Dynamic Dialogue with Danny Matranga - 242: 25+ Axioms for Health, Fitness and Performance!

Episode Date: November 28, 2022

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consider taking. And if you're interested in improving the health of your gut, skin, and overall wellbeing, I'd look into seed as well. This episode is brought to you in part thanks to some of our amazing partners like LMNT. LMNT makes the best electrolyte product on the market. In fact, I've actually started drinking my LMNT each and every morning before I have coffee so as to optimize my circadian biology, make sure that I'm hydrated, and make sure that I'm getting ahead on my water intake throughout the day and not reliant on stimulants, but instead being somebody who's reliant on hydration and the proper balance of minerals and electrolytes. If you want to feel your best all

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of Team USA Weightlifting, and it's used by athletes in the NBA, NFL, Major League Baseball, as well as athletes like you and I looking to take your fitness to the next level. My favorite flavors are definitely the raspberry and citrus. When I put a box together, I try to load up on raspberry and citrus. And when you put your box together, you can get a free sample pack containing all of Element's amazing flavors like mango chili, citrus, raspberry, orange, and more. To get access to this free gift with purchase, scroll down to the show notes and check out using the special link for Dynamic Dialogue listeners. Welcome in everybody to another episode of the Dynamic Dialogue Podcast. As always, I'm your host, Danny Matranga, and in today's episode, I'm going to be sharing

28 fitness and nutrition tips pulled directly from my latest tweet storms that I think will give you rapid fire, actionable ways to improve your health, fitness, enhance your performance, and make you look better. These are tips that you can deploy with your clients, that you can deploy with friends and family. Things that I have noticed over the course of the last 10 years working with clients as a personal trainer and nutrition coach make a huge, huge difference and can really, really be high leverage habits and simple things that you can deploy. And again, these are pulled directly from Twitter threads or tweet storms that I have put out into the space that have performed well, that have gotten liked, that have gotten

reshared across various platforms. So I know that these things are going to resonate with you. The first tip of the day is to know that there's no such thing as too little exercise. In fact, did you know that over 50% of Americans don't do any organized exercise at all? So I would recommend starting with something, even if it's small. Most people don't even come close to hitting the BAMs or bare-ass minimums, and a small amount of exercise can go an awful long way. One session per week is substantially better than zero. So for those of you who are looking to motivate a friend, family, or loved one to start exercising, don't overwhelm them with the notion of, hey, let's get you to the gym four days this week. Instead, focus on getting them in there

just one time a week, starting with a frequency that's reasonable and building off of one workout and off of one highly effective total body session. You can move from one to two a week, from two to three, and after you get through three total body sessions a week, or if they're willing to do more, you can move to a more advanced split. More on that later. Number two is protein powder. Creatine and omega-3s are the three supplements with the most clinically proven research with regards to consumption for performance, body composition, and longevity. Yes, there are supplements that have been studied more for performance like caffeine, but when it comes to what should I take to live healthier, to perform better, and to look my best, I would recommend a whey protein powder or a plant protein powder. We love Legion. Legion is a proud

sponsor of the show. They make a phenomenal whey protein isolate and a plant protein. Protein powder is great because what it does is it can essentially act as a quick, easy to digest, convenient, and affordable way to sneak protein into a meal. Whether you are, you know, patiently sitting at your desk at work and you've prepared ahead of time, or if you are on the go, you can easily mix protein in a small shaker bottle. This is an incredibly easy way to increase your protein intake, which is correlated with better body composition and better blood sugar. You do not want to be protein deficient throughout the day. The second supplement I mentioned is creatine, which if you've followed me on any social media before, or you're a fan of the podcast, you know I love creatine.

Creatine is a phenomenal compound for increasing the amount of water that you store in your skeletal muscle tissue, intramuscular hydration, performance. It's been shown to be particularly beneficial for the brain and the cognitive capabilities of the brain, which is always very, very exciting, especially as we work on fighting societally what appears to be an epidemic of age-related brain decline and honestly, lifestyle-related age decline, Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, various forms of dementia. These are illnesses that are associated with the aging brain, sure, but they're also tightly associated with markers of inflammation, fatigue, lack of sleep, poor nutritional habits,

and environmental exposure to various things that may or may not be toxic to the brain. So, mind you, if creatine is beneficial for your muscles, increases intramuscular hydration, enhances performance, and it might have a neuroprotective or at least beneficial effect on the brain, given that it has a massive amount of robust literature supporting its use, it's definitely worth supplementing with at two to five grams a day. The last supplement mentioned is omega-3. Now, omega-3 is also referred to as fish oil, but fish oil is not the only place to source omega-3 fatty acids.

You can also get it from algae. source omega-3 fatty acids, you can also get it from algae. Although it does appear that marine sources of omega-3, be it algae and or from fatty fish, oftentimes salmon or cod or mackerel or even sardines, this tends to be the best form, making sure that you're getting adequate amounts of the fatty acids, EPA and DHA. These are substantially, substantially more beneficial than in their whole food form. Not too big, but I think you're still better off getting them in their whole food form due to some challenges with sourcing high quality fish oil and preventing it from going rancid in supplemental form. This is a supplement that if you're going to take, I recommend spending a little extra money on to make sure that you're getting a premium product. And if you care about the environment, make sure that it's sourced sustainably. However, if you eat salmon three to four times of body composition. When I think of creatine, I think of performance. And when I

think of omega-3, I think of general health and brain health. So these three things are the three supplements I recommend everybody have on hand if they want to improve the way they look, move, and feel. Tip number three is you probably need to sleep more than you need to caffeinate. Yes, caffeine can be helpful, but its impact diminishes quickly with regular use. The way caffeine works is essentially quite simple. It competes with a compound known as adenosine in the brain to battle fatigue. The more you process and do throughout the day, the greater the buildup of adenosine. Adenosine eventually binds to the brain and creates sleepiness. And it doesn't wear off super early in the morning unless you got a very good amount of sleep. If you wake up feeling quite groggy, a lot of times this can be from having too much

adenosine and not having quite had adequate opportunity to clear your brain through restful sleep. So what do people do in the morning? They slam caffeine. It competes in the brain for those same receptors that adenosine does. And voila, you're a little less tired. But as many of you know, after a while, caffeine just doesn't seem to hit quite so hard. It loses its staying power. It becomes less effective at making you feel energized. And if anything, it makes you feel a little bit less fatigued, but not exactly more energized. Here's another problem.

Caffeine works on the brain similarly to other drugs, so it can create a dependency, and the longer you use it without breaks, the more you need to use to feel something. This can be slightly problematic if you're looking to use caffeine to improve performance, or if you're one of the many Americans who struggles with anxiety. I've noticed anecdotally, and it's no surprise that this is backed up in the research, that caffeine is correlated with increases in anxiety. Now, correlation does not equal causation. Caffeine does not equal immediate increases in anxiety. But let's say you are somebody who's prone to anxiety. Maybe it's work-related. You

have a lot on your plate, and so you're constantly caffeinating so as to get through your day, that can be a really, really tricky position to put your brain, body, and mind through. So be mindful of your caffeine intake, and when in doubt, instead of adding more to the mix, try to instead get better sleep if possible. Another big tip for you is to cut caffeine out after about 12 o'clock in the afternoon so that you can get restful sleep. The longer you consume caffeine into the day and into the afternoon, the harder it is to get it out of your system. And this will make it substantially harder to get restful sleep. Number four, this has to do specifically with resistance training, but compound lifts are the index funds of the weight room. Spreading your

workout across multiple muscle groups across very few movements can help you optimize for time and get the most out of resistance training if you don't plan on staying in the gym for 60 to 90 minutes like many bodybuilders and competitive athletes do. You're just looking to get in shape and you want to maximize your time and be as efficient as possible. Compound lifts that train multiple muscles and multiple joints are a substantially more efficient way to train than breaking muscle groups up into isolated movements. Now, isolation movements are fantastic and can be very helpful if you have specific tissue you would like to grow and develop. But compound lifts give you a lot of exposure to each

and every muscle group. For example, the barbell row hits the biceps, forearms, and most of the muscles in the back. Now you can do a cable row. You can do a plate loaded row. You can do a dumbbell row, all compound movements, all very versatile, all things that should be somewhat accessible to you. You can even do a band row or a TRX row. So you tend to need more equipment to do a variety of isolation exercises, but you can do many of the most effective compound exercises with a barbell, with a few machines at the gym, with dumbbells, with kettlebells, or even with body weight. And compound movements that we really love and we program a lot for our clients at Core Coaching Method, are analogs of pushes. So horizontal pushes like chest presses, pushups, bench presses, vertical presses like shoulder

presses, Arnold presses. We love pulls also in the vertical and horizontal plane, the vertical ones being pull-ups, pull-downs, the horizontal ones being variations of the rows. We love squats. There's so many ways to load the squat. You can do a leg press, you can do a barbell squat, you can do a dumbbell loaded squat, like a goblet squat. Lunges, of course, can be regressed to body weight. They can be enhanced by doing the Bulgarian split squat. And then hinges, which are a great way to train the posterior chain. Things like kettlebell swings, Romanian deadlifts, traditional deadlifts. So many ways to train the push, pull, squat, lunge, and hinge that it gives you a lot of variety. But if you just did those five movement patterns three days a week, you would know for a fact that you train

your body completely and entirely. Of course, there's always room for isolation movements, but I'll give you an example. I've been training my girlfriend's father three times a week for 45 minutes. He's never lifted weights before. And we do some combination of a push, a pull, a squat and or a hinge and a lunge and or a core movement paired with a little bit of isolated work for the arms and shoulders because he seems to enjoy that. We do that four times a week. He's noticed tremendous progress. We spend plenty of time talking and could condense these workouts probably down into 30 to 40 minutes, but that has been adequate and actually quite optimal for his current fitness level. So for novices, remember compound lifts are the index

fund of the weight room. They diversify your portfolio. They spread things out evenly and give you the most exposure to the most muscle groups in the least time. And that my friends is very, very efficient as it pertains to getting the most out of your training. is very, very efficient as it pertains to getting the most out of your training. Number five is stop stretching before you work out and instead do a dynamic session specific warmup. I know what you're thinking. What's wrong with stretching? The truth is not a whole hell of a lot. Stretching can be quite beneficial for increasing acute mobility. It can be beneficial for something known as stretch mediated hypertrophy, which we're beginning to learn about, which could encourage you to hold the stretch position longer in certain lifts. But static stretching previous to loading tissues the way you do in the weight

room might not be super beneficial for your long-term health and performance. Because when you stretch something and then you load it, you are probably increasing the capability of that loading to damage the tissue that's been stretched and lengthened outside of its traditional range. So save your stretching for after you've loaded your tissue. I would recommend saving your stretching for post-workout and previous to your workout, do a dynamic warmup that is session specific. So if you're going to bench press, do something to warm up the shoulders, the upper back, the core, and elevate the heart rate. That might look like five to 10 minutes on the spin bike, three sets of 10 to 12 face pulls to get the upper back going, and a couple sets of plyometric pushups to prime the nervous system and train through that

horizontal pressing pattern before getting under a bar. If you allocate the same amount of time for static stretching that you do a dynamic warmup, I can promise you, you will get better results from the dynamic warmup. Tip number six is if you can only work out three days a week, I recommend doing total body. If you can recommend, if you can work out four days a week, I recommend doing upper lower. If you can work out five days a week, I recommend doing upper lower, upper lower with a fifth session that is specialized to your goals. And if you can train six days a week, I might recommend doing a six day a week full body split where everything is spread out with maybe two to three sets per muscle group or a push pull leg split. This isn't because any one of these is particularly better. I do think you

always have to look at things through the lens of what will work for me, my body, and the feedback that I'm getting. But after 10 years of coaching hundreds of people in person and online, we have found that this is probably the best starting point for program design as it pertains to optimizing recoverability and results relative to the number of sessions a client is capable of doing. Tip number seven is to remember that you are allowed to be bad at something or new at something on your fitness journey. So what do I mean by this? I mean that if you are completely new to the gym, you are absolutely allowed to be the new person at the gym. If you are completely new to doing hang cleans, you are allowed to

suck at hang cleans. If you are completely new to doing long distance running, you are allowed to suck and be new and uncomfortable while doing long distance running. Always remember what I like to call your white belt mentality, which is that no matter how advanced you get in certain areas, you can always be a white belt and learning in other areas. Do not lose that on your fitness journey. It will make it a lot easier. Tip number eight, and I guess this would be a factoid, but something that I really believe is that you can have a top 5% physique in the world, have the best physique in 90% of the rooms that you walk into working out less than one hour a day, less than five days a week. So for four hours a week, I would all but guarantee you could have a world-class body. Obviously you have to do some

things with your lifestyle, particularly your sleep and nutrition to optimize what your physique looks like. But I would bet the farm that with four hours a week in the gym with relatively decent programming, we're not even talking optimal, but let's say four hours a week in the gym with optimal programming, you will have a top 5% physique in the world. you will have a top 5% physique in the world. All of this is relative, of course, but for your age, for your genetics, for your situation, four hours a week in the gym with a decent focus on your protein and calorie intake and good sleep, you will have a top 5 physique in the world, and it might only take you one to three years to make this happen. I am telling you, you do not need to dedicate your entire life to fitness to get incredible results, but you do need to be dedicated for a short term to see changes, to drive progress, to instill these habits,

then it does become easier to maintain. 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 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. 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, our 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 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 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, everybody, but I have a favor to ask you. If you're a regular listener or somebody who gets value out of this podcast, somebody who's learning from me on your health and fitness journey, whether you're a trainer, a high-level athlete, or you're just getting started, other people need this kind

of advice. And the best way for you to help me grow the podcast is to take a little bit of time, literally one to two minutes max, to leave a rating and review on the app that you listen to your podcasts on. The majority of you probably listen on an iPhone and you probably listen on Apple podcasts, but many of you listen on Spotify. Both platforms allow you to leave a quick, easy review. And if you could leave me a five-star review plus a short one to two sentence blurb about what you like, not only will it help more people reach the podcast,

it will help me to continue to refine what it is I bring you each and every week. Thanks so much for doing this. It means the world to me. It helps me achieve my dream of helping more people live a healthier life. Enjoy the episode. Tip number nine is if you want to put your nutrition on autopilot for weight loss, for body fat reduction, or for physique enhancement, have protein and vegetables in every meal. These are the two most satiating things you can eat. Fibrous, you could include

grains in this mix as well. Some people might argue that full fiber grains might be slightly more satiating than protein, but full fibrous green vegetables and lean proteins are two of the most satiating things that you can eat that will not guarantee that you consume less calories, but will help you consume less calories while holding on to a substantial amount of muscle. you consume less calories while holding on to a substantial amount of muscle. Tip number 10 is if you are interested in being leaner, losing body fat, and having more room to eat food, stop drinking your calories. This means sodas. This means coffees, which we'll talk about in a second, but stop drinking your calories. Tip number 11 is black coffee is coffee. Coffee with a splash of milk is coffee, but pretty much everything beyond this is a milk beverage with added caffeine.

And a lot of the things that you guys get each and every morning when you go out and get your coffee can be extremely high in calories with anywhere from five to 10 pumps of pure sugar injected directly into the cup before the coffee even hits it in the form of syrups. You have full fat creams, you use high calorie plant milks, and none of these things are bad. None of these things are unhealthy. But if you start your day off with 250 to 500 calories from coffee and you need to eat less than let's say 2000 calories a day, that all of a sudden represents anywhere from 12.5 to 25% of your total calorie allotment just for a beverage in the morning. That is going to make the rest of your day

substantially more difficult. And I highly recommend doing a better job with making the determination as to what caffeine specific beverage you're going to include every day. Because if you are a daily coffee drinker, I would all but guarantee you are going to pay the price for having a beverage selected that you have every day from Starbucks, from Pete's, from wherever that is really high in calories. Because what that's going to do is it's going to give you less wiggle room throughout the day. And if you just want that caffeine hit, try an espresso shot, try something with just a splash of milk. Don't have all the added syrups, sugars, plant milks. Those things aren't terrible or bad. It's the calories that I'm talking about

specifically for optimizing your body composition. Tip number 12 is you need action every bit as much as you need education. I see so many lifters that could tell me the optimal joint angle for targeting the clavicular head of the pec, but they can't bench press fucking more than the 50 pound dumbbells because they're so busy being nitty gritty with all the tiniest, most kind of insignificant, nuanced forms of information. And they forget to take action and execute with intent. So remember, guys, you need education.

You want to learn. You want to grow. You want to have all the arrows in your quiver possible. But don't let paralysis by analysis take over. And don't confuse education for action and intentionality. At some point, the rubber needs to hit the road. Moving on to tip number 13. This is to find something you actually like on your fitness journey to be the primary way that you exercise. You should find

something that you like. If you like Zumba, that's awesome. Lift two days a week on top of that. If you like CrossFit, that's amazing. Very comprehensive. Do that. If you like bodybuilding, wonderful. Be a bodybuilder. Don't forget your cardio. Truly, find something that resonates with you, that you enjoy, that makes you excited to go to the gym. It's so, so critical that at the end of the day, you are going to enjoy the thing that it is you are committing a good chunk of your weekly routine to. Many people exercise upwards of four to 10 hours a week, and it's a lot more fun, enjoyable, and progressive if you pick a modality that you like. Okay. Number 14, how you look matters. It

will matter to you. It will matter to your spouse. It will probably matter to employers. Unfortunately, we live in a culture that really prioritizes looks and beauty. But if that is the only thing you care about and the only reason that you work out, you are going to have a hell of a hard time staying motivated and sticking with it. I strongly recommend finding deeper, more meaningful motivation to drive your fitness pursuits in the long run. Do not make the mistake that so many young people make. So many young people make this mistake. They start lifting weights exclusively for vanity, exclusively for how they look, and they never, ever evolve beyond that point.

They don't have enough exposure to older people. They don't have enough exposure to more information. But if vanity is the only thing driving your resistance training, your exercise habits, the way that you eat, as you age, you will find increasingly less motivation to do so because the law of entropy states we will all decay. We will all get old. So how will you manage that? You must have a shift in motivation. You must have a shift in at least what it is that is guiding your fitness pursuits because if all that it is, all that it ever is, is vanity, it will become less effective over time.

So the more educated you become on how these things benefit your health, your wellness, your longevity, your joints, your brain, your ability to age with grace, the easier it is to maintain motivation when you start to age. Because as you age, the return you get physically diminishes. It does. You don't get as much output for the input. You work out for two hours when you're in your 20s, you will in all likelihood look better than the same two hours if you work out in your 80s. But the health return, the health ROI is higher for the person in their 80s. Think about that. Okay. The secret sauce, tip number 15, the secret sauce to getting in shape. The reason that you keep failing, the reason that you keep falling off, the reason that you have to start over all the time is because you don't know that all it takes is to learn the skill of going when you do not want to

go. That's the skill. That's the sauce. That's the magic. All the people that you see with the bodies that you want, all the people who have the thousands of followers that have the incredible physique, the rip in six pack, the juicy glutes. Those are the people who go when they don't want to go. They don't drag themselves over the finish line and go, Oh, I hate this. I've hated it for years. No, they have a relationship with exercise and a commitment to the discipline. Okay. The discipline of exercise, the pastime of exercise, they're committed to it. It's a part of who they are. It's a part of their identity. People who go when they don't want to go have the secret sauce. want to go have the secret sauce. People who only go when they don't want to go are always jumping from fad diet to fad diet, from crazy workout routine to crazy workout routine, because what they're trying to do is they're trying to circumvent the fact. They know this. People know this. They're trying to circumvent the fact that they just don't want

to go a good amount of the time. And it's really not a whole lot more complicated than that. There are people who want to go and there are people who do not want to go. The people who do want to go, go for a long time. And eventually they become the people who don't want to go. The people who don't want to go will force themselves to go until eventually they become the people who do want to go. And then both of those groups end up as people who's kind of list in the middle of sometimes wanting to go and sometimes not wanting to go. But the people who stay in shape, like I said, they're in that middle. They either want to go

or don't want to go, or they're somewhere in the middle and they know they should go, but they go. They go because they're committed. And that is the secret sauce. It took me a long time to learn that, but I'm telling you the truth. That is really what it takes. It doesn't need to be too much more complicated than that, my friends. It really, really doesn't. Okay, moving on to tip number 16 is to walk more. I know it sounds silly, but we've talked about habit stacking on this podcast a lot. I strongly recommend walking more. Listen to podcasts while you walk. Take calls while you walk. One of the best investments you can make in your fitness, in your health, in your longevity is a pair of wireless earbuds. What? Wireless earbuds? How

is that high on the... Yes, you're going to wear them to the gym. I get that. You don't want people talking to you, but it's a better investment because it allows you to have a companion on your walk, a personal growth podcast, a book about the body, a fiction book that you enjoy listening to while you walk, headphones that allow you to take calls while walking so you can habit stack. It's that simple, guys. Extra walking helps you balance your blood sugar, increases creativity, increases the numbers of calorie that you burn across the day, and it also helps you get extra vitamin D, weather permitting. That is tough to beat. Tip number 17, if you are trying to lose body fat and you are aware that you need to maintain a calorie deficit, try eating your first meal when you're actually hungry. Don't just eat it because it's breakfast time. Try waiting until you're actually hungry. This could be considered a form of intermittent fasting,

but I really believe this is a highly effective tool, highly, highly effective tool at driving body fat reduction without having to, you know, upend and completely change your diet. A lot of people just need a shorter eating window. And a lot of people cut off eating in the evening and afternoon or early afternoon, late afternoon. But I often find people don't wake up super hungry. So just wait until it's time for meal one. And you're like, okay, I'm actually feeling hunger in the morning. And then have something high in protein, high in fiber with a good amount of water and watch how much fuller or more full you are across the day. amount of water and watch how much fuller or more full you are across the day. Tip number 18,

stop drinking so much alcohol, or if you can, practice what we call at Core Coaching Method, I learned this from a client of mine named Matthew, a dry month. Meaning, take a 30-day abstinence window from alcohol. If you're somebody who's drinking three to five nights a week, taking a 30-day break to abstain from alcohol will change the way your body looks, moves, and feels. I've never seen a client. I have not had one client who eliminated alcohol for more than a week who did not report back saying, oh my gosh, coach, I cannot believe how much better I feel, how much better I'm sleeping, how much more clear-headed I am, how much better my workouts are. Alcohol is not good for you. This is not rocket science. You know this intuitively. People who push back against this often do so because they are not ready to change their behavior around alcohol. The actual data people tend to cite about alcohol

being remotely good for them, like the decades old French paradox, for example, is simply outdated. And just because you can completely go through your day after one to two glasses of wine unencumbered does not change the fact that alcohol is quite literally one of the most damaging compounds for various tissues in your body. It's not just your brain. It's not just how you feel. It's not just whether or not you're hung over. How's your throat? How's your liver? How are all of these different tissues that get exposed to the carcinogen that is alcohol every time you ingest it, holding up after 10, 15, 20, 25 years of consistent alcohol consumption. I don't know, but what I will tell you is I've trained people in Sonoma County, one of the globes, perhaps the

world's premier wine drinking community. People travel here from all over the world to drink wine. Almost every client I've ever worked with drinks consistently. Every single one of those people who has accepted the challenge of going seven to 30 days without drinking has not gone back to drinking the same amount. It's really fucking hard, but it is very much worth it. Number 19, learn how to cook your own food. I know that this might seem like a duh, no shit, but it's very, very hard to go out to eat or order out with the way American portion sizes work and the way that foods are prepared without taking home a massively energy dense meal that's totally loaded with calories with skewed macros. Learning how to cook your own food can make a huge,

huge difference. Okay. Tip number 20 is to do cardio before you work out as a 10 to 15 minute warmup to sneak in extra cardiovascular exercise throughout the day. So this one's for you lifters who don't do designated cardio. If you do 10 to 15 minutes of an incline walk to get your heart rate up before you hit the weights, you'll sneak in. Say you work out five days a week, you'll sneak in 50, 50 to 90 minutes of cardio every single week, right there. You're like hitting your threshold. You'll get better blood flow, substantially better blood flow. You'll have a warmer tissue temperature, which is better for lifting, and you won't feel like you have to do secondary cardio. So try pre-workout low intensity cardio to make sure that you get it in. Tip number 21. I know we're going to lose count here, so I'm

just going to stop counting tips, and I'm just going to just go and kind of riff. This is to replace one meal a day with either a protein shake and a piece of fruit or a big salad. If your goal is fat loss, take one meal that you are eating and replace it with one of those two things. So, so valuable. So, so effective. Literally a mindless way to shift the way that you're eating. Two of the easiest things to prepare and take with you if you're on the go as well. Number seven, stop eating two baskets of chips when you go out to eat or two baskets of bread when you go out to eat before the food shows up. I am the king of this. I will demolish two to three baskets of tortilla chips and I'll eat 1500 calories of tortilla chips before my entree even shows up when I go out to Mexican food.

It's ridiculous because basically what I'm doing is I'm sneaking in an entire extra meal and a half's worth of calories in the form of essentially what is just carbs and fats, which is the same thing you get when you get bread. And I'm not getting protein and I'm not getting satiated. And I'm still going to probably eat my entree. If you can nix that, when you go out to eat, it makes things way, way, way easier. This next one, this might be 22 or 23, is to spend less money on supplements, but spend more money on supplements of the highest quality. So I don't take nearly the amount of supplements I used to. I take whey protein isolate from Legion. I take a stimulant-free pre-workout from Legion. I take a multivitamin from Legion. I take zinc and magnesium

from Pure Encapsulations. I take electrolytes from LMNT. And I take seed, which is a probiotic symbiotic made and produced by seed. That's it. That's like six supplements. And I know for a lot of you, you're like, oh my gosh, that's a lot of supplements. It could very well be that it is a lot of supplements compared to what most people take. But I will tell you this, after 10 years of taking supplements, the number of supplements I take has come down. The quality of the supplements that I take has increased. I take less knowing that I'm only going to take what's clinically proven to work in humans, and I want it produced by a brand that is reputable and that manufactures high-quality products. I don't think it needs to be too much more complicated than that. Number 24, get a

water bottle, invest in a water bottle, maybe even a hydro flask, a thermo flask, something metal, you name it. You will be substantially more likely to drink adequate amounts of water if you have water with you at all times. So one of the best ways to do this is to buy a water bottle or invest in a water bottle that makes you want to have water with you at all times. And so these more expensive water bottles that we oftentimes tend to see as an investment, I find it very, very interesting. I have clients that were regularly forgetting water bottles, forgetting to bring water. This was before we had a water machine at the studio. This was years ago, forgetting to bring water. So we constantly have to go to the water fountain at the front of the gym to get them to hydrate. Well, when I

gifted them a hydro flask for their birthday or for their session anniversary, or when they renewed their session packages, all of a sudden they were wildly hydrated, walking around with their water bottle all the time because they have this really cool gift. It's a beautiful bottle. hack for getting better hydration, I recommend investing in a high quality water bottle. It can make a huge, huge difference. Okay. Tip number, it doesn't matter, 25 or 26. If you want to get the most out of your training sessions, I recommend using stimulating tools such as music, but I have found that it's actually very beneficial to have a workout only playlist that features certain songs that I don't listen to any other time of day, or even genres that I don't listen to any other time of day.

So as to build a correlation between this particular type and tone of music and the action and intentionality that I'm looking to drive with my fitness. So what I mean by this is I don't listen to rap any other time of day, but I listen to some of the most aggressive, abrasive rap when I'm training. I don't want to hear the bitches in the hose all the time. I'll be honest. I find it somewhat off-putting as I've matured, but you better believe when I'm working out, I am listening to some of the most explicit, almost borderline hilarious rap. Da Baby, Lil Baby, Drake, Lil Wayne, Jay-Z, J. Cole, all of the shit that you have probably listened to or are familiar with when it comes to hip hop music. I'm all over that stuff, okay?

when it comes to hip hop music, I'm all over that stuff. Okay. But when I'm not working out, I'm not listening to it. And you would be shocked at just how hard that stuff hits when you don't listen to it all day. It makes a big, big difference. Okay. My last tip for you guys, we'll call this, maybe we got to 27, not all the way to 28, not sure. I lost track. But the last tip that I have for you guys is to get out into nature more. Go on one to two walks or hikes a month where you get out in nature away from your phone for one to two hours. Try it. It will change your perspective on life. It will expand and enhance the quality of your health and fitness. That's it, guys.

I hope you enjoyed these quick tips. These are all health-promoting behaviors, things you can substitute, things you can replace, things you can do to enhance the quality of your health, well-being, and mindfulness. I will catch you guys on the next episode.