Dynamic Dialogue with Danny Matranga - 346: 11 Tips to Make 2024 your Healthiest Year Ever

Episode Date: December 19, 2023

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Welcome, everybody, to another episode of the Dynamic Dialogue podcast. As always, I'm your host, Danny Matranga, and in this episode, episode 346, I'm going to be going over 11 tools to make sure that 2024 is your healthiest year ever. We're going to be discussing things specific to sleep, specific to nutrition, specific to training, specific to finance, specific to supplementation, so that you can head into 2024 and finish off 2023 with quite a bit of momentum and set yourself up for a strong year of productive training and health management ahead. As we close out the year, I think it's important to take time to reflect on what works and quite frankly,

what hasn't worked. So with this list, I'm sharing with you 11 of my favorite tips, tools, and habits that have worked not just for many years, but worked particularly well in the modern world and in 2023 that I will be taking with me into 2024. Enjoy. Hey folks, getting into 11 tips to make 2024 your healthiest year ever. Let's start with number one. Number one is to hire a coach and follow an actual program. Um, the simple injection of structure into your fitness routine, like let's say you're already going to the gym, you're doing what you like, but maybe a little bit less of what you need. You're kind of in a rhythm, but you know, you could do things a little bit better, man. Does it make a difference to bring someone in or hop on a program and actually follow it consistently for

months? I have seen so many people who have been going to the gym for years, hire me as a coach, do one of our app programs. I can use myself as an example when I've hired a coach or I've followed a program, which now I do religiously, the gains you get compared to when you go and just do what you feel like are pretty different. You get faster gains, you get better results. You're able to allocate more time and energy and just focus in the gym to your effort, your execution. Because many of the best programs, and of course coaches cost something, there's this psychological thing that kicks in where, hey, I'm paying for this. I got to bust my ass. And man, where I see this the most is with the clients I work with in person.

A lot of you are surprised to hear that I actually train clients in person for like 40 hours a week in addition to my online coaching business. I know that many of you like working for like 40 hours a week. In addition to my online coaching business, I know that many of you like working more than 40 hours a week is not something you're interested in doing. For me, I look at the week pretty simply. Like I have 168 total hours. I train for like 10 of them, my own body. I sleep for like whatever seven hours is times seven days, like 50 of them. And I work for 40 of them in my studio that leaves me 68 hours a week to record podcasts, to hop on the calls. I need to do with online clients, to program for online clients, to work on the apps, to hang out with my wife, to hang out with the dogs. It's plenty of time. And so spending all that time

in the gym in person with clients has really shown me just how big of a difference it makes when somebody is paying to get better results. The financial allocation just makes a huge difference. And it's obviously more than that. Having a good program, having the direction, having someone push you, all of those things make a difference. But man, it is just huge how big of a difference hiring somebody or getting on some type of structured program makes when you don't change the total time you're training, when you don't change anything about your nutrition, all you do is you go from kind of doing what you want and winging it to doing what somebody else tells you and maybe pushing a little harder because you're paying for

it or they're barking at you. What a big difference. So if you're interested in like taking your fitness to the next level and you have the means to hire an in-person coach, an online coach, follow a program, I would strongly recommend doing that, especially if you're already in a rhythm. that, especially if you're already in a rhythm. Tip number two, and this is a big one for me, is to check your credit card, bank statement, whatever. It's very easy if you are somebody who uses credit cards because they have really easy interfaces for kind of seeing categorically where your spending falls, which is to say like, are you spending a lot of money at grocery stores?

Are you spending a lot of money at restaurants? And for a lot of people, I think you will find you are spending a good amount of money every month eating out. And there's absolutely nothing wrong with eating out. However, in America, many of our eateries, be it restaurants, be it fast food joints, be it grab and go, take out, carry out, door dash, whatever, the amount of additional caloric intake you are incurring by opting for a traditional restaurant dish because of portion sizes, because of additives, because of the things that are included in food to make it flavorful and make you want to come back, not even counting the financial cost of doing this. And I know that groceries are expensive right now. So for many

people eating out, comparatively speaking, isn't that much worse than buying food at home. Um, so I'm trying to make it less about the finances, even though I still believe eating at home is much less expensive. I've really reconnected with this since I got married because my wife handles a lot of the grocery shopping. Um, and I do a good chunk of the cooking, maybe 70%. But, um, you know, when I look at the bill and I see, okay, she spent, you know, a hundred bucks on the Amex at the Mexican market and 200 bucks at Costco. And we're not going to go to the grocery store for, you know, two, three weeks compared to when I was living by myself, I was spending two, 300 bucks a week eating food, just eating out like, Oh, 20 bucks at breakfast. Oh, 40 bucks at lunch. Oh, we're going out on a

date, 150 bucks. And I could easily get to 200, 300 bucks a week on food. So check your credit card or bank statement and see how much are you really eating out? Not only is there a financial cost, but you are incurring a ton of additional calories compared to cooking your own food. And if you can find that number, maybe it's two times a week, three times a week, four times a week, and cut it in half so that you can still enjoy the convenience and, of course, the flavor that you get when you eat food prepared by a professional, I think you can find some of that spending happening, see where you can cut back a little bit and try to cook more of those foods from home. A third tip that I have as we head into the new year, and this is one that I don't think a lot of people do enough of, is to actually audit the supplements that you're taking. Ask yourself, all the supplements that are

in my supplement cabinet that I take every day, is there any new research or new literature on these supplements that I should know about that might make me want to continue taking them, take more of them, or not want to take them at all? There are a number of supplements that I have taken over the years that after seeing new evidence or new research, I've chosen to take more of or more frequently like creatine or less of or not at all like St. John's wort. There are constantly studies and trials being done examining the efficacy of supplements in novel populations, in novel settings. So it's your job as the consumer to take a look at whatever it is that you just recurrently buy on the supplement website from Costco, from Influencer XYZ to see, is there still an evidence-based rationale for taking this supplement every single day? And if there's not, based rationale for taking this supplement every single day. And if there's not, and oftentimes I think you'll find that more research is done that, or I should say more data is acquired

through research that makes taking supplements kind of a, or stopping the consumption of a supplement, a no brainer, um, almost as much as there is data that's acquired that would say like, hey, you should definitely take this. Put simply, there's quite a bit of research that disqualifies certain supplements from needing to be taken. And if you stay up to date on that research, you can save yourself a lot of money and potentially even save yourself from taking something that might not be all that good for you. You would really be surprised how many people take supplements religiously for years and years and years. Maybe they have them on subscriptions. Maybe they just buy them the minute they run out that one don't really work in the dosage or form or have actually even been shown to be harmful.

And I would bet that if you are taking like five to 10 supplements, there's a good 20% of them that you could probably just pull out because the list of supplements that are proven to work, proven to be safe, proven to be effective for performance, health, longevity, et cetera, is still a fairly small list. And despite lots of research and lots of marketing, what works well tends to stick around. And a lot of the stuff that is marketed very well, but doesn't have a lot of evidence supporting its use will become more obvious over time. So definitely audit your supplement cabinet, throw out anything that's expired, pay attention to what isn't working. And for the stuff that is working or is proven to work, spend more money getting higher quality forms of those

things. A fourth tip I have for you, and this might sound silly, it's organizational, it's home specific. And that is to take a full day. This is like one of the best tools I could ever give you for eating healthier. It'll make you feel more organized. I wish somebody had told me this sooner when it comes to being more organized, eating healthier, et cetera, because it really held me back not knowing this. And that's that you should take one day every three to four months to audit your fridge, your freezer, and your pantry. Pull out anything that's expired. Pull out anything that you haven't eaten in two to three months.

You don't have to throw this stuff away. You can bring it places where people need food. But get rid of stuff that you're not eating. Create more space for stuff that will promote the outcomes you want. Make more space for healthy, nutrient-dense foods. Get rid of foods that are not healthy or nutrient-dense and foods you aren't eating. And watch what happens when you take the clutter, the junk, and all of that used space, eliminate it and start fresh. Every three to four months, you could go to Costco or one of your favorite grocery stores and fill all of that old used space that's since been

cleaned with foods that promote health, wellness, performance, buying certain things in bulk that you've now made space for, making a commitment to eat more of those. It can make a huge difference. A lot of people have food in their pantries, in their fridge, and in their freezer that they're never going to eat, they're never going to touch. And then they get into this cycle of like, oh, there's nothing here to eat, or we don't have anything good to eat or anything healthy to eat. Is that because your pantry, your fridge, and your freezer are full of crap that you've just been food hoarding forever that you have no intention of eating. And if it is just consider every three to four months doing a spring cleaning or audit on your food storage space. It can make a huge difference

in helping you eat healthier and have more of the right stuff in your home. Um, the fifth tip for making 2024 your healthiest year ever, again, goes back to loading up on the right stuff, but it is shopping in bulk for specific products that you can freeze or store for a long time. For example, at Costco, I can get like 20 pounds of oatmeal, 20 pounds of rice, high quality lean ground beef, chicken breast tenderloins, frozen fish that is substantially less expensive or the same cost as buying these products in much smaller sizes at more conventional grocers. And I can get in the habit of, you know, every day I have a cup of oatmeal or a cup of rice. So over the course of six months, I work through these 20 pound bags, but I always know I have high quality

grains available to help me fuel my training and performance. And the price per serving is extremely low. And I load up at the deli on, you know, or I shouldn't say the deli, let's call it the butcher counter or the meat counter on these, you know, ribeye steaks on filet on ground beef on Turkey, on chicken, on fish, whatever, when it's priced fairly or appropriately, when I freeze some of it, and then I pull it out of the freezer when I'm ready to cook it, when I'm not ready to have fresh, I don't let go to waste. These things make a huge difference, not just on saving you money and helping you maximize your cashflow and kind of avoid food waste. We all hate that. We all hate the bag of spinach that we buy and throw away every single week. And I think the reason that this happens is because, you know, quite frankly, we don't

freeze certain things and you can't just freeze a bag of spinach. They do sell frozen spinach, but you get the point. Try to load up on things that you can have often or are willing to pull out of the freezer at bulk stores like Sam's Club or Costco, or even at conventional grocers when you see them at a value. Because over time, it'll save you money, but segueing it into our fourth point, it will just fill your home with more of the foods that you know you need to eat. And if you don't let these foods become things that just sit around, it will make a big, big difference. 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. The sixth tip for making 2024 your healthiest year ever is again, another pretty simple one, but it's schedule your workouts in advance. I can't tell you how big of a difference this makes. If you put your workouts in your schedule at the end of the week leading into the new week,

don't do it Monday morning, like Saturday evening or Sunday morning, schedule your workouts on your calendar for the week to come. This will eliminate in most cases, all of those excuses, like I just don't have time. Couldn't get it in today, the day got away from me, because you will find those little pockets where you can fit a workout. And if you know that, hey, reasonably, I need three to four, 45 to 60 minute time chunks a week, it's a lot easier to find those on Saturday looking ahead at Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, than it is to find them on Tuesday when you already have not yet trained. And now you're just looking at Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and you're like,

where the heck am I going to fit in these three to four workouts in three to four days? If it's Saturday, and again, remember, Sunday's the first day of the week. If you find like, okay, Sunday, I can fit one in in the morning. Tuesday, I can fit one in in the afternoon. Wednesday, another one in the morning and Friday in the evening. And then you build your calendar around that. It will be easier than if you wait until Monday or Tuesday for the week to get going, for the stress to start piling up to try to find these workout times. Finding the time never works as well as making the time. I'm sure you guys have heard that, which is why for sticking

to your fitness, scheduling your workouts at least a week in advance is a huge benefit or a huge tool, I should say, for creating success with your fitness. The seventh tip I have has the same thing to, has kind of the same theory behind it with regards to scheduling. But it's for more of you who are kind of like a little bit on the other side of the spectrum. Maybe you exercise a little too much, and that is scheduling those times to take a break. It's scheduling those opportunities to deload. That stuff is really, really important and it makes a really, really big difference. And making sure that you have adequate time or adequate opportunities to step away from your training, to allow yourself to recover, not just your muscles or your joints, but also your nervous system makes a really big difference. And I find when people have travel coming up,

a lot of times they like freak out and go like, oh my gosh, how am I going to train while I'm traveling? Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. I'm never going to be able to get it done. I'm, where's the gym? And they freak out and they actually make their vacation a lot more stressful. Whereas if you're planning for deloads and you're like, okay, where can I look ahead? And maybe I'm going to train really hard for like three or four weeks. And then, oh shit, I'm going to Hawaii for a week. That'd be a perfect opportunity to have a deload. That is how I would do this folks. Look ahead, plan ahead and find opportunities to give your body much needed rest. If in fact, you're

somebody who maybe has a tendency to overdo it in the gym. The eighth tip I have for you, and this is one I've been doing more of lately, and man, has it been good for my mental health. Of course, it's good for your physical health because there's lots of movement, lots of steps, lots of sun, lots of high quality oxygen. And that's to just make time to get into nature at least I'd say twice a month, once a week, if you're lucky, if you're spoiled rotten, like I am, and you live in Northern California where I'm like three hours from Yosemite, 45 minutes from Muir Woods, you know, 15 minutes from Armstrong Redwoods, 30 minutes from California's coastal highway one. Like I am so spoiled rotten. I can be in the Red

Woods towering Sequoias in 15 minutes on the beach in 30 minutes, walking across the golden gate bridge in 50 minutes, you know, in Muir Woods in 40 minutes, like Yosemite's right here. Like I am spoiled. I understand that a lot of you, it's like, well, dude, getting out into nature for me doesn't look like getting out into nature for you. We don't have those things because I live in Oklahoma and I, you know, I understand that a lot of this is demographic dependent, socioeconomic dependent, privilege dependent, you name it. But if you can make a point to get movement outside, preferably in a beautiful, quiet, or peaceful environment where you can just be with nature,

I think you will find it improves your mental health. It improves your mood. It improves your sense of self. It gives you time to think. It decreases certain emotions that none of us love, like anxiety or stress. And man, oh man, does it make a big difference and feel like a total reset. So make some time, carve out some time this year to get into nature. Even if it's just briefly a couple of times a month, it'll make a huge difference. Number nine is to do a bedroom audit. And this is specifically sound, sight, and temperature. Make sure that you are able to regulate the temperature in your bedroom to keep it cool enough for sleep, probably somewhere between 62 and 70 degrees. your bedroom to keep it cool enough for sleep, probably somewhere between 62 and 70 degrees audit for sound. Make sure that if you are like me and you have a bedroom window, that's up against

somewhere where you can hear cars going by. Maybe you get some blackout curtains. Maybe you get something like, let's say, um, uh, I, I like Alexa, but you could use like Google voice. You could use Apple home. You could use, just use your phone at night to play something that releases like white noise, pink noise, green noise, or things that enhance theta wave production. I'm a big fan of like crackling fire, relaxing rain, babbling Brooke, pink noise, white noise, green noise, so that at night you have your sight, your sound, and your sense of hot and cold where you want them to help improve the quality of your sleep. A lot of you make time to be in bed for eight or nine hours, but the quality of sleep you get in that eight

to nine hours is shit, and that is something that we want to avoid. The 10th tip I have is actually another bedtime tip. And that is to have an actual bedtime and as well as a wake time. One of the like easiest things you can do to make sleeping easier is over the course of like a two week time period, like commit to having a set bedtime and a set wake time. And then if you want to really amplify that, have your workout like one hour, like 30 to one hour after 30 minutes to one hour after that wait time. So for example, if you just want to make your sleep like rock solid very quickly in a two week timeframe, do this. Pick your ideal bedtime. Let's say it's 9 PM and set an alarm at 8 PM so that by like 8 15,

you're brushing your teeth, you're turning the lights down, you're getting in bed. And let's say your ideal wake time is 5 AM. You set that alarm at 5 a.m. and you schedule a workout for 5.30 or 6. I know it sounds crazy, but after about two weeks, the kind of habit of going to bed at a certain time, specific time, I should say, and waking up at a specific time and working out very shortly thereafter seems to me to be one of the fastest ways to hack, and I hate to use that term, a new circadian rhythm around a more normal sleep-wake time. A lot of you are tossing and turning, tossing and turning. You can't relax. And I have found setting that bedtime, and it sucks for a little bit at like nine, and then setting that wake time for earlier in the morning, which also sucks, but then working out very shortly thereafter, it helps speed up the rate at which you adapt to that routine. And in about two weeks,

you could probably turn yourself into more of a morning person and you have your workout kind of knocked out before 7am and you're on with your day. And by the time you get to eight or 9pm, you'll find you're not tossing and turning. you're not anxious, you're not antsy, and getting to bed becomes a lot easier. And the last tip I have for you guys is to incorporate some form of mental health practice, be it therapy, that could be talk therapy, it could be another form of therapy, meditation, mindfulness, journaling, and I think you could even include faith, be it church, be it prayer, or nature here. Just allocate time for the health of your mind and for the clarity of your mind, where you can step away from work and from stress and from family and just be present in a way that maybe you aren't allocate a few minutes for that each week. It makes a huge, huge difference. All right, folks, there's 11 tips to make 2024

your healthiest year ever. Let's review them very quickly. The first is to hire a trainer, fitness coach, or follow a real fitness program. The second is to audit your credit card and bank statements to make sure that you are not overspending on food or habits slash behaviors. This could be alcohol consumption as well that are disconnected from your health and body composition goals. The third is to audit your supplements and check the research, what's latest and greatest surrounding the stuff that you're taking. The fourth is to clear out your fridge and your freezer of stuff you're not eating and make space to five loaded up with bulk products that support your goals. Number six,

schedule all your workouts at least a week in advance. Number seven, schedule your breaks and deloads around times where training may be inconvenient. Number eight, make a concerted effort to get into nature at least twice a month. Number nine, audit your bedroom to optimize for sounds, darkness, and sleep. Number 10, make sure that you have an actual bed and wake time. And number 11, make time for your brain, for your health, for your mood, and for your psychological well-being. That could be journaling.

It could be therapy. It could be many of these things. All right, folks. Thanks so much for tuning in. I want to remind you, hit subscribe. Leave me a five-star rating and review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, wherever you listen. And if you want to give me feedback, engage with me, or just say thanks for the episode, screenshot this, tag me, share it to

your Instagram story, and we can start a conversation about the episode. I'm always happy to chat with anybody who listens to the pod. Thanks so much for tuning in and I'll catch you on the next one.