Dynamic Dialogue with Danny Matranga - 275: 9 Habits Killing Your Fat-Loss

Episode Date: March 30, 2023

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Welcome, everybody, to another episode of the Dynamic Dialogue podcast. In this episode, I'm going to be discussing nine habits many of us have that make it harder to maintain a lean body composition. Whether this is leanness that you're pursuing for sport, body fat you'd simply like to lose so you can look, move, and feel better, or if like many of us, you're concerned about preventing disease long-term and you know the issues that can come from making good and bad food decisions, or I should say not being able to make enough of the right food decisions enough the time, this podcast is for you. We're going over nine mistakes that people make. And I think I've seen these nine things more frequently than just about any other in my 10 years personal

training. So I think you'll find a lot of value. Sit back and enjoy. This podcast has some awesome partners. And one of my favorite, of course, is Legion Athletics. Legion is my go-to supplement manufacturer for what I like to call my big rock supplements. This would be my protein powder, my pre-training formula, my post-training formula, and creatine, and my kind of ancillary vitamins and micronutrient protection. So why do I like Legion so much? What sets them apart? It's quite simple. Legion uses all natural ingredients. All the formulas include natural coloring and natural sweeteners. No artificial sweeteners, just stevia. And every single formulation, be it a pre-workout or a vitamin, contains clinically effective

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pre-workout, but specifically the pre-workout that does not contain caffeine. That would be their Stim Free Pulse. I'm a huge, huge fan of beta alanine and L-citrulline, but I don't like taking in wildly high amounts of caffeine. So if you are somebody who likes pre-workout with caffeine, you can try Pulse. Or if you like it without caffeine because you maybe want to enjoy your morning coffee or monitor your caffeine consumption, try the Pulse Stem Free. My favorite flavors there for sure are the New grape and the amazing, amazing tropical punch. As for my creatine, I get that from Legion's Recharge, five grams each and every day. I take it on the days I train as well as the days I do not because Recharge also contains L-carnitine, which can help with promoting muscle recovery and decreasing soreness, as well as some ingredients to help with creatine utilization. And of course, my favorite supplements for my ancillary micronutrient health are Legion's Multivitamin and Legion's Greens Powder. Not only do these two products contain a ton of high quality vitamins and minerals,

they also contain unique adaptogens like KSM-66 ashwagandha and reishi mushroom, which I like to take each and every day to promote my health. If you want to cover all your bases with a high quality protein, creatine post-workout, or the ancillary micronutrient health stuff like greens, powders, and multivitamin, I encourage you to go over to legionathletics.com and check out using the promo code Danny. That'll save you 20% on your first order and you'll rack up points that you can use the same way as cash every time you use the code and you'll also be supporting the show. In this episode, we are going to be discussing nine habits that I believe make fat loss substantially more difficult.

We will cover initial caloric targets, eating behaviors, micro eating behaviors. But I guess you could say we're covering both macro and micro, but not in the nutrients category, but the decision-making category. We will discuss beverage calories like alcohol, coffee, and soda, grazing, snacking, and tasting. We'll also discuss pace of eating, plate and meal structure, as well as individual macronutrient mistakes people tend to make. So the first habit that I think people are making the mistake of getting into, or the first mistake, and this would be relatively hard to habitualize, a coach habitualizes this probably more than a client, but that would be misrepresenting caloric output through an

overestimation of an individual's caloric output. Meaning, you go online to use a macronutrient calculator to determine what you believe to be your total daily energy expenditure, or you use a simple activity multiplier. A lot of people will do total calories times 12 times 14 times 16, depending on activity level, or a lot of people will use a total daily energy expenditure calculator and they will list their activity as highly active. Now, here's the thing, folks. This is what you need to understand. Very few people actually qualify as highly active. I was on a podcast last week, really great time with Jimmy and Aram. I'll let you guys know when that one goes live. I'll share it on my Instagram story, and we might even feature it here as a guest episode. It was a good interview, and we discussed reverse dieting and common dieting

mistakes, one of which is just the general mistake of thinking you're a highly active adult just because you exercise. Jimmy, one of the hosts of the podcast, brought up the fact that in the many years he's been nutrition coaching, he's only had a few clients who've ever actually qualified as highly active. I'll use an example. Anybody who works in the trades where there is a high amount of labor-intensive work going on during your typical day, that would qualify as highly active. Anybody who does endurance training, that would qualify as highly active. Going to the gym for one to two hours of weightlifting, beneficial as that may be, or I should say beneficial as that is for your overall health, does not qualify you as highly active. Not even in the slightest, if I'm being completely honest. What we do see typically in adults who are

the most active are these labor-intensive jobs. I was working in my backyard last, so I'm filming this on Sunday at eight o'clock for a release on Monday morning. Interestingly enough, I spent about seven hours yesterday working in the backyard with my fiance's father and some workers. And that level of output would qualify someone as highly active. I know it is easy to think I exercise a lot, so I am highly active. But when you're quantifying your original calorie targets. It's really important to probably be a little more on the conservative end when it comes to quantifying your movement than to be a little

bit more liberal with it. And I say this because more people are likely to overestimate caloric expenditure and underestimate caloric intake. We've seen this in many studies. I'll point you to Lichtman et al as probably the best one we could look at. People typically overestimate not only how many calories they burn in a day, but also their overall activity. So when attempting to determine your total daily energy expenditure or better off how many calories you burn in a day. And you use an activity multiplier to do this. If you are stuck between a couple of options, maybe you're stuck between slightly active and moderately active or moderately active and highly active or highly active and extremely active, whatever, right? Opt for the lower end of the two. This would, I would say, tend to eliminate the likelihood

of making the mistake of overestimation. The second thing people do when trying to lose body fat that makes it substantially more difficult is going out to eat multiple times per week. We've discussed this on the podcast before. We discuss this with our clients at Core Coaching Method all the time, be it in the studio or be it with the clients we work with all over the world online. The average restaurant is not in the business of serving anything that is calorically thoughtful. They are not in the business of serving anything that is protein-centric. Many restaurants do have a healthy bend to them or feature ingredients that are health-promoting, but I'd say 95% of restaurants in America are optimizing for the pleasure of their consumers.

They're going to optimize for portion size, energy density, taste, and flavor. This means that they're going to cook with oils that are fattier. Notice I didn't say oils that are like highly inflammatory, like seed oils and such. You know what's more inflammatory than seed oils? Maintaining a high body fat for years and years and years or being obese for years and years and years. Who cares if they're cooking in seed oils or butter or olive oil? If they're cooking in too much lipid and too much fat, the caloric weight of the dish will go up, even if it is a quote unquote healthier fat like an olive oil or an avocado oil. And restaurants are typically in the business of cooking foods to optimize for palatability. That would mean

we would see higher fats, higher cooking fats, higher portion sizes or larger portion sizes, greater inclusion of low density, easy to digest foods that allow for greater consumption and hopefully ordering more. You'll also notice that many restaurants offer a free course prior to your order. This could be bread, this could be chips, and many will recommend cocktails, alcoholic beverages, and even desserts. So you're bookending a calorie-dense meal with even more calorie-dense snacks, chips, desserts that can be extremely difficult to track. And what often happens here, guys, is people will want to practice. And what often happens here, guys, is people will want to practice balance with the best of intentions, and I think you should,

and they go out of their way to track these foods, typically under-reporting the total caloric density. For example, they'll go out to eat, they'll have a bacon cheeseburger and fries with a beer, they'll go on MyFitnessPal, they'll type in bacon cheeseburger, and your subconscious will select the option that has the lowest calories when typically you're better off selecting the option that has the highest calories when eating out because you have to remember all the way down to the level at which the food is prepared, restaurants are optimizing for flavor, probably energy density density and consumer satisfaction more than they are being mindful of the total caloric weight of the item. This paired with the general experience and cost of eating out, there's some trade-offs here for fat loss. It's not to say you can't eat out, but you should eat out less. Not only will it save

you money and make it easier to lose body fat, it will also save you from the frustrating spiral effect that oftentimes happens when people go out to eat and let loose a little bit too far. And that can lead to really serious setbacks and slide backs with your overall fat loss goal. So I would keep eating out to once a week. And if you want my professional opinion, I would eat out more than once a week. If you can find restaurants or food preparation, uh, I don't know if you'd consider like Chipotle, a restaurant, a lot of people would consider that like fast food, be it fast food or be it a restaurant that can prepare foods that you have a relatively good idea in terms of the total caloric amount. I do find that fast food tends to be a little bit easier

to track, especially chain fast food than traditional sit-down eateries. If you can track it with accuracy, that degree of freedom can be actually beneficial to your diet in the long haul, but you need to be aware of everything when it comes to eating out for your fat loss goals. Okay, the third habit that has a really, really big impact on your pocketbook as well as your total calorie intake is another form of eating out, but it is food delivery services such as DoorDash, Uber Eats, Postmates, you name it, right? Grubhub, there's a lot of them. Not only are these relatively cost prohibitive, and this is as somebody who has a DoorDash premium membership through their credit card. So when I do use DoorDash, which I use it probably three to five

times a month for convenience, sometimes we get lunch order to the studio. Sometimes I get dinner ordered at home. These are oftentimes healthful, high protein options. Sometimes they're not. But one thing I have noticed, regardless of the app and regardless of my membership status in the app, the food prices tend to be increased substantially. And after taxes and delivery fees, it can be quite a racket to order food out. There's a couple reasons I included this as its own category. One of them was the financial side of things. Many people will point to money as a pretty substantial barrier for their ability to lose fat, to hire a coach,

to order supplements or lifestyle enhancing items that will help them stick to their diet. Be this pillows for their bed to help them sleep more, a water filter to encourage them to drink more water, protein powder to help them hit their protein intake, online coaching like working with me and my coaching company or using our coaching app or using our eBooks, right? All of these things that people say they can't afford, oftentimes they can't, but many times it's because they are negatively habit stacking two things that work antithetically to their ultimate goal. When I would do personal training consultations with people, I would always ask them if they said

they couldn't afford it, how many times a month are you eating out? People would typically say, I don't know, four to six. Well, now with the inflated cost of food, you can see four to six eating outs a month as anywhere from like 200 to 600 bucks, depending on where you're going out to eat and the stuff you like. Now, if on top of that, you're also getting food delivered at a really high price per meal, that's taking even more money out of your pocket that you could be investing in things that are going to enhance your fat loss. Additionally, you quite literally don't have to move. You probably only have to get up to walk to the door to get the food. And if you go out to eat and park really far away from the restaurant and walk to the restaurant, get up to go to the bathroom a couple of times, you're sitting with somebody, you're talking, you're using your body language,

moving your hands, getting back out, going back out to the car, driving home. There's so many more steps. There's so much less sloth and lethargy and sitting around and gluttony, quite frankly, that I would definitely say if you're in the habit of eating out and having food delivered regularly to your house whilst trying to lose body fat. 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 core coaching method.com and apply for one-on-one coaching with me and my team today. If you can afford it and it is convenient, go for it. But if you are pushing the envelope and looking for healthy things on there and not quite always being able to find them, that's money probably better off spent. And here's the thing. If convenience is important, don't stop. And money's not an issue. Don't stop having food delivered. Just have groceries delivered using Instacart or using Amazon Prime to have high quality groceries delivered to Instacart or using Amazon Prime to have high quality groceries delivered to your house. It's 10 bucks to have something delivered from Whole Foods via Amazon Prime's incredible fucking laundry list of things that they'll bring right to

your damn house. That's so cool. I'm not saying everybody's in a position to afford to shop at Whole Foods, but my guess is if you're somebody who's already using food delivery apps, you probably have enough disposable income to have groceries delivered that are more likely to be aligned with your fat loss goals. Here is a huge, huge, huge thing that people do that really makes it hard to lose fat. This is habit number four. It's snacking, grazing, tasting, licking, and sipping. So these are these small, small little snacks, raisings, and tastings. We'll talk about one specifically nefarious example in point six. But these were kind of unearthed when I had a number of clients over the years who were honest to a fault, but they just simply were not losing body fat. So these are clients who were very straightforward about their caloric intake, were sending me photographs of everything they ate,

individuals who were tracking with a very high degree of accuracy, but they weren't losing weight. And what I was noticing was they were tracking their meals with incredible accuracy, but they weren't tracking the smallest and seemingly most insignificant things, be it a chewable candy, a handful of nuts here, a couple of chips there, a sip of this, a taste of that. Now, each one of those things in isolation is very unlikely to put you from a calorie deficit to maintenance or even a surplus. But across an entire day, if you add up all of these small micro food transactions, it can make a difference, especially if you're in the habit of grazing. Grazing would be, for example, if you are at a dinner party, you track the dinner, but you don't track the two or three

times you walk over to have a nibble of some chips or a cookie. The more you are in the habit of grazing and snacking and nibbling on things, the more likely it is that you'll have some excessive caloric leak. And that is something to be very mindful of if you're trying to lose body fat. It's not to say that you can't have snacks. In fact, for many of our clients, we actually program snacks into their nutrition protocol because I think snacking is quite enjoyable. I like snacking myself and I oftentimes make room for snacking on things that have no unique health promoting opportunity. They're not healthful at all. I just like chips here. I like a cookie there.

But if those things are not getting accounted for, let's call it in a subconscious manner and that you're like consciously tracking all your meals, but your subconscious is like, you don't need to track that handful of chips. Well, that adds up if you do it a couple times a day or even a couple times a week. The fifth habit that I think really nukes fat loss for a lot of people is starting and ending their day with liquid calories. So many Americans, 80 to 90% start their day with caffeine. About 25 to 30 percent of those, based on my incredibly inaccurate estimation, have that caffeine in its pure form, meaning black coffee or plain tea, or I guess you could say a low-calorie or no-calorie energy drink. Most people have a coffee that has some combination of milk, cream, and sugar, or a tea that has some combination of

milk, cream, and sugar. It isn't that milk, cream, and sugar are fattening per se on their own, but when you include them in a beverage like coffee that doesn't particularly have a satiating effect, unlike say another caloric dense beverage like maybe a smoothie, you can drink an entire 300 calorie coffee that contains milk, cream, and sugar. And oftentimes the pastries that go along with this, many Americans start their day like this. I think it's a huge driver of the obesity epidemic, which is just starting your day with fucking stimulants and carbohydrates and wondering why the hell you can't lose body fat. So you see, you've got like 200 plus million Americans who start every day with

sugar, stimulants, fat, and highly refined carbohydrates that are hyperpalatable and they don't touch protein. And then they finish every day with one to two glasses of wine, one to two beers. If you're drinking 300, 400, 500 plus calories a day. And those calories come with either the drug caffeine or the drug alcohol. That is not going to help you too much with your fat loss, especially the alcohol. Caffeine actually might have a positive effect, but it's better off in its pure form. If you want to use caffeine to enhance performance, take a pre-workout. Drink coffee black. Drink black tea. Don't mix milk, fat, butter, dairy, whatever the hell-workout. Drink coffee black, drink black tea. Don't mix milk, fat, butter, dairy, whatever the hell people are putting in their coffee these days.

It just creates too much caloric leak. I'd also go so far as to say that it makes it more difficult to stick with your diet throughout the rest of the day if you are hyper-reliant on stimulants and you develop some dependence on alcohol in the evening that makes your sleep quality worse, and then you are stuck in this cycle of drink at night, sleep like shit, stimulate throughout the day, sedate to fall asleep. This is a vicious cycle, and a lot of Americans are stuck in this vicious cycle. Poor sleep, over-caffeinate, be anxious, sedate in the evening. It's kind of nasty. Be careful with it. Now, only do these beverages have drugs like caffeine and alcohol. Alcohol being much more of a drug, sure, but they have the ability to create a dependence. And with them oftentimes

comes a pretty substantial amount of calories. If you want to enjoy coffee and tea, try doing it black. If you want to enjoy alcohol, try to limit it to one drink an evening. But here's the crazy thing, guys. Even more than two drinks a week is legit bad for your health. So if you're losing body fat or your goal is to lose body fat exclusively for vanity's sake, I could care less what you do with alcohol. But if you have even the remotest and most incoherent idea of wanting to live a long time, maybe you're not exactly sure what that looks like. I'm not saying you have to be like Peter Atiyah and want to do like a fucking triathlon when you're 200 years old, but if you just don't want to die early, chill on the alcohol. It's probably a good idea. Okay. Number seven, if you'd like to lose body fat,

slow the hell down with your eating, put your fork down in between bites. Take a deep breath. Enjoy some water with your meal. Do not inhale your food. Chew each bite 10 to 20 times. Actually digest. Think about the food you're eating. Savor it. Enjoy the tastes. That's mindful eating, folks. Mindful eating is not fucking eating whatever you feel like, because if you do that, you'll be a fat bastard. That's like the honest truth. Like if I eat, oh, I'm an intuitive, mindful eater. I eat what I want when I want. It's like I fucking eat pizza and french fries all day. That's what I want to eat. Mindful and intuitive eating is listening to what your body is telling you from a satiety and hunger standpoint, then choosing to eat nutrient-dense whole foods, assuming you know what they are. Then when you eat them, being present and eating slowly and not inhaling them.

If you can do that, guys, it'll make a huge difference. But if you eat too fast and you don't chew and you simply inhale and you're selecting from hyperpalatable foods that are designed to kind of allow this kind of eating, then expect to gain more body fat than you'd like or have your fat loss be harder. Tip number eight, not knowing what a balanced plate looks like. When it comes to gaining muscle, your plates should be built around easy to digest carbohydrates, proteins, and fat sources. If your goals are body fat reduction, your plate should probably be built around vegetables, protein, and fibrous carbohydrates or starch sources. So if you want to lose body fat, here's a really

simple way to hack your plate. Make every plate half vegetables, one quarter protein, one quarter starchy carb or fruit. Okay? They can be that simple. You could literally say, oh, I want to lose fat. Okay, well, eat three plates a day. Half of them are green vegetables. A quarter of them is protein. A quarter of them is starchy carbs. You can have fat with that, of course. You can cook with it. You can have it on the side, whatever. If you're trying to lose fat and everything on your plate is hyper-palatable, starchy, snacky food, or very nutrient-dense foods like cheeses, it's going to be a lot harder. You want to build your plates and your meals around highly satiating foods, specifically

fibrous and cruciferous vegetables and protein. Building the right kind of plate and knowing what a plate ought to look like is huge. Yes, calories are king, but assuming you're kind of matching the plate to your body size, for example, if you're a bigger person, you have a bigger plate. If you're a smaller person, you have a smaller plate. But what's on that plate should be foods that are aligned ultimately with your goals. And from a caloric standpoint, knowing that calories drive fat loss, lean proteins and vegetables tend to be high on the satiety index and low on the calorie scale. That's where you want to be, folks. Number nine, and this is the meta problem when it comes to body fat loss, we hinted at it all throughout the day, is neglecting adequate and consistent

feedings of protein and fiber. This does not mean you have a protein shake. This does not mean you have a protein-rich breakfast. This does not mean you replace a protein shake. This does not mean you have a protein-rich breakfast. This does not mean you replace one meal with a salad. All of those tips work. This means across the day, if you are not having multiple servings of fruits or vegetables, multiple servings of whole grains, multiple servings of things that contain fiber, and pairing that with a number of protein feedings, meaning you have protein two, three, four times a day, your fat loss will be harder. You'll probably lose more muscle than you like.

And even though people do see success with things like fasting and different approaches, I do think it is better to have a good amount of protein and fiber available across the day to keep you fueled up and to keep you nourished. So guys, those are nine habits that really make it hard to lose body fat. Let's run through them again. The first is having terrible initial targets often set because you are overestimating how many calories you burn. The second problem is eating out too much. The third problem is having food delivered too much. The fourth is not accounting for snacking, grazing,

tasting. The fifth is alcohol and coffee. The seventh. Oh my gosh, we skipped six. Well, let's get it right here, folks. Nibbling as you go. Number six, bonus, nibbling as you go. Why I like this one is because it's kind of like snacking and grazing and tasting. I might have skipped this one because of that. But here's what makes it so different. It's when you're preparing a meal and you're snacking on the constituents as you go. So for example, you're going to weigh out a serving of chips so you can have chips. That's great. But in weighing out that serving of chips, you have a couple handfuls. That is caloric leak, folks. So six, be careful not to nibble as you go. Okay, back to the list. Number seven, eating too fast. Slow down. Be mindful. Put the fork down. Chew the food. Taste it. Have a dialogue. That helps a lot. Number eight, not knowing what a good and balanced plate should look like for your goals. And number nine, not getting enough fiber and protein throughout the day. If you guys found this episode helpful, please share it. A lot of people are looking to lose body fat,

get in shape and live healthier. And I want to help them do that with my content on social media, as well as this podcast. I want to grow this thing so, so well and so, so big, and I can't do it without your guys' help. So please share this, leave me a five-star written review on Apple podcasts or Spotify. It means so much to me. Thanks for tuning in and I will catch you on the next one. you