Dynamic Dialogue with Danny Matranga - 286 - Q and A: Training While Pregnant, Breastfeeding, Supplements for Women, Fat-Loss + More

Episode Date: May 9, 2023

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Welcome in everybody to another episode of the Dynamic Dialogue podcast. In this podcast, I'm going to be discussing a variety of female specific fitness issues, such as training while pregnant, breastfeeding, supplementation specifically for women. We're also going to be discussing heart rate zones and fat loss, how one can build muscle whilst nursing. My usage and frequency of using the sauna training in your first trimester should be a really good episode for anybody who is planning on having children, who has had children, who is training anyone who is currently pregnant, looking to become pregnant. Really a good opportunity to take another deep dive into training and nutrition around female physiology. So guys, sit back and enjoy the episode.

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 dosages of ingredients shown to work in humans in clinical research supported by robust trials. No filler, just legit ingredients in each and every formulation proven to work. The whey protein isolate is so light. It's fantastic. It mixes in water. It tastes amazing. And I drink it every day, even as somebody who's lactose intolerant. That's just how high quality this whey protein is. And it's sourced from Irish dairy cows that are raised well, eat their natural diet, and packaged in climate-friendly packaging. I love their plant protein too, for those of you who like something that's a little on the thicker side and you aren't a fan of animal products. Also, I love Legion's 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. All right, guys. So getting into our first question, this one comes from Joyce Van Heer Wharton. And the question is, what supplements should women take? So let's first go ahead and start off with supplements that are

gender neutral, that have a good evidence basis for their recurrent use, meaning we have a robust body of literature that says these supplements work very well for most people to fill most holes regardless of situation. The first supplement is going to be protein powder. And protein powder is designed to supplement your diet and increase your intake of dietary protein. So it's really, really important that we understand protein powder as a supplement isn't going to do anything unique or magical outside of how it's going to help our body get and establish a higher daily protein intake, which is critical. So it's really the higher daily protein intake that's going to make the difference. So for example, when you supplement with protein, you're going to get more protein, more amino acid. You'll have greater access to

that across the day throughout the week. When you supplement with something like caffeine, we're looking for a more acute response. And that just doesn't really happen when we're supplementing with something like protein that's designed to bring us to the threshold that would be appropriate for our goals. And most of you are athletes, you're looking to have better body composition, maybe you're looking to lose a little body fat, and doing that is made all the much or all the more easier by getting adequate amounts of dietary protein. And a protein powder supplement is a very good way to do this. I am a huge, huge fan of whey protein powder. I like Legion's Whey Plus. It's a very high quality whey protein isolate. I really enjoy

the fact that it mixes easily. And even though I don't have the highest tolerance for lactose, it's not a problem for me to go ahead and have whey protein. So if you're not somebody who is interested in whey protein because you perhaps are super, super sensitive to dairy, I might recommend a plant-based protein blend. These are typically blends of brown rice and pea protein. Both of them are going to be yielding extra dietary protein, which I think is probably the single most important thing that you could do as an athlete is to just make sure that you're getting enough protein. So that's the first no-brainer supplement.

That one's going to be for men and for women. The second one is creatine. Again, gender neutral. It's going to help with performance. It's going to help with cognitive health. It might lead to some water retention, but that's okay. That's part of how it works. Very good supplement.

Very robust evidence basis. Very much safe for men and for women. And I will say this, in a decade or so of training, I have noticed that men typically have an easier time than women just based on dietary preference, hitting those protein targets, those upper echelon protein targets that we're so frequently looking to hit to reach our goals. And they do this with fatty fish and red meat more typically than do women, which is where creatine is most easily sourced from the diet. So if you eat less meat, you're more plant-centric, but you'd like to perform your best, it's very much possible to do that. The only thing that you need to pay attention to

is are you getting enough creatine? And if you're not, supplementing with creatine can make a really, really big difference. The next supplement is magnesium. Magnesium tends to be one that people are often deficient in. There's a variety of good forms. There's sucrosomal magnesium. Magnesium tends to be one that people are often deficient in. There's a variety of good forms. There's sucrosomal magnesium. There's magnesium L3 and 8. There's magnesium bisglycinate. All of those are effectively going to get you the magnesium you need. Some cross the blood-brain barrier, which might be better for sleep. Some are more musculature related in nature, like sucrosomal, more likely to help with muscle contraction. The key thing is not being deficient on this mineral or in this mineral that's so integral, that's so involved. Over 6,000

biological processes in the body are reliant on magnesium, which is fabulous. It's clearly something that's important. But if you reverse engineer that and you go, wait a minute, I'm deficient in magnesium. Let's say I only get 50% of what I need. That might mean that you very well have less magnesium available to do what it is you need to do at a biological level to the tune of 6,000 different reactions. So if you're 50% deficient, maybe that's 3,000 things in your body, not huge things, but let's call them important things that aren't going to be running optimally. So supplementing with magnesium, something that again, a lot of people struggle with getting from food. No brainer, in my opinion. The next supplement is an omega-3. And I'm getting better at saying omega-3 and not saying fish oil,

because I always have to remember, not everybody here eats meat. And if you don't eat meat, it is that much harder to get those omega-3s, which are, if you ask me, most easily sourced from cold water fatty fish. But the cool thing is you can get a little bit of, you can get that access to these things from algae. Again, interesting that the sources typically are oceanic, meaning you're either getting them from algae from the ocean or you're getting them from cold water fish, fatty fish from the ocean, which I think is super interesting. both of which are fantastic for elevating omega-3 levels in the body, which is correlated with brain health, can really help with inflammation, can really help with just feeling a lot better overall. I love that supplement in particular. And the last supplement, and there are men's and women's versions of this supplement, and I think that this is a nice segue, would probably be a multivitamin just to cover your bases. Now we'll pivot off of this into the supplements specific

for women that I think could be beneficial. The first one is iron. And I say this because women once a month, if they're of menstruating age, will have a pretty significant menstrual flow. Let's say they have a significant menstrual flow that could lead to a reduction in iron. And a lot of the most bioavailable iron that we get again comes from red meat. So knowing that just more generally men typically eat more red meat, women don't. It's not uncommon for women to need, on occasion, supplemental iron, more common in women than in men. So that's something you could talk about with your physician, with your doctor. Another great option is a prenatal vitamin. So this would be for somebody looking to conceive. Typically, you're going to get riboflavin, niacin, folate, biotin, your B vitamins, right? You'll get some

vitamin A, oftentimes some inositol, zinc, selenium, copper. A prenatal vitamin might be uniquely beneficial for a woman who is looking to conceive. Obviously, vitamin D3, K2, oftentimes when we see those together, that's a good thing. Great option for anybody who's looking to live healthier, but I do think for women specifically, there might be a unique benefit to supplementing with D3 and K2. If you are not working outside, don't get the opportunity to go outside all that often. Iodine and vitamin D3 deficiencies are very common. Calcium, another supplement that I think makes a lot of sense for women because of bone density. If you're not eating a lot of fish,

a lot of dairy, a lot of dark greens, it can be easy to be deficient. So those are the supplements that I would recommend for most people, women specifically. Okay. Next question here from Changes is, I heard getting your heart rate up is the best way to burn fat, but cardio isn't good for burning fat. Help me out here. Okay. Good question. Understandably, a lot of confusion. And I think it's going to be easy to unpack this. So from a calories burned perspective, meaning let's say you have somebody in there eating exactly the amount of calories that they need to be eating to be at caloric maintenance. Okay. eating to be at caloric maintenance, okay? So they need to be at caloric maintenance. So let's say 1,500 calories is exactly caloric maintenance, okay? Within that, we will say that this person

has the choice with a goal of fat loss to use aerobic exercise or resistance exercise. And they have exactly 60 minutes. They're sitting on the precipice of being in a deficit, but they are not. If they burn a single calorie below to move them below 1500, they will be in a deficit. If you gave them an hour and you said you can do lifting or you can do cardio, interestingly enough, I would say that the group that did cardio would burn more calories and probably be in a position to lose more weight and fat because of it. But we know that lifting is integral for fat loss. We know it's important to hold onto muscle. We know the positive hormonal changes associated with

consistent, rigorous, thoughtful resistance training really matter, right? These are really big difference maker kind of things. So I will say this, that yes, on a minute per minute basis, cardio is going to help you burn more calories. And in all likelihood, it's going to help you position yourself better for fat loss on a minute per minute basis than a modality that burns less calories. There are people out there who say that cardio is bad for fat loss. And what they're typically saying when they say this, what they're trying to say is that cardio is in isolation, not going to help you hold on to muscle. So if you rely on it exclusively, you'll end up with the problem of having excessive muscle protein breakdown, which is something that we're always trying to avoid

when we're lifting weights. It's really, really important that when we attempt to lose fat, or I shouldn't say when we're lifting weights, but when we're in a fat loss phase, when we're attempting to lose fat, we want to hold on to muscle because the body is only going to be so selective with its fat loss. It's going to lose tissue, bone, fat, muscle. Weight training in conjunction with cardio helps you hold on to muscle. Only doing cardio doesn't help you hold on to as much muscle, which in the long term for your fat loss, for your body composition, for looking the way most people would like to look, for looking the way most people would like to look, not the best. So that's where that line of thinking comes from. Now, getting your heart rate up is great for your vascular health, your veins, your arteries, right? Getting your heart rate up is good for your pulmonary health,

your lungs, your capillaries, your alveoli. Getting your heart rate up is good for your aerobic system writ large. It's good for your heart as a, as a muscle. So, so many beautiful, wonderful things happen when we do cardio. Um, and yes, it can help with fat loss. Uh, and yes, it's good for burning fat. All of this is, of course, understood if in fact you are one in a a deficit and two, eating enough protein and lifting so you hold on to your muscle. Cardio can be super helpful for fat loss, for health. It's so beneficial. What we need to do is we need to have a little more nuance, a little more thoughtful discussion around how we balance cardio and resistance in a fat loss phase and how making sure that you're not doing too much cardio and not doing too little

lifting doesn't set you back. What's going on guys? Taking a break from this episode to tell you a little bit about my coaching company, Core Coaching Method. More specifically, our app-based training. We partnered with Train Heroic to bring app-based training to you using the best technology and best user interface possible. You can join either my Home Heroes team, or you can train from home with bands and dumbbells, or Elite Physique, which is a female bodybuilding-focused program where you can train at the gym with equipments designed specifically to help you develop strength as well as the glutes, hamstrings, quads, and back. I have more teams coming planned for a variety of different fitness

levels. But what's cool about this is when you join these programs, you get programming that's updated every single week, the sets to do, the reps to do, exercise tutorials filmed by me with me and my team. So you'll get my exact coaching expertise as to how to perform the movement, whether you're training at home or you're training in the gym. And again, these teams are somewhat specific. So you'll find other members of those communities looking to pursue similar goals at similar fitness levels. You can chat, ask questions, upload form for form review, ask for substitutions. It's a really cool training community and you can try it completely free for seven days. Just click the link in the podcast description below. Can't wait to see you in the Core Coaching Collective, my app-based training community. Back to the show.

Next question comes from Linz Beeman. And the question is, have you trained pregnant women? If so, what are your general guidelines for helping them? So over the years, I've trained a number of pregnant women. And I will say the first thing that comes to mind the minute I, you know, I kind of hear this is that no single woman that I've ever trained had the same pregnancy as another one. Each pregnancy is very different. Okay. What I have found to be true is that walking, okay, walking is excellent. You can do this in each trimester of the pregnancy. So there's three trimesters. Each one kind of becomes a little bit more, let's call it, there's some limitations that come with

each one. This largely has to do with the hormonal changes and the actual changes in the fetus's size and how this affects the woman's body. But if you're walking on a treadmill, doing a light walk, jog in trimester one, that might look like a less intense walk in trimester three. Swimming is always good and considered to be safe during every trimester, especially later on. Water-based exercise provides a lot of support to the lower back. You know, aerobic classes, not my favorite. Strength training, I'm a huge, huge fan of. You just have to make concessions and adjustments as you go. I have had women who have weight lifted throughout the entire pregnancy. They just modify as they go by reducing weight, reducing the amount of

exercises that are done lying on the back, paying attention to how you're feeling, how you're recovering. There's a lot of different machine and very stable exercises that one can do from a stable or seated position that allow training during pregnancy to be relatively easy. What I would say is generally true is that what you can get away with in trimester one is very different from what you can get away with in trimester three. High risk pregnancies should always have a very, very tight leash on them from the physician, from the overseeing physician. Not exercising during pregnancy is probably a very bad idea. We know that mothers who are more active and maintain a leaner body composition,

I'm not saying be so lean, it jeopardizes the pregnancy, but women who gain more weight and eat more calories during their pregnancy, you need to do this to a certain degree. But if you are excessive, it does open the door for gestational diabetes development, which is dysregulated blood sugar associated with pregnancy essentially. And that increases the likelihood of the child developing type 2 diabetes in life as well. So there are so many reasons to say fit and active and healthy. And more recently, I've heard from a lot of the clients who I've trained through and around pregnancy that really, really good things happen with regards to the, let's say the actual birth or the actual labor itself, when the woman is fit, when the

woman does have strong muscles of the core, of the thighs, of the glutes, of the pelvic floor, it makes the pregnancy, in my opinion, a lot easier. So that's something that I would definitely recommend. Get yourself a coach, get yourself a trainer, ask your OBGYN, what can I do to be as fit, healthy, and active as possible? So the general guideline to answer the question, walk all three trimesters, engage in resistance training that is not going to jeopardize your pregnancy and that adjusts, tailors, and adapts trimester by trimester. Work closely hand-in-hand with your physician to optimize your nutrition and do what you can for your body composition to remain as healthful as possible. And remember that after you have your baby, you're going to enter a unique time period.

We'll talk about the postpartum window. But that time period also you'll benefit from exercise. It is not a great time to diet, to lose body fat. We'll talk about that in a second here. Okay, this question comes from Yulia94. And the question is, how often do you use the sauna? So I have a fabulous partner in the sauna game, Sisu Sauna based out of Ohio owned by my good buddy, Pete. They make a fabulous, fabulous full cedar sauna built by hand in Amish country by

real woodworkers comes to your house., can put it together in a day. So easy. I think it took me three hours. My good friend, Ted, who's Norwegian, who's built us on it by hand before, came and helped me do it. Was the easiest thing ever. Got the electrical set up. The best investment I have made in my health since my home gym. It's added value to my home. my home gym. It's added value to my home. I absolutely love it. Love it, love it, love it. I do it every day for 15 to 20 minutes. I don't think most people need to sauna every day for 15 to 20 minutes. I really don't. I think most people can benefit from a sauna and just using the sauna, just using the sauna, let's say 10 to 15 minutes, two to four times a week. That is going to get you the bulk of the benefits. We want to be somewhere between 40 and 60 minutes a week. If you can swing two 20-minute sessions after a couple workouts, two 30-minute sessions,

three 15s, four 15s, however you got to split it up to get to about 60 a week and get most of the benefits. Do you have to use it every day like me? Absolutely not. But again, I have this fabulous piece of equipment for my home. It's amazing. It is a game changer. If you want to add a sauna to your home space, to your training space, go to sisu lifestyle.com. go to sisu lifestyle.com. Check out their amazing, amazing saunas. I'm talking the best cedar sauna. I have the Eddie barrel, the two person that thing fits four people. It fit my friend Holden who's six, four to 30. My friend, Matt, who is six foot one, one 95. My friend, Brandon, who's built exactly like me, maybe an inch shorter, 95, my friend Brandon, who's built exactly like me, maybe an inch shorter, about five, eight,

five, nine in the one nineties, both of us. So that's like 800 pounds of beef that we slow cooked in this sauna. So a two person should comfortably sit at least three, depending on mobility, amazing product, beautiful with the roof kit. You can use the code Matranga when you check out to save a little bit of money. It's only so much you can save on a piece of equipment like this. But having it at home is so amazing. My mental wellbeing, my fitness, my aerobic health have already improved just doing this more consistently. I was already using the sauna fairly consistently, but having it every day is just so amazing, so convenient. And my fiance loves it. The family loves it. It's just, it's amazing. And it's honestly definitely a great way to build some home equity. If you were a homeowner and you plan on potentially using your home as a short-term

rental, I'd like to use my home in the future as a short-term rental. It's in Sonoma County. It's three minutes away from Northern California's best gym, Saiyan Strength, which has hundreds of thousands, if not millions of dollars worth of incredible equipment. It is like the absolute gateway to wine country. It's an hour from San Francisco. It's 30 minutes from Armstrong Redwoods, where you can see some of the most incredible redwood trees. Most of America's best wineries are within a one-hour drive, 30 minutes from Napa, 10 minutes from Healdsburg, 10 minutes from Sebastopol, these amazing communities that people come out to from all over the world to visit. So I'm like, hey, in two to five years, when I need more space,

I'll turn this thing into a short-term rental equipped with a home gym, a cold plunge, decked out with supplements and a sauna. And even if I were to sell the home, having the sauna would definitely add more value to it than things like hot tubs that require so much more maintenance and cost so much more money while quite frankly, not being as beneficial for your health. So I'm absolutely loving it. Another pregnancy question. This one comes from Logalo Salini. Love this question. Is it safe to work out in your first trimester of pregnancy? All again, just we'll circle back to the question that I got from Linz Beeman about training pregnant women in general guidelines. The first trimester, of course, you'll probably have the greatest anxiety because

you've just become pregnant. Probably the trimester in which you'll be able to get away with the most exercise. But again, depends on what you're hearing from your physician, depends on the pregnancy, depends on your history with exercise. But speaking generally, it is safe to engage in exercise throughout pregnancy, so long as you are working with a qualified trainer and coach, and so long as you are working with a qualified trainer and coach, and so long as you are working very closely with your physician to monitor how your pregnancy is trending. Last question here, another pregnancy-specific question. This one comes from Jacqueline V. Bernal, and the question is, I'm trying to build muscle, tips on trying to build

muscle while nursing. I am eight months postpartum. So, uh, nursing is something very worthy of discussing whenever we talk about female physiology and training in the postpartum window. So most women will opt to breastfeed if they can, which takes a number of additional calories to fuel. So if you are like many women and you gain weight during your pregnancy and your body changes, you know, typically the breasts will get larger. The stomach obviously expands to make room for the child. And you will typically see some fat accumulate. Many women will not be so thrilled with the way their body looks after pregnancy. And they'll want to engage in weight loss because we just generally live in a culture where when women aren't happy with the way their bodies look, there's a certain degree

of conditioning that kind of just tells them, well, go ahead and lose body fat. That'll make it better. And you got to remember to lose body fat, you need to be in a calorie deficit. And to have a consistent milk supply, you need to be in a calorie surplus. in a calorie deficit. And to have a consistent milk supply, you need to be in a calorie surplus. When cows are bred and raised to make milk, they're not put on a calorie deficit, folks. Okay. They are eating more food than they need because having and developing a consistent milk supply, okay, takes time. It takes energy. It takes calories. So I want you to think about this for a second. Milk, right? When you guys have milk, you got to remember milk has how many calories per cup, right? Like up to 160 for full fat milk. That's a pretty significant amount of milk,

isn't it? So if we know that there's a pretty solid amount of milk or a pretty solid amount of calories in say something like cow's milk, right? You can assume that human milk, also full fat, is going to very much yield a considerable amount of calories and take a considerable amount of calories to create. It is absolutely silly, in my opinion, to think for even one freaking second that you're going to be in a calorie deficit, and that is not going to jeopardize your milk supply. Folks, I see this so, so, so often. Women who jump right into dieting after their pregnancy, or they come to me after they're not able to maintain an adequate milk supply, like, Hey, I think I might be doing

something wrong here. I'm not exactly sure what it is, but my milk supply is drying up and weight loss is really hard. I'm craving stuff like crazy. It's really hard to lose weight after my pregnancy, to which I usually say like, what are you doing trying to lose weight during your pregnancy? You know what I mean? Like you need those extra calories to make milk. And a lot of women actually lose weight from breastfeeding alone because it's so calorically demanding. So that is not the window, the postpartum window to, in my opinion, attempt weight loss. It's just better to eat closer to maintenance, maybe give yourself a few extra calories, preferably those will be from like healthy fats, things that hopefully nourish your body, things that I would, in a perfect world,

hope that are mostly whole, minimally processed foods. Now, the truth is you're not going to make any milk if you're so what I often called orthorexic that you're eating only low-calorie foods. The calories have to come from somewhere. And so if you know you're going to be breastfeeding in that postpartum window and you're looking to build muscle, even more important to get the right amount of food into your system. And quite frankly, I think weight training during this window can be great. Some women over exercise, they choose very aggressive modalities of exercise that are very calorically demanding. That is probably not the best option when you're breastfeeding. I prefer something like

resistance that has a very high effect on the body, but it's not as calorically demanding. Okay, folks, I hope you enjoyed this episode of the podcast. If you did, be sure to share it. So many women out there are getting bombarded with health misinformation from coaches who've never trained real people or just from internet personalities or grifters on the internet. Don't let that happen. Share this podcast with them instead. If you learned something today, take one minute and do me a huge favor. Leave it a five-star rating and review on Spotify or Apple Podcasts, wherever you listen. Reviews make a huge difference and help

more people find the podcast. And I want to help more people find the podcast. So thank you so much for tuning in and I will catch you on the next one.