Dynamic Dialogue with Danny Matranga - 217: 7 Rules for a HEALTHY Life

Episode Date: September 1, 2022

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Welcome in everybody to another episode of the dynamic dialogue podcast. And today's episode is surprisingly relevant for me as a podcast host. We're going to be discussing seven rules for a healthy life. And this is fresh off of a nasty upper respiratory head cold slash infection that I've been fighting off. I actually took three COVID tests. I'm recording this on Wednesday. I took three COVID tests on Tuesday and this morning. I wasn't feeling well Sunday after doing some work around my new home, construction stuff, mounting televisions, drilling know, drilling into the roof of the garage. And who knows what's up there? Who knows what kind of dust and allergens that I might have kicked up in that process. But man, oh man, did this thing hit me really, really hard on Sunday

night with a migraine from hell and Monday and Tuesday, just feeling kind of sick. I did have COVID like end of May, and it wasn't ideal. I mostly had a pretty bad fever, but I was able to move and exercise every day from home at my home gym. But this thing knocked me on my ass. I just wasn't feeling good at all. Tuesday, stayed home all day. Kind of unique, like one of those 24, 48-hour bugs, but it did lead on with a headache. And the reason that that I feel is so relevant is because, and you can hear the congestion of my voice, I'm sure, is because I really wanted to do an episode where I highlighted seven super simple habits and actions that you can do to live healthier. And a lot of you are already

pretty established in what it is that you do, but you can never get over drilling the fundamentals. I had a coach in high school, a basketball coach, Rick Francis. He coached the Sonora High School Wildcat varsity basketball team. And every single day before practice, before practice, meaning like before him and his assistant coach would come and lead us through the various elements and components of the practice, we were to do a series of drills known as the fundamentals. And so this was a series of 10 ball handling or dribbling drills, 10 shooting mechanics

drills where you're drilling the fundamentals of shooting mechanics. Very, very slow, very, very boring, not particularly fun. For like 30 minutes, we would do this every single session as a warmup. And one thing that I've come to appreciate about that as an adult, as a coach, as a personal trainer, was that you truly never can hear the basics enough. So these habits are going to be beneficial to review if you're really advanced. They're also going to be super, super beneficial to hear for the first time if you're just starting out on this journey. And if you are like me or like most people, and you have people close to you that you'd like to encourage to live healthier, more active lives, right? If you have people close to

you like that, this is a really good low barrier for entry podcasts to share with them. It's something that they can probably hear and process because we're not going to go insanely into the weeds. We'll get pretty into the weeds here because some of this stuff is fun to unpack, but it's not going to be anything insane. It's not going to be anything crazy. Before we get into point number one, I wanted to give a special shout out to one of this show's amazing sponsors, and that's Legion Athletics. Legion is my go-to for whey protein. I take a whey protein shake almost every day. It's an easy way for me to make sure I'm getting a high quality protein in each and every day that is

efficient and quick for my easy, or not easy, not so easy, fast paced, kind of on the go entrepreneur lifestyle. I need that protein source to be easy. And I take Legion's Whey Plus each and every day. I take two scoops of Legion's Whey Plus, which totals 40 plus grams of protein from Irish-raised grass-fed dairy. Lactose-free, high-quality, very, very tasty whey protein. I like chocolate. I like vanilla. I like cocoa cereal. I like honey cereal. I even have a friend who enjoys baking with it and he makes these wonderful protein snacks And so I found it to be a very versatile low fat low carb high protein shake and it's so damn good I have it each and every day with no gas and no bloating and that's a big deal for some of you Who are sensitive to lactose or a little bit iffy with dairy, knowing that this is a whey protein

isolate, you know that it's lactose-free. It is the best whey protein product on the market, in my opinion, if you want a variety of flavors and options, as well as a high-quality protein from grass-fed Irish-raised dairy. Some of the best dairy cows that eat the closest thing to a natural grass-fed diet as you can get in a country where the livestock practices are pretty rigorous and the animals are treated quite well. So you can head over to legionathletics.com, check out with the promo code Danny, and get 20% or two times points off your first order.

If you have an account, you'll get double points, which you can use the same as cash. Legion also carries creatine pre-workout, stimulant-free pre-workout for those of you who like coffee, fish oils, multivitamins, and other awesome supplements, all of which have evidence-based doses printed right on the label, clearly batch numbers that you can follow up with, and high reviews on third-party websites like Labdor. That kind of stuff, that kind of integrity is important when it comes to allocating your money towards supplements. You want to get what you're paying for and you don't want to mess around. So you can head on over to legionathletics.com,

check out using Danny for 20% off any of your orders. Okay. So here's the first rule for a quote unquote, healthy, vivacious, vibrant life where you'll perform well physically, mentally, and let's be honest, emotionally. And that is a big one, especially with all the problems people have with relationships, with all the difficulties and challenges and divisiveness of the world that we live in, whether it's economic division, whether it's societal division, racial divisions, tension. Oh God, don't even get me started on the politics, right? Just being balanced, cool, level-headed, and happy. Number one is get as much sleep as you can as consistently as you can. If you are a regular listener of the podcast, you'll know we discuss sleep and its ability to enhance performance and its ability to enhance body

composition, which is to say muscle to body fat ratio. it's big. We talk about it all the time. We talk about how it affects hormones like testosterone, estrogen, growth hormone, right? How it affects appetite, decision-making, willpower. Sleep is intrinsically connected to how we behave, inextricably too, one might say. So what are we going to do to ensure that we get adequate sleep each and every day? I have a few tips for you, a few things that I think are relatively easy to implement and to think about. The first is have a concrete cutoff time from work.

Now, this is separate from a concrete bedtime, which is actually point number two. We'll get to that in a second. But having a concrete work cutoff time is really important, especially for those of you who are busy, who are high-strung, who are type A, who are professionals, who are on the go. You want to make sure that you give yourself boundaries around how much of your bandwidth you make available for things that suck your energy and that keep you in a sympathetic, performance-driven work state. So if it is possible for you to have a hard cutoff where you completely unplug from work, where you sit down and relax, where you spend time with your family,

where you spend time away from your family, depending on what your familial responsibilities are. You can have a firm cutoff time. For me, it's 7 p.m. At 7 p.m., I stop with the communications with online clients. I stop with the social media if I can remember to do this. I try to put the phone away. I try to close the laptop. I try to spend time with my girlfriend, with my dog, doing things like that. Those kinds of things are very important. You need to be able to unplug. So the first thing you can do to ensure good sleep is give yourself time to unplug. The second thing that you can do, and I alluded to this earlier, is have a definitive concrete bedtime. So what does that mean? That means that each and every single night, you are going to make a point to say, I want to be in bed with

the lights out, phone on the nightstand, eyes closed, no later than this time. Okay. It's nice to have routines. Okay. It's nice to have these kind of sexy, hyper efficientefficient, hyper, let's call it productive, entrepreneurial morning routines and nighttime routines. You see them all the time. They're kind of tacky. They're kind of burnout. I'm not going to tell you to put the blue blockers on. I'm not going to tell you to shut off from the outside world and do nasal strips. There's so many levels to this shit, but what I am going to tell you is to have a firm time at which you're going to make a concerted effort each and every day to be in bed with the lights off with the intention of falling asleep relatively quickly. That's going to make a huge difference. Those two things right there will help you relax, get deep, restful,

like recuperative and restorative sleep, not just waking up feeling tired. Being tired all day sucks. Getting high quality sleep where you wake up and feel good is game changing. I'm pretty sure each and every single one of you knows this. If you've ever taken a vacation after periods of working a really long time or studying a really long time or going through a transitionary phase in your life for a lot of stress, when you hit the finish line and you get that first night of low stress, like not bathing in cortisol, high quality sleep, it is amazing. Like amazing. The quality of recuperative restful sleep and the impact that can have on how you feel. Like, holy smokes, it makes a difference. So that's something I really want you guys to focus on to live a better

life. A couple of action steps you can take that are non-routine based. These can obviously be routines, but one of them is cut your caffeine consumption off earlier in the day. I like to try to stop by noon at the latest. And in fact, I'll give you an example of what I did today. In the morning, I had two espresso shots. This was at 5 and 6 a.m. Each of these was 60 milligrams of caffeine. And then four hours later or so before a 10.30 workout, I had a scoop of pre-workout, one scoop of pre-workout, one scoop of stimulant-free pre-workout, and I went and trained legs. That was 120 milligrams. So I'm sitting somewhere at around 240 milligrams, which is no small amount of caffeine. That's a substantial amount, depending on who you ask and your tolerance.

For some people, that's absurd. For some people, that's nothing. Either way, I'm not consuming any more caffeine from this point of the day moving forward. It's 12.05 as I'm recording. I had finished my caffeine consumption as I said around 10.30. That helps me get deeper, more restful, higher quality sleep. I find I have many more sleep disturbances if I consume caffeine late into the day. I have almost no problem falling asleep unless I'm dealing with some sort of existential angst like depression or anxiety, which I don't think are directly correlated to my caffeine consumption. Although I will say on the days where I consume 300, 400 milligrams of caffeine,

I do experience worsened or heightened feelings of anxiety relative to baseline. So for those of you who deal with occasionally feeling anxious, I think this could be really helpful and really beneficial for you too, because it's going to really kind of help you taper down any feeling of heightened alertness later in the day. And we talked about getting into that relaxed state with how you might kind of create boundaries around your sleep time and your relaxed time and your quote unquote unplugging time. But having a caffeine boundary can really help too. Another thing one can do with their diet and nutrition is try to keep their final meal two to perhaps three hours from bedtime so as not to

elevate your baseline blood sugar to a point that it could disrupt your sleep. Huge meals really close to bedtime might lead to a sedative-like effect that can help you fall asleep, but it might not make for the most restful and deep sleep. So if you can position your last meal a couple hours ideally before your desired bedtime, a couple hours, ideally before your desired bedtime, you might have a deeper, more restful, higher quality of sleep that isn't kind of challenged by fluctuations in blood sugar. So sleep is obviously a huge thing that you can do for your health. Most of you are not surprised at all. I'm sure that that made the list. Number two on this list of seven rules for a healthier life is sit less, move your body preferably outside.

So what I mean by this is go outside and walk more, sit on your ass less for a multitude of reasons. The first is quite literally, the more you move, the better you feel physically and emotionally, especially when it comes to getting outside and going on walks. Such a huge percentage of the population is vitamin D deficient. And going out and exposing your skin to the sun quite literally gives you the ability to synthesize your own vitamin D, a hormone or vitamin. It's literally called a hormone because of how many tissues it acts upon that can make you feel better, perform better, think better.

Okay. It's good for your bones. It's good for your muscles. It's good for all these things. You make it yourself when you're exposed to the sun. And 20 to 30 minutes a day can make a big difference. Now, you might want to wear some sunscreen. You might not want to wear some sunscreen. I'm not a dermatologist. But what I will tell you is getting outside and going for a walk feels good. Another thing that we tend to do when we're going for walks is not be on our phones consuming content that makes us feel some type of way. Content can be very divisive. It can be very inflammatory depending on the platform, depending on the kind of content algorithms are showing you. It's mostly nasty kind of inflammatory political content like what you might see on Twitter or if it's just

body image destruction content like you see on Instagram, all this stuff, like getting a break from the phone, going outside and walking is phenomenal. Another thing too, people tend to deal with a lot of back pain, a lot of sciatica in our society, in large part due to the fact that they're simply spending too much time in a seated position. That position can lead to various types of discomfort kind of below your trunk, but it can also lead to neck pain, wrist pain. Spending all day sitting down is not ideal. In addition to the sunlight, the benefits of being outdoors, breathing in the outside

air. I mean, for most people, you're going to be okay going outside. Some of you might not have very quality air or very safe places to go walk. I get that. But for the most part, we all have access to the ability to get somewhere, hopefully, where we can walk in nature and find peace. It's really, really good for you. It's something that I find the healthiest clients I work with make time for. It's something that when I make time for it, I feel way better. When I don't make time for it, I feel way more shitty. The best thing you could ever do to like double dip on two habits that will quite literally

make you feel way better is either adopt a dog, get a dog, or walk somebody else's dog while you do this. There's something really uniquely grounding about taking your dog companion or a dog with you on a walk where they quite literally stop to smell and go at the pace that they're comfortable with and do their peas and stuff. But it grounds you. It connects you with another living being. Spending time with animals is like really recuperative and enjoyable.

And I think dogs are awesome. And I know this is like, whoa, this guy's getting woo woo. But we are talking about quite literally living a healthier, higher quality life. And I think there's something amazing about having a companionship with a dog. And if you get one or have one or are responsible for one or walking one, you will get outside and move more. And it's a good way to make a big difference. There's a lot of animals that need homes.

So just floating that out there. Maybe that's a sign that if you've been on the fence about getting an animal companion, that you might consider it more because not only will walking the dog benefit how it feels and how its life goes, it will benefit you quite positively, especially if you habituate it. And we're so much more likely to do things when we have somebody else that we feel like we are responsible for or that we are in a partnership with the way you would be with an animal. Hey guys, taking a break from the show to tell you about our amazing sports nutrition partner, Legion. Legion makes the best evidence-based formulas for sports

performance, sports nutrition, recovery, and fat loss. i don't recommend many supplements in fact i think you can get the majority of the nutrition you need from a whole foods diet but let's be honest many of us are either on the go and need assistance or quite frankly we're not going to settle for average and we want to get the absolute most we can out of our training so legion is the company i go to for all of my supplement staples, whether it's creatine, which I get from their product Recharge, my protein that I get from either Whey Plus or Plant Plus, two of the best tasting proteins on the market. They come in a variety of flavors and they don't have a ton of fillers and gum. Just Whey made from grass-fed cows from Ireland

in a plant protein blend with a fully comprehensive dose of amino acids. I like to take a pre-workout. Sometimes I like it with caffeine. Sometimes I like to take a pre-workout. Sometimes I like it with caffeine. Sometimes I like to enjoy coffee in the morning and have my pre-workout later without caffeine. Legion makes both. Both the pre-workout with caffeine and without come with a full dosage of clinically effective ingredients like beta alanine, betaine anhydrous, and L-citrulline to help you perform your best. They also make a phenomenal greens powder loaded with one of my favorite things, reishi mushroom, and a men's and women's multivitamin that contain a few different things that men and women might need for their unique physiology. So when you

think of your vitamins, your fish oil, your pre-workout, your protein, all of the things that many of you take every single day, I'd encourage you to check out Legion. They have an amazing line, wonderful products, wonderful flavors, naturally sweetened, no dyes and colors. You can't go wrong. You can shop using the show notes below or by going to legionathletics.com and checking out using the promo code Danny. That will save you 20% and it will actually help you get two times points towards future orders, which you can use the same as cash. Pretty cool, guys. So head over to legionathletics.com and check out using the promo code Danny to save on all your sports supplement needs. Back to the show. and more specifically, are a one-on-one, fully tailored online coaching program. My online coaching program has kind of been the flagship for Core Coaching Method for a while.

Of course, we do have PDF programming, and we have app-based programming. But if you want a truly tailored one-on-one experience with a coach like myself, or a member of my coaching team, someone who is certified, somebody who has multiple years of experience working with clients in person online, somebody who is licensed to provide a macro nutrition plan, somebody who is actually good at communicating with clients because they've done it for years, whether that be via phone call, email, text, right? This one-on-one coaching program is really designed to give you all the support you need with custom training designed for you, whether you're training from home, the gym, around your limitations, and your goals, nothing cookie cutter here, as well as easy to follow macronutrition programs that are non-restrictive, you'll get customized support directly from your coach's email, or they'll text you, or they'll WhatsApp you. We'll find the

communication medium that best supports your goals, as well as provides you with the accountability and the expertise you need to succeed, as well as biofeedback monitoring, baked-in accountability support, and all of the stuff that you need from your coach when you check in. We keep our rosters relatively small so that we can make sure you get the best support possible. But you can apply today by going over to corecoachingmethod.com, selecting the online coaching option. And if we have spots available, we'll definitely reach out to you to see if you're a good candidate. And if we don't put you on a waiting list, but we'll be sure to give you the best shot at the best coaching in the industry. So head over to corecoachingmethod.com and apply for one-on-one coaching with me and my team today.

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. The third tip for a healthy life or the third rule for a healthy life is to load your body and load it often. And I mean weights. I mean carrying things. I mean picking things up. I mean pulling things down.

I mean going to the gym and lifting weights. I mean picking up a wheelbarrow. I mean bending down to pick up a box. I mean, pulling things down. I mean, going to the gym and lifting weights. I mean, picking up a wheelbarrow. I mean, bending down to pick up a box. I mean, bending on one knee. I mean, getting into uncomfortable positions. I mean, carrying things like, you know, I don't want to say our ancestors used to because that gets into that whole silly ancestral fallacy that's so, it's just so cringe right now with like liver king and all that shit. But you know, the human body is resilient as a mofo. In my opinion, I, I, I find that each and every day I'm just blown away by what it is my body can do. I put it in some weird, sometimes compromising positions,

picking things up, moving things, having to install a gym in my home and build out a facility, professional facility for physical therapy and personal training and move homes. Like all that shit had me moving some crazy weird objects that were crazy weird shapes. And I feel like just the action of movement like that is so beneficial for the quality of your life. Like if you remain resilient, strong, and adaptive as a organism in the sense that like, hey, you know, I bent over and picked something up and rounded my thoracic spine and I didn't obliterate into a million pieces. That's going to be so, so helpful when you get older. I love weightlifting. You guys all know I'm a stickler for it. I push it all the time. I literally have a coaching company where we focus specifically on helping people incorporate resistance training or build entire routines based off of resistance training for people who do everything from competitive bodybuilding to

who want to get in shape for Disneyland vacation or something, you name it. Not that anybody tries to get in shape to go to Disneyland, but I'm big on resistance training. But in addition to that, I think moving into unique compromising positions on occasion and not being afraid to do it because you constantly train to have strong and resilient tissue is key to having a healthy life. My dad has a disease called Parkinson's disease where over time you lose your ability to kind of have your brain communicate well to your muscle tissue. So you slowly become a prisoner in your own body.

And that is not fun. I can tell you from personal experience, it's really hard to see my dad struggle with this illness. It's one of, if not the singular biggest pain point in my life. It's something that really, really, it's hard to see. There's just simply no better way to put it. I love my dad unconditionally. I'm extremely grateful for our relationship, but watching somebody suffer from a disease like this really makes you, gives you a better sense of just how important it is to be able to have a strong, capable body. It's so important. It's so, so important. And so I'm a firm believer that moving often, lifting weights, keeping your muscles strong,

keeping your connection to your movement and your strength and your resilience across the lifespan is huge. So load your body, load it often and understand that doing this specific kind of exercise, you will get insane benefits for things like blood sugar, for things like hormone, for things like metabolism. It seems that loaded exercise specifically has an incredible ability to modulate androgens, testosterone, growth hormone, estrogen, influence your physiology, your blood sugar. It's really fucking good for you too. Walking more is obviously aerobic. This would be something

that we would consider more anaerobic, but man, oh man, is it good to you. Okay. Rule number four, more anaerobic, but man, oh man, is it good to you. Okay. Rule number four, eat lots of protein, eat lots of plants. Let's start with the protein. Two of the things that people struggle with across the lifespan are loss of muscle tissue or sarcopenia and a loss of bone tissue, osteopenia. Two of the primary reasons for this are a lack of dietary protein and a sedentary lifestyle. dietary protein, and a sedentary lifestyle. A lot of the habits we outlined today are easily going to eradicate any possibility of you being sedentary. Let's say you do the weightlifting here and there and you walk a lot. Great. Not going to suffer from a sedentary lifestyle. If you don't eat enough protein, it's going to be really hard to maintain your muscle, which is a big reason why people feel like their metabolism and energy and stuff slow down over

their lifespan. They lose muscle and muscle is a vitality organ. It's a longevity organist. Dr. Gabrielle Lyon would say, I believe she's the one who kind of coined this idea that muscle is a longevity organ. She's fucking right about that shit. Let me tell you, holy smokes. So eat your protein. You can get it from plants. If you're not a meat eater, you can get it from dairy. You can get it from fish. You can get it from poultry. You can get it from red meat. You probably want to get less of it from red meats and processed meats over time. You probably want to get more of it from omega-3 rich cold water fatty fish that are sustainably caught, good for the environment, blah, blah, blah. There's so many decisions when making food choices that can get really daunting, but you want to get a lot of protein from a lot of

different protein sources. And then the plant sting is super important for a variety of reasons. Okay. One of which is the fiber. That's really good for your microbiome. And if you've been paying any attention, you know that the microbiome is a big, big deal in your overall health. And I mean a big, big deal. Okay. We talk about it a lot on the podcast, but if you pay any attention to the work that's being done at Stanford with regards to fecal transplants, you can literally change a person's entire fucking microbiome by having them ingest a frozen fecal transplant from another person. You basically eradicate their gut microbiome and then repopulate it with the gut microbiome of somebody who's healthier, fitter, has better blood sugar. And I shit you not, they basically become the

person. Like, okay, that's a bit of an exaggeration. But the physiological changes driven by repopulating somebody's microbiome with that of a healthier person are so absurd, you would be foolish not to consider your gut and microbiome and how it is that you eat. That's why we partnered with Seed, who I think makes the best probiotic, symbiotic supplement on the market. Quite literally the best one on the market. Every strain has been clinically proven to work in humans, which is huge. They have an insanely high active fluorescent unit count, meaning the actual living bacteria that get to you because it's shipped every month. So you don't have to worry about refrigerating it. You just know you're getting high quality

specimens that are clinically proven to work in human. These are the bacteria and microorganisms that populate your gut that elicit the benefits you do want, not the ones that you don't want. To put it succinctly, the ones you don't want tend to eat refined starches and garbage fatty acids. The ones you do want love fiber and you can populate it, pre-populate it, or attempt to populate it with a supplement like seed that is sustainable. It's incredibly unique. It's the best probiotic on the market. Take it from somebody who's as big of a supplement skeptic as there fucking is on this planet. There's quite literally nothing like it. It's the best probiotic supplement I've ever seen.

I take it every day, twice a day. It's a big difference maker for me. We're talking less gas. We're talking less bloating. We're talking better ability to digest big meals. So the obvious kind of things that we think of when we think of gut health, but we also have a dermatological layer on our skin. And so my atopic dermatitis or the redness on the back of my arms that I get, so much less severe with seed. Why? They actually have microbiota that have been shown to clinically work at reducing inflammation in human skin in the product. So really cool stuff. We love seed. You can go to seed.com and you can check out using the promo code Danny15. And that's going to save you 15% on your first order. That is an amazing, amazing product. And again, if you are giving your gut what it needs through

the ingestion of fibrous plants, usually fruits and vegetables, but there's also a lot of starches that yield quite a bit of fiber. Whole grains there's also a lot of starches that yield quite a bit of fiber. Whole grains can yield quite a bit of fiber. You get micronutrients, you get antioxidants, you get polyphenols, you get all these amazing, amazing things. If you want to live a long life, if you want to be well-nourished, if you want to feel good, if you want to have kind of the nutrient density that coincides with eating quote unquote healthy, you can do that really quickly by finding a few plant sources that you like and including them each and every day. A couple fruits and a couple vegetables. If you can just get in the habit of having those around the house

and eating them regularly and getting enough protein, you're going to have better health and better body composition than pretty much, I would say 90% of people. A lot of people overcomplicate nutrition to the point where they don't get any kind of traction ever. And if you can just find a few plant matter, pieces of plant matter that you actually like and ingest them on a fairly regular basis, you are going to be kicking ass. Okay. Number five, eat less processed food. This is a big one. Okay. I think everything in moderation, including moderation, is big. But you got to understand that eating hyperpalatable, highly processed foods that are easy to overconsume and not particularly nutritious,

instead of eating nutrient-dense foods that are, you know, perhaps less tasty, but offer better nutrition, are less energy-dense, and, you know, are substantially, you know, more in alignment with a healthy, quote-unquote, nutrient-dense form of eating, you're going to have some problems. Like, if the majority of the food that you eat is processed, hyperpalatable, fast food, you're going to feel a hell of a lot worse than if it's nutrient dense, good food. Uh, I can speak from experience when I was in college and eat like garbage. My skin looked like shit. I felt like shit. My gut went to shit. Uh, I didn't do too well when I was eating nothing but garbage. The better I eat, the better I look, the better I feel. And I know that that's subjective, but I see it all the time in my

practice. I think it's a really big fucking deal. I think you eat better. I think you feel better. And I'm not saying you have to be perfect eating fricking amaranth and bone broth and all this shit and kale chips, none of that. I'm just saying, be smart. Try to live within the confines of something like the 80-20 rule where 80% of the stuff you eat is decently nutritious, hopefully minimally processed, and 20% of the stuff you eat is stuff you like. And if it's processed and it's not particularly quote unquote healthy, that's all right because being overly restrictive is probably damaging enough emotionally, spiritually, socially, that it's not worth the complete trade-off. So you're striking a balance there, if you will. But you got to be modestly intelligent about this, guys. Come on. It's one of the dumbest things you could do to just sit around and bury

yourself in hyper-palatable, high-calorie foods. If you have access to better stuff, you don't live in a food desert, right? If you don't live in a situation where you don't have the socioeconomic means to get your hands on this stuff, you don't make most of your food decisions. I get it. But if you do, try not to eat that way. Another thing, number six, try not to drink like crazy across the lifespan. I'll be brief with this one because I feel like I've beat a dead horse on this before, but alcohol is quite literally toxic. It's one of the few things that people call a toxin that's actually a toxin. That's why it works. The reason that alcohol makes you feel the way it makes you feel is because you're being slowly poisoned and it makes you feel kind of loopy, makes you feel kind of fun, makes you feel is because you're being slowly poisoned and it makes you feel kind of loopy. It makes you feel kind of fun. It makes you feel kind of crazy. So the problem with alcohol

is that it's particularly damaging to different tissues, particularly the liver, the kidneys, the throat, the gut, and the brain. And with the amount of problems people deal with that are associated just with the gut and the brain alone, paired with the prevalence of alcohol addiction and the damages of alcohol addiction. If you look at the collateral damage done by each and every addiction societally, alcohol wins by a country mile. Alcohol does more collateral damage to children, families, and relationships than meth, than heroin, than cigarettes, because it's particularly pervasive. We've championed it in our culture, and alcoholism affects an alarmingly high number of people. And I guarantee you either know somebody who

suffers from alcoholism or is a functioning alcoholic, but if you drink a lot across the lifespan, it is not going to help you live a long, healthy life. You will feel substantially worse. You will get lower quality sleep. You will increase your likelihood of contracting various cancers and illnesses. It's no bueno. If you can keep it to a one to two drink a night, hopefully one to two drink a week kind of cadence, you'll probably do just fine. I don't think it's bad in moderation. In fact, I'm not inclined to fearmonger about it in moderation. I just think you should be very much aware of the dangers of it and of the fact that most people have a really hard time not drinking in excess or a good chunk of people have a hard time not drinking in excess.

Something I might challenge you to do if you're looking to live a more healthy, active lifestyle is to take a 30-day break from drinking alcohol for a dry month. Just no alcohol for one full month. See how you feel. I think that you'll feel you find substantially better to the point where you might want to reduce your drinking habits when you reintroduce alcohol and drink less over time. I find you take a long enough break, you really feel a difference. Number seven is to just minimize your exposure to toxic, negative, or unhappy people. There are a lot of people out there that when you spend time with them, it makes you feel worse, or you pick up on their insecurities, or they're constantly complaining, or they're constantly whining, or they're constantly

negative. And that can bleed into your time. It's not to say that you are better than people or anybody's better than people who think differently. It's just to say that people who tend to operate from that space mentally and emotionally, they tend to extend and pass that shit on. Whether it's through the way we communicate all the way down to body language, spending too much time around negative people can really start to bleed into how you look at the world. The same can be said of people who behave in a nature that one might describe as toxic, whether that's showing a lack of integrity, a lack of honesty, having a high proclivity for trauma and pettiness. If you can avoid that, it makes a big difference. Over the years I've done

personal training, I've had the opportunity to have transactional relationships with people where they give me money, they come in, they train, then they leave. And it's always really hard when those people are particularly negative or constantly complaining or always framing themselves as a victim to the point where now I won't really tolerate long-term training relationships, even if people want to pay me their hard-earned money, because that level of negativity and difficulty and proclivity for conflict is not ideal. It's not good for me. And I don't have to deal with people like that if I don't want to, I'm an adult. And so hopefully you can frame that in a way that helps you build deeper and more meaningful relationships with people, but also protect yourself from the negative shit. So guys, that's seven tips for

living a healthier life. To say it one more time, get as much sleep as you can, as often as you can, living a healthier life. To say it one more time, get as much sleep as you can, as often as you can, as consistently as you can. Okay. Number two, move more, sit less, get outside. Number three, load your tissue with weights. Number four, eat protein, eat plants. Number five, eat less processed food. Number six, drink less alcohol. Number four, or I'm sorry, number seven, stay away from toxicity and negativity. I want to thank you guys all so much for tuning in to this episode of the podcast. If you liked it, please share it on your Instagram story, on your Snapchat story, on your TikTok, on your Facebook. Share it with a friend, send it via text, and leave me a five-star rating and review

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in the world. Thanks so much for tuning in and I'll catch you on the next one.