan and have some things you can work through when you fail, particularly when you see the scale go up. Number three, leverage the power of non-scale victories. Sorry, number four, leverage the power of non-scale victories. Number five, monitor your trends as much as possible. And number six, don't be afraid to take breaks when and if you feel like you need to. That'll do it for today's episode, guys. Thank you so much for tuning in. As always, I appreciate it. If you can, take a couple minutes to leave me a review on iTunes or Spotify. It

makes a huge difference. And make sure review on iTunes or Spotify, it makes a huge difference. And make sure if you haven't yet hit that subscribe button so I can catch you on the next one.