Dynamic Dialogue with Danny Matranga - 296: Seven Summer TIps for Easy Fat-Loss + Saving Money

Starting point is 00:00:00 Welcome in, everybody, to another episode of the Dynamic Dialogue podcast. As always, I'm your host, Danny Matrenga, and in this episode, I'm going to be going over seven summer hacks that I believe will help you maintain lean body composition, build muscle, increase your exposure to nutrient-dense foods, increase your health status across various metrics, all while saving you hopefully both time and money as we reach summer. I've been training for over a decade now, which means I've worked with thousands of people from all walks of life. And one thing that seems pretty true for most people is that summer is a time where we have a lot of things going on. We tend to vacation. We tend to

Starting point is 00:00:50 be very conscious of our physiques and the way we look because of some of the destinations we travel to, the events we go to, and we want to get the most out of this time of year. It's also a time where we're traveling a lot. Things get busy. There can be a lot of alcohol consumption, a lot of food consumption. So there are a lot of things to navigate. And I think this episode will really help you have a good summer. If you want to get leaner, feel fitter, feel healthier, do all of that while saving a little time and saving a little money. I think you'll really enjoy. 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,

Starting point is 00:01:39 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

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Starting point is 00:03:06 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. You know, folks, before this episode really came to be anything that included a nod to finance and practicality. It was more just an episode on, hey, you know, what can you do to help make getting leaner for summer a little bit easier? And, you know, I'll be honest with you. I think just from my own experience, my own life, like I have been very much aware of the changing economic conditions. You know, when I go to the grocery store or when I throw a question box up on my Instagram folks, the amount of questions I get about finding cheaper or less expensive ways to eat healthy

Starting point is 00:04:01 seem to be coming a lot more often and a lot more consistently. And so what I want to do is I want to make sure that I listen to my audience. I always want the content and the information that I put out there to be practical. And I know for many of you, fitness extends into areas like practicality, finance, how am I going to make this work? How am I going to swing this? So I wanted to pivot in a way into making this a list of seven things that you can do that are free or low cost, or they will save you money in most situations to help you live healthier, live leaner, get more out of summer, spend more time with your family, feel fitter in all the things that I think really, really matter.

Starting point is 00:04:53 So the first thing you can do this summer, a summer hack, if you will. And I think that this one is kind of specific to summer. It's a little bit more geographical, but it's something that you can definitely do more of in the summer. And that is to leverage things like barbecue cooking, smoking, outdoor cooking, uh, where you can cook a lot of protein and a lot of vegetables in bulk, um, for fairly low fuel costs, most barbecues are powered by gas. And propane right now is not absurdly overpriced. It's pretty pricey, but you can cook all of your protein for two months on a barbecue every Sunday with one can of propane, for example. And that'll last a lot longer. But what I enjoy about barbecuing specifically, you can do it outside. It can be social. It can be a great way to start a week,

Starting point is 00:05:50 to end a week. You can do it multiple nights a week. You can barbecue fish, right? Think about this. There are very few cooking implementations, be it an oven or devices, be it an oven, be it an air fryer, be it a Dutch oven, be it a, you know, obviously like a pan or a skillet, or when you saute something that are as versatile with as many proteins as grilling. Grilling is amazing for chicken breast, chicken thigh, pretty much every single cut of red meat and every kind of fish imaginable from shellfish, like full blown oysters to crust or to crustaceans like shrimp and crab all the way to fish. Like you can cook and prepare almost every protein fairly well on a barbecue grill. You can do it for your family. You can do it for

Starting point is 00:06:38 your friends. You can be social with it. It puts you outside, which for most of us in the United States, if there is a grilling season, it's summer, right? Like I understand I live in California, so I have the privilege of pretty much always being barbecue season. You know, it never gets too much colder than like 60 degrees and it never gets too much hotter than like 95 degrees. And during the summer we have like peak barbecuing weather. And I have found that barbecue cooking, while yes, when it's prepared in the stylistic way that it is in the American South, be that with sides like cornbread, macaroni and cheese, mashed potatoes, it's not always the quote unquote healthiest food.

Starting point is 00:07:17 But if you are talking about barbecue or grilling as an outdoor cooking method where you focus on cooking things like lean proteins, as well as many of the awesome grillable vegetables. Things like asparagus, for example, are a favorite of mine. Zucchini, another one that is a favorite of mine. We'll talk more about these things as we get deeper into the list. I find you can meal prep while you're doing this. So if you're cooking dinner one night, for example, everybody's going to have chicken thighs and asparagus. Well, you can throw a couple extra chicken thighs on there and a little extra asparagus on there. And while you're eating, simply let that cool down in a Tupperware, throw a lid on it, and everybody has a meal for the next day. So my number one, not number one in order of importance, just number one sequentially on the list,

Starting point is 00:08:05 habit or hack that you can implement this summer to increase your exposure to different nutrients, whether that be through eating more grilled vegetables or different proteins that you might be grilling, as well as increasing the likelihood that you get enough protein, make more quality food decisions, cook more from home, and most likely save some money is get outside, take advantage of things like barbecues, smokers, outdoor kitchens, try to make it social, try to get your family as involved as you can, and make healthy social decisions this summer. And I know what a lot of you are probably thinking, I probably would drink if I were at a barbecue. You do not have to drink alcohol to enjoy a barbecue. Okay. The number two tip I have for you is to include more of the following condiments.

Starting point is 00:08:57 These are mustards, hot sauces, and salsas. And I think these things go very, very well with a lot of the summer cooking. I know many of you think, oh, mustard, he's talking about hot dogs. Mustard goes well with a lot of different things. It's very nutrient dense. It's very low in calories. It's technically a condiment, but you could probably consider it a sauce. Salsa is made most typically from tomatoes, onions, cilantro, oftentimes things like garlic, jalapenos. These are calorie-free and nutrient-dense. And you can add salsas of various heats, various intensities, various flavor profiles, and various ingredients to so many dishes. They're so good during the summer. We're going to talk a lot about seasonal fruits and seasonal vegetables, the ones I like and ones youin that have unique benefits. They come in different colors and have different profiles than many other fruits and vegetables that we eat.

Starting point is 00:10:11 So when you eat more things like mustards, like salsas, like hot sauce, and you get exposure to these different grains, to these different peppers, to these different plant compounds, you get a really unique flavor profile. You can make it so that they're very low calorie. They can replace a lot of the high calorie condiments and sauces. And you can really add some serious variety to your food while also getting a pretty good amount of vegetables when it comes to things like salsas like pico de gallo that are in a little bit more of a kind of sliced than let's say pureed or sauced form. Okay. The third tip I have for you is, and this one is a big one,

Starting point is 00:10:56 is to enjoy more seasonal vegetables. Okay. So a lot of you don't eat enough vegetables. A lot of you are probably concerned about where your vegetables come from in terms of the order of importance. I think the most important thing is that you eat your vegetables. The second most important thing is that you eat a variety of vegetables. And then probably like of tertiary importance is, Hey, you know, where do those vegetables come from? Are they grown in a way where they can have a quality amount of nutrients in the actual fruit or vegetable body? Like, is it grown in shitty soil or is it grown in good soil? You could also look at things like the organic versus non-organic forms of the vegetables and the seasonality. But I think when you eat vegetables and you eat them frequently,

Starting point is 00:11:50 leveling up a little bit and aiming to eat seasonal vegetables can not only be a great way to take advantage of freshness, to take advantage of nutrient density, you can also really save some money. Like compared to going and eating out, barbecuing is going to be a great option. Some of the least expensive condiments are things like salsas, hot sauces, and mustards. Those are great, right? But when it comes to every day at the grocery store, a lot of you guys are buying fruits and you're buying vegetables. And you'll probably notice that when something is out of season, it tends to be a little bit more expensive than when it is in season. So focusing on vegetables that are in season during the summer, like squash, zucchini, tomatoes, I know those are a fruit. I

Starting point is 00:12:32 think of them more as a vegetables, things like corn, cucumber, eggplant, most of your lettuces and peppers. These things tend to be less expensive during the spring, summer, and early fall than they do other times of year because of their seasonality. So if you get a list of fruits and vegetables, we'll talk about fruits next, big surprise, that's the fourth thing. But if you look at a list of seasonal fruits and vegetables and you take that with you to the grocery store, you will likely find that those vegetables and fruits tend to run a little bit less expensive than vegetables and fruits that are still carried, but that are grown other places where the climate does permit or the seasonality does permit. And then they are imported. Cause remember guys,

Starting point is 00:13:19 when you have a, let's say a vegetable and maybe that vegetable is grown in Chile or Argentina in South America. And that vegetable is picked when it's like just getting ripe or barely ripe. It's then transported onto a truck or a plane. That's then transported to the States where it's transported onto a smaller truck or plane where it's then driven to a store and then loaded up. Those costs of import and business will, of course, raise the price of multiple different household items. We've seen this in the post-pandemic kind of inflated cost for various deliveries, for various manufacturing equipment, textile equipment, certain things that we used to be getting from

Starting point is 00:14:06 other countries for very cheap are now costing more because of the cost of moving them and the demand that was placed on our supply chain by some of the COVID policy around the globe. So you end up in a situation where people are used to paying more for things. But I think if you focus on, hey, what's in season? What can I get fresh? Another great option, and you can do this with your family as a full event. And again, no cost, completely free. Go to your local farmer's market. If you have a farmer's market, it's probably busiest during this time of the year, late spring into summer, early fall. 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

Starting point is 00:15:00 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 plan 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

Starting point is 00:15:35 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. Local farmers are often selling fruit and vegetable at or below the cost of what you could get it for at the grocery store. And even if it does cost the same, it's probably

Starting point is 00:16:16 going to make you feel a little bit better to know that you're getting something that was grown in your community, in your local soil, and that the money that you're paying for it is going directly into the pockets of the farmer who grew it, then it is into a huge multinational corporation grocery outlet or grocer that will then pay that farmer if they even have an operation sizable enough to get a contract with a grocer, pennies on the dollar for high volumes of their product. Whereas when you buy it from them at the farmer's market, they usually end up with quite a bit more in their pocket for the same amount of goods sold. So that's one that can be good for your community. It can be good for the people in

Starting point is 00:17:01 your community. It can be good for your plate. It can be an activity that you do with your family. And you don't really get these opportunities in winter and in fall the way you do in late spring and where we're at right now in summer. Okay. The fourth one is to also increase your exposure to seasonal fruits. So I am a huge fan of the summer seasonal fruits. Now, you guys have heard me on the podcast many times, champion the berry, champion the apple as being two of my favorite fruits. I'm also a huge fan of bananas, but my absolute favorite fruit, and this is something that I didn't get more clear on until I was an adult. When I was a kid, I used to just default and say raspberry or strawberry because those are good fruits.

Starting point is 00:17:50 But without a doubt, when you give me a ripe, picked perfectly and gently refrigerated white nectarine, I am over the moon. That is as good as candy. That's my favorite fruit there is, the white nectarine. Now, that falls into the stone fruit family. And a lot of you probably did not know this, but the stone fruit family is a pretty big family of fruits. Now, you're probably already spot on with, if you heard nectarine, you're probably also thinking peaches, right? Peaches are a stone fruit. Guess what else is a stone fruit? I did not know this. Blackberries and raspberries are considered stone fruits because of the pits. But when you think they're small little pits, but when you think of stone fruit, you should be thinking peaches, nectarines, plums, apricots, and pluots. Fun fact,

Starting point is 00:18:54 we used to get these. I grew up in Sonora. We used to get these in between Sonora and Manteca in a little town called Escalon. There was a fruit stand that sold the best pluots, which is a plum apricot hybrid. Oh, it's so good. Anyway, these are my favorite fruits, white nectarine being my favorite. But if you do not eat a stone fruit very often, uh, peaches, nectarines, apricots, blueberries, or I'm sorry, pluots, plums, and then some of those smaller berries. I would mostly just stick to the things that grow on a tree with a pit. Oh my goodness. Are those tough to beat in the summer? Another thing that's also very much in a season during the summer is melon. I'm a huge fan of melon. Um, you know, the cool thing about both melon and berries is they tend to have a very

Starting point is 00:19:46 high volume. They have a higher volume than something like a peach or a nectarine, which tend to have a little bit more calories packed in on a per gram weight adjusted basis. But all of these things, if you're eating more seasonal fruits, more seasonal vegetables, remember, we're getting more fiber. We're eating high volume foods that will fill your stomach and leave less room and less hunger for stuff that you probably shouldn't be eating. They have amazing plant compounds that can help with, you know, reducing free radicals in the body, things like antioxidants. They have things like polyphenols. They have things like I said already, fiber, digestive enzymes, certain plants, things

Starting point is 00:20:27 like papayas and mangoes, for example, have these enzymes that can help with digestion. Those tend to be available during the spring and into the summer. So eating more of these, building more of your meals around these, buying them in season from the right people for the right place, from the right places, probably going to save you money, probably going to help you get lean this summer, probably going to help you make better decisions for your family. The fifth thing you can do, or I believe this might be the fourth, I think it makes sense to just consider the fruits and vegetables one, is to up your steps and go on more planned hikes and walks to take advantage of the great weather. Again, a lot of this has to do with geography. I understand not all of you have access to what I have access to. I'm 40 minutes from the beach, an hour from San Francisco,

Starting point is 00:21:18 20 minutes from the Redwoods, and 15 minutes from all these lakes and streams. So I can get out in nature, no problem. But this time of year, you can get out in the morning, get out in the afternoon. You can get out in the early evening. You can get steps. You can schedule stuff with your friends, with your family to go out and get active and be in nature and use that time to move your body instead of sitting on your phone, sucking your life away on Tik TOK or on YouTube, watching shit, watching people buy shit, open shit, fill your heart with envy, you know, superficial laughs, or you get out in nature, experience the most beautiful time of the year, see what there is to see, get steps, be social,

Starting point is 00:21:57 invite your friends, invite your family. Like this costs nothing. You can take your dogs. If you do have to pay for something, you're paying for a small parking pass, probably for your local state park or wherever it is that tends to be good for your community, your local government, their ability to take care of these public areas. Like get out and do more of that this summer. Going to help you for sure save money, going to help you for sure be social, going to help you get a great tan, get exposure to vitamin D, get outside, but also it's planned exercise. It's planned activity. And if you want to get lean or, and stay lean throughout the summer, uh, it's really important to increase your activity level. Okay. Another one, and this is a big one. Uh, this would be five. And again,

Starting point is 00:22:40 this kind of just goes with the seasonality. When summer rolls around, it gets hot and you will probably sweat more and you will probably need more fluid. And I would aim for a simple 15 to 20 grams per day increase in your existing fluid intake. You can supplement with something like LMNT to make this more palatable and increase your exposure to these incredible electrolytes that often get diluted when we overhydrate. But during the summer, you're moving more, you're walking around, there's tons of alcohol, there's tons of sodas, there's tons of coffee. Stay focused, drink your water. Don't get dehydrated. That will dysregulate your appetite. Stay hydrated by drinking 15 to 20

Starting point is 00:23:21 more ounces of water a day. It can be that simple. You can add things to it. Like you can count your tea. You can count your electrolytes. You can count your coffee. Just make sure they're not sugared, calorie-laden versions of them towards your fluid total. But make sure you're getting enough fluid in throughout the day. Because as it gets hotter, having a little extra fluid, a little extra water will make a big difference, especially in your performance in the gym. Okay, two more, or I guess one more here, we can divide it into two. And that is to include more grains with your breakfasts, lunches,

Starting point is 00:24:06 and dinners. During winter, during the holidays, a lot of our meals are built around taste, around flavor, around tradition. And the same can be true of the summer. However, I find it is a little bit easier to eat more healthful, to focus on protein, to focus on fiber, to get a lot of snacks in throughout the day. Leafy greens, mushrooms, peppers. These are all things that I like to have in the morning with something like eggs or egg whites. I also have things like yogurt

Starting point is 00:24:37 and oatmeal or things like a bagel with the salmon or lox and some melon. I'm working on a breakfast thing here, right? So a protein shake with a couple of servings of fruit as well. During the summer, when you are busy, when you are on the go, having simple, high protein, high fiber meals for breakfast and for lunch is going to be critical. You might be able to be a little more flexible with dinner. We talked about being able to barbecue. Maybe you go out for a hike and swing somewhere on the way home and make some good decisions there, or you've had good decisions earlier in the day. So you have some more freedom, but high protein breakfasts like egg omelets with vegetables, like yogurt and oats, like things that contain, you know, these seasonal fruits like melons and stone fruit,

Starting point is 00:25:24 protein shakes, great. Cottage cheese is great. For lunch, we can feature a lot of the same things. We have all these seasonal fruits that can be sweet and tasty as a snack. We have all these seasonal vegetables that we can add to salads, things like tomatoes, all of those different lettuces, even things like cucumber. And we can build entire dishes, entire dishes around squash, zucchini, eggplant, bell peppers, all of these things. We just combine these with protein. This is the time of year where if you want easy, non-competitive ability to throw protein and plants on a plate and not have to worry about having something left over from some holiday

Starting point is 00:26:03 party to pick through or a bunch of junk lying around the house tempting you, this is a great time of year to do that. So folks, some tips that will help you save money, be social, spend time with the people you care about while getting lean and staying lean during the summer are to engage in outdoor cooking modalities like grilling, using the smoker, outdoor kitchens, going to the park, et cetera. Another one, aim to eat more seasonal fruits like stone fruits, apricots, cherries, plums, berries, melons, peaches, raspberries, limes. Another one, enjoy the same things, the same seasonal, but do vegetables, okay? Focus on seasonal vegetables as well. Squash, zucchini, tomato, corn, cherry tomatoes, cucumbers, eggplants, lettuces, bell peppers. Get outside.

Starting point is 00:26:54 Another tip, go on more walks, go on more hikes, get out in nature. Do this with friends, do this with family. When you're exercising, when you're walking, you're usually not eating, this with friends, do this with family. When you're exercising, when you're walking, you're usually not eating, you're usually not drinking, at least alcohol, hopefully not. Okay, another one, bump your alcohol intake down, bump your water intake up. We're talking 15 to 20 more ounces of water per day to beat the heat and stay hydrated. Replace those expensive drinks with just pure filtered water. Again, going out in nature, mostly free drinking water, mostly free. Okay. Have a high protein breakfast, have a high protein lunch, combine these things with fiber that can make the biggest difference in the world. I guess this list was actually only six. If in fact we consider

Starting point is 00:27:46 that fruits and vegetable seasonality are one, not two things, but I digress folks. I think you learned a lot. Hopefully you can implement these, share these tips and tricks with your clients. We want this to be practical, practical and actionable so people can take it and run with it. I hope you enjoyed this episode and I'll catch you on the next one.

Dynamic Dialogue with Danny Matranga - 296: Seven Summer TIps for Easy Fat-Loss + Saving Money

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