Dynamic Dialogue with Danny Matranga - 369: The Truth About Ozempic, Exercise and Skin Aging, Training Around Injury + More

Episode Date: May 29, 2024

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Welcome in folks to another episode of the Dynamic Dialogue podcast. As always, I'm your host Danny Matrenga, and in this episode we'll be discussing a variety of trending fitness topics, the primary of which are GLP-1 drugs, glucagon-like peptide drugs. These are things that you've heard of under the pharmaceutical name Ozempic or perhaps Wacovi. There are other drugs, but those are the main two people tend to know about. We'll discuss my opinion on these things. It just seems to be a very popular question I'm getting often. So I figured I would elucidate on it as a non-medical professional. We'll talk about exercise and dermatological or skin health, something that I've been interested

in lately as well, as well as training around injury and my new supplement routine. So I hope you guys enjoy the episode. We'll cover a variety of topics in detail, And if you want to, you can strave through and skip certain things as these episodes are going to be a little bit longer and a little more thorough. But I think you'll enjoy the entirety of the episode. So thanks for listening. 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

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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 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 Stim 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 KSMSM 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. Okay, so getting into the show, lots to talk about today. First thing is welcome back. It's been a little while since I've released an episode. Took a small hiatus to just enjoy some travel to

the nation's capital. Here in America, our nation's capital is Washington, D.C., which is on our east coast. And it's quite a beautiful city, especially when you go in the spring. My wife and I really enjoyed it. We got like 25,000 steps every single day. There's tons of free museums. There's tons of, you know, beautiful monuments to presidents, to fallen veterans. There's, in that kind of vein of museums, a lot of historical artifacts that are unique to America. Those are cool for people who are American, but also people who visit from all over the world. Super cool city, very, very walkable. We loved it. And just taking the time to really travel, go slow, enjoy things paired with the general busyness of the

first few months of the year in fitness with my studio, with our online coaching, with our app-based programming, with the clients who come to the studio. Lots of things to do. So a little space between episodes, but very happy to welcome you all back. One thing that has just been so present throughout the whole first quarter of the year in the fitness and kind of wellness scene is, of course, these GLP-1 drugs. So the most common GLP-1 drug is Ozempic. So when you hear people talk about GLP-1 drugs, you often just hear them use the term Ozempic to denote the entire category of drugs that fall into GLP-1. So that's like

when somebody calls a tissue Kleenex, or that's the brand, like, hey, get me a Kleenex. Well, what they mean is get me some like facial tissue. That'd be the name of the product. But Ozempic is just to the name of one manufacturer's GLP-1. There's many types of GLP-1. GLP-1 stands for glucagon-like peptide, right? So what we're going to try to talk about today is the entire all-encompassing, we're just going to talk about these things. We're going to unpack them, what they are, how they work in the body. I'm going to try to be agnostic about it. You know, as a, as a fitness professional, I'm not medically qualified to prescribe this drug. And I don't think I'm morally qualified to say, Oh, you should or shouldn't take it. I think

there's a ton of confusion around who it's for, how it could help what it does. And I, for one, could help, what it does. And I, for one, want to be more educated and substantially more open-minded myself. Now, maybe it's for you, maybe it's not. But we have to have a reasonable discussion about it. And I know that many of you want my opinion on this. I get a number of DMs about it. So I think it makes sense to have a discussion about GLP-1s, or as many of you know it, Ozempic, the most popular form of GLP-1 in terms of what's prescribed to people, how they work, what they do. So first things first, it's in the name. GLP-1, also called the GLP-1 agonists. Sometimes you see these two things thrown around.

The GLP stands for glucagon-like peptide, okay? So GLP-1s mimic a hormone called glucagon. These GLP-1 agonists, they work in this way. Now, this GLP-1 is naturally released in our GI tract, especially when we eat. The more we eat, the more we release GLP-1. So there seems to be a connection between consumption of food and the release of these glucagon-like peptides. That, to me, is a pretty clear link. When I eat, I should get some feedback from my gastrointestinal tract that I've eaten. That makes sense. Okay. When you eat something, your digestive system

is going to break it down into small molecules. So let's say it's carbohydrates. It's going to break down into sugar that travels into your bloodstream. GLP-1 triggers the release of insulin. Insulin is important for pulling that sugar out of the bloodstream and into our working muscle cells. If you had type 2 diabetes, now remember, these drugs were not originally prescribed for weight loss. Not saying it's good for that, not saying it's bad for that. Just saying historically, these drugs were not originally prescribed for weight loss, not saying it's good for that, not saying it's bad for that, just saying historically these drugs were used for diabetes management more recently. And both with the guidance of physicians and off-label, people have been using these compounds for weight loss, whether that is or isn't their explicit diagnostic was or was not their specific, let's say, pharmaceutical design at the time.

Started with diabetes, okay? If you have type 2 diabetes, which is different than type 1 diabetes, type 1 diabetes is genetic and it affects the pancreas. the cells that produce insulin actually start to die. It's autoimmune. Type 2 diabetes, on the other hand, is a disease that is more closely correlated with lifestyle, genetics, calorie intake, body composition, etc. More common than type 1 diabetes. If you have type 2 diabetes, the body cells are pretty resistant to insulin. We call this insulin resistance. You're not going to make enough insulin. You usually have a hard time with this. Now, GLP-1 agonist drugs get the pancreas to release more insulin and suppress the release of a hormone called glucagon, okay? They also, and this is key, this is one of the things that people don't quite understand,

in my opinion, when I hear them talking about this. There's lots of good authorities in the health and fitness space on many things, but I do think it's best to get your advice on these pharmaceuticals from physicians who specialize in them. I realize the irony as we speak about it, but I have heard very few people in the fitness space bring this up, but I've heard a lot of physicians bring this point up, which is that the GLP-1 agonists don't just act on the pancreas don't just act on, you know, the pancreas, um, to stimulate insulin. They don't just act on, um, the gastrointestinal tract to slow the motility of food. They also act on the brain to reduce hunger. Okay. They act on the stomach to delay emptying. That's pretty fascinating. And that is how they work very well for weight loss. It can drive two outcomes,

reduced food intake, reduced calorie intake, and reduced hunger, which are critical for dieting. So these two, this GLP-1 category of drugs is through these pathways specifically, through these pathways specifically, the stimulation of the pancreas to release insulin, that's one, through the pathway of acting on the brain to reduce hunger, from a third pathway,

acting on the stomach and gastrointestinal tract to delay emptying and slow motility. Those three effects from these compounds are extremely effective in a collaboration as a trio at reducing calorie intake and reducing total hunger. Those are the two things that drive reductions in blood sugar and generally reductions in body fat. It is much easier to maintain a calorie deficit when you have enhanced access to these, you know, let's say GLP-1 agonists, whether, you know, that you can actually make some similar things like this from eating a higher protein, higher fiber diet. You

can stimulate GLP-1 production, but not to this degree. So this works very, very well. The research is pretty clear too. Works great for weight loss, works great for diabetes. Now, does that mean people should or shouldn't take it? We'll talk about that in a second. I don't think that's my choice. I'm not qualified to answer that question as a non-medical professional. But what I do want to create is a permission structure between somebody who specializes in white knuckling weight loss. As a fitness professional, I've helped many people lose weight before Ozempic existed, and I've helped many people lose weight with Ozempic. And it's becoming more popular. I've become more agnostic about it. At first, I was like, it's cheating for like maybe

one or two days. And then I realized that's kind of ridiculous because my main goal is helping people live healthier. And while we're still learning more about how these drugs affect people in the long term, in the clinical trials, they seem to be very good at helping with the management of type 2 diabetes and obesity, which are both very unhealthy and things I'm super passionate about fixing. And it's quite hard to do that in the food landscape and environment that we live in, especially if you don't have a good grip on your hunger. You can't regulate your hunger because of stress, poor sleep, poor body composition, loads of stress, tons of externalities that you don't have control over. Maybe you have kids, you got to make sure that they will eat. It's crazy. So, you know, I'm just creating space to talk about it and giving you my opinion on how these would work. And, um, you know,

then you can go to your physician as somebody who's like, okay, I've, I've, I've rolled this over. Let's talk about it. Maybe this makes sense for me. Maybe it doesn't. And maybe you're not. A lot of people are very reckless in the acquisition of these compounds. They get them from non-reputable places. Not that I know enough about who's good, who's not. I don't. But I do think it's best to use this as a step one in like, okay, I like fitness. I'm into working out. I'm curious about this. My friends are taking it. It's literally everywhere now. South Park is making a special about this. That's how you know it's reached the apex of mainstream curiosity. When South Park is doing a special, which comes out, let's say I drop this. If I drop this this week, it'll be out the day after. It's coming out May 24th, which i think is very

funny um so it shows that we've reached like peak public consciousness curiosity about glp-1s and how they could help with weight loss um and also pretty big big reason we saw that tonal shift was the fda has approved now that glp-1 agonist drugs can be used for weight loss in people with obesity who do not have diabetes. Interestingly enough, I don't like, let's say there's a cat, there's got to be caveats to this because technically at five foot eight, 195 pounds, I am like obese. My BMI is like, I think I'm at like 190 something pounds, 198 pounds. Maybe I trip trick over into like a BMI of 30.01. And it's because I'm not that tall and I weigh a lot, but most of that weight's muscle. So metabolically I'm not obese, but you know, categorically I am. So my BMI is not good for assessing muscular people, but very good for general population. I doubt I could go get Ozempic because I'm quote unquote obese.

What I think, cause like you got to think every competitive bodybuilder is obese cause they're on so much steroids. They're so huge. Their body mass is massive. And then you also have to think like so many, I'm not talking about like natural bodybuilders, but like the biggest, biggest juiced up bodybuilders, their BMI is humongous because they're all kind of short. A lot of them are shorter than me and they're like fucking a hundred pounds heavier. They're huge. So they could just go get Ozempic because they qualify on a, the basis of BMI. I doubt it. I'm sure there'll be some criteria for the prescription, uh, that, you know, fits the person's metabolic profile. And I'm sure there's going to be a lot of loosey-goosey stuff that doesn't. And I think that's becoming more and

more common. So here are some of the names that maybe you've heard of in terms of these compounds. I think it's worth running through them. Most people, when they talk about GLP-1 drugs, they just use the blanket term Ozempic. ozempic is actually the type 2 diabetes injection approved for type 2 diabetes. It's semaglutide. It's an injection. But this was the type 2 diabetes semaglutide injection. Wegovi was the semaglutide injection approved for weight loss. There's also a semaglutide tablet known as Rebelsis, a liraglutide tablet that is Victoza, that is a different type. There's another liraglutide known as Saxenda. Now, there's also some pretty unique ones too. A lot of these are newer, and these are the

compound terzepatide, Monjaro for type two diabetes, terzepatide's other compound, Zepbound for weight loss. And there is also some other ones like Trulicity, Bayeta, and Biotion that I'm not quite that familiar with, but those are like the main things on the market that fall into that GLP-1 category. What I have seen generally is that from a weight loss perspective, if it's the same compound, but one's for weight loss, one's for diabetes, the weight management ones have higher doses, which I guess kind of makes sense. The ones from type two diabetes have lower doses,

same compound, but when they're approved for weight loss, they are larger doses, doses, same compound, but when they're approved for weight loss, they are larger doses, or I should say approved for obesity. Uh, okay. Most of them are injectable because this has the, this is the delivery method for best bioavailability, but there is an oral, that option is called Rebelsis. And when I was in Mexico last, I saw that everywhere in every pharmacy. Do with that what you will. It just showed me like six months ago, eight months ago, the appetite for these drugs was off the hook because the Mexican pharmacies carry whatever the American tourists want to go over there and buy.

And they sell it to you for really, really expensive, like crazy prices. Crazy, crazy prices. It's not like not crazy prices, but it's funny because it used to be the case that like the prices at the pharmacy in Mexico were quite a bit lower. But then when they realized what Americans would pay, they put a pretty high sticker price on some of this. And I noticed that those were all sold out. So there was a really big demand and a lot of selling out at least in at least

where I was out at. So that, that was for the tablet. So people probably have a, uh, aversion to injection, which I totally understand. It makes sense, but there is in almost all cases, um, injection only options for the big kind of main name brands that are the most popular. There have been some additional benefits found like cardiovascular protection. I could speculate on why that might be, but I think it probably goes in line with everything else. Better regulation of overall metabolism in that you are restricting calories, you are becoming more sensitive to insulin, you're probably burning body fat, becoming more metabolically healthy,

losing visceral fat, all good things that could generally improve heart function indirectly. To me, that makes a lot of sense. 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. There's also versions of this drug that are approved for children. I'm going to go right past that. No, I'm not a medical expert. I'm certainly not a pediatric medical expert. Just one thing I do know about obesity, and this is one of the things that really sucks, is if you have childhood obesity,

the likelihood of you having adult obesity is like way, way higher. And I know you guys are probably thinking like, yeah, no, duh, no shit. And a lot of you who are dedicated to fitness used to be heavier, but a lot of people are heavy their whole lives and they struggle to break out of it because the physiological state of obesity and having, you know, dysregulated blood sugar or metabolic disruption like type two diabetes or maybe of cardiovascular disease

or, you know, metabolic syndrome, as it's often called, if you have these disruptions in metabolism and you're heavier for long periods of time, it becomes harder to break free from that. And it is not as simple as just deciding not to be in that state anymore. If it was, these drugs wouldn't exist. That's a little bit of a departure from the point. The point is childhood obesity is very serious. And I know a lot of people who were very up in arms about the approval of some of these compounds

for children. I totally get it. I'm no expert in, you know, all of the potential long-term risks of these compounds. I don't think anyone is. We don't have a tremendous amount of long-term data. What I have seen leads me to believe that generally, when used on label, these things can be safe. That is my opinion. But there are side effects, the most common of which are gastrointestinal. And I think that is probably one of the more unfortunate side effects you can have with any medication. I really hate GI side effects, GI disruption. Feeling like I'm constipated or nauseous or having diarrhea or vomiting, all of these symptoms, by the way, are kind of leading or chief or the most likely. That sucks. So there's definitely a cost. And all of the clients who I've worked with, who I've never prescribed these, I'm not a doctor, but who have had these drugs prescribed to them, the most common thing I have heard about is nausea and constipation. Those were the two things I heard the most about.

Some vomiting, sometimes diarrhea, but more often than not, nausea and constipation. Um, there are some less common, but more serious side effects, such as pancreatitis, which is inflammation of the pancreas. Gastroparesis, which is the actual like stoppage of the movement in and out of the stomach. So look at the back half of the word, you can't see it, but the back half of the word is paresis, like almost like paralysis. Obstruction, actual bowel obstruction

or blockage kind of goes right in alignment with gastroparesis and gallstones. And so you look at that, and one thing that's always been pretty big to me is, okay, anytime there's a pharmaceutical option on the table for something, I'm skeptical because I've always, before it became such a political thing, I've always been pretty deeply skeptical of the pharmaceutical industry. I think this is very common of people who are in the fitness and health space. Duh, I have a literal job where I work in a field about preventative health and I want to keep people off of medication because I think it would be generally better for their long-term well-being. And I would love to see people live lives absent

from medication, but I've also trained long enough and learned enough and worked with enough people to know that medication can be life-saving if it's the right medication for the right person. And even though our current economic structure allows for insane enrichment of pharmaceutical companies through all kinds of crazy pathways. And there's not a lot of accountability for things when they go wrong. It sucks. But hey, I get it. A lot of these companies do the best they can and they make life-saving drugs in the various systems that we have in place economically and in healthcare, whether it's insurance or hospital or pharmacy structure, it's kind of fucked. And these people get super rich and it's super shitty because they are enriched on our poor health.

And that's always a bummer. And so I'm always really skeptical, but I do think the side effects of obesity are probably worse than the known side effects of, let's say, label use of GLP-1 under medical supervision. And so that's why as a trainer, if a client of mine decided to use this, I would be on board. I know a lot of people in the fitness space who would be pissed or mad at their clients like, fuck you. We're going to work hard. You're going to white knuckle it. White knuckling it is not for everybody, especially if they are white knuckling it in other areas. And I don't think I should close the door on anything that has been very helpful for a lot of people and could help to reduce or hopefully eliminate someone's obesity and just step them immediately into healthier shape.

You know, even though I'd love everybody to give me all the money in the world to give them a perfect protocol and have them be 100% compliant, and then we'd all be high-fiving each other, looking shredded with our washboard abs and discipline in Costa Rica. I don't think that's reasonable. I think different people are going to get their different ways. And just because I'm able to stay leaner than most people, and I have good food regulation, and I'm able to lose weight on higher calories because I have a very active job and my lifestyle allows me to do the things means other people have to do it that way. Some people are going to use these compounds. Like what about those people on the show, Like my 600 pound life, should they not

use this? I think they, maybe they should. I don't know. I'm not an expert. I just think that I would sign off on it. If somebody's doctor signed off on it, I wouldn't try to be judgmental about it. I would try to say, Hey, you're using this as a tool. I'm glad you have access to it. Let's get to work. Let's try to build as many healthy habits as possible. It seems that the retention of muscle is very important for people when it comes to this. So let's lift. It seems like the maintenance of your strength and your ability to function on reduced calories is important. So let's get some sleep. Let's stay active. Let's focus on building an off-ramp, so to speak. Shall we discuss, you know, good nutritional habits overall? And I think when

people, maybe they make the step to say, hey, I'm gonna listen to my doctor. I'm gonna take Ozempic. That might be a healthy choice. I know for some of you, you're like, fuck you. That's not healthy. You're crazy. It could be healthier than obesity or type 2 diabetes if this person is not in a position or doesn't have the tools or doesn't have the desire to fix it. Should they have the desire? I'm not the moral judge of everybody, okay? I should have the desire to fix a lot of the dumb elements of my behavior. And when I see my therapist and I talk about the dumb elements of my behavior, I am frequently frustrated that I'm unable to change them overnight. One of the behaviors I don't have to worry about too much is my food behavior.

I'm pretty good at that. Some people aren't. Some of that's genetics. Some of that's lifestyle. Some of that's white knuckling it. Fine. I'm just saying in general, based on what I've seen right now, based on the amount of questions I get, I generally think this is fine. But I think you should totally, totally, totally, totally have a discussion with your doctor

about it. And if you can't find that your doctor is willing to have that discussion, try to find another doctor who will before you just go getting this off-label from people or from compounding pharmacies. I do think it's important to have a true discussion so you can use this in the total context of your health and not just so you can lose weight quickly or as some type of, you know, hey, I have not yet tried this. My friends tried it.

I want to see what it's about. I think it's all about education and teaming up with somebody who can really guide you on this. So that's my opinion on it. Totally uneducated, totally non-medical. It's actually decently educated, but not medical. Okay. Second thing I have on the agenda today is talking about training while injured. This is something that happens a lot. I train in a studio with lots of people in person, lots of other trainers. So tons of people training, training hard. And for the most part, injuries are so freaking rare. It actually boggles my mind how infrequently my clients get hurt. Same thing with my trainers, clients, and same things with me and my trainers. But when you're active and you're pushing and you're really challenging yourself,

every once in a while, some tissues are going to act up, get strained, be overloaded, especially if you have an active job or you're doing stuff, it fucking happens. It's okay. And it's oftentimes random and not your fault and you shouldn't be super upset when it happens. But it's a question I'm asked so frequently. I injured X, what do I do? I have this coming up Y, what do I do? And so I have some themes here that I think can really help. The first thing is if you have pain, but you don't know what it is, but the pain is preventing you from moving in the way that you would like, definitely get a diagnosis from a good professional, usually a physical therapist. Sometimes this can be a chiropractor, although I would prefer a physical therapist, not always great to get a personal trainer's unqualified diagnosis, but try to figure out what the pain is. Don't be like,

oh, I got this shoulder thing. If you can get a good diagnosis in some capacity through your insurance or through a clinician, do it. It will help a lot. Identifying the injury is huge. If you in fact do have an injury, if it's not getting better, get identification. Another thing to do, if you believe you have an injury or you are injured, do not stop moving. That is critical, critical, critical, critical. Just, you know, exercise is huge. It's important to move. It helps with the maintenance of the other muscles. There's a, you know, non, there's actually a crazy thing that happens when you're have one side that's injured, but you train the uninjured side where the injured side actually, you know, generate some almost training like effects.

It's really cool. So we want to keep moving. We want to do everything we can. We want to be creative as hell and find ways to not stop moving if possible, but we can't overshoot and we can't overdo it. We have to listen to our body, we have to pay attention to pain. And if our tissue is like, ah, I don't know. And you're like, no, I'm going to grin and bear it. I'm going to white knuckle it. Injuries take way longer to recover. So don't stop moving, but get creative, get smart and find ways to not train with pain. Disqualify the movements that suck. That's my third tip. If something just sucks and it always sucks and it always hurts and you're never getting a good training effect out of it, just ditch it. Find a better variation. This goes for all training, but especially training when you're injured. I would also say to just frame it as a time to

focus on other parts of your body. Try to take a positive framing to the whole being injured situation. It sucks. It's demot positive framing to the whole being injured situation. It sucks. It's demotivating. It's debilitating. It really grinds you out and kind of flattens you. But focus on the areas that aren't injured and consider this an opportunity to really upskill in those areas with new muscle, new strength, new mobility, whatever. Lastly, just focus on the lifestyle stuff that is so critical for so many things.

But sleep and nutrition are really big all the time, but I think they're especially big when recovering from injury. Okay, segment three of the episode here is actually about dermatological health, specifically the health of your skin. I have two clients who are estheticians and, you know, recently I've been kind of talking, speaking with them just about skin and learning. And one thing that seems clear to me through speaking with them is much like fitness and nutrition. It has very, it's very complicated and nuanced, like the highest levels of being an esthetician or a dermatologist, or it's very, very like, um, high, high, high level at the highest ends of strength and conditioning and, and, you know, weight management and whatever. But for most people, the best stuff to do is like simple, big rocks. So it's like, I would tell somebody to have good muscles and good body composition, like lift weights, do enough cardio to keep a healthy heart, eat as many calories as you need and not much more, and eat a diet yourself in maybe tanning beds and maybe the sun if you can, uh, exfoliate here and there. Uh, you know, I think I said moisturize. There's some

basics that really make a huge impact. And one thing that's big to me is like, okay, let's say I do some basics and like I moisturize and I have like a little routine. I wash my face, cleanse it, whatever you want to call it. One thing I like is the sauna. I've always thought that the sauna has really cool and unique benefits for my skin. And one thing that I was speaking with both of these clients about is the circulation and the kind of blood rushing from the heart out into the extremities that happens with sauna. Like my whole skin gets flushed and the opposite happens when you go on the cold plunge. Your vessels constrict when you go on the cold plunge and blood shunts back to the heart and

your fingers oftentimes feel super cold and get like really white because all the blood goes back to your core to keep your core temperature higher. The most important stuff. Now, what's weird is in the sauna, the opposite happens. So your face gets flushed, your fingers get flushed, your toes get flushed, blood's like in your skin and extremities. And that's actually good for your skin. And kind of in studying this, I also learned that lifting weights is uniquely good for your skin. In fact, one study on 56 women, which I thought was fascinating, showed that lifting weights is specifically beneficial for the skin. Not that cardio isn't. In fact, the group in this study that did cardio got two of the same three benefits that the resistance training group got.

The resistance training group got the same effects as the cardio group on, and I can't remember the exact combination of the two things. One of them was like circulation. One of them was inflammatory properties. But one thing that resistance training did uniquely was enhanced skin thickness and the like lay down of new layers in the dermis. And I was like, damn, that's so cool. And that's from increased protein synthesis, not just in the muscles, but in your skin, hair, and nails. And one thing my wife often comments as somebody who resistance rains frequently, my hair grows crazy fast. I always need haircuts. My nails grow crazy fast. I always need to get them clipped. And, you know, outside of my beard, which is just kind of patchy genetically. And I think I

still have some maturing to do. Let's hope. I'm not like the, I grow hair pretty fast. Like it's just increased whole body protein synthesis from resistance training in a high protein diet. And I think my skin probably heals very quickly and lays down new tissue very quickly. So I thought that was fascinating that two of the things I do that are just big time general health things, sauna and lift, those two things actually help my overall skin health in unique ways. And that's awesome. I think it's chalk up two more points and two more reasons to resistance train. Lastly, just want to rip through my current supplementation, what it's looked like lately, what I've been taking, anything new. This is one addition that's new for my skincare routine. I'll start with the pills. It's a vitamin C

tablet. Legion launched a new vitamin C tablet and I am adding some direct vitamin C in with my multivitamin that I already take because I have heard vitamin C helps with the synthesis of collagen in addition to the known benefits as an antioxidant and for the immune system. Still taking magnesium for stress support and muscle recovery. A half a stick of LMNTs, electrolytes every day. Sometimes a full stick when I sauna, especially if there's a lot of fluid loss, but usually about a half a stick. Makes it last longer, makes it taste a little less salty and helps me control for sodium intake while still getting potassium and magnesium. If you were wondering why I do a half a dose, still enjoying

the stimulant free pre-workout so I can have espresso alongside it or separately. I like a creatine pre and post workout. I am now adding five grams of creatine monohydrate pre-training and taking a full serving of legions recharge supplement, which has five grams of creatine as well. So I'm getting 10 grams of creatine every day. I have noticed increases in strength on my power, clean front squat, barbell bench press and chin ups. And my body weight is closing in on 196 pounds. I think we were so I'm closing it on 200 pounds, which was a goal trying to put on some size and some explosive strength. But those are what my supplements were looking like. And that's it for the episode today, guys. I hope you enjoyed

it. I want to say thanks so much for tuning in, listening to the podcast, and I will catch you on the next episode. Thanks.