Dynamic Dialogue with Danny Matranga - 379: 11 Fat-Loss Tips that *Always* work:

Episode Date: August 7, 2024

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Welcome in everybody to another episode of the Dynamic Dialogue podcast. As always, I'm your host, Danny Matranga. And in this episode, I'm going to be sharing with you 11 essentially fail-proof tips for losing body fat. These work for pretty much everyone. Many of these have nothing to do with calories whatsoever. A lot of them are lifestyle related, emotional. They have to do with structure. They have to do with habits, routines, the kind of things that go a little bit beyond just, hey, get into a calorie deficit, track your macros. Of course, I know that is a requirement. I've been training and coaching nutrition for over a decade. But here's the thing.

I train a lot of normal people who need tips that meet them where they're at. So I think you'll find all 11 of these things can be really helpful, whether it's for you, for your clients, wherever you're at on your fitness journey. We're going to be discussing time horizons, how to use the scale and measure effectively, engaging in active tasks and finding things to do to burn calories beyond just moving more, tasks and finding things to do to burn calories beyond just moving more, finding ways to structure exercise appropriately for optimal fat loss, as well as whether or not you should draw hard lines, my take on restriction, various different macronutrient goals, targets, tips, and tricks, as well as some lifestyle and stress stuff that tends to help pretty much everyone I give it to,

and I hope it helps you too. Enjoy episode 379, 21 away from 400. Crazy. 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, 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 is sweetened with stevia. It's perfect for exercise and perfect for the sauna because the flavors are natural, tasty, delicious, and not overpowering. And if you're like me, you'll use them multiple times a day across your training sessions to get hydrated early to replenish after sauna use. And again, it's not just me. LMNT is the official sports drink of Team USA Weightlifting, and it's used by athletes in the NBA, NFL, Major League Baseball, as well as athletes like you and

I looking to take your fitness to the next level. My favorite flavors are definitely the raspberry and citrus. When I put a box together, I try to load up on raspberry and citrus. And when you put your box together, you can get a free sample pack containing all of Elements' amazing flavors like mango chili, citrus, raspberry, 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. Okay, folks. So getting into the 11 tips that I have, not just for clients, not just for people who come to see me at the studio or when I answer fitness questions, I really do think these habits and behaviors help a lot in general with your health and well-being. Many of them are not exclusive to losing body fat.

But given the landscape in which we live, given the prevalence of obesity in the West, especially in America, just the general number of people who live with, debatably, too much body fat and not nearly enough muscle, Debatably, too much body fat, not nearly enough muscle. I do tend to focus quite a bit on helping people lose weight and giving people tips to lose weight. And I know when many of you hear this, you might think, okay, I prefer a more weight neutral approach or, you know, I am not as invested in physique, body composition, weight loss, et cetera. I promise there's still lots in here. So the first tip I have for anyone who wants to lose a meaningful amount of body composition, weight loss, et cetera. I promise there's still lots in here. So the first tip I have for anyone who wants to lose a meaningful amount of body fat is to expand the

time horizon. And this is a tip that I've borrowed from many of the great investors really. And that and that is just this foundational notion that there is no perfect or best way to invest money and in fact a lot of the debate around what are the best vehicles for investment that take place amongst people who are lucky enough to have these debates oh is it real estate is it stocks is it this is it that i think that it stocks? Is it this? Is it that? I think that person's investment thesis is insane. Or I think that person's investment thesis is boring. Morgan Housel wrote somewhere, I believe it was in his book, The Psychology of Money, that none of us are crazy and that the majority of the decisions we make about money have to do with our time horizon. And I think when it comes to weight loss, time horizons can create tremendous, tremendous

friction because so often we choose a time horizon that is unreasonable. And it is often like attempting to accumulate a lot of money with an unreasonable time horizon. If an 18 year old who just got hired as a barista at Starbucks told you they wanted to be a millionaire inside of a year, you'd probably be like, okay, well, you're making between, I don't know, 10 and $20 an hour, depending on what state you live in, it would require a tremendous amount of work to generate enough capital to even make a dice roll investment at a million dollars. But if that same person said, hey, I want to be a millionaire in 20 years, it would be essentially impossible for this person to fail, even with a job where their

income level might be less than that you would expect of a millionaire if they invested in the S&P 500, got 8% returns for about 30, 35 years. Not that one has to commit to accumulating massive amounts of material wealth. That's really not the point here at all. This is, again, wealth agnostic. It's more of an idea or a concept of so many of the barriers we have to our greatest success is just a time horizon that doesn't add up. And if the time horizon is too short and it places pressure or it places a squeeze on the person, the decisions that they make tend to be worse. the decisions that they make tend to be worse. I find this is so true for fat loss. 90% of people I work with who have an explicit weight loss goal, when I ask them about the timeframe in which that goal exists, they so frequently select a timeframe that would make

the weight have to come off really rapidly. I want to lose 50 pounds in three months. rapidly. I want to lose 50 pounds in three months. Okay. That's really fast, but 50 pounds in a year, that's amazing. Even though it takes four times long, our success rate will be way higher and the tactics we'll be able to deploy will be much less volatile. It is not unlike money in that if you want to get rich really fast, your failure rate goes way, way up. And this is so true of how we eat. Though the more rapid you would like to achieve these changes in your physique, the more intense or crazy the, let's say, the tactic you're willing to deploy is. For example, you are willing to try the most restrictive, insane low calorie diet. You are willing to go on like a protein sparing modified fast every day versus longer time horizon.

I just need to maintain a small deficit more days than not. So I cannot recommend enough unless you have a legitimate reason to have a time constrained fat loss plan. Give yourself more time. Expand the time horizon. I promise it will lead to more success. Okay. This second tip might be contentious, but I want you to hear me out. And it is use the scale, And it is use the scale, use it twice a day, or don't use it at all. I know so many coaches who are deeply, deeply agitated by the relationship their clients have with the scale by the time that they come to work with them. And I would say that almost every client who's come to me for weight loss has a pre-existing relationship with their bathroom scale. And 99% of the time,

that relationship is a negative one that leads to a substantial amount of agitation, frustration, deflation. And it's just not a positive experience, right? Like they have never had a positive experience stepping on a bathroom scale. It always says something they don't want it to say. Every once in a while it goes down and they feel good, but for the most part, they avoid stepping on it out of fear. And I totally get that. But this is the thing, not to make another financial analogy. Um, if you check your stock portfolio once every two weeks, you have a picture of what's happening every 14 days or so, every 340 hours. And that might be helpful. Some of the best investment advice is to just not check at all. You know, like just, hey, don't even check.

Don't look. But you might check and see that there's a red day. You might have lost money and become like extremely defeated and anxious. And then you check again in two weeks and it's a green day and you've made money and you become excited defeated and anxious. And then you check again in two weeks, and it's a green day, and you've made money, and you become excited and anticipatory. Now, people who check every day have a better pulse of what's going on with their investments. People who never check probably have less anxiety. Now, here's the thing. With investing, you can set it and walk away depending on the asset and trust that things will generally work out because markets, products, corporations seem to be a little bit more consistent in their outputs and inputs than people.

do need a degree of monitoring. And while it might drive you insane to step on the scale and see it go up, I guess the equivalent of checking your portfolio and seeing money go out the door, it is data. And unlike a stock portfolio or a piece of real estate where maybe you check in on 10, 20, 30 years, and it's almost always going to be, you know, a more positive response to when you last checked. If you only get on the scale every 20, 10, 20, 30 years, you might be shocked. And when it comes to weighing yourself, I have found that a morning weigh-in and an evening weigh-in tend to be a fabulous way to generate data. A morning weigh-in after going to the bathroom to assess one's true weight is the most important. But an evening weigh-in to assess how your body's holding food, fluid, and just see the general trend in how much you swing from PM to AM

weights is pretty nice. I tend to, on average, have about a three and a half pound swing across the day. I gain about three and a half pounds. And then overnight, when I wake up the next day, I have gone down like three to four pounds. But in general, those two weigh-ins, when I generate them, give me two data points to watch. And when I plop them both on a trend line, the AM weights go down and the PM weights tend to go down if I'm eating appropriately. And I have to generate that data. So I have these trend lines.

Checking infrequently or even checking once a day is not as effective for me as using the data as data. But you have to detach your morality from it. The same way that when you see a bad investment day, you don't throw the whole portfolio out. You need to allow a less than perfect weigh-in not to guide you in the wrong direction. Okay.

The third tip I have, and this one seems so obvious, but so few people do it, is to buy a measuring tape, buy some calipers. These are a common tool used for the assessment of body fat. I would say that calipers and tape are by far my favorites. You could get a bioelectrical impedance body fat scanner. They're very inaccurate, but it is some data. You can use progress photographs, strength logs from your training. But the point is you need to have more data than just what you weigh if you want to be successful. My first and I think the most affordable option would probably be measuring tapes and photos. One of them's free.

One of them probably costs three bucks. But give yourself the option of adding more data to the mix, not less. Give yourself more to work with than just what you weigh. Give yourself more to, you know, track than just the linear progression of where your weight is going, because many of you might lose inches as you progression of where your weight is going because many of you might lose inches as you gain muscle and your weight might not go down as much as you like and you might not be exactly sure about how much your body is changing but measurements and photographs can reveal a lot. Okay the fourth thing I have for you and this is one that works tremendously well for

me is to seek out active tasks, engage in things that are active, especially during the spring and summer months. Not just steps, but find ways to move more. So for me, this is saying yes to a game of pickleball, saying yes to playing catch, saying yes to hanging out with my niece and nephew on a water slide, saying yes to putting in a garden, saying yes to going on another or a second walk with the dogs, saying yes to taking a stroll through Target with my wife after we've eaten to help our food get down. It means opting into more things that involve movement and activity. It does not mean chasing a 10,000 step count goal, which is fabulous. However, when you live an active life and seek out and engage in active tasks,

you'll find that 10,000 steps becomes almost an afterthought. But, you know, while I do see value in stepping and moving, I don't think it has any comparison to living and engaging in an active life. Now, this does not mean just go to the gym. That's one component of an active life. But one thing I can speak to as somebody who's been mostly lean most of my life and has no problem losing weight in general, doesn't mean it's easy. I just don't have a problem with it. Certainly easier for me than it is for many people. The more I move, the more I engage with movement, the better I feel. And also the more calories I burn, the easier it is to lose weight, period, full stop. So snaps are great. But if you have tasks, if you have jobs,

if you have things to do, if you have shit that you've been putting off, get that shit the fuck done. I know that sounds crazy, but if you've been avoiding taking a few trips up and down to the attic to sort through some shit or digging a hole in your backyard or whatever the fuck you know you got to do, get out there and do it. Not only are you going to burn some damn calories, you're going to move some of your, you're going to move your body. You're going to move. That is imperative. That is so helpful, so valuable. Do the things you have to do that are physical. Do a few of them a day. Don't just let your workout be the only movement you do. Engage in an active life. Take the bull by the horns. What's going on, guys? Coach Danny

here, taking a break from the episode to tell you about my coaching company, Core Coaching Method, and more specifically, our one-on-one fully tailored online coaching program. My online coaching program has kind of been the flagship for Core Coaching Method for a while. Of course, we do have PDF programming and we have app-based programming. But if you want a truly tailored one-on-one experience with a coach like myself or a member of my coaching team, someone who is certified, somebody who has multiple years of experience working with clients in person, online, somebody who has license to provide a macro nutrition plan, somebody who is actually good at communicating with clients because they've done it for years, whether that be via phone call, email, text, right? This one-on-one coaching program is really

designed to give you all the support you need with custom training designed for you, whether you're training from home, the gym, around your limitations and your goals. Nothing cookie cutter here, as well as easy to follow macronutrition programs that are non-restrictive. You'll get customized support directly from your coach's email, or they'll text you, or they'll WhatsApp you. We'll find the communication medium that best supports your goals, as well as provides you with accountability in the expertise best supports your goals, as well as provides you with the accountability and the expertise you need to succeed, as well as biofeedback monitoring, baked-in accountability support, and all of the stuff that you need from your

coach when you check in. We keep our rosters relatively small so that we can make sure you get the best support possible. But you can apply today by going over to corecoachingmethod.com, selecting the online coaching option. And if we have spots available, we'll definitely reach out to you to see if you're a good candidate. And if we don't put you on a waiting list, but we'll be sure to give you the best shot at the best coaching in the industry. So head over to corecoachingmethod.com and apply for one-on-one coaching with me and my team today.

head over to corecoachingmethod.com and apply for one-on-one coaching with me and my team today. Okay, number five, on the note of structured exercise. Specifically for fat loss, you can engage in structured exercise, lifting, running, I don't care, swimming. What is it that Stan Efferding says? The best exercise is the one you'll do. The best diet is the one you'll do. I totally agree. But hear me out. You can engage with structured exercise up to six days a week, but never seven. Why? Because most of you, if your goal is fat loss, should be restricting calories. I mean, if your goal is fat loss, you're not restricting calories. You're kind of fucking up. But if you are living on a form of caloric restriction that's leading to weight loss, you're probably going to start to feel fatigue and you're going to need that day to recover

at some point. I really love working out with my brother-in-law. It's been amazing. He's been coming over three times a week during the week. I have a pretty decked out garage gym. three times a week during the week. I have a pretty decked out garage gym. I've also recently invited my good friend Holden, who's a great trainer. So we're kind of having like a bro down three days a week doing some basic barbell lifts, really kind of simplifying the training, including the plyos from Forever Fit so it can stay explosive and stick with that program. But for the most part, it's built on compound lift. And Holden and I have been training for a very long time. And so we train about five days a week. Now, my brother-in-law is very new to lifting. And he's going like seven days. He's totally addicted, which is a phase that both Holden

and myself went through. And I respect it. I think it's hard not to get addicted to working out. But both Holden and I are sitting back watching as my brother-in-law kind of teeters towards the inevitable burnout, soft tissue issues, flatlining of progress that comes from overdoing it. And you can overdo it that much faster when you're in a deficit. And we're always telling my buddy or my brother-in-law like, yo, take the day off, take a rest day, give your body a chance. And a lot of you are so excited about this, you think we're crazy. But I really want to make sure you know, there's nothing like valiant about going that seventh day to complete the week if it leads to no recovery and injury. You got to give your body time to rest.

The sixth tip I have, stop listening to people who say nothing can be off limits. Everything has to be on the table. I generally agree that having hard lines in your nutrition and shit that you're just not going to eat is a little restrictive and maybe neurotic. But when it comes to fat loss, you have to be honest with yourself. And I recommend setting some hard lines. For me, if I want to lose body fat, I don't bring sweets in my house. I don't drink calories except for protein shakes. Now, that might seem really simple. Okay. So no sweets in the house, no booze, whatever. All right. Like no liquid calories, whatever. That doesn't have to be the

same for you. You need to know your triggers. Okay. If you can't go to fast food and get just one thing when you're in a pinch and you end up going to fast food all the time, when you don't have to then draw the line at fast food. If you pour too much creamer in your coffee, then you need to switch to something. You need to put the hard line in front of the habits and behaviors that are causing you the most problems. I think that is fair. Or at least do something like, hey, six days a week, I don't have a coffee with creamer. One day a week I do, but for six days, I restrict that so as to give myself a better chance of being in a deficit, right? I think hard lines do work. I think having food rules does work. I just think most people need to know and select

rules so that when the diet's over, they are allowed to go back to more normal eating. Okay, the seventh tip, perhaps the most obvious tip if you've been listening to the podcast or my content for any amount of time, and that's to load up on protein. 20, 30, 40 grams every two, three, four hours. We want to have good size servings of protein that feed our muscles, that fill us up, that provide satiety, which is a fancy way of saying that make us feel full. These things can be really helpful for sticking to a diet, but they are insanely helpful from recovering from your training and promoting the retention of lean mass or holding onto muscle. And I know many of you who are listening who are attempting to lose weight might be doing so with the assistance of a compound like Ozempic. And I'm

actually not against Ozempic. Again, to use the term, I'm kind of Ozempic agnostic. But one thing that I hear a lot from individuals who are taking Ozempic to lose body fat or on a diet of any kind to lose body fat is, hey, I'm afraid of losing muscle. And that's become way more common because of the rate at which people restrict in, with ozempic use, the calories are so restricted, they lose body fat very fast. They lose muscle mass and lean mass with it. However, this tip or protein intake will really, really give you some shield, if that makes sense. It will give you the chance to kind of insulate yourself. It's hard to lose a lot of muscle when you're feeding it appropriately. It's also hard to be full when you're eating or hungry when you're eating that much protein.

The eighth tip I have is to aim specifically for four to six full servings of fibrous fruits and vegetables every day. This is things like apples, berries, carrots, spinach, broccoli, kale, right? Leafy greens or fibrous fruits. Not that those are the only six options, not even close, but I would recommend four to six servings of vegetables and fruits spread across the day so as to take advantage of the fibrous filling effect that these foods have. Most of them are tremendously low in calories and very nutrient dense, which is super helpful when you're restricted on calories. Okay, the ninth tip, sleep as much as you reasonably can and take naps. Two reasons for this. One, when you're sleeping, you're not eating.

This is also a play on the fourth tip of engaging in more active tasks because when you're engaging in active tasks, you are also usually not eating or feeling the compulsion to eat, which is a huge part of losing body fat. When you're sleeping, you're regenerating your willpower, recovering your muscles, setting yourself up for a good day the next day, giving your mood a chance, very chaotic, stressful, and depressing world. So yeah, you know the benefits of sleep for health. You know the benefits of sleep for performance. But sleep specifically appears beneficial for fat loss because it does help with food rewards signaling in the brain.

It helps with cravings. It helps with the retention of lean mass. And it does seem to be the case that when you put people in a deficit and don't give them adequate sleep, they lose too much muscle. Okay. The 10th tip I have for you is to hydrate, hydrate, hydrate hard and add electrolytes to your fluids if you are removing high amounts of processed food from the diet. There is something that seems to happen a lot when

clients of mine have a history of low-carb dieting or they have a history of junk food eating and they switch to a cleaner way of eating. And that is there is a precipitous drop off in their sodium intake, paired often with a generally large increase in your, so you see less sodium coming in, less carbohydrates coming in, less calories coming in, right? Boom, boom, boom. That's an awful lot. And there are substantially less sodium because most of the sodium in these people's diets is coming from ultra processed foods. So when you remove the ultra processed foods and you add in all the activity, people tend to suffer from something. They don't tend to, but it does happen called the keto flu, which is basically just a huge, huge, huge loss of fluid, feeling flat and not having adequate sodium to really perform well. And I do recommend when you're cleaning up your diet big time in this way, that you just

make a point, if you can, to add some electrolytes to your water to help retain fluids and to help not flatline as you remove huge chunks of junk from your diet. This is definitely something that I think the bigger you are and the more dietary cleanup you have to do, the more important it is. But you want to hydrate all the time during a fat loss phase. And if you are removing junk, it might not be a bad idea to add some electrolytes to the water. My favorite, of course, is lemon tea. I really love the raspberry and the citrus flavors. Orange is also quite good. If you like watermelon, can't go wrong there, but not my favorite. Okay, the final tip I have is more esoteric, but perhaps the most important,

and it's managing stress and coping with emotions. The longer I've trained, the more apparent it's become to me that most people's eating issues are connected to an underlying state of emotional dysregulation, stress, boredom, lack of sleep, lack of conviction, feeling lost, feeling unhappy, unseen, unheard, unrecognized. These are feelings that a lot of people grapple with every day that are very heavy. These are feelings that a lot of people deal with every day that can feel isolating. And I know a lot of people are lonely or depressed or anxious, are feeling completely screen sick and overwhelmed by the amount of input that they get from work, from children, from technology.

And one of the best things that you can do to assuage that challenge or those emotions, um, is to turn to food and to allow food to give you a break from the kind of temporary discomfort because food is so rewarding. Um, so yeah, I guess, I guess when you really think about it, this is an appeal to better manage your, um, your emotional state to find and connect to all the ways in which the foods you eat, the things that you do, the choices you make around food, how many times that you're doing this, how often that you're doing this, going to food, is it about assuaging an emotional, you know, a sense of discomfort and dysregulation? And I really think for a lot of you, you don't need to turn to food. You choose to.

And if you had better, shall we say, if you had better emotional regulatory capacity, ability to regulate emotions, it would generally work out better for you than if you don't. Because if you don't, the best quickest options tend to be food, drugs, disconnecting. And those things, especially food, make it really hard to lose weight. So that's, I think, what I'm going to tell you to do. Become more in touch with who you are emotionally. Become a little more connected with what it is that you're struggling with emotionally and that is causing you to eat or leading you to turn to food. Okay, guys, there you have it. There's the 11 tips. Remember, we want to expand the time horizon. Use the scale often or not at all.

Lean on tools like measuring tapes, calipers, photos, strength logs, and non-scale victories. Engage in a more active life outside of just getting more steps. Do not work out seven days a week. Make time to recover. Know your hard lines. Know your limits. Know your triggers. Load up on protein.

Load up on fiber. Load up on sleep, load up on water, and learn to manage and regulate your emotions in a busy, chaotic world. I hope you found this episode helpful. If you did, be sure to hit subscribe, leave me a five-star rating and review on Apple Podcasts, as well as Spotify. Follow me across all socials, share this to your story, and tag me so I can say thanks, and I'll see you on the next one.