Dynamic Dialogue with Danny Matranga - 391: Cutting Out Sugar, Machines Vs. Free-Weights + More!

Episode Date: October 30, 2024

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Hey everybody, welcome into another episode of the dynamic dialogue podcast. As always, I'm your host Danny Matrenga. And in this episode, we're diving into questions about managing cravings and pseudo addictive behaviors around foods like sugar. We'll talk around creatine supplementation in adolescence. Creatine pretty safe, but always one of those things that I get a lot of questions about teens, young adults. We'll talk about free weights versus machines, as well as quite a bit about fat loss, managing

appetite, deficit expectations, and more. Should be a great discussion for anyone interested in performance enhancement, weight training, or nutrition. Thanks for listening. This episode is brought to you in part thanks to some of our amazing partners like Elementee. Elementee makes the best electrolyte product on the market. In fact, I've actually started drinking my Elementee 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,

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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, y'all, so getting into your questions, just a reminder, if you would like to have your question answered here on the podcast, I'm happy to do that. The easiest way to make sure that that happens is to connect with me over on my Instagram. I recommend following me on all the socials, including threads, X, YouTube, TikTok, and of course, Instagram. But once or twice a week, I drop a question box

where I field questions for Instagram as well as for the podcast. And I like to answer some of them here. So this first one comes from spinning vinyl gold. And the question is, how do you cut out candy when you can't stop snacking on it. So I'm just gonna swap this question to make it gently more applicable to more people. And I'm gonna say, how do we swap out sweets for those of us who have a proclivity of fondness, shall we say, for eating foods that are sweet? I like to snack.

Some people don't like to snack. I just prefer to snack on savory versus sweet. Some people like to that are sweet. I like to snack. Some people don't like to snack. I just prefer to snack on savory versus sweet. Some people like to snack on sweet. So this would be for people who have a tendency to snack on foods that are sweet. This is oftentimes ultra processed junk, quote unquote junk food. This could be candy, like mentioned here.

This could be cookies. This could be pastries, anything sweet. So I think the first order of business, when we have a eating behavior that is chronic, it's something that you're saying, hey, I can't cut this out. It might have some pseudo addictive pseudo compulsive. It might appear in that way. Like man, once I start, I can't stop. So these are complex eating behaviors And I think just like anything if you couldn't stop going on your phone if you couldn't stop I don't know you'd think of the compulsion

I you you need to redesign the environment to encourage less interaction and I think this is true of any compulsive overuse slash pseudo-addictive behavior if And I think this is true of any compulsive overuse slash pseudo addictive behavior. If you were addicted to gambling and you were always gambling on, you know, in the casino, you might want to spend less time in the casino. So if you are constantly at home snacking on candy, you need to reduce the amount of candy, the volume of candy you have to snack on. You need to reduce the number of trips and the amount you're willing to replenish and

replace the candy in your quote unquote stash, right? Like this would be true for drugs. This would be true for buying playing cards or trading cards. All the strange things people may get addicted to. You have to create like space between you and the thing. And so if the thing is sweets, you need to bring less in your house. Redesigning the environment is probably the first thing I would do. So substantially less of this thing around you. So you have no choice but to engage with it less.

Secondarily, and I think this is, this is probably a better thing to take on second. Your best bet from the jump remains actually addressing having, I think, less of the problem around you. But alternatives, I think, can be really, really helpful. And one of the things that I like as an alternative for sweets are things like fruits, things like gum and things like diet soda. And I know what you're thinking, whoa, like fruit, yeah, I get that, that's healthy. But diet soda has artificial sweeteners

and gum has things in it too. And it's like, okay, I understand that maybe diet soda and gum aren't healthy, but neither are candy, cookies, cakes, et cetera. We'll get there. Let's start with the fruit. So when it comes to the fruit, yes, fruit is very sweet, but it's actually a lot less sweet when you eat a lot of sugar. If you have ever been to a summer barbecue where they have something like watermelon or strawberries, but they also have something like soda, one thing you'll notice if you go from drinking soda to eating fruit is it

doesn't taste very sweet. If you take a bite of watermelon and it's like, wow, that was sweet. But then you take a swig of soda, you'd be like, whoa, that was sweet. And you go back to the watermelon, you're like, why was that so bland? And it's, there's some type of adaptation that occurs. At least this is true for me, where when I've tasted something extremely sweet, something that is naturally sweet and just doesn't have the same hit. And so with the fruit, you're taking advantage of having some sugary foods and some sweet tasting foods. Yes, but they're going to be much friendlier on the waistline and actually improve your nutrient status, which is a good thing. Now, I bring up gum and diet soda as alternatives that I think are objectively not healthy or health

neutral. I think fruit is actually health promoting, so that, you know, switching out, you know, first we change the environment, then we actually introduce an alternative that takes something that's making our health worse and adds something that's making our health better. I used to do this all the time when I was coaching clients at 24-Hour Fitness early in my training career,

and we would do assessments with people. I would be like, okay, one thing we can for sure do today is identify a bad habit that either costs you time or money and replace it with a healthy habit. So it would be like, what's an unhealthy habit that costs you time and or money? So be like, well, you know, I actually go out to, uh, you know, sit in the drive through every morning at Starbucks when it's crowded before work and I spend 1150, which is 60 bucks a week basically. And it's, you know, garbage food. It's like 800 calories.

And I would tell these people, all right, so check it out. This is what we're going to do. We're going to take Starbucks out, switch it for like black coffee and a low calorie sweetener at home. And we're going to take the 25 minutes you're sitting in line every day and that's 60 bucks. And, you know, you're going to come see me once a week. This was back when personal training sessions were sick between 60 and like 80 bucks. And, and then, you know, you'll work out, uh, two more times a week and it'd be remarkable how effective it would be to be like, take one really negative habit that is causing your problem and replace it with one really positive habit, uh, that will improve it. And for people who are eating too much sugar and artificial processed, ultra

processed junk food, eating more whole food, nutrient-dense food, things like fruit is a great swap. So start there. Then have some additional alternatives, things like diet soda that can be portable that you can take with you that have a carbonation effect that provides satiety and fullness via the CO2 and the expansion of the stomach. But they're also very tasty, and they definitely do the trick. And while artificial sweeteners aren't health promoting and safe doses for people who aren't sensitive to them for whatever reason, I think they're probably fine.

And I think one, every once in a while, every couple days, even every day, if it's within reason and not causing problems, could be a great way to buffer against these, you know, cravings you have for older processed high calorie, high sugar foods. If you eat less of those over time and you generally over time kind of shift to wanting things that are a little less sweet, that could be helpful. And these could help. Gum, I feel similarly about sometimes if you want something sweet, chewing a little gum can kind of kill that craving. But objectively, when you feel a craving, you need to develop the tools and the coping skills to let it pass and not oblige it with unhealthy eating behavior. That is the challenge so many of us

face in the modern food environment, of course, which is like, hey, we have stressful lives, emotional lives, and a great coping tool is grabbing some candy. It actually, it makes me feel better so quickly. It makes me feel better like almost entirely and I'm really happy about that. But it in the long term, it really actually comes back to bite me in the butt. Okay. Second question from DK Weijian and the question is, is working out on a machine different than working out with free weights? So the answer is yes and no in a few contexts. You're going to get some yeses and no. So the better meta context of is it resistance training? Yes. All resistance training, whether it's free weights, machines, kettlebells,

dumbbells, cables, it's all loading your muscle tissues. And that's really important because that's kind of the bedrock, the crux of it. You can load them with machines, you can load them with cables, you can load them with free weights. As long as you're loading them, you're good. Now, contextually, I would say if you are an advanced weightlifter and you have tremendous stability and control of your body and the ability to load your tissues through full ranges of motion. Free weights offer some benefits that machines probably don't. Machines are built to accommodate lots of people. Free weight exercises can be set up just for your body. For example, a leg press is going to be, you know, you can change your foot and

hip position, but you can't change the shape, the movement path of the press. But you can really do that with the squat or a lunge or a lot of the leg exercises that you load with free weight. So there is an adaptability, a personalization component to free weight training that makes it better, I think in the long term to build programming around it. But machines are awesome and they provide unique benefits like being highly stable. They might let us get a lengthened position challenge that we can't quite get in a Safe way with free weights all the time. For example, I want to train a client's Hamstrings to be stronger and more powerful, but they're having a hard time picking up the RDL Well a lying hamstring curl lets me strengthen the hamstrings in the shortened position. Okay

Seated lets me do it hamstrings in the shortened position. Seated lets me do it in the lengthened position. Most people can't fuck those up even if they tried. Might be a great way to have that client get in touch with those muscles. Now for an advanced lifter, two needs multiple sets of hamstring work a week. Of course I'm going to want to offset some of the deadlift volume we're doing with these machines. And so I think that's a really helpful, really kind of good way to look at it.

They're both great. How much we use them is contextual. They're both, in my opinion, always going to show up in a good program. In fact, I can't even think of a time where recently where I've made a program for a client at the gym who had machines where I did not work them in with free weights They just go together. So so well, okay Jasmine CBL wants to know should you reset after being in a deficit for a long time? She says for too long I would say if you feel that you've been in a deficit for too long

And your health is starting to take it has taken a dip from the lack of nutrition a lack of energy availability to take has taken a dip from the lack of nutrition, a lack of energy availability, spending some time at maintenance or a slight surplus, even if it means gaining some body fat, which I know a lot of people are uncomfortable with. It is very, very difficult to get lean, to see yourself change, to enhance the appearance of your, your physique aesthetically, to get attention for that and to then regain body fat and have to begin to re-identify as being less lean and have less visible abs. It's challenging. But I would say all of that is better than declining health because you're under eating. And if you know that, hey, my health's really taking a hit. Yes, I lost

some body fat from being in a deficit., yes, I lost some body fat from being in a deficit. Psychologically, I could use a break from being in a deficit. A great way to avoid like binging and over-introducing calories is to just spend some time at maintenance. Typically, it's the case that when people over-restrict, they over-restrict socially and that they spend less time around social settings with food and they often tend to restrict carbohydrates. And while I would be cautious about reintroduction of things like ultra processed food and alcohol, if you add more

carbs into your diet to give yourself the energy you need to perform and reintroduce some kind of social food stuff into your life, I am of the opinion that you'll probably begin to feel better more quickly and less restricted and be more capable of re-entering a deficit with some success and having a chance to adhere to it in the future. Which that's kind of the whole name of the game is being able to adhere to it and then also to sustain a healthy kind of endpoint after we've achieved a physique that we're content with

that is also one that of course is healthy and sustainable. And that's another, you know, that's a whole podcast episode for itself. The expectations around what is actually healthy and sustainable, because I'll tell you this, I am one of the few natural fitness people I know who is able to maintain a six-pack all year round. And I think that that's funny because that might sound like a flex, but it's only because I'm just really thin and I move all the time. So

I am also the kind of person that if you saw me, you would definitely be able to tell him natural. Not and I don't mean that in a pejorative way to speak negatively. I'm just saying like, hey, you saw me with a pump. You'd be like, dang, that guy looks pretty buff. Like he has separation in his muscles, fullness in his muscles. But oh, and he has abs and he looks maybe like with a pump. He looks like maybe he could be on something without a pump. I'm so normal looking.

And I think that's very true for a lot of natural lifters. And that's honestly hard to square. Just that is hard to square. Right? So like I can, I can empathize. Um, but there's always trade-offs. If you are natural and you insist on being lean all year, uh, or you are lean all year, you are probably going to be not optimally fueled. And I can say that is often true for myself. Sometimes I don't have enough fuel to train. I, you know, it's, it's, you probably shouldn't chronically over diet, but you should probably also just have like realistic expectations. Like I know that as a naturally leaner person with some muscle,

even you know, compared to people who are not natural, I'm not going to look the same and ex accepting that is okay. Knowing that is okay. Some people are naturally maybe thicker, heavier, denser. They look chat. They look big as fuck, but maybe they're not as lean as they want to be, right? We just have to become okay and accept, how we look at multiple different points along the way. Some points you're going to look great,

some points you're going to not have your best physique, but maybe you'll be a little healthier. You need to be able to appreciate that kind of all along the way. 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 are a 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 licensed 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 a 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 macro nutrition programs that are non-restrictive. You'll get customized support directly from your coach's email or they'll text you or their WhatsApp view. We'll find the communication medium that best supports your goals as well as provides you with accountability in 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 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, we'll 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. Okay, Merck Fossus says, I'm in a calorie deficit, but my weight is still the same. What can I do? This is extremely frustrating. So cool thing, but my weight is still the same. What can I do? This is extremely frustrating.

So cool thing. If your weight is staying the same, we actually don't call that a calorie deficit. We have a different word for that. And that word is maintenance. When you hear the word maintenance, you should think of maintaining or stabilizing. Your weight isn't moving. Therefore your weight is maintaining. That means you are eating at maintenance calories. Your weight isn't moving, therefore your weight is maintaining.

That means you are eating at maintenance calories. Now there might be days where you're eating in a deficit. For example, maybe Monday through Friday, you eat 1000 calories a day and you're in a huge deficit. But Saturday and Sunday, you eat 3000 calories and erase all of that and you end up at maintenance for the week. So whenever I see a question like this, it is always imperative, and I often forget,

but it is very important to bring up the importance of tracking your calories with accuracy. This means using a food scale whenever it is possible. This means using a food tracking app whenever it is possible. This means using a food tracking app whenever it is possible. This is abundantly true for everyone, but it is more true for smaller women because it is generally the case, and again, I say generally the case that women who are smaller have a lower total daily energy expenditure, meaning they have less margin for error, period. If you had to eat 1,500 calories a day to be in a deficit, that is substantially harder to track accurately than 3,000 because you can be 10% off on a 3,000 calorie goal

and have a 300 calorie margin for error. But on a 1,500 calorie goal, 10% margin is only 150 calories. And it's very easy to miss by 150 calories. So I would recommend that you lock in and make sure that you are tracking accurately and if you are then the only move you have is to expend more calories Through movement Or to eat less calories, it's that simple I couldn't be You know it could be the case that your metabolism has constrained slightly to meet the demands of you know operating on a lower caloric intake for a longer period of time

But again you have just a few options here. Track tighter, make sure you're on point. Move more, eat less. OK, this question comes from MF Glover. The question is, why is zone two cardio better for burning fat than more intense exercise like HIIT? So first off, all cardiovascular exercise is good for your cardiovascular system.

But higher output exercise like HIIT probably does more on a minute-per-minute basis than lower intensity zone 2 work, which is quite good, but you need to do more of it. Now, when it comes to burning fat, when we say why is one better for burning fat, it's a little bit of a miscommunication. And this is what I mean. So in theory, whatever exercise burns the most calories is the best for burning fat. Because think about the discussion we just had

about calorie maintenance. Whatever exercise brings you farther below your maintenance calories through expenditure is probably the most helpful if you don't overeat. Because like, oh, I ran a marathon and I burned 4,000 calories, but then I hit the Chinese buffet and ate 8,000 back. Right. So you don't want to look at the exercise most likely to burn calories if there's a compensatory response in appetite and hit cardio tends to have this compensatory response. So that might not be your best choice.

And people go well zone two, it might make you less hungry and it burns fat. I get it guys. I want it to be true too, but this is the thing. Using fat as fuel is so different than burning fat off your body. Okay, so like when you are me sitting here talking, recording this podcast right now, like gently moving in my chair, I'm probably using fat as fuel because it's low intensity aerobic exercise or low intensity aerobic movement. I don't have to tap into carbohydrates. I don't have to tap into creatine.

It's not powerful or explosive, right? This is that low intensity stuff. I don't have to tap into carbohydrates. I don't have to tap into creatine. It's not powerful or explosive, right? This is that low intensity stuff. And zone two might fall into the category where we can use fat to fuel that exercise. But I could do two hours of zone two cardio and exclusively burn fat in like a fully fasted state. But if I overate that day, I would lose zero body fat

because circulating triglycerides in your blood or whatever you're fueling exercise with isn't like just a, you know, it's not like your body just injects a straw into your fat cells and starts sipping it up. The minute you do zone two, you're using fat to fuel the creation of ATP at lower intensities and carbs to fuel the creation of ATP at higher intensities. Sprints and weights, carbs. Walking zone two, probably more fats. Zone three, zone four, zone five, probably a blend of carbs and fats, but the higher you go, the more carbs. It isn't rocket science. Fat loss is different from substrate utilization. Just remember, fat loss comes

from eating less. Substrate utilization means what fuel we're using. And you can do fat burning workouts, quote unquote, or exercise that uses fat as fuel. You can do glycolytic workouts, exercise that use carbs as fuel. If you're in a deficit, you're going to lose weight. But the cool thing is glycolytic carb-dominant exercises, like weight training and sprinting, tend to add muscle and retain muscle, and they also tend to actually prioritize fat substrate Utilization the rest of the day. So whatever you burn more of during exercise You tend to burn the all the other fuel more during non exercise hours

So I wouldn't sweat it I would just do your zone two and do your hit for good cardio health and high and low end cardio, you know And then get your diet tight if you want to lose weight Okay, speaking of weight loss the Jorlin wants to know for someone who has 30 plus pounds to lose where to start What's the first thing you tell them? I would say It's the first thing I would say is don't take on Too much all at once. Pick something and crush it.

Maybe it's your diet, maybe it's training, but just pick one and crush it. Whichever you don't pick, do kind of good with. At first people want to be perfect with the training and they want to be perfect with the diet. It's like a fuck ton all at once and it can be really defeating because things change really slow with your body. Might be better to be like, hey, I'm going to be really perfect with the diet. It's like a fuck ton all at once. And it can be really defeating, because things change really slow with your body. Might be better to be like, hey, I'm going to be really good with my training. I'm going to train three days a week

and go on a walk every day. And then for nutrition, I'm not going to start a crazy diet. I'm going to make some like high leverage swaps. We talked about some of those earlier on the show. You know, like swapping snacks for fruit or like sweet snacks for fruit. So I would say pick one thing to really hone in on, whether it's your training or your nutrition.

And if you're already training and you need to lose 30 pounds, you know the answer is your nutrition. And then work to improve slowly in the other areas of lifestyle, and just bring it all together. But you just have to get going really hard in one direction. And because weight loss is your goal,

and you have a clear goal of 30 pounds, I would say you'll get more bang for your buck going all in on your nutrition, and really focusing on nailing that, not getting distracted and building out from there. Okay, from Sarah D. Gray, can my kids have creatine? my son's 14 and joins me in the gym? Yeah, totally fine I think that creatine is more than okay for adolescent and teens. I can definitely help with performance Okay, how do you know when a calorie deficit is sufficient for weight loss?

This one's from M Stern You're gonna be losing weight and you might actually experience feelings of hunger and like discomfort temporarily. And that's totally okay. A big reason people like quit dieting is because they're like, Oh my God, I felt hungry. That was bullshit. It's like, yo, welcome to the deficit. You know, like a lot of times when you're in a deficit, whether it's daily or chronically, you're going to feel hunger. And that's a great sign that the deficit is sufficient. You're like, oh shoot, I'm kinda feeling it. Maybe my energy's a little low, my output in the gym could be a little better, I'm tired.

I'm not saying you should feel like shit, but you shouldn't feel like you have all the calories you need at first. A meter rose of one, what are some effective glute workouts? Check out the app we have. Link is in the description of the show. You can go to my Instagram as well. We have a full women's bodybuilding program called Elite Physique. That's all about the glutes, but it features a ton of

both free weight and machine work. Fun fact, like circling all the way back to that. Hip thrusts are one that are very popular. We feature those, same with squats, but my favorites are actually Romanian deadlifts and like lunges and leg press. So you'll see a lot of that on there too. All right guys, that does it for this Q and A episode of the pod. I want to thank you all so much for tuning in and remind you that we're dropping new episodes every Wednesday, trying to stay on top of them and provide you with constant fitness content. As I get closer and closer to having this kid, I want to stay on top of them and provide you with constant fitness content as I get closer and closer to having this kid I want to stay on top of this stuff so I can keep delivering you value. Thanks so much for

listening and have an awesome day.