Dynamic Dialogue with Danny Matranga - 223: How to LOSE FAT without Starving! With Brandon DaCruz

Episode Date: September 22, 2022

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Guys, welcome into another episode of the Dynamic Dialogue Podcast. As always, I'm your host, Danny Matranga. And in today's episode, I'm sitting down with my buddy, Brandon DeCruz, and we're going to talk a little bit about some of the ways you can make dieting, losing body fat, changing body composition, a less health-harming process, and something that's a lot more sustainable by virtue of being fuller and feeling better. We just tend to think as coaches that too many people diet in a way that is inherently unsustainable and malnourishing. Obviously, you need a deficit of energy, meaning a calorie deficit, to lose body fat, but do you need to have a deficit of nutrition?

What can you do with your food choice, your environment, your water consumption, among other things to make this process easier to stick to so you don't yo-yo diet all the time? We unpack all that and have some good banter. Sit back and enjoy. Brandon, man, how's it going? Man, it is going well, Danny. Let's hope that the third time's a charm because just for the audience to know, we've tried this two times in the past. Unfortunately, it hasn't went our way, but we've had some great we'll probably recapture all those much more smoothly and succinctly but uh for those of you who aren't familiar with brandon and his work beyond what's obviously in the intro brandon is a fitness content creator and writer uh researcher who i really look up to whose work i really admire who does a great job of kind of disseminating and succinctly putting information together, whether it's in tweets, whether it's in social posts, whether it's in his contributions to

Alan Aragon's research review, somebody who I really look up to in this space and who I've learned a lot from. So I know you guys will learn a lot too. And we were chatting off air and in the DMs about what to talk about. And I think it made the most sense to talk about diet quality, nutrient quality, and how to change your body composition without the kind of prototypical pitfalls of undernourishing and overstarving, right? Absolutely, my man. That's a big centerpiece of my coaching practice. So really, you know, when I look at coaching, I very much, you know, I'm looking to help clients optimize their body composition, enhance their performance and improve their health by incorporating nutrition, training, and fitness into their lifestyle long term. And it's really

important to me to get that across because this should be a sustainable part of our lifestyle. And really, to me, I truly believe quality coaching goes far beyond just the X's and O's of macros and calories within nutrition, and the sets and the reps within the gym. So to me, one of my main roles as a coach is to act as a problem solver. And that's what I've always really looked at myself as. So we know when it comes to fat loss, it or content creators that just focus on that, which leads many to advising others to just eat less and exercise more. And despite that being truthful, you know, as I've shared with you, that's truthful, but it isn't useful if loss diets and hunger management, is extremely important for optimizing body composition. Because, you know, I'm sure you can relate to this, but one of the many and the biggest struggles most of us have, you know, encountered during a fat loss diet or will encounter when we do go on a fat loss diet is increased feelings of hunger.

And so hunger is generally one of the most common feelings that dieters experience, especially during a fat loss phase. And the issue with hunger is that it continues to build, it gradually builds and increases the longer we diet and the leaner we get, which threatens our ability to not only stick to the diet, but to adhere to that calorie deficit that's so needed to continue dropping body fat. And so the main issue that many of us will notice is there's quite a difference, you know, and when we think about this, like logically, it makes sense, but there's quite a big difference between the amount of food we may want to eat and the amount of food we'll actually need to eat to effectively lose body fat, continue getting leaner and improve our body composition. And so, you know, really when it comes down to it,

most dieters will get to the point where they either can't fit in what they want. So they can't fit, you know, it's no longer if it fits your macros, or they're trying to do it, and they're failing as a result of trying to fit in, you know, quote, unquote, fun foods, but it's leaving them so undernourished, first and foremost, and then under filled and under satiated, where they're more susceptible to falling off the diet, or they can't eat as much as they want calorically in general. And so this is why learning to manage hunger and mitigate its effects is something I've honestly spent years both researching and putting into practice. I've at this point, I've worked with over 1000 clients online. So it's something that

I have a lot of experience of looking over key nutritional principles. And, you know, I tried to implement a different nutritional approach to fat loss diets. And then I'll add in hunger management strategies within their place, or within their plans to be able to enhance their adherence to the diet and improve their ability to not only get lean, but to stay lean, because a lot of people, they can go on a diet. And really, what they think of is in short term durations. So they're like, all right, well, I could, you know, do my if it fits your macros and sacrifice food quality, because today I could survive. But they're not thinking next week, they're not thinking the week after not thinking months ahead. And that's why we have such a high

diet recidivism rate. And so that's really we're looking at nutritional principles, really setting up a good foundation, like that fundamental base to a diet is so important. Yeah, and you really hit on a lot of important things. I think most people who want to change their body composition, who want to lose body fat, that's the prototypical rationalization for why somebody is going to diet. They want to change how they look. They'd like to perhaps be a little bit healthier with a lower body fat level, better body composition. They'd like more confidence. They'd like to look better. They'd like to feel better. And in the food environment that we live in, that requires making some conscious choices. It requires having some guardrails around what you will and will not

eat. But it's also very important, and I'm sure you'd agree with this to a certain extent, to acknowledge that the neurobiology and the hormonal things that regulate our appetite, that the neurobiology and the hormonal things that regulate our appetite, even as well-intentioned as we might be, as strong as our willpower might be, those are some tricky systems. They are hard to override. And if you can set a diet up so that it's, let's say, isocaloric, you set two diets up with the same amount of calories, but one of these individuals gets more satiating protein sparing foods that help them hold on to muscle, better regulate metabolism and feel full. And the other person hits the caloric targets needed to drive weight loss, but they do so

using hyper palatable foods or more hyper palatable foods, more heavily processed foods that aren't as satiating, you can tell who's going to be more successful because the friction that comes from always being hungry on your diet is probably the main reason people quit, wouldn't you say? Without a shadow of a doubt. So I think really to hit on what you're going into is we have to realize that hunger is multifactorial. So we have homeostatic hunger, and then we have non-homeostatic hunger, which is also referred to as hedonic hunger. So homeostatic hunger comes from a physiological need for energy. So that would be in the case of an energy deficit, we are losing body fat stores and our body needs energy. But at the same time, we also have non homeostatic eating, which regulates and

usually overrides our ability to tell whether we're really hungry or not. And that's where the hedonistic eating or the hedonic eating, we go after food reward, and we sacrifice food quality in and of itself. And that's really why the first and fundamental principle that I utilize within diet construction for maximizing adherence and managing hunger is really improving the quality of the diet to create a calorie deficit, but not a nutrient deficit. And that's something that I'm really big on because when most new clients come to me and say that they have a goal of losing weight, what they really mean is that they want to

lose body fat and improve their body constitution. Everyone always has this goal weight in mind, but really, they want to lose body fat and improve their body constitution. Everyone always has like this goal weight in mind, but really they want to look better. They want to perform better and they want to feel better both physically and then in their own skin. So they want to have the mental boost that comes from just improving their self-confidence. And now I always try to differentiate between the two because weight loss and fat loss are vastly different. And there are two different processes, two different goals, and they yield drastically different physiques at the end of each. Because if we really think

about it, let's think about weight loss. But if you're only looking for weight loss, losing weight is purely based on scale readings. However, our actual body weight is comprised of much more than just fat mass. We have, say, your lean body mass, which is going to be muscle tissue, it's going to be organ, it's going to be glycogen content and water. And so we don't want to just purely aim for weight loss as that could be a loss of any of these tissues. And that includes muscle. Whereas when a client comes to me to transform their body composition, the goal is to maximize fat loss while also maximizing muscle retention. Or a lot of times I'll tell you with females, I'm able to get body recomposition because they're either newer to training,

they don't have their training dialed in, or they haven't utilized a higher protein approach. So we're really able to get these body recomposition effects where we're actually increasing muscle tissue while decreasing fat mass. And the big thing about that is we want to make sure that we at least don't lose any of our muscle tissue because this hard-earned tissue is metabolically active. So it's going to contribute to our resting metabolic rate. It's going to contribute to the look of our physique. So we don't just want to become a lighter version, a smaller version of ourselves. We want to become a leaner, better version of ourselves. And this is really where I find diving into more of the nuances of

nutrition to be quite beneficial and necessary. Because if weight loss was the only goal, I can create a deficit by any means. And I could say, for instance, I could just completely eliminate a client's carbs. And this would cause a massive reduction in the scale weight. So we would see a loss of glycogen content, the water associated with glycogen. But... Probably some muscle too. Absolutely. Well, here's the thing. So forcogen. But- Probably some muscle too. Absolutely. Well, here's the thing. So for every gimme, there's a gotcha.

So yes, we get that scale weight loss. The client's happy in those first couple of weeks, but then we see a reduction in glycogen content, which contributes to training performance. And then it hinders that training performance and thus could lead to a lack of ability to maintain muscle tissue. So really when it comes down to it, in order to successfully decrease our body fat, maintain our muscle, our approach needs to go beyond just reducing calories. We need to, yes, calorie balance needs to be in check,

but we need to look to optimize both the macronutrient composition and the food composition of the diet to better our body composition overall. And so my goal when setting up a client's diet is really to make sure that I check off a few high priority principles. And really the goal is around creating an energy deficit that they can maintain, but ensuring that the diet doesn't do what many diets do. And what do many diets do that many don't realize? It creates a nutrient deficit in the process of creating a calorie deficit. So I'm looking to create a diet where the amount of calories and macros the individual client needs to hit our targeted rate of fat loss per week offers the best nutritional bank for your book.

So I mean that both from a macronutrient perspective. So we have the macros dialed in, we have the micronutrients, the vitamins, the minerals, the polyphenols, the phytonutrients, the fiber content nailed. But then we also have the best satiety per calorie. And so, you know, then I'm going to be able to make sure that they can adhere to the diet and maintain that deficit through the other high priority, you know, hunger management principles we're going to discuss today. So, you know, big thing I'm into leveraging energy density, you know, modifying the palatability. So improving the food quality through modifying, you know, palatability of the diet, increasing their protein intake, maintaining adequate fiber intake, increasing water, especially in the pre meal

period, and then also incorporating a high energy flux lifestyle. Totally. And we'll let's let's talk first about energy density and optimizing for foods that are energy dense and satiating. I'd love to unpack that a little more. But first, guys, I think it's important to understand the term malnourishment or not being adequately nourished does not necessarily mean that you're under eating calorically. It means you're not getting enough of the right micro and macro nutrition. And so if you're over consuming calories, you can very well be gaining body fat, but you might be deficient in a variety of vitamins, perhaps a variety of minerals.

And certainly we see often, especially with the general population, protein deficiency. And the only thing keeping muscle on people is the abundance of calories. The only impetus for muscle maintenance is the fact that they over-consume calories and being in a surplus is somewhat protein-sparing. But if you talk about a person who's eating at calorie maintenance or perhaps even in a deficit, all of their micronutrient needs are met. They're getting adequate amounts of the right essential macros. They're getting those polyphenols in the fiber. They could actually be in a position to have better health than somebody who's adequately nourished calorically, but malnourished from a micronutrient standpoint. So talking about those energy-dense foods,

those habits, those behaviors that position a client, whether they're tracking at the highest level to compete, or whether they're tracking at the highest level to compete, or whether they're just looking to change their physique and they don't want to count a single macro. I actually think that these habits that we're going to talk about are very applicable for almost everybody. So what are these things that people can do to kind of drive up the nutritional impact or the nutritional density? What are the foods people should be looking to include more of and less of? And then maybe we can talk, like you said, about modifying palatability, optimizing protein intake, maybe talking about fiber, timing the water, and energy

flux. I love all that stuff. Absolutely. So the first strategy that I always utilize is leveraging energy density. And I do so to be able to better manage a client's calorie budget. So essentially, what I'm trying to do is I found a large benefit from leveraging energy density of a diet as the goal and my goal when setting up a diet. And this should be for anyone out there. I work with IFBB pros on the Olympia level stage, but I also work with Lifestyle Lisa and Gen Pop Gym. So it's all-encompassing and these are strategies that will work for anyone in your audience, competitive or not. And so really what I'm trying to do is maximize the amount of satiety I can provide clients with within their target calorie and macronutrient budget, rather than just trying to fit in a bunch of energy dense, you know, ultra processed fun foods,

which may taste great, you know, I will admit that, but those things are good in the moment, and then they leave you unsatisfied later on. So essentially, for the few minutes you're eating them, they're great, they taste great, but they leave you starving right after and more predisposed to overeat, you know, right after as a lack of the fullness that they felt from that meal. So when we look at energy density, just to describe that for the audience, really, we can kind of equate that to calorie density. And it refers to the amount of calories contained in a given weight of food. So essentially, it breaks down to how many calories are contained per one gram of food

of a food source. So I like to leverage the energy density of foods I use on a diet as we get deeper into the diet and experience more and more hunger so that we're consuming more low energy density foods, which are high volume, and they provide a ton of satiety per calorie and are more filling, and they're going to help to manage hunger better. So generally throughout the course of a fat loss phase, I'll transition, for instance, I'll give you an example. I'll transition from fatter cuts of meat to lower leaner sources, which are lower energy density, lean protein sources. And then I'm also going to include more lower energy density items like fruits, vegetables, and whole grains, which provide great fullness for less calories,

but they also bring with them the benefits of fiber, the benefits of satiety, the benefits of a vast and wide array of micronutrients. So basically, by making these switches, we're able to get more bang for our buck in terms of the amount of fullness we feel from the amount of calories we're eating. So functionally, just so people who are listening can think about this, for those of you who are fitness enthusiasts, you're training hard, you understand what your macros look like. You're probably tracking, but let's say you got a parent at home who generally makes food decisions that are more aligned with a body composition that is under-muscled and over fat. And for breakfast every morning, they have bacon, whole eggs, and wheat toast. And could very well be possible to switch that meal to something like turkey bacon, egg whites, avocado, and whole grain toast, where the weight of the food might be the same. The caloric density could be in the ballpark,

but they're going to get more food, more micronutrition, and more fiber by just swapping the pieces of the meal, not completely overhauling their entire, you know, they're not eliminating anything. They're just saying, okay, if I'm going to have a protein source, I'm going to optimize for one that's more filling because it has more protein, less fat. If I'm going to have a grain source, I'm going to opt for one that's less processed. So it's more fibrous and more nutrient dense, right? Absolutely. No. So making these food swaps, it's really, we could focus on food quality, but really when you increase the food quality of the diet or the food quality of the sources that you're selecting within the diet, you're decreasing energy density and increasing satiety.

So they actually go hand in hand. And so when we think about like energy density, what goes hand in hand with that is actually the satiety index of foods. So another thing that I like to utilize and include are some of the foods that have been shown in the literature to provide the most bang for our buck in terms of satiety per given amount of food. So this is going to include things like potatoes, oatmeal, like you mentioned, oranges, apples. And both the energy density and satiety index of our diet can have a drastic impact on our appetite, our levels of satiety, and our ability to maintain a calorie intake that's in line with our physique goals. And this is something I've seen work

firsthand with clients. And then also we have recent literature on it. So Dan, are you familiar with Dr. Kevin Hall and his research? Sure am. All right. So I'm not sure if you stumbled upon this one yet. It's a 2020 study, just recently came out. And a lot of people have overlooked because it's kind of hyped in the media of high-carb versus ketogenic diets. But if you really look at the actual design of the study, it really was comparing, yes, it was comparing a low-fat, high-carb diet versus a high-fat ketogenic diet, but it was done to test energy density and to see what diet was best at increasing satiety and limiting calorie intake when subjects were eating ad lib, so to fullness.

So essentially what he did was he put them in a crossover study. So this means that each subject acted as their own control. They would run two weeks of the high carb diet, have a washout period, and two weeks of the high fat diet and vice versa. And so they were able to directly compare the effects of each diet on that individual's intake. And then at the end of the study, they looked at the body count metrics, like their total fat loss, their energy expenditure, and their energy intake. And when the subjects follow, the same subjects follow the high carb diet, in comparison to the high fat ketogenic diet, they actually ended up eating 700 less calories per day than when they follow the high fat

ketogenic diet approach where they ate 700 more calories per day. And this is a massive difference when we think about it, because it wasn't a controlled study in terms of them limiting the amount of calories that they had. They told them, listen, eat to satiety and eat to fullness in both conditions. And really, when we think about it, this is a perfect example of energy density, because the major difference between the high carb diet and the high fat diet was the energy density of the macronutrients. So if we think about it, just fundamentally, fat has nine calories per gram as compared to carbs that has four calories per gram. And what's really interesting about this study is that, you know, these were both minimally processed diets, but it shows that, you know, a high fiber, low energy density, high carb diet

is one of the best ways to control calorie intake while still feeling satiated from your meals, because a lot of people only look at calories. And that why you know i i don't try to go back and forth with these debates about hormones or calories it all matters however it does it does we don't receive fullness from calories because think about how you you grew up to eat like danny when when you were a kid did you know how many calories were on your plate you knew if a plate was full yeah we ate to fullness we ate to clean our plates that's how we were raised. So it's not, I always tell my clients, it's not like your MyFitnessPal is in your mind.

And that automatically, if you were supposed to eat 500 calories for that meal, that as soon as you hit 500 calories, you're going to hit satiation. You're going to hit a feeling of fullness based on the food weight or the food volume. And so by eating lower energy density, higher volume foods,

you're better able to increase satiety because our gut has these gastric stretch receptors that signal satiation when they expand and they sense pressure. So when we eat lower energy density, higher volume foods, they expand our stomach. We feel that stomach distension. We feel like a little bit of a pot belly. And that's really signaling to the hypothalamus and specifically the brainstem in the brain, that we are satiated, and then they send out satiety signals to terminate that meal. And what's, you know, even more interesting, you know, just a little caveat to this, about this study was that when they first proposed the study design, you know, a lot of researchers, you know, they give their their expectations of the study or, you know, what they think is going to happen and a lot of people expected that because we have so much um so much

you know i guess publicity around the ketogenic diet inducing higher levels of satiety they thought yeah you you do hear that a lot you do hear that a lot and i've always researched on that it only lasts for about four weeks yeah yes so so a lot of people expected that, that the high-fat diet, they were in a state of ketosis. It was 75% of the diet from fats. So they were in a state of ketosis. And so they thought that the high-fat diet would actually lead to greater satiety. So they expected, hey, when eating ad lib, they're going to eat less. However, we actually saw the exact opposite.

And another postulation that a lot of people had is that the fact that it was a high carb diet, it's going to increase insulin, it's going to drive appetite, and it's going to drive fat gain. But we actually saw the exact opposite thing. Because even though the high carb diet was 75% carbohydrates, it was low energy density carbohydrates. It was highly satiating. They eat 700 calories less per day. And yes, when you actually look at the study, the results, they secreted 60% more insulin because in comparison to the high fat ketogenic diet approach, the high fat ketogenic diet approach only had 10% of calories from carbohydrate. But even with that increase in insulin secretion,

they still had better satiety, better energy regulation, and better body composition results because it was able to control their ad libitum energy intake. And that's a massive impact on our ability to stay satiated and induce a calorie deficit. Totally. I mean, and you hit on something that it gets parroted a lot in our space, and I had heard it many times. And it really did coincide with the spike in popularity around the ketogenic diet, which was the notion that lipids or fats

are particularly and uniquely satiating and that fats are such a satiating nutrient that if you do a high fat, low carb diet, you'll just be super, super full. And really what I think this was born of was most people, when they transition to a ketogenic diet, they remove a lot of the hyper-processed low satiety carbohydrates, and they eat a lot of the most satiating food, which is vegetables. And then they have this kind of cognitive bias that, okay, I'm on a high fat diet. So look how satiating this fat is. And it's like, no dude, you started eating fiber, which I'm sure both you and I would agree of all of the foods you can eat, maybe besides protein, like nothing is going to get

you full, like adequate amounts of fiber, not to mention it's incredibly good for regulating your blood sugar, as well as it's good for the little bugs that live in your gut. Fiber is something that we need quite a bit of. And many people who struggle with their weight are deficient in protein and fiber, and they're very much overfueled with dietary fat and they're entirely unsatiated. So mechanistically that never made a ton of sense to me. I always heard people say it. I think it was a misattribution of where the satiety was coming from. I think this in some capacity confirms it. And like, for those of you who are trying to better understand the term nutrient density and caloric density, one of the things that really clicked for me when I was taking my undergraduate chemistry class and learning about just how much energy is in certain foods and energy and foods as calories is, you know, if you take almost any oil, you can literally light it on fire. It's so energy dense.

Lipids are so energy dense. You can burn a house down with oil. There's so much stored energy inside of these things that high fat foods will bring with them an associative increase in caloric intake that even if they are very satiating will oftentimes make it harder to get to full without having the caloric balance tip, unfortunately, in favor of weight maintenance or even weight gain. So for many of you who are listening at home, thinking about strategically how you might want to diet, if you're thinking about adding more fat in, in the name of satiety, I would caution you because

there are better options, right, Brandon? No, I couldn't agree more. And honestly, when I speak to clients about energy density or satiety index, I really, honestly, the verbiage I use is we're looking for satiety per calorie. And this is always the example I give them. Oftentimes, clients will come to me and they will present me with some of their meal choices or things that they're looking at, whether it be for a snack or a late night meal. And it will usually be, say, like a protein shake and they want to add something to it. Or it'll be a nonfat Greek yogurt. They want to add an additional food source to it. So they say, should I go with fruit or should I go with fats or like a nut butter? And if we really look at, I know this off the top of my head,

a hundred, I always tell them, look at the calorie intake or the calorie density per 100 grams, because if you really think about it from like a theoretical perspective, you know, looking at calories per one gram, that doesn't really mean anything to anyone because- Who's eating anything in the one gram amount? In the one gram value, yeah. Well, a hundred grams, pretty decent amount amount that would be a serving of vegetables a serving of fruit so i always tell them this this is the comparison i always give them all right we're looking at your shake it has 50 grams of protein and 220 calories you know in that in that serving so now we want to add something to that 100 grams of strawberries is 36 calories however 100 grams of strawberries is 36 calories. However, 100 grams of peanut butter is 632 calories.

So when you do the math on that, peanut butter, another additive that many people use, and these aren't to put nutrition in black and white dichotomous viewpoints. This isn't good food and bad food. This is let's manage the energy budget and make the best decision possible to maximize satiety and also mitigate over consumption of calories.

And so when I postulate that to them, or I propose that to them, I say, listen, if you go with the peanut butter, you have to realize it's 18 times more calorie dense than those strawberries. It has less fiber content, less water content, and less food volume. So you're getting less satiety per calorie dramatically. It's a dramatic difference. So if you were that person that was utilizing two tablespoons of peanut butter, which is 200 calories, but we all know two tablespoons is a sad measurement if you actually weigh it out. So most people's two tablespoons, and I've done this with many clients over the years, I've had them take pictures and it's really like three tablespoons or more. So it's really

three, 400 calories. And so we take that and we put that into a highly satiating food source like a strawberry, like a berry that's going to have fiber content, that's going to have rich polyphenols, that's going to have a lot of water. It's going to help you feel much more satiated. And you're going to feel fuller for longer with less calories. And so that's really just a proposition. I work with a lot of busy work professionals. And oftentimes, I will go from an analogy based on food to an analogy based on your budget. So I say,

your total daily energy expenditure is your food budget. So think about it like this. If you generally burn 3000 calories per day, you want to be in a 500 calorie deficit, your calorie budget is now 2500 calories. So let's allocate that as best as possible. Let's make sure that you're highly satiated for that and that the majority of your calories are coming from nutrient dense, low energy density, highly satiating foods. What's going on guys? Coach Danny here taking a break from the episode to tell you about my coaching company, core coaching method, 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

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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 accountability in 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. 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 Re'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 and 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 enjoy coffee in the morning 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

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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. Hey, guys, taking a break from

the action to tell you about one of our favorite new sponsors, Underdog Fantasy. If you're like me, you love sports. Sports was actually how I got into fitness in the first place. And one of my favorite things to do when I'm not working out or working with my clients is watch and engage in sports with my friends. Underdog is the best fantasy sports app out there for best ball and for pick'em. If you like football, basketball, baseball, hockey, soccer, WNBA, UFC, boxing, Underdog has something exciting for you. You can bet on your favorite teams. You can bet on your favorite players in the easiest and simplest way to engage at a higher level with sports. It's so much fun to be able to do a pick-em with a player from the

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and they will match your first deposit up to a hundred dollars. You'll have a blast playing underdog all season long. Back to the action. And for those of you who are listening and thinking about this, a budget is a really good analogy. And if you're optimizing for low satiety, hyper palatable foods, that's kind of like if you had $2,500 a week, or let's say you had $250 a week, perhaps, to spend on food, and you went to Erewhon Market or Whole Foods, that money's not going to go as far as if, say, maybe you go to

the grocery outlet or Costco or some of these outlets or places where your money goes a little further for your food. The higher the caloric density of the food, the less wiggle room you have. The more satiating, the more nutrition, the more wiggle room you have. I'll give you another great example because you hit on something with the peanut butter to strawberry comparison, looking at what you get for 100 grams calorically. You look at the size of 100 grams of cut strawberries, you guys would be blown away. It's like, holy shit, that's a lot of food. Now, if you flip it and you instead of using grams, you use calories as a metric and you say, hey, what does 100 calories of strawberries look like versus the counterpart to peanut butter, 100 calories of strawberry jam, you'll find very quickly that strawberries in their minimally processed form or unprocessed form, you get a lot

more. You get much, if not substantially more nutrition. And if you're looking at, hey, I got 2,500 calories to work with. I enjoy the taste of strawberries. I've made up my decision that this meal is going to include something that tastes like strawberries because I have the autonomy to do this and I like it. But 100 calories of strawberry jam is a little over a tablespoon. And 100 calories of strawberries fills an entire bowl. And you get that visual, as is the case with how we tend to kind of partition our funds, you will see a substantially higher,

to use your terminology, I love it, bang for your buck, optimizing for food in its whole form when it's minimally processed. And all of that difference in weight, in food volume is largely coming from two of the most important things for regulating appetite, fiber and water, which are the two things people completely forget about when they start dieting. They think about sugar. They think about fat. They even think about things that really don't matter at all, like sodium or GMO versus non-GMO, organic versus non-organic, does it or does it not have gluten? Because of the just prevalence of all these nutritional

buzzwords and so much of the misinformation and oftentimes misdirection that's just so common, they forget that at the end of the day, if you can have more of this or less of this, and the goal is to get the most amount of food into your body possible, so you don't become hungry enough that you quit. I like that is that's, that's kind of the panacea for all of this. If you can stay full, you've got a shot. If you are fighting hunger and you are fighting those deepest least or least evolved primal elements of your brain, you're fighting your hypothalamus is desire to regulate your body composition and body fatness and size. You're fighting all of these hedonic pathways in your brain that are just screaming

for pleasure in this super seductive food environment, you're going to have a way harder time than somebody who's, you know, yeah, that fucking bag of jalapeno kettle chips looks bomb. But honestly, dude, I am so stuffed after that salad. I'm not my hunger. I'm not working against it. It's there. It looks good, but it's honestly off-putting because I have expansion of my stomach. I have fiber in there. I'm feeling full. And these are tips that I don't often recommend, you know, general population clients follow what it is that bodybuilders do all the time. But if you want to look at a population that knows how to get lean, stay nourished, and not that you want to be stage lean, but one of the things bodybuilders do very, very well is include these foods that are high volume. And so guys, just do not forget about the importance of, as you manage the budget, optimizing for things that are high volume,

are satiating, that are nourishing. And that's really the bedrock. And those foods, I made a note to talk about this. Don't have to taste bad. You talked about this off air modifying palatability. And I'm assuming you mean that that is making those foods taste better. Actually, it's changing our approach to palatability throughout the course of the diet. So let's just go through palatability in and of itself. The more palatable or tasty food is, the more this food triggers the reward center of the brain, which increases our likelihood to eat and overeat that food. So really when it comes down to it, eating hyper palatable foods, especially

as you get deeper into a diet, it's a really slippery slope because the more of these that you include into your diet, the more of a dopamine release that we get. So, you know, we have to realize a lot of people relate dopamine to pleasure, but dopamine is more tied to motivation. So essentially, the more that you eat of these foods, the more of them you're going to want, you're going to crave, and it'll make sticking to your calorie and macronutrient budgets even more difficult than it already is, especially as you get deeper into that diet and you continue to, you know, experience an increase in hunger that's naturally happening as you get deeper into that diet and you continue to experience an increase in hunger that's naturally happening as you lose body fat, leptin levels drop, and ghrelin levels

increase. And so if you continually include and expose yourself to hyper-palatable, ultra-processed foods, you're going to need to use more willpower, more discipline, and more mental fortitude to not over-consume them. So this is where I like using, you know, modifying palatability throughout the course of diet. And as we get deeper into the diet, I'll start using lower palatability foods, which include more whole and unprocessed foods. And I find that to be really beneficial during a diet as they provide more fullness, they have less calories per gram, and they don't drive hunger up so that we want more of them. So it makes dying more manageable. So to manage hunger throughout the course of a diet, I'll often lower the palatability of the foods as I get deeper and deeper.

And because of the fact that hyperpalatable ultra processed foods are less satiating per calorie and have been proven to drive over passiveive consumption. So with that, during the fat loss phase, I'm going to, you know, little by little lower palatability, but that doesn't mean, you know, I always tell clients that we need to aim for simple yet satisfying foods or satiating foods that suit your goals and fit your calorie budget. But this doesn't mean they have to taste bad. Like when you're on a diet, fruit tastes amazing. And also we have to realize that our taste buds change throughout the course of dieting. So as we go from eating ultra processed, say junk foods and things of that sort, you know, and we get used to not eating them or we're

lowering the palatability, other foods are going to be more, um, more rewarding essentially. And so we're going to get used to eating foods that aren't as seductive in nature. However, we're also getting the results from utilizing those things. So, you know, we even see like, if we really, you know, compare and contrast, you know, ultra processed foods with minimally processed foods, we see that they have a great impact on our energy intake. And there's another study that I'm sure you're familiar with by Kevin Hall that looks exactly at this. So, you know So he did a metabolic ward study just a few years back looking at minimally processed versus ultra-processed foods. And the study found that

even when they provided participants with meals that were matched for calories, were matched for macronutrients, including protein, fiber, all these various aspects of the diet, that when they allowed participants to eat to fullness, they ate an average of 500 calories more per day when their meals were comprised and composed of ultra-processed foods as compared to when they ate meals that were composed of whole unprocessed foods. So when they were on that ultra-processed diet, they over-consumed calories and gained body fat. Whereas when they went to minimally processed whole foods, they ate 500 fewer calories per day and lost body fat without trying. And what's really interesting about this is that the participants rated and reported the

same amount of satiety from both diets as well as palatability. So they found both just as enjoyable as each other. So it wasn't like they were eating just these bland foods that they didn't like. They liked it in both instances. But really, I started looking back and I'm saying, how are they both satiating if they were eating more? Did they not realize, which they didn't realize. And actually, I spoke off air to Bill Campbell about this. And we both agreed that it made sense because in the ultra processed condition, they had to eat over 500 calories more per day for those two weeks just to see the,

or just to experience the same amount of fullness that they did eating 500 less calories per day in the minimally processed diet. So this just shows like the importance of food quality, energy density, as well as food selection, because you can kind of make or break your ability to maintain or even induce a deficit just by the foods that you choose. But at the same time, you could get the same satiety or greater with the same in terms of subjective palatability, meaning your subjective experience of those meals, spice things up a little bit, throw in salt and spices and different things. You can flavor things up, but not eat those highly playable foods that drive that over passive consumption.

Totally. And Brandon hit on something that's huge for anybody looking to lose body fat, which is to leverage the power of seasonings. Seasonings oftentimes bring with them tremendous nutrient profiles. Spices and herbs are unique sources of various micronutrients and polyphenols, and they almost have zero calories

in almost all instances. Or if they do have calories, they're limited compared to many of these sauces and condiments that are in these hyper processed, hyper palatable foods. Brad Schoenfeld and Brett Contreras in San Diego and Alan discussed some habits that he had around meals specifically for enhancing fat loss, whether it was putting your utensils down and chewing thoroughly, not watching television and water management around meals. And you mentioned something today about timing your water relative to your meals for enhancing satiety. What can folks do with that? Because that is a high leverage, low investment habit that can make a huge difference.

Absolutely. So one thing I do want to hit on is I do utilize fluid intake and I do a water preloading strategy with clients. But the reason for that is because oftentimes we mistake, and this is common for me, this is common for many clients that I work with, we commonly mistake a lack of hydration with hunger. So when you really think about it, many clients, and I'm sure I get subjective ratings of their hunger scores, a lot of times when a new client comes to me, they say, I'm always ravished in the morning.

I'm always super hungry in the morning. And I go through the course on my consult with them. What do you do throughout the course of your day? And now often it's very evident that they're not getting adequate hydration first thing in the morning. That's the first thing. I always tell clients, hydrate before you caffeinate. That's my motto. Before you get that caffeine in, before you pop a fat burner or you take down a coffee, make sure that you get 16 to 32 ounces of water. Let's hydrate before you caffeinate. However, when many wake up in the morning and immediately feel hungry, that's usually thirst, not hunger. And here's the reason.

This is kind of how I mechanistically or theoretically rationalize it. Think about what happens in the morning. How do we wake up? We have a morning cortisol response. So it's the cortisol awakening response that puts us in a fight or flight state. That's a stress sympathetic state. Well, we know that being in a sympathetic state actually blunts and shunts blood away from the gastric intestinal system. So away from your GI tract, away from your stomach, and it readies us for energy liberation. So at that point in the day, our body's not looking

to store energy. Like when we're in a parasympathetic or rest and digest state, we are in a fight or flight state. So why would we be hungry? We're actually releasing catecholamines. We're releasing cortisol. These are all things that blunt our appetite. So when you feel that immediate hunger immediately upon waking, that's thirst, not hunger. Because we do see that even in research studies that we lose a massive amount of hydration, both through a loss of sodium, as well as a loss of water throughout the course of the night. So really what I like them to do is wake up and hydrate first and foremost.

So that's the first thing. Let's preload water front end of the day. It's one of the most convenient times to get it. But then what I like my clients to do is a water preload. So drinking water prior to a meal can help with reducing hunger and increasing feelings of fullness because it causes your stomach to stretch. So it's that gastric, your stretch receptor. That expanding effect tells your brain you're headed in the right direction. Yep. So it's going to be much more helpful as you'll be able to get full from eating less

during the meal itself. So what I do is, and I actually got this from a private consult with Alan years ago. So Alan's one of my mentors. So I have to give him credit for this, is the two cup rule for the preload. Yes, this is it. I did not remember this. I did not remember this. So I knew that you would remember this. Absolutely. So it's a two cup rule. And essentially what that is, is 16 ounces of water. So really I tell clients, listen, you're not going to break out a cup. Let's do a 16 ounce Poland spring bottle, 15 to 30 minutes before your meal. Let's get hydrated. You know, we'll separate it from the meal just in case anyone has some GI issues with consuming meals. Or I do with other people, because I do have a lot of smaller females that I work with, and they say, I can't get down 16 ounces of water

15 to 30 minutes before a meal. So I do eight ounces, 15 to 30 minutes before the meal, and eight ounces with the meal. And what I ask them to do is between bites, put down your fork, eat in a non-distracted manner, but then take a sip of water. So throughout the meal, it's helping you get down the food in and of itself. It's slowing down your eating rate, which we do see helps you reduce energy or calorie intake. And it's helping you take long enough. It's slowing down that eating rate where you're able to take long enough to actually register those satiety signals because it's not like we just pound down food and we automatically are able to get a satiety response or a fullness response. It takes time for us to recognize those signals. We need to slow down our eating. And that's why when you see someone rush through a meal, they generally eat so much more. Or even

in the case, there's something called the buffet effect, which is both from the variety of those meals. So we have something called sensory specific satiety, which refers to, we have an appetite for each flavor, but if you combine flavors and you put a variety of flavors, whether it's different food sources or different sauces on meals, or you go from sweet to savory, or you go from having like a salty steak, and we always have a second stomach for dessert. We all know that. You could be fully fully satiate on a steak and a potato. Even texture changes too. Texture changes are very stimulating.

But then we go to a dessert. We always have room for that. Well, another aspect of the buffet effect is actually the eating rate at which they eat. And actually, Kevin Hall's study reinforced that with the processed foods versus minimally processed foods. Because think about what processed foods are. What do we call them? Fast foods. They're both convenient. They're convenient to get and quick to eat. So they're fast both in their preparation as well as in their ability to be easily and readily consumed. And so when we eat quicker, we end up eating more calories.

So these are just some habitual lifestyle habits that you can incorporate throughout your day that are super easy. They're low-hanging fruit, but they have a massive impact because some water preloading studies have shown up to a 300-calorie reduction per day by utilizing that before all of your meals. It's a big deal, dude. And what we've talked about today makes a ton of sense. Optimize for foods that make you full and are nutritious. Those are usually going to be foods that are minimally processed. Try to frame this in be foods that are minimally processed. Try to frame this in a way that makes sense to you. I think using a budget is something that makes a lot of sense to most people because we all have money. We all understand how we spend it

just in the same way that yes, we all have food in our lives. So trying to connect the dots there can be super helpful. Finding ways to manage palatability and modify it to your kind of situation. Maybe you're trying to gain weight, so you actually want to increase palatability or decrease it, I should say, so you can eat more. We see bodybuilders do this a lot by grinding up their protein sources so they're easier to eat more quickly versus having to cut into the steak and eat it slowly with utensils. So even with fluid, we've talked about so many things people can do with food. But let's circle the wagons here and finish off with talking about lifestyle and something I like that you said, which is energy flux and optimizing for more energy flux throughout

the day. Absolutely. So I utilize what's called a high energy flux lifestyle. And the reason I say it's a lifestyle is because I incorporate, this isn't just, like I said, coaching is not just the X's and O's of macros within nutrition and sets and reps in the gym within training. This is a lifestyle. This is managing and optimizing both your nutrition, your nutritional approach to fat

loss, your training approach, your movement throughout the day, your stress management and your sleep quality to get the best results possible within the constraints of your specific lifestyle. So the high energy flux approach is the concept of eating more and moving more to maintain your desired level of energy balance. So essentially what I do is I use this to be able to have clients diet on higher amount of calories, which increase their training performance, their energy levels, and also their ability to adhere to the diet, because this is an abundance-based mindset. A lot of what we spoke about today, and there's other points that we were going to go through, say, as high protein intake,

high fiber intake. These are an additive model. This is an abundance-based model. Never did we say we're going to completely eliminate anything. This wasn't a zero-carb podcast. This wasn't a let's eliminate fat podcast. It was, let's add things to the diet. Let's add lower energy density foods to reduce calorie intake, you know, add libanum. Let's increase water intake to increase fullness and also get you to eat less. But these are all additive things. These are things that we're not taking anything away. So the dieters or listeners out there don't have to get into this restriction-based mindset. I always start with adding. So I increase food quality.

I increase protein content. I increase fiber content. I increase quality and the micronutrient status of the diet before I start eliminating things. Because a lot of times when we go into a diet, we both have to consider the physiology of the client, but also the psychology of the client. And a lot of times people are in this restriction based mindset where they're so used to taking things out, taking things out, taking things out that they develop an unhealthy relationship, both with food as well as dieting. So they become that yo-yo dieters that they're a weekday dieter. They over-restrict themselves Monday through Friday, and they over-consume on the weekends as a compensatory mechanism. So it's basically binge restrict cycle. So the best way that I found to get around this,

manage it and mitigate it, like I said, coaching to me is problem solving. So it was utilizing this high energy of flex lifestyle, which this is something I've written about in Alan Arion's review. But really what it is, is I'm increasing their calorie intake because I'm increasing their energy expenditure through daily physical activity, through movement, through steps. And so they're going to see an increase in training performance. They're going to have better energy levels, and they're going to have a better ability to adhere to the diet. But in addition to that, we're talking about hunger management. So a lot of times people will tell me, oh, exercise increases appetite. Well, in most of the published literature, we do not see that.

And we actually see that greater levels of physical activity, daily physical activity, has great benefits to appetite regulation, as levels of physical activity, daily physical activity has great benefits to appetite regulation as increasing our physical activity levels helps to improve appetite regulation by making us more sensitive to satiety signals. So now you can not only eat more because I'm putting you in this high energy flux approach, but you can more easily manage hunger and regulate your energy intake. So you're not only going to be fuller from eating more, remember, even in a deficit, I'm having people eat lower energy density food, but more of them. So higher food volume. And I'm having them eat higher calories than they came to

me at because I've increased their energy expenditure. So I've modified both ends of the energy balance equation, the calories in and the calories out. And as we eat more calories, we burn more calories due to the thermic effect of feeding and increase in basal metabolic rate, you know, a better, you know, increasing their meat. So they're not an exercise activity thermogenesis. And so they're not only fuller because we're eating more, but they're also able to be more in tune with their hunger cues. And we actually see that when we look at published literature on those that have been successful in losing fat and maintaining fat loss. So both in weight loss and weight loss maintenance, one of the key predictors to that is maintaining high levels of physical activity.

So if you look at the National Weight Controlled Registry, those that have lost a significant amount of weight and kept it off for three or more years that are in that registry average about 12,500 steps per day. So they have a high energy flux. So how I like to explain this and encapsulate it to clients, because sometimes they'll say, well, if I'm moving more, you know, because they think exercise more. And I'm always like, no, we're eating more. First thing, moving more movement throughout the day with your kids, you know, at the park, going for walks, post-meal walks to regulate your blood sugar, things like that. These are all additive things. These are

added to both the quality of your life, the ability for you to eat more to your results, and then your quality of just general activity and movement. And so how I explained the energy flux and appetite relationship is that movement and energy expenditure of energy flux acts as a regulatory system. So when you engage in less movement, you actually have less of an appetite or less of a regulation of your appetite and greater difficulty maintaining your body weight. Whereas when you engage in higher levels of physical activity, you have better regulation of your appetite, a better ability to adhere to your diet and a better maintenance of your body weight. So basically, our ability to regulate our appetite and control our energy intake starts to improve once we get to a higher level of movement that is more in line with what we were evolved to do. A lot of people forget evolution,

but we were meant evolutionarily to move. That's right. We look at the Hadza, we look at any of these groups that are still dating back to hunter-gatherer times, and they're doing 15,000 to 20,000 steps per day. The Amish, which are an agricultural society, they move, men average 18,500 steps per day and maintain 9.4% body fat. And so these are all real life examples of moving more, eating more, living a life of abundance, but also being lean and getting lean in the process. And so if we could just take some of these ancestral clues, as well as some of these physiological mechanisms and some of this understanding, these deeper nuances of nutrition and apply it to our approach to fat loss diets, not only are we going to be more successful in the diet itself, but we're going to do what 95% of dieters can't do, which is maintain

our actual results. Bro, a fucking home run, dead center, 450, off the barrel. Absolutely phenomenal, succinct way to wrap that up. If you guys listen to that and you do not find some additive, pragmatic, optimistic things that you can do with your clients, with your own fat loss, weight management journey, with your parents, with your friends, with your family, you need to listen to that thing again, because this is like, this is a golden nugget mine. Brandon, that was one of the best guest spots I've had. Honestly, I've done a lot. I know that we kind of got rushed through this because I have some appointments and I know that we really, I really screwed the pooch the first time we tried to record, but this was a very rewarding interview, man. I will use much of

this in my own coaching practice. Thank you for your time. Where can everybody find you? Because that was gold. Man, Danny, I appreciate you so much. First and foremost, it was a pleasure coming on. I'm a fan of your content and I'm really glad. I'm very into engaging and linking up with like-minded individuals in the industry. And I think that, unfortunately, we had spoken about this on the first time we recorded this, but we are in a very saturated industry, but it's not saturated with good people that truly care.

So when I'm able to connect with someone like yourself, a fellow coach that's in the trenches, that's also trying to take the research. And I always say my goal is to bridge the gap between research and information and practical application. I see you doing the same thing. So I commend you.

I appreciate you having me on the show. Guys, if you have any questions or want to reach out to me, feel free to reach me on Instagram at Brandon to cruise underscore or on my website or at my email, which is B to cruise fitness at gmail.com. But Danny, we honestly just scratched the surface. We have like three or four more topics we're going to get into. So we're definitely going to do a round two. Yeah. Oh, absolutely. Like I, I say that to pretty much everybody like, Oh, we'll get together for another one. And sometimes we do, sometimes we don't, this is one that we're going to get together for another one, man. Like I really had a great time with this. And, uh, for those of you listening, follow the man, listen, the, the, the, the general theme of the podcast that I want you guys to take with you,

general theme of the podcast that I want you guys to take with you. It doesn't have to suck. You can think about this from an abundance mindset in life, as well as with your diet. But man, oh man, do things get harder when you operate from a place of scarcity. And operating from a place of scarcity as a coach might mean, I don't want to talk to Brandon or I don't want to share him with my audience because he knows a lot more than I do about certain things. And they might see that as a, you know, something that I don't have. But if you look at this, like I look up to Brandon, I learned so much from this. I'm operating from a place of abundance. This is going to make my clients lives better. This is going to help my listeners.

Like abundance is the way to go. If you can do it with your diet, you can do it with your relationships. You'll live a happy life. And I'll sign off with that. Brandon, thanks for coming on. And I'll catch you guys on the next episode.