Dynamic Dialogue with Danny Matranga - 254 Q & A: How long between rest days, "natty or not", fat loss with ONLY weights?

Episode Date: January 11, 2023

LEAVE A REVIEW OF THE SHOW:There is NOTHING more valuable to a podcast than leaving a written review and a 5-Star Rating. Please consider taking 1-2 minutes to do that (iTunes) HERE. You can also leave a review on SPOTIFY!OUR PARTNERS:  Ice Barrel: The best cold water immersion and recovery solution on the market HERE! Use the CODE: Danny to save $125!Legion Supplements (protein, creatine, + more!), Shop (DANNY) HERE!Melin makes the BEST hat's on earth. Try one using the CODE DANNY to save 20% HERE!Get Your FREE LMNT Electrolytes HERE! Care for YOUR Gut, Heart, and Skin with SEED Symbiotic (save with “DANNY15)  ! Take your love of sports to the next level with UNDERDOG FANTASY and play with danny HERE! (CODE: DANNY for first deposit match up to $100!)RESOURCES/COACHING:  Train with Danny on His Training AppHEREI am all about education and that is not limited to this podcast! Feel free to grab a FREE guide (Nutrition, Training, Macros, Etc!) HERE! Interested in Working With Coach Danny and His One-On-One Coaching Team? Click HERE!Want Coach Danny to Fix Your S*** (training, nutrition, lifestyle, etc) fill the form HERE for a chance to have your current approach reviewed live on the show. Want To Have YOUR Question Answered On an Upcoming Episode of DYNAMIC DIALOGUE? You Can Submit It HERE!Want to Support The Podcast AND Get in Better Shape? Grab a Program HERE!----SOCIAL LINKS:Follow Coach Danny on YOUTUBEFollow Coach Danny on INSTAGRAMFollow Coach Danny on TwitterFollow Coach Danny on FacebookGet More In-Depth Articles Written By Yours’ Truly HERE! Sign up for the trainer mentorship HERESupport the Show.

This episode is brought to you in special part thanks to our awesome partners over at Ice Barrel. If you're like me, you want to get the absolute most you can out of your fitness and out of what it is that you're doing in life. I like to make sure that I'm recovering well and prepped for hard workouts. I like to make sure that my cognition is sharp, and I like to make sure that I'm doing what I can to maintain my long-term health. And cold water immersion is a phenomenal tool I use and have used for a while to help me do this. Cold water immersion or taking ice baths is a great way to improve your recovery and performance. Just a few short sessions a week can really make a difference in how you recover. It can increase and improve your heart rate variability. It can enhance performance. It

improves mood and brain function. It also provides an awesome boost of energy and focus because when you hop in an ice bath and you get this amazing vasoconstriction effect and your body starts releasing epinephrine and norepinephrine, it kind of lets you reenter the world awake, energized, excited, and enthused. And I would much rather take an ice bath in the mid-afternoon, especially if I had a hard training session in the morning, than consume more caffeine. Ice Barrel allows me to do this in a super sleek, aesthetically pleasing packaging. It's a beautiful barrel that comes with a matching lid for keeping the ice cold and water inside clean, a nice step-up stool, a cover. It's portable and durable, and it comes in a beautiful matte black and a gorgeous tan. I have the matte black out on my patio, and I absolutely

love the way it looks with my patio and I absolutely love the way it looks with the fencing I have around the yard, but you can put this inside, outside, on the front porch, on the back porch, in the side yard. It's quite portable. It's very durable. Like I said, the design is super, super sleek and it's very easy to drain to make sure that you are only getting in to cold, clean water designed to help you improve your performance, improve your recovery, enhance the way your brain feels and functions throughout the day. This is an amazing one-time cost tool that once you have it, you use it a couple of times a week. It is one of the best investments you can make in your health. And again, if you want to improve your cognition

and performance, and you have those midday lulls, or you want to be more present for your family or for your friends when you get off of work, and you don't want to caffeinate, temperature modulation like ice baths or cold exposure or sauna heat exposure can be really valuable for increasing that subjective sense of wellbeing and bringing you back to a place of alertness in a really chaotic world. It's also great for just cultivating resilience. I find I'm much tougher. Again, this is a more anecdotal thing, but I find that I am much tougher, ready to face the day's tasks when I am consistently exposing myself to the elements. Call it bromeopathy, call it anecdote, but I will tell you one thing is for sure,

cold water immersion has made a huge difference for my health and well-being in just a few short sessions a week. And Ice Barrel is the sleekest, best looking, cleanest and most affordable way to do it reliably. You can head over to icebarrel.com slash Danny to take advantage of their 100% satisfaction guaranteed with again, a 30 day money back guarantee and save 125 bucks on your Ice Barrel using the promo code Danny. So again, icebarrel.com slash Danny

and check out using the promo code Danny to save 125 bucks. This episode using the promo code Danny to save 125 bucks. This episode of the podcast is brought to you in proud part thanks to our partners Seed. Seed makes the best symbiotic on the market. A symbiotic is a prebiotic and a probiotic. It's not just a supplement or a pill loaded with random bacterial strains that may or may not be clinically proven to work in humans. And it's not just fiber. Seed is a symbiotic capsule that contains a unique pomegranate husk prebiotic fiber that feeds the clinically proven to work in human microorganisms inside the capsule. It's pretty amazing, actually. It's this unique emerald green capsule that looks

like a rare gemstone. I love taking my seed every morning because it just looks so damn cool. But the other thing that's amazing about seed is it's delivered on a basis that allows for all of the microorganisms to be alive, meaning they're active fluorescent units. So when you look at them, you see, oh my gosh, these microorganisms, these probiotics are actually still alive by the time I ingest them, so I can get the most benefit possible from my probiotic supplement. And again, Seed uses the most clinically proven to work strains, clinically proven to work in humans. For example, Seed has 3.3 billion AFUs of dermatological health-promoting probiotics. That means 3.3 billion microorganisms

who have been shown in the research to clinically enhance the health of your dermatological microbiome, your skin, not just your gut. 5.25 billion for cardiovascular health. 8.05 billion for micronutrient synthesis and nutrient absorption. And of course, 37 billion AFUs from specimens shown to improve digestive health, gut immunity, and gut barrier integrity. Seed is amazing. And in addition to being so evidence-based, it's also vegan, gluten-free, dairy-free, soy-free, nut-free, shellfish-free, sesame-free, glyphosate-free, corn-free, and does not use binders, preservatives, and is compliant with Prop 66. So that is one hell of a product that you can get shipped directly to you.

They even have a brand new PDS-08 formula. This is their new pediatric symbiotic formula that is specific for children and teens with no observed side effects of GI distress. It's engineered to survive digestion, even in your kiddo's stomach, and it contains five grams of prebiotic fiber per serving. So an awesome thing you can work in there for your kids. When you go to seed.com, listeners today are going to save 15% off their subscription by checking out with the code Danny 15. This is the only probiotic supplement I would consider taking. And if you're interested in improving the health of your gut,

skin, and overall well-being, 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 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 day, mentally and physically, it's imperative that you stay hydrated. LMNT provides a balanced ratio of sodium, potassium, and magnesium to support brain and body hydration. This combination of electrolytes improves health, performance, body, and brain performance, mind you, helps to reduce cramps and soreness and get you more hydrated. There's no sugar. Elementia is sweetened with stevia. It's perfect for exercise and perfect for the sauna because the flavors are natural, tasty, delicious, and not overpowering. And if you're like me, you'll use them multiple times a day across your training sessions to get hydrated early to replenish after sauna use. And again, it's not just me. LMNT is the official sports drink 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 Elements' 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. the show notes and check out using the special link for Dynamic Dialogue listeners.

Hey, everybody. Welcome into another episode, the Dynamic Dialogue podcast. As always, I'm your host, Danny Matranga, and this is our very first question and answer episode of the year, our first Q&A of 2023. I love doing these Q&A episodes because it gives me the best opportunity to interact with you, the listener of this podcast, and those of you who choose to follow me on my various social media platforms. It makes sense, of course, to plug those here. You can follow me on Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube. All you need to do is search for Danny Matranga. I also have a Facebook page and you'll find this podcast, the Dynamic Dialogue podcast, where we discuss fitness, nutrition, wellness, longevity, productivity, and life optimization. Pretty much anywhere you'll find podcasts, but the majority

of our listens come, of course, on Spotify and Apple podcasts. If you'd like to have a question of yours featured here on the podcast, it's actually quite simple. You can leave a rating or review that includes your question. If you leave a five-star rating and review that includes your question, you will guaranteed have it answered here. Additionally, on my Instagram, that tends to be the platform I spend the most time on, it is a little less toxic than Twitter, where you can also find me. And I'm just kind of burnt out on Facebook, not a huge fan of TikTok. And I do actually quite like YouTube. But if you want to have your question answered on the podcast, go to danny.matranga on Instagram, be sure to follow, pay attention to my stories. And at least once per week, I try to pull questions

directly from my audience over on Instagram. And again, if you want me to answer it specifically here on the podcast, you can guarantee that by having a five-star rating and review written on Apple Podcasts, that is the easiest place for me to find them. We have a variety of great questions today, ranging from mental health, physical health, fat loss, performance habits in the new year. You guys are going to like this one a lot. As I was looking through the questions in advance of these episodes, uh, to put it in perspective, I will like screenshot these from Instagram to make sure that I don't lose them. And then I'll throw them up in notes on my iPhone and I'll pull them from my iPhone before recording to see which ones make

sense to answer. And I usually answer several more just off the cuff to make sure that I'm one touching base with as many of you as possible. And then two, I want this to be an authentic, non-scripted opportunity to provide fitness advice, health advice, performance advice, productivity advice to you the way I do my personal training and mentorship clients. So I hope you guys do enjoy the episode today. We will start off with a question from Pam Baldassari. And the question is, is it okay to work out four to five days in a row? So on the podcast, we've discussed the various training splits that an individual might engage with total body training splits, upper lower training splits, push pull leg training splits that an individual might engage with, total body training splits,

upper-lower training splits, push-pull leg training splits, individualized training splits. And more generally, those are going to be chosen by a lifter based on how many days a week they can train. And it is very rare that you find somebody who is capable of training seven days per week. But let's say you can train five, six, seven days a week. Does it make sense to do four to five sessions consecutively? Or should you have a rest day in there somewhere? I would say more often than not, you want to take a day away from weights every three to four days at the most. Right now, I'm training Saturday and Sunday when I take Monday off. Then I train Tuesday, Thursday, Friday. Then I would train Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, taking Friday off. So I don't work out Monday, Friday.

So I will train two days in a row off day, three days in a row off day. On occasion, I will train Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, take Friday off. That would be four days in a row. I almost never do five anymore, but what I will tell you is I think it's okay, but I don't think it's optimal for most people. And I think when you are training very hard, having a 24 hour break away from hard resistance training to allow your central nervous system, joints, mental well-being to kind of recover and bounce back from the hard training, you'll be okay. I think five days in a row is more than okay if you have the volume allocated appropriately. That's important too. So for our elite physique

training app, we do Monday through Friday programming. Now the group has the ability to move it around and I'd imagine that most of the girls in that group do. But that programming is split up and set up in such a way that you can train five days a week or five days in a row, taking the weekends off. I believe that women tend to be more tolerant to consecutive training sessions than do men. I also believe they tend to generally recover better from higher volumes, but they don't do well, the harder the intensity and the greater the proximity is to failure there. So that's something that I think is worth considering. Yes, you can do it. The split in the routine have to be really thoughtful and well-planned out. If you are going to do it, if you'd like to train four

to five days consecutively, I think you'll have absolutely no problem doing that if you follow something like the Elite Physique app or get coaching or you really keep your volume low. But if you're going to just go to the gym in the new year and go ham, which I think is worth noting because of the time of recording of this podcast, four to five consecutive days is going to probably be counterproductive. All right, this question comes from Kat Farinac. Great question here about supplements and fat loss. It's, should you take creatine in a calorie deficit if you are cutting? So it's important to note there that cutting is generally a bodybuilding terminology or phrase, or it's a phrase born out of the bodybuilding subculture specific to cutting away at fat to

reveal physique. If you are in a deficit, you are in all likelihood doing this with the goal of fat loss. So you could in fact say you're cutting, if you're not preparing for a bodybuilding show and you don't want to refer to your fat loss efforts as cutting, you can just say, I'm looking to lose body fat or I'm looking to be in a deficit. So this person's asking if they should take creatine if their goal is to lose body fat. And they're using the phrase cutting. So I'm going to also assume they want to hold on to as much muscle as possible. In that context, I'd say you should be taking creatine almost assuredly. Because when your energy is restricted and you're not eating as much and you're training hard,

it becomes substantially easier to be deficient in nutrients that are important for muscle preservation, specifically protein. Now, if you are mindful of your protein intake, you will preserve a good amount of muscle, but this is where the trade-off comes in and the creatine really becomes important. You'll probably be making sacrifices and concessions around your carbohydrate and fat intake level to create the deficit. And carbohydrate specifically is really important for training intensity and muscle preservation. We call that protein sparing. Creatine helps with both of those things.

Creatine will help improve workout quality, and it will definitely help you retain muscle whilst in a deficit. So if you have a athletic goal or a physique-based goal and you're losing body fat for aesthetics or for performance, I would supplement with creatine. If you're not weight training and you are just trying to lose body fat and you are not in a situation where you take a lot of supplements, I still think considering creatine makes a lot of sense. very valuable for anyone with an exercise-specific goal, and the emerging literature showing it to be beneficial for long-term brain health, at least to me, is really exciting. So if you have healthy kidneys, you're an otherwise healthy adult, you've cleared this with your physician, I think you can take creatine at almost any point. I've even talked to Dr. Darren Kandao about creatine specifically on this podcast. And we discussed creatine safety profile being so robust that you might even

consider it for pregnant or breastfeeding women. It's at least considerable. This is not a recommendation. I am not a physician. I'm merely speaking to the safety profile of creatine, highlighting how robust and impressive that safety profile is. And when you look at the benefits and weigh them against the trade-offs, I think for anybody who's doing anything athletic or who wants to maintain muscle and strength across the lifespan, or who is interested in optimizing brain health and cognitive performance, creatine should be something you consider. brain health and cognitive performance, creatine should be something you consider.

The primary demographic for whom creatine does not make a lot of sense is going to be individuals who have kidney specific issues because the kidneys do have to work to clear various metabolites in the body, creatine and creatinine being one of them. So it's just oh so safe, very, very effective. And when energy is at a premium and you're dieting and you're training and your goal is holding on to muscle, I cannot see why you would not want creatine. The one rationalization I can think of is that there still remains this stigma around the fact that you will hold on to water weight. And that is water in your muscles weight. You want to water in your muscles if you're looking to diet and lose body fat, especially if you're calling it cutting. I can assume that you're saying cutting because your goal is to have an aesthetic outcome

at the end. You want muscle fullness. You want muscles that look full and hydrated, and you'll have a better opportunity of having that in a nutrient-depleted state if you're taking creatine. How much creatine should you take? Well, generally I will recommend five grams per day for adults, but I have noticed over the course of about six to seven years coaching and regularly prescribing clients creatine, prescribing being a loosely used term here, I'm not a physician, that smaller women tend to be able to tolerate less creatine before they start to see the rare, although most common side effect of gastrointestinal distress. So for women who are more petite, smaller, or generally don't have as much muscle tissue, you might want to start with two to three

grams a day and know that most of the creatine supplementation research has been done on men, not necessarily something I'm willing to draw too many conclusions about. I'm not willing to say it's not safe for women. It's obviously safe for women. There's a shitload of research on creatine in women. There's more creatine in women research than there is almost any other supplement. But my point is that clinically effective dose of five grams is probably something that was standardized and reached on upon studying normal weight men. So if you are a specifically smaller woman and you deal with gastrointestinal distress when supplementing with creatine, start with two to three grams a day, start with capsules, spread them out. If you're somebody who's

generally a normal size, normal size woman, normal size man, you have a good amount of muscle, you have no gastrointestinal distress when supplementing with creatine, I might recommend just jumping right to Legion's Recharge, taking that post-workout so you can take advantage of the mildly elevated creatine utilization and uptake that comes with that post-workout window. I've heard many people talk about how it really doesn't matter when you take your creatine, which I believe to be true. But if you are going to take it at some point, you get slightly better uptake and utilization when taken post-workout because of, it might be myokines that are released from training. It could be the GLUT4 sensitivity that's associated with that post-workout window,

especially if you're eating after you're training something with carbohydrates. I don't know the exact mechanism behind why, but I've been taking my post-workout creatine, my creatine post-workout when I do train and it works great. And I take Legion's Recharge. I love that it contains L-carnitine because that can also really help with DOMS and Bonaba, which helps with uptake of the creatine. And it also has five grams of micronized creatine monohydrate, which is what you want. All right, next question. This one comes from Nico Karts. And the question is, This one comes from Nico Karts. And the question is, can you lose fat by just resistance training? So the answer to this question is yes. And it comes down to understanding that it's not exercise specifically that enhances or predicts or is required for fat loss. It's the deficit that

you are in and the intensity of that deficit usually gets greater the more you do cardio and the more you exercise. But in theory, you can lose body fat without exercising whatsoever so long as you're in a deficit. The higher protein that deficit is, the more muscle you'll hold on to. The more you resistance train and stimulate your muscle, the more muscle you'll hold on to. The more cardio you do, the greater the deficit will be in all likelihood because of the amount of caloric expenditure associated with most cardio. You're going to burn calories when you do cardio. So it would make sense to exercise if you're trying to lose body fat, specifically because exercise actually has an appetite regulating effect. You might hear otherwise on the internet, but it has an appetite normalizing and regulating effect with most adults.

Exercise is not going to make you more hungry. It's not pointless when you exercise and you try to lose fat. I heard a very popular podcast platform, somebody recently who was making the claim that exercise when trying to lose body fat could be counterproductive because it increases appetite so much. And it's like, well, if you look at the majority of the data, it shows an appetite normalizing effect. And for people who do see a spike in appetite, if they're mindful of where those additional calories come from, and they're making normal food selections for somebody who's looking to lose fat,

I don't see a problem there. So you can lose fat with just lifting weights so long as your food is tight and dialed. But if you'd like to add cardiovascular exercise to burn more calories, you can expect to lose fat faster. Okay. This question comes from Suriel Castillo. And the question is, what stuff can you take and still be considered natty? So this is a bodybuilding slash physique focus question. And it begs the question for those of you who aren't initiated, what does the term natty mean? So the term natty refers to natural or a natural athlete. A natty athlete would be an athlete who is using substances that are perhaps performance enhancing. This could be caffeine. This could be electrolytes. This could be creatine. But they are explicitly

not drug-related ergogenic aids. They are not injectable or hormonal in any capacity. They are non-steroidal, nor do they represent something that could be considered a form of doping like EPO or erythropoietin. What we're talking about when we say natty athletes or natural bodybuilders, we're usually talking about regular resistance training athletes who might take vitamins, fish oil, even creatine, which has a performance enhancing effect, even caffeine, which has a performance enhancing effect, but they are explicitly staying away from hormones that have the potential to adjust your physiology. This could be obviously testosterone and various anabolic steroids. This could even be things like growth hormone. This

could be things like insulin, right? There are even certain stimulants that are so powerful, like Adderall, that they can be considered performance enhancing. Okay. I think you get the picture. So a natural athlete or what you can take and stay natty is everything, in my opinion, below the lines of shit that adjusts your hormones. There is a gray area around things like SARMs or prohormones. And I would say that you can't take those and be natural because they are explicitly either with, in the case of prohormones, you're taking them as something that's illegal to sell and they are metabolized into the desired steroid in the body, but they're not the desired steroid upon purchase. And SARM, selective androgen receptor modulators, are so rife with fraud,

oftentimes the products actually do contain real steroids or real performance enhancing drugs, and if not, they are selective androgen receptor modulators, meaning they're actually binding to the androgen receptor and modulating or changing're actually binding to the androgen receptor and modulating or changing the way it behaves in the body. That doesn't seem very natural to me. If you want to be natty and get the most out of your lifting, I would definitely start with creatine and I'd go from there. 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 way 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 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.

This question comes from Adelka Stone. And the question is, does bouldering, that's rock climbing, build muscle similarly to weightlifting? So you can definitely build an impressive physique with rock climbing, specifically forearms, upper back, arms, biceps, and core. It doesn't work your legs in a way that would be enough to develop them in synergy with your upper body. You will always probably develop your upper body more, but it does challenge them. You'll have strong legs. You'll have great dexterity. If your goal is bodybuilding or developing as much muscle as possible, rock climbing is actually a pretty bad choice. The stimulus to fatigue ratio is terrible, meaning it's an incredibly fatiguing sport, which doesn't have a super direct stimulus

for muscle growth. You will build muscle. But the amount of time you would have to apply to bouldering and rock climbing to get good enough and actually do it long enough to cultivate muscle would be less efficient than something like exercising in the weight room, doing resistance training or powerlifting. Okay. This question comes from Ryan G. Moore. And the question is any programming for Brazilian jujitsu? So core coaching method, my fitness coaching company offers obviously one-on-one coaching. We have app-based programming for those of you training at home and for women who want to develop their best physique at the gym. But we also have a variety of PDFs and eBooks, including Foundations and Power Build.

Foundations is a fantastic program that I see as a superior alternative to CrossFit with a big focus on stability, aerobic base, and power. And Power Build is a hybrid powerlifting slash bodybuilding program. Both of those would probably be nice to do in conjunction with Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. Next question. This is a nutrition question I quite like from Jeff Starmer1, and the question is, on rest days, should you drink a protein shake, or is it better to drink one after a workout? So I see what's going on here. I understand the calculus. It's, do I need the same amount of protein on the days I'm not exercising as the days that I am? And we've created the greatest gap here between the immediate post-workout window

and a day where you're doing nothing. And the truth is, you should look at your protein intake as a kind of daily thing. And you should look at your protein shakes as an opportunity to help you get them efficiently like a food. But there's nothing magical about a post-workout protein shake in the same way that there's nothing magical about like a non-training day ribeye. It's all protein. The nice thing about the shake is it's fast to digest and it's easy to make. So that might make it easy to take it with you on a day that you're going to the gym and have it post-workout. But it doesn't mean that it can't be equally convenient on a day that you're not training, but maybe you're walking around Disneyland and you want to have 50 grams of

protein to start your day because you know there's not a lot of protein-packed options in the park. A protein shake is an easy-to-use tool that can help you get more protein. And if you want to build your best physique, you want to. And if you want to build your best physique, you want to stay lean, you want to be relatively well muscled as you age, you want to be productive and strong, you need protein. So a protein shake can be a really efficient and a fast way to provide your body with a very important macronutrient. And I wouldn't look too much more into it than that. Yes, you definitely want to get protein if you are training. And if you're not eating enough protein each day,

getting some around your training makes even more sense. But you should definitely focus on getting enough protein overall before you stress too much about when it is that you get that protein. All right, we've got another nutrition timing question from Dodge City Gal. The question is, what are your thoughts on eating before lifting? I find a two hour window of no food before works, but I feel weak. So I have a few opinions and I'll give you a few scenarios. I train in the morning fasted. That works really well for me because if I wake up and get immediately into training, I cannot have a ton of food in my stomach. If I have something really that sits heavy like oatmeal,

I can run into some trouble. So if I'm going to train in the morning, I will have water, electrolytes. If I need carbs or didn't have a lot of carbs for dinner, I will have a banana. Now, mind you guys, you have glycogen in your muscle tissues, 300 to 400 grams of glycogen between the muscle tissues and the liver. So that's enough carbohydrate right there, even to train fasted. Okay. But if you are training in the middle of the day, it's never a bad idea to have a little bit of fuel before you train. And a 90 to 120 minute window, one and a half to two hours is a great opportunity. You know, one and a half to two hours before you train, if you're training in the mid morning, afternoon, or evening,

you can have a food or a meal that contains a mix of different carbohydrates, particularly glucose and fructose, and a little bit of protein. You don't want a ton of fat or a ton of oil or a ton of spice or a ton of fiber because all of those things can cause gastrointestinal distress. They can slow gastric emptying and they can just generally bog down digestion, leaving you with a heavy feeling in your stomach, oatmeal. Okay. No fat, not spicy, not oily, but it has enough fiber that its motility through the gastrointestinal

track is sluggish. So you can oftentimes feel a little heavy. I like to focus on foods that are light. A good example of which could be a scoop of protein or a Greek yogurt, something that both are very high in protein, with a bowl of Rice Krispies and sliced strawberries or sliced bananas, fruits that do contain a little bit of fiber, but not a ton. And then a really simple form of carbohydrates. So you're getting that glucose from the carbohydrate in the rice cereal and the fructose from the fruit choice and the protein from the quick options on the go, like a shake or a yogurt cup. Both of that same meal could go fantastic post-workout as well. I think that's

worth bringing up. But if you are feeling weak while you're training and you are eating before, you might try eating a little closer. You might try hydrating. You might try caffeinating. You might try supplementing with electrolytes. That can be really, really valuable if you're feeling your energy waning. So that's how I would approach eating around training. But I also think it's important that your weakness be sourced out. It doesn't seem like it could be food related, could be training competency related, could be hydration related, could be general fatigue related. So I would try to explore and try a few different things. This question comes from Renz Fit Kitsch.

Question is, does carb cycling work or does it really matter if calories are equal? So the truth is for fat loss, it doesn't matter if calories are equal, but that doesn't mean carb cycling doesn't work. Carb cycling is a really good tool for people to maintain a carbohydrate intake on a few days of the week that's more consistent with how they'd like to eat while making some concessions on the other days of the week to eat a little bit less. It's kind of a trade-off approach. The deficit over the course of the week could, believe it or not, actually end up being the exact same duration or the exact same length from a time perspective, like, hey, it's seven days, 500 calories a day in my deficit, and that's going

to be 3,500 at the end of the week. But somebody else could say, yo, I have two high carb days where I'm not in a deficit at all, but the other days are more steep. You add it all up, we still get to that 3,500 figure. So it really comes down to, do you do better with that kind of carbohydrate availability being higher a few days a week? Maybe it's the day before you train legs or the day that you do train legs. Makes a lot of sense to me. Doesn't necessarily have to go, like you don't have to do carb cycling to lose weight. And I do think for most people, it's a good idea to lower your carbohydrate intake a little bit and probably lower your fat intake a little bit while keeping your protein intake high, aiming to stay hydrated and aiming to load up on fiber. All right. Interesting question here from nalt.diane. And I'm going to

give you an interesting answer. Question is, is it more beneficial for fat loss to eat animal-based protein for breakfast versus protein shakes? Okay. So here's the shocker answer. It's definitely animal proteins, but not for the reason you think. Truth is, the protein is probably going to be of equivalent quality. If we're talking about a whey protein shake, a nice quality vegan protein shake blend of different plant profiles that give you a nice rounding of amino acids. But the reason that the animal protein is top of the list actually has to do with the fact that you chew it, you eat it. It takes longer to digest than a protein shake, which is in large part already digested by the time you start drinking it. So remember guys,

mastication, not masturbation, mastication or chewing is a physiological, there's a line, so to speak, between the brain and your appetite and your satiety and your decisions around food all the way down to mastication. Your brain gets something. It gets a signal. It gets an input when you start chewing. It gets an input that food is at least present. And when it's able to detect other signals like taste and the actual sensation of peristalsis or food moving down the food tube into the stomach, your brain is getting that feedback. So calorie per calorie, you're probably going to get more out of something you have to chew. And then there's also the volume of the food versus the volume of the fluid. And if you're eating your protein, the volume effect is probably going to be a little bit

more than that of something you're simply drinking because you could drink the equivalent amount of water with that protein and get a much greater effect than just drinking a protein shake. So I would opt for that because if fat loss is your goal, staying full and feeling satiated and not battling hunger is very, very important. Okay. Next question comes from Jasmine CBL. She's asking, what are the best protein options? So there's a lot of different foods that are high in protein and many of you will consume animal proteins. But for those of you that won't, who are vegan or vegetarian, I think it's important to know that there are a variety of foods you can eat that are high in protein, right? Tofu is extremely high in protein. There are a variety of plant-based protein shakes that contain brown rice protein.

Of course, brown rice has protein. Pea protein, of course, edamame, peas and beans have protein. A lot of times you'll see potato proteins, but there are plant-based protein blends on the market that are quite, quite effective at providing a good amount of protein. I like Legion's Plant Plus. It's excellent. I already mentioned edamame, tempeh, quinoa, brown rice, lentils, beans. These are all different sources of plant-based protein. There are vegetarians who eat some animal product like eggs, dairy, yogurt, cheese. Those are good options. For those of you who eat, of course, meat, starting with red meat, steaks, ground meats can be good options, as well as cured meats like jerky, which are great to go on the go. You do want to be cognizant of your processed meat consumption. You do want to be cognizant

of your saturated fat consumption, obviously poultry or fowl like chicken or Turkey. And then of course the various fish, salmon, tuna, tilapia, shellfish like shrimp are great with regards to getting a high amount of protein. So there's a lot of different protein options. The most efficient, effective, and convenient a lot of times is a protein shake. I'm hugely impartial to a whey protein shake, which is made from dairy. which is made from dairy. So whey is actually made from, when you're making cheese, you separate the curds, the cheese curds from the whey, and the whey is actually filtered out and oftentimes sold as a nutritional supplement. So whey protein is fantastic. I like Legion's Whey Plus, and I think those are probably the best places from which you can source your protein.

All right, this question comes from Athena12. Question is how much water do you drink on a daily basis? I aim for about half my body weight in ounces of pure water per day. I usually get close to a hundred to 120 ounces, which is right around that point, probably a little over. And we recommend at core coaching method for our clients that they aim for that same half a ounce per pound of body weight. Okay. Question from Abbylicious30. Have I heard of 75 hard? If so, what are my thoughts? So I think during the new year, you'll always see a huge influx of people looking to do things like 75 hard, which is a 75 day challenge that asks for some pretty extreme, but largely beneficial behavioral changes like daily

exercise once inside, once outside, following a diet of some kind and engaging in personal development tasks like reading, all of which I think are fabulous habits. And if I felt that 75 hard had any remote opportunity of getting stuck to by the average person, I'd recommend it more often. But the truth is that shit works better for somebody like me, who's already very disciplined, who's already got a great routine, who doesn't have a bunch of kids running around, who doesn't have a ton of extracurricular commitments outside of work and relationships. I keep my schedule pretty open to create space for personal development, to create space for following a strict nutrient-dense diet, to create space for exercise. I encourage you guys to do this

as well. But 75 Hard, quite quite literally is a protocol that's more intense than anything I do as a 10 year seriously invested exerciser, nutrient and nutrition enthusiast, uh, productivity enthusiast, personal growth enthusiast, right? So my point is, do I think you should do this in the new year? Uh, I don't want to say no, because I would never want to discourage somebody from reading daily, from eating well, from exercising twice daily. But I would warn you that it is extremely difficult and most people fail. And if you're really resilient to failure, go for it. But if you're not and you're going to fuck it up and frame it as like, oh, I just can't do these things. Don't. Maybe try to go

three days in a row and maybe break 75 hard up into like 25 challenging three-day sprints. And hopefully over time, you actually pull these habits out. I mean, yes, you want to get a streak going. You want to form a habit. I can understand that it would be difficult to form a habit without doing a considerable number of days consistently. I just believe 75 hard to be a bit too extreme for most people. The way that most people look at engaging in all of these different habits all at once, it's very daunting and it can be very overwhelming. Okay. This question is from Jen dot LK, how to shift training for multiple sports, love lifting, but have to run for work. So running is a little bit different, but then like multiple sports. But the truth is like most lifting doesn't include movements in the

frontal plane or the transverse plane, which would be the plane extending laterally from the body and the plane dividing the body in half rotationally. So do you do anything side to side? Do you rotate? Probably not. So do more do anything side to side? Do you rotate? Probably not. So do more of that shit. If you're going to play sports for sure, do some low level plyos, pogos and hops. And if you want to get better at running, you have got to run. All right, guys, that does it for the first part of this Q and a episode. I'm actually going to be recording a second part of the episode. So stay tuned for that. That'll be coming later in the week. I want to thank you all so much for tuning in and tell you that I will catch you on the next one.