Dynamic Dialogue with Danny Matranga - 199: 10 Tips to be Lean for Life

Episode Date: June 14, 2022

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Welcome in everybody to another episode of the dynamic dialogue podcast. This is your host Danny Matranga. This is episode 199. So we're almost through 200 episodes. In fact, I've actually already crossed or this podcast has already crossed the 200 episode threshold. It's just that some of those episodes were bonus episodes or a little bit shorter and less substantive than I would like. So instead of giving them a number, I actually just call them bonus episodes. But the podcast hosting service I used, let me know that a couple weeks ago, I crossed that 200 threshold. That being said, I'm really only interested in titling and numbering the ones that I really, really, really love. And this is 199. So we have

probably the opportunity this week alone to get to episode 200, which would be quite an accomplishment, something that I'm quite proud of, and something that wouldn't be possible at all without help from people like you who choose to listen to this podcast, who download it consistently, who listen to episodes, who allow me to be a component or part, small part, I'm sure, of your health and fitness journey. It's something that I don't take for granted, and I will continue to try to bring you more and more value, especially as I get through this move. I can say with a tremendous amount of gratitude that I am thankful to be moving on from the gym slash physical therapy clinic studio startup phase of my life. I have gotten turf installed, flooring installed, equipment delivered, equipment installed, HVAC fixed. All that's left to do at the studio is just some external artistic stuff, whether like

murals, or I guess that would be internal. And that was a big time sink. I'm getting ready to move into my new property as it's finished construction, finishing construction up in Santa Rosa, which is about 15 minutes away from where I live. And all this chaos has made it harder to get you podcasts more regularly. But in that new home, I will be turning one of the additional bedrooms into a recording studio slash home office. I will be beginning the process of getting the podcast filmed so that it can be uploaded to YouTube. I will have an extra bedroom so I can fly guests in, friends in, industry peers, colleagues in, not just to host for workshops, symposiums, various continuing educational events at the space, but just for podcasts and stuff of that nature. So very, very fun, very, very exciting,

lots of changes. I felt like I owe you guys an explanation as to why you have not been getting podcasts on such a consistent schedule, but I'm looking forward to that changing, hopefully in the next 30 to 90 days, just depending on timeframes. Having a piece of property built, having a home built during the supply chain issues that we're seeing right now just slows everything down a little bit. So your patience, subscribership is absolutely 100% appreciated, and I'm extremely grateful for it. The focus of today's episode is going to be 10 habits that I think are integral for being lean for life. And what I mean by lean for life is having a proportionate or relatively

low body fat relative to the general population. So being a quote unquote healthy weight or having a quote unquote healthy amount of body fat mass, and also having a good amount of muscle tissue. Muscle is a longevity organ in that it can help you maintain strength, can help you maintain fitness and independence, right? Also mobility, but it acts as a big sink and disposal for glucose. It gobbles through blood sugar. It can help you prevent things like diabetes and obesity by elevating your metabolic rate. And like I said, gobbling through blood sugar. So I look at muscle as much as a strength organ and a mechanical organ as I do a longevity

organ. And taking good care of your muscle and monitoring your body fat over the lifespan is one of the best things you can do to enhance your longevity and just overall increase your resilience. So I have worked down to 10 habits that I think can help you, your clients, your friends, your family, your loved ones, wherever you're at on your fitness journey, better control their adiposity or the level of body fat that they have while simultaneously enhancing their muscularity, not with any intention to be a bodybuilder, but certainly having more muscle can help you, But certainly having more muscle can help you, one, present better posture. It can help you sit or fit better into clothing and typical things of that nature. At the risk of sounding a little bit narcissistic, my body looks a lot better now that I'm muscular than it did or than it does when I'm less muscular.

And that's my personal preference. But I do think many people, both men and women included, do prefer the look of their body when it has a little bit more muscle tone and a little bit less body fat. And quite frankly, the fact that in 2022, I have to handle that or lead into that so carefully, I think is a little bit over the top. But I try not to do anything that's offensive or I try to minimize anything that could be offensive. But TLDR, having muscle, good. Having less fat, good. Being confident in how you look, good. Here are 10 things to help you do that. The first, and this is a keystone habit. A keystone habit is something that allows you to kind of build other habits off of it,

is eating enough protein and spreading it across the day. Protein is vital for the formation and development and accretion of new muscle tissue. Your muscle tissue is made out of protein, which are of course polymers of amino acids. So we have these 20 different amino acids. Some of them are essential, meaning we need to get them from food. Some of them are non-essential, meaning we make them ourselves. Not everybody makes enough of the non-essential ones to be in a position where there will be optimizing muscle gain. So eating a lot of dietary proteins that are loaded with various amino acids, both essential and non-essential, can be valuable. Now, protein. When people think of protein, they typically think of meat, because meat is the muscle organ tissue of an animal. So of course it yields a high amount of protein because you are

literally eating an animal's muscle. But you also have things like eggs, which contain a good amount of protein. Yogurt, various forms of dairy, contain high amounts of dietary protein. Plants like quinoa, things like tofu, of course that's made from soy. Various whole grains and legumes can have a decent amount of protein. Other things like tempeh can have a good amount of protein. Obviously within the animal kingdom, you have poultry, fish, red meat, but protein typically in its whole food form falls into those categories with things like supplemental forms of protein and even supplemental forms of amino acids being available commercially for people who don't have the easiest time getting all their protein from whole foods. The general recommendation I make for clients,

this is of course clients who work with my coaching company, Core Coaching Method, whether they're working with me or one of my coaches, generally for clients who are already at a normal body weight looking to either gain muscle or lose body fat, we're going to position their protein intake somewhere between 0.7 to 1 grams per pound because that's what we believe to be optimal for the accretion or maintenance of muscle tissue, meaning gaining more or holding on to muscle tissue. If you are dieting, I like to keep it high, if not higher, to keep you full and help you maintain that tissue. And if you're looking to add more tissue, the importance of additional calories is something to consider. So bringing it down to that 0.7, 0.8, 0.9 range,

not necessarily going all the way up to one, can help you create room for other macros because protein is so, so filling. And that's why it was habit number one on this list of habits for a lean life. It is absolutely, without a doubt, of the three macros, the one least likely to contribute to additional fat gain. The reason for this has to do with the molecular variance between the different macros. Protein is nitrogen-based, whereas carbohydrates and fat are hydrocarbons. They are hydrogen and carbon-based. And because of that molecular similarity and the body's, And because of that molecular similarity and the body's, let's call it, propensity for storing those hormones, or I'm sorry, those macros as body fat, because of that molecular similarity and the easiness at which the body can digest and assimilate these things, of carbohydrate and surpluses of fat are more likely to be converted or more quickly and more readily converted to body fat than dietary protein, which does take a little bit more effort for the

body to digest and assimilate. This is the thermic effect of feeding. So protein being very filling, helping you hold on to muscle, helping you stay in a deficit, it will help you build tissue if you're bulking or hold on to tissue if you are cutting. It helps provide a tremendous amount of nutrition, particularly if you are able to get it from animal sources. Animal protein is a wonderful source of additional forms of, you know, micronutrients, not just the amino acids, which are the macronutrient category, right? But micronutrients, you can get a lot of various micronutrients from both animal and plant-based sources, depending on how you choose to source your protein and spreading it

out across the day can help keep you full and help keep muscle on your frame. So an actionable habit. Before I segue to that, I'd like to say for adults who are heavier or obese or morbidly obese, who can't easily, you know, multiply their body by 0.7 to one without having to eat 300 grams of protein or something ridiculous like that. You can just use your goal weight or the weight that you would like to be if your goal is fat loss, working backward from there or lean body mass. Um, and then lastly, just spread that protein out across the day. Find a, a way to do it. I'd say for smaller women who are more diminutive in frame or smaller men, you can go for four to five, 25 to 30 gram servings a day. For large

adults, let's say between 160 to 225 pounds, you might go for four to five servings of 30 to 40 grams of protein a day. And for super heavyweight slash athlete slash people who are obese or morbidly obese, maybe you're a big power lifter with a lot of tissue, maybe you're an athlete with a lot of tissue, you can spread that out into 45 to 50 plus gram servings three to four times a day, probably fall in that 0.7 to one grams per pound category and give your body what it needs. Moving on to habit number two to be lean for life has to do with starting off your day with the nutrition, nutrients, and macronutrients that you think are the most important and that you have a tendency to slack on. So there are three things

that I have found that people have a difficult time getting in throughout their day. It is protein, we just talked about that quite a bit. Vegetables and water. Those are three incredibly important things in my opinion for most people's nutrition. Protein, we talked all about that, so no need to reiterate here. Vegetables provide filling fiber, polyphenols and micronutrients, unique plant compounds that are good for your wellness, nutrition, and longevity. And water, of course, is incredible for hydration. And having worked with the general population and even athletes for the last eight to nine years, I have found that more often than not, these are the three things that people tend to miss out on in their diet. Not all three at a time, but usually one,

two, or three. One of these three. They can really be an easy fix and make a huge difference. three, one of these three, they can really be an easy fix and make a huge difference. Not getting enough plant matter usually coincides with not getting enough fiber, and that can be kind of a problem. So I'd like to frame this as not getting enough protein, water, or fiber. So the habit here is starting your day with either protein, fiber, or water, or all three, whichever of these three you have a tendency to come up short on, really focus on it in the earliest portion of your day. So for me, for example, I start every day with a protein shake. I mix two scoops of Legion's Whey Plus chocolate protein

with one scoop of Legion's Greens product, Genesis. That also yields three grams of reishi mushroom, which I'm a huge fan of. I take a two cup serving of spinach, put it in a blender with those two items and blend it up. And what that does is that provides me about 50 grams of protein, a bunch of fiber, and a bunch of various greens. I get the fiber from the spinach because I don't completely pulverize it into a juice. I leave it a little chunky in the smoothie, which freaks people out. You can also add things like chia seed, flax seed, or hemp seed to add additional fiber. But I get a number of different

vegetables from the greens powder, and I get supplemental greens from the spinach because those two things I don't want to come up short on. Additionally, I also drink an LMNT electrolyte packet very early in the morning in a huge 40-ounce flask of water. So I aim for about half my body weight in ounces of water a day, which puts me right around 90 to 100 ounces of water. And so within the first few hours of my day, I've knocked out 50 grams of protein. I've had two servings of spinach, a servings of greens powder, which probably equates to another serving of vegetables, a big old 42 ounce of water with some sodium, potassium, and magnesium. So I am not playing catch up on any of those things all day. Trying to play catch up on hydration can make it hard to sleep because you have to pee many times at night. Trying to play catch up on protein and fiber and vegetable intake late into the evening can be

miserable because they are so filling that not having gotten enough across your day can make it really hard to get it all at once. So start your day off with the nutritional staples that you have the highest likelihood of missing or the lowest propensity of hitting, however you want to frame it. That is a really valuable habit. Stop playing catch up with your nutrition. Tip number three, to be lean for life. Go to bed 30 minutes earlier. This is a very actionable tip and very actionable habit for most people. I'm not telling you to get seven to nine hours of sleep a night. I understand for those of you with children or for those of you who have a shift schedule at work or you work in a regular schedule or you're perhaps a student and life is chaotic and you have a lot of additional responsibilities saying, hey, a good seven to nine hours of sleep. It's a very tired way of framing it. Like, obviously, sleep is fucking important. And you certainly get more out of seven to nine hours than you get out of four to six hours. Duh. But an actionable habit, a way to enhance your sleep and increase the duration of time spent sleeping is to start by just aiming to get into bed 20 to

30 minutes earlier, right? And additionally, I would add to this, try to sleep in on your off days if possible. I know that can be difficult, especially for somebody like myself. I've experienced it firsthand. I always get up before the sun, Monday through Friday, because I see clients very early in the morning at my studio. I've done this for many years. It's a part of my identity. It's a part of who I am. Now, when the pandemic hit and things changed a little bit schedule-wise, for about six months first off in the pandemic, those sessions stopped because everybody was so concerned and life really changed. And I got a lot of additional sleep and it really made a huge difference. So that was one of the things that really

showed me the importance of sleep, right? And so I'm not asking you to change your routine. When you get up, I understand the importance of work and being where you need to be and pushing forward to reach your goals and make the money that you need to make. I get it. But if you can get into bed 20 to 30 minutes earlier and put the phone away, so much of that time is reserved for watching Netflix or scrolling through TikTok or Instagram. And I think if you can just get in that habit over the course of seven days, you will net yourself an additional three and a half hours of sleep. And if you can find additional time to sleep in on your off days, do that as well. Sleep makes a big difference in terms of leanness and body composition, and it is very tightly correlated with wellness and longevity. I'm taking a little break from the action here to tell you about our amazing partner, Seed. Seed makes the best probiotic supplement on the market, bar none. I'm very confident with that because I think that the probiotic space and the gut health space in general is filled with people who have no idea what they're talking about or who are looking to make a buck. This isn't to say your gut health isn't important. In fact, it's probably one of the most important and most intriguing developments we have seen in modern medicine and modern physiology. Our relationship with our guts is critical. It's crucial. And taking care of that by eating a lot of different plants, a lot of different fruits and vegetables, getting a diverse

array of fiber and resistant starches can go a long way, but so can supplementing with a high quality probiotic. Seed makes the best probiotic on the market with 53.6 billion active fluorescent units. These are organisms that are going to be alive and helping transfer a variety of different benefits to the human host. All these things are actually proven to work in humans. These strains work in humans, not rodents. Seed is not cheaping out here by providing you with any random strain. They're providing you with strains that help with digestive health, gut immunity, gut barrier integrity, dermatological health, cardiovascular health, micronutrient synthesis, as well as many other things. They're vegan, gluten-free, dairy-free, soy-free, nut-free, shellfish-free. So very friendly for those of you who may have a variety of different allergies and who are

looking for a supplement you can take that can enhance a variety of different things. I have a very, very good track record over many, many years of having to deal with things like eczema and having to deal with things like psoriasis on occasion, especially when the weather changes. And I swear to you, since I started taking Seed, I have noticed substantially less of that. And there's four strains included in Seed shown to help with things like atopic dermatitis. So there you go. Not to mention the plethora of strains for the health of your gut. If you're looking to take your gut health to the next level, you can go to Seed.com. Subscribe for their daily symbiotic. You can take one or two a day. You can share it with a partner sometimes.

You can do that. But it goes a long way. It's the best probiotic supplement on the market. I absolutely love it. And you can use the code DANNY15 to save. Back to the show. What's going on, guys? Taking a break from this episode to tell you a little bit about my coaching company,

Core Coaching Method. More specifically, our app-based training. We partnered with Train Heroic to bring app-based training to you using the best technology and best user interface possible. You can join either my Home Heroes team, or you can train from home with bands and dumbbells, or Elite Physique, which is a female bodybuilding-focused program where you can train at the gym with equipments designed specifically to help you develop strength, as well as the glutes, hamstrings, quads, and back. I have more teams coming planned for a variety of different fitness levels. But what's cool about this is when you join these programs, you get programming that's updated every single week, the sets to do, the reps to do,

exercise tutorials filmed by me with me and my team. So you'll get my exact coaching expertise as to how to perform the movement, whether you're training at home or you're training in the gym. And again, these teams are somewhat specific. So you'll find other members of those communities looking to pursue similar goals at similar fitness levels. You can chat, ask questions, upload form for form review, ask for substitutions. It's a really cool training community and you can try it completely free for seven days. Just click the link in the podcast description below. Can't wait to see you in the core coaching collective, my app-based training community. Back to the show. What's going on guys? Taking a break from the show

to tell you about our amazing partners over at Elemental Labs. Elemental Labs makes a flagship electrolyte product known as LMNT Recharge. Recharge is amazing. It's got bioavailable forms of sodium, potassium, and magnesium, which can really help you train, contract your tissues, and get hydrated. I love having it in the morning before my fasted training because oftentimes I wake up without an appetite, but I want something in my stomach so I'm not flat, I can get a pump, and I can get hydrated in the gym and still perform my best. I also love to sip on my recharge when I'm on the golf course or especially when I'm in the sauna. The more you sweat, the more likely it is that you will need to replace valuable electrolytes like sodium, magnesium, and potassium. And while if you have

high blood pressure, you might not necessarily be a candidate for electrolyte supplementation, many athletes and active adults need more salt and more electrolytes in their diet than they currently get, especially if they sweat, live in warm climates or humid climates. I found a bunch of different ways to use my recharge, but like I said, I love using it before and during my training, whenever I do something active outside or my sweat rate increases, or when I'm in the sauna. And you can actually try it completely for free. All their best flavors that are totally free of sugar have only 10 calories. They're sweetened naturally, and they come in amazing flavors like raspberry salt, orange salt, citrus salt. My favorite is the mango habanero or mango chili and the leban habanero,

which I take in the sauna. There's flavors for everybody and you can check them out by going to drink element tea slash coach Danny. They'll send you every single flavor in an individual packet. You can try them out completely free. Just pay shipping. Drinklmnt.com slash coach Danny. Get your sample pack today completely for free. Just pay shipping. Back to the show. Number four, take more vacations and plan more time to relax, recover, and recoup. I know what you're thinking here. Like, okay, vacations definitely don't help with being lean because I'm drinking and eating whatever I want. There's some truth to that, and I've also found that there's not a lot of truth to that. I have trained people for, like I said, nine, almost 10 years. I said eight to nine earlier, but eight years ago was 2014, and I'd already been training for a full year. So about nine, 10 years into this bad boy. And when clients go on vacation, they very rarely maintain their level of resistance training.

And they almost always enhance or increase the amount of food that they have access to that is hyper palatable. And they tend to eat more of that kind of food. So they're eating more calories and they are not lifting weights or sticking to their routine. And they will tell me for weeks in advance, I'm worried about my trip. I'm worried about my trip. I'm going to lose all my results. Am I going to lose all my results? And at first I would, you know, collaborate with them. Let's find gyms. Let's find places to go. Send me the menu and I'll, I'll give you what to eat. And for some clients, that's just how we operate. For online clients who absolutely want to get the best out of their physique because perhaps they're competing or perhaps they are a fitness model or perhaps I've even had clients who, I good amount of money off of their body just because of the way that it looks and what people are willing to pay to look at it.

And so staying in tip-top shape is really, really important to them. And vacations can be really scary. And so here I am telling you to plan more of them. Well, here's what I have found. I have found that most of my clients move more on vacation because they're walking around. They tend to eat quite a bit and drink a good amount of alcohol, but they also sleep way more than normal. Their stress comes way, way down. And because they focus so much on getting a good amount of protein in when they're not on vacation, that habit really carries

over well. So for example, if somebody were to go to Mexico or Hawaii, where there's a lot of really high quality fish, they will eat fish and get a ton of protein. And almost always these clients come back the same weight with their physique looking as good, if not better from the additional stress, reduced stress and additional sleep. Like I have so, so, so, uh, like reduced my obsession and fixation around vacations from your training, but from the crazy shit that we all have in our lives, I think that taking breaks is a really, really important thing to do. And frame it as, I'm not stopping my program. I'm not missing my program. I'm not ignoring my program. I'm taking a planned break in my program. I think that can be really powerful.

a planned break in my program. I think that can be really powerful. Number five, hire a coach, find a great training partner, or get into some form of external community that provides accountability. So I'll use shameless plug, my coaching company as an example, bringing on a coach who's going to write you a custom program built around your gym space or your home gym space, who's going to provide you with a nutritional framework, who's going to be there to answer questions, whatever you have specific to your nutrition, your training, your movement, your lifestyle. That's incredibly important and incredibly valuable for people who want to get the most out of their physique. Having a weekly check-in with a coach that you can't avoid, that you have to be honest with, that's huge. The ability that that has to hold you accountable, to keep you

motivated, to offer an exchange of information from an expert to you, to have another set of eyes, to have somebody who's there to help you from going crazy, that stuff is invaluable. The clients of mine that I've worked with over the years who really lean into communicating, to asking questions, to getting support when they need it, to not trying to do this thing alone. Obviously, if they were trying to do it alone, they probably wouldn't be a client. But I've had interactions with people on the internet. Like via DM, they're constantly asking me questions on my Instagram question box. And I see the same people asking what I would describe as really rudimentary, misinformed, or just plain dumb

questions. And I'm like, you know what? After a year of asking really dumb questions, I know this might sound pretentious, but it might be time to hire somebody to help take over. Because clearly, if the caliber of your questions aren't elevating, your understanding isn't getting anywhere. It's not improving. You don't know what you're fucking doing, and you don't know how to drive the ship. Have somebody come on board, help set the sails, point you in the right direction, hold the compass. You can still hold the steering wheel, right? But if you can't even get your boat out of the damn harbor, we've got some problems. Another thing you can do is find a great training partner or join a community like the training app I've created with Train Heroic. We've got elite physique and

you can train with women all over the world to help develop your glutes and hamstrings in a four to five day a week gym training session where you can talk gym training schedule and you have chat room access to me, my coaching team and all your teammates. We also have Home Heroes, which is a four day a week training program that you can do at home with dumbbells and bands. And the price point is so damn low, there's really no excuse for not at least having a program set and a schedule set, and then you have that community piece there. So if you want to be lean for life, if you want to maintain muscle, if you want to build tissue that's going to help you live long and avoid

illness and disease while simultaneously maintaining your independence and being confident in how you look, you got to lift, you got to train, you got to stay active, you got to find something that works for you. And it's really a lot easier to stick to that thing when you have a coach or accountability partner. Number six habit for maintaining leanness across the lifespan is supplementing with creatine and omega-3. These are the two supplements with the largest and most robust body of evidence, supporting their ability to improve and enhance health and sports performance. Creatine is phenomenal for strength and muscle development, and omega-3 is great for inflammation management, recovery,

and providing your brain with valuable fats. These are the two supplements I recommend adding into your routine if you're currently taking nothing, and if you had to reduce to just two, these are the two that I would keep in the mix. I'm not a huge fan of supplements. I think that there are a number of really, really intriguing ones. And I think that the higher up you go, the more you can lean into them. But for most people, starting with supplemental creatine and omega-3 can really make a difference. Okay, number seven is to shorten but intensify your training sessions. So I think training sessions should be somewhere

between 15 to 20 sets for advanced lifters, but they can be as low as, you know, 4 to 12 sets for completely new lifters. Point being, it's the quality of the work that you're doing that matters more than the duration of the training session. If you're training more than 90 minutes and not making progress, I would recommend shortening the training sessions and intensifying the work that you do, training closer to failure with greater intentionality and focus. Something I have found very frequently when I start working with clients who are over-trained is when I start working with clients who are overtrained is when I reduce the number of sessions down from say six to four and reduce the volume per session from say five to eight exercises to six and the number of sets per exercise from say five to three to four and the number of reps from say 20 to six to eight. They lift a lot heavier. They put a lot more effort

into it because they know they have less training to do in the back half of the week. They get more time to recover and voila, they get better gains. So I'm a little bit biased there because I think too many people spend a lot of time in the gym, but they're not really executing well with that time. Number eight tip, this is one of my favorites to be lean for life. Get your weekly step count up. I like the 10,000 steps a day thing. I think that's good. It's about 70,000 steps a day or aim for 50,000 to 100,000 steps per week. I review client check-ins every single week. And I have clients who have crazy schedules, crazy situations. And I have a client who will have 15,000 steps one day and 1,000 steps the next, and then 12,000 steps one day and 3,000 steps the next. But what I've noticed is when she consistently hits around 50,000 steps a week, no matter what, that seems to help her lose weight.

When she's below that threshold, her weight seems a little bit more stagnant. And so one of the things I've found works really well is setting a weekly step count goal, because that kind of zooms you out a little bit. If you miss your 10,000 in a day, okay, that's all right. I understand some people like smaller daily goals. You can do that. If 10,000 a day is easy, go to 15, whatever. But like if you set a weekly step count goal of 50, 75,000, 100,000, 60,000, even 40,000, just more than you're currently taking. And you chip away at that day by day. You're allowed to fall behind or have a bad day because you can play catch up. You can go for a hike and go for a little bit of an extra long walk.

You know, I like that weekly step count goal. So that's something to play with. Moving is always phenomenal for longevity and wellness, right? Especially walking, which enhances creativity. If you live in an area where you have sun exposure, you can get access to vitamin D just from the sun hitting your skin. Really good things happen when you walk. Number nine, stop drinking your calories and make your damn coffees at home. What I mean when I say stop drinking your calories, alcohol has calories, high calorie coffees with a bunch of sugar and creamer have calories. Soda has calories. Energy drinks have calories. Even those yerba mates have calories. If you drink a caloric laden beverage that has 200 calories a week or 200 calories a day, that's 1400 extra calories a

week. That is a lot of extra calories per month, over 7,000, I think over 6,000, I should say, to be correct. If you can reduce the calories you drink that provide no satiety, meaning you switch regular soda to diet soda, you switch highly sugared, fat-laden coffees over to just plain black coffee or tea, you switch alcohol out for sparkling waters or various other forms of beverages or just more caloric-friendly forms of alcohol, you can make a really big impact on your body fat level because you will be wildly decreasing your caloric intake. And I won't tell you not to drink alcohol, but when I start working with clients who are morbidly obese or somebody comes to me with a situation where they're like, yo, my health is really important. I need to make a shift or hey, I'm competing or hey, I want to take this shit to the next level. I am sick of being where I'm at, whatever it is. I don't give them too many hard lined do not do this things. But one of the things I challenge a lot of clients do is to stop fucking drinking alcohol. It's bad for you in almost every capacity. Physiologically, it's not good for you. You can make the argument that it's anti-inflammatory. You can point to the French paradox, but we've got to stop playing ourselves. Alcohol, it's a toxin. It's not good

for your body. And I don't really shit on artificial sweeteners. I don't shit on vegetable oils. I'm not much of a sensationalist when it comes to the various forms and things that people are freaked out about. But alcohol is bad for you. And drinking a bunch of calories is not good for leanness. Number 10, and this is a direct contrast to number nine, it is do not completely restrict foods ever. Whether it's even alcohol, like I recommend people who want to remove it remove it for a Definitive and set period of time not permanently if they enjoy it not permanently if they enjoy it, okay Uh permanently if you see the value in it, which I think a lot of people

Uh if they knew more about how alcohol work could but don't cut out all the foods you like Okay over restriction can lead to binging and it can lead to blowback. So don't do that, guys. Here were the 10 tips we talked about today to be lean for life. Eat enough protein was number one. Start your day off with protein, water, greens, fiber. Whichever you have a harder time getting in throughout the day,

be sure to get ahead on that. Number three, try to go to bed earlier because sleep matters. Number four, take more breaks, vacations that allow for relaxation and recuperation. Number five, get somebody or something to hold you accountable. Number six, consider supplementing with creatine and omega-3. Number seven, make sure your training is productive, not just long. Number eight, get that step count up. Number nine, don't drink your calories. And number 10,

try not to overly restrict. I want to thank you all again for tuning in and continuing to subscribe to the podcast. If you want to help me grow this sucker, the number one thing you can do is leave me a five-star rating and review on iTunes. That makes a huge difference for me. Thanks again for tuning in, and I will catch you on the next one.