Dynamic Dialogue with Danny Matranga - 399: Nutrition + Fitness for Parents, New Parents, Busy Adults

Episode Date: April 2, 2025

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Welcome in everybody to the Dynamic Dialogue Podcast. As always, I'm your host Danny Matrenga and in this episode, I'm going to be sharing my favorite tips, tricks, and routines for staying fit, staying healthy, and focusing on your wellness if you are busy, especially if you're a parent or a new parent. My wife and I have been navigating parenthood with her five month old and things have definitely changed. But I have found ways to stay in shape, trying new things, new techniques, new tactics, as well as new ways to stay motivated that I think would work really well for most parents,

no matter how old your kids are or whether or not kids are what's keeping you busy. This could be great for students, professionals, anyone who wants to stay in shape with a busy schedule. Enjoy the episode. 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

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Hey folks, welcome back first and foremost want to say thank you for being patient with me. It's been a while since we dropped a new episode. My wife and I had our first child back in October. I recorded some podcasts to get ahead and some things changed around kind of in my personal life with my dad's health and just adjusting to the baby. So I've been away for a little bit, but with all the intention of returning and I'm really happy to be here with you today to discuss how I've adjusted my fitness routine with a few more things on my plate.

Many of you have followed me for quite some time, dating back to my early 20s. Now I'll be 30 this year, I turn 30 in May, but quite a bit has changed in year 29 for me. Of course, my wife and I had our first child, but also my dad who's been suffering with Parkinson's for 20 years is reaching what I would call end stage. We're getting close to the end, he's moved on to hospice, and he's stayed alive a lot longer than myself and any of the caretakers at his facility really imagined, which is phenomenal. But there's a lot of pressure, a lot of back and forth,

and a lot of time spent trying to make sure he gets the best care in this end of life chapter. And so it made sense for me to really step away and kind of just focus on the multi-generational place I'm in. I have a dad that I need to help, and I have a son that I need to help. And that's really shaped my fitness routine. But frankly, as a 30-year-old and that's really shaped my fitness routine but frankly as a 30 year old that's pretty uncommon but has like a 40 or a 50 year old it's

actually really common there's a phrase that we use to describe having to take care of a parent at the same time as having to take care of a child it's called being in the sandwich generation okay the sandwich generation is meant in effect to describe what it's like to be in the middle of a sandwich, two pieces of bread basically, your kids and your parents. And so that's really taken quite a big toll on me and I'm doing it with the best, you know, what would you say, the best attitude possible, but it's forced me to make some changes. Starting first with my focus and my intention. After having a child, and see this is the biggest frame shift for me, and this might

be true for many of you who are parents, this might be true for many of you who are caretakers, maybe of nieces, maybe of nephews, maybe of parents. But when your primary goal or role in life shifts from being focused on yourself to being focused on another person, your health becomes that much more important. And I have this new contrast, this duality where I can look at the relationship I had with my father and all the ways that he nurtured and supported me intellectually and emotionally and all the ways that he was a phenomenal dad. But I can also look back and go,

hey, he got Parkinson's disease when I was super young. We had to stop playing catch. We had to stop playing, you know, basketball. We had to stop going on walks. I had to start driving him to work. All kinds of things changed. And what I look back on in my childhood, I'm so grateful for the connection I have with my dad, but I do miss the things we could have done as a

father and son. You know, those very prototypical father and son going fishing, throwing the ball, shooting hoops. I missed out on some of that. And when I think about my son, you know, you can't guarantee that freak illness won't affect you. Some of that truly is outside of your control. But when I look at my son being around to help him, play with him, support him and just enjoy life with him is really important to me. And it's climbed the ladder like a lot. When I look at the reasons I trained, number one was my health.

Number two was my capacity or what my body could do, number three was like aesthetics, wanting to look better. And that's really reshuffled. Now number one is my family, my kids, sticking around, being present, having a good attitude, having a good mindset, being consistent with my health. And you know, number two is probably strength, or I guess you could say general health,

number three strength, and number four aesthetic. So something new just popped onto the scene and immediately became my new biggest motivation for training. And I think for a lot of parents, it's like, dude, holy shit, I don't know where the fuck I'm gonna find time for these workouts. I have a kid, I have a job, it's really difficult.

I'm very empathetic to that, in fact, I understand it quite a bit. I think having kids and being busy is one of principally the best excuses imaginable for not working out, but it's also like the best rationale and reason you're ever going to have to work out. So, you know, I think in life we're so often driven by status, consumption, how we measure up to other people. You know, I want to look better than other people I wore. I want to look as good as other people. Or I want the same house or the same cars.

And really, this has only, just having a child has only confirmed for me my existing counterculture belief that stuff and money and all that shit is cool but health and family is really like the ultimate. And just continuing to put health and relationships higher up in my focus because like so many people, so many young people, the pursuit of money, status, etc. is nice and it can be rewarding and it is necessary in a world where you know you have to have an income But man nothing is quite as fulfilling as just focusing on my health my family doing what makes us Happy and well, and it's a new form of motivation. I found and tapped into and I just I'm pretty pumped about it

Another thing before we get into the physiological side of the episode Today is the 26th of March yesterday. It was the 26th of March. Yesterday, it was the 25th of March, I was getting gas at the gas station. I thought this would be a good aside, a good fun story. And I have an SUV that I use to take the dogs to the dog park, and it's perfect for that. You can flatten out the seats, it's full of dog hair, but it's like perfect for taking the dogs to the dog park,

taking the dogs places. And I had pulled up to the gas station to fill that up. And somebody stopped me and was like, hey, are you Danny? And I said, yes, I am. They said, oh, my gosh, I listened to your podcast. I really like it. And I said, oh, cool. Thank you so much. I reached into the car, shook their hand as they drove off from the gas station.

But whoever you are, I want to just give you a quick shout out. Say thank you for listening to the podcast. It means a ton to me. I really appreciate it. Whoever you are, I want to just give you a quick shout out, say thank you for listening to the podcast. It means a ton to me. I really appreciate it. And hopefully you continue to get value from this. And if ever any of you guys see me out and about in the airport, at gyms,

I know this has happened many times at gyms, even if it's in town, wherever you run into me, you can always stop and say hi. I might be a little sleepy, but I tend to make good conversation and I'm more friendly than the resting bitch face that I have would maybe denote. So the most obvious thing that changes when you have a newborn and one of the things that's

been difficult to manage from a health perspective with a baby in the house is sleep. And on this podcast, we have talked so very much about sleep, about how it affects your performance. And I'll be honest, my sleep has taken a hit. And that won't surprise any of you who have had babies, but babies don't sleep through the night. When we first brought our baby home for the first several months, compared to other babies, he slept actually quite well, but he still would wake up every couple hours and need to be fed. So for the first several months. Compared to other babies, he slept actually quite well, but he still would wake up every couple hours and need to be fed.

So for the first several months, my sleep was definitely at a premium. And I felt the way that a lack of sleep affected my performance in the gym, my ability to show up, my ability to be consistent. I felt my dietary discipline wavering frequently and often. What I mean by that is foods that are seductive and tempting like ultra processed food, fast food, and junk, you know, when I'm well-slept I could easily

navigate these foods and be like I don't want that, you know, that isn't going to serve my body, that isn't healthy, it's just gonna taste good. And on these days with low sleep I would be more tempted. And I started to realize, you know, through this experience, what many of my clients struggle with every day, which is, you know, they don't have full control over their schedule. And the more kids you have, the harder it can be to have a situation where, you know, you're always well rested. In fact, I think a lot of people are operating chronically with low sleep. Managing that is really important and it can be difficult.

A few things my wife and I have really tried to do now that our baby is five months old, he's sleeping much more consistently,'s just having a firm bedtime. I have a firm wake up. I let my wife and the baby sleep in. But every night we are in bed, all three of us, by eight o'clock. And having a bedtime has helped so much. Now, you have multiple kids running around from what I've heard. Bedtime is hell.

It's like a war every night because kids don't always want to go to bed. But having this set bedtime, not having a TV in our bedroom, not scrolling on our phones, after we get the baby down, we're usually both so tired we fall asleep very quickly. But going to bed early and having a, what I would say, consistent start time

and a consistent wake time is very very doable. Doesn't mean you'll get a consistent night sleep. Doesn't mean the baby won't wake you up. It just means you got to try to be in bed and try to get out of bed at the same time. And I'll be honest getting out of bed at like 3.50, 4 o'clock to do some cardio workout and do the sauna before I go into my studio It's harder now than it was before the baby because I am genuinely more tired

But again, I go back to those motivations and I would bet you if what mattered to me most was aesthetics performance something superficial maybe And not something like health, sticking around for my family. It would be a lot easier to sleep in and to skip. Now when I was younger and those vanity metrics mattered more, you know, it was easier, but now they just don't matter as much. So, you know, sourcing new motivation is really key. Now, how does one navigate in a world of low sleep? Obviously, there's only so much caffeine you can use.

Being hydrated is key. Staying consistent with meals is key. There's also some new literature that shows creatine specifically might help with sleep deprivation. So I've upped my creatine intake to 10 grams a day with the hope that it might give me some ability to kind of push back against the fatigue that I've been feeling throughout the day but overall I can't complain because I feel like everything that I'm dealing with frankly is just it's a blessing to be in this position and it's so cool to have a nice healthy baby and honestly

the lack of sleep is doable. It sucks a little bit, but it is doable. Moving on to kind of the next thing I wanted to talk about is, how have I adjusted my workouts and my training to having a baby? So without a doubt, I have less time to train. My sessions now are about 45 minutes.

For the last two years, I've been following a protocol called Forever Fit, which is one of our app-based protocols. It's a hybrid training program I designed for myself to have some strength, mobility, and aesthetic work. 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 plan for a variety of different fitness levels, but what's cool about this is when you join these programs, you get programming that's updated every single week, the sets to do the reps to do exercise tutorials filmed by me with me and my team. So you'll get my exact coaching expertise as to how to perform the movement, whether 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. But I found that this four time a week protocol, the workout sometimes took up to an hour, which is great for clients, it's great for our members, all the workouts, whether it's Elite Physique or Home Heroes

or Forever Fit take between 45 and 60 minutes, but I couldn't always get 60 minutes. So what I have been doing is taking a one to two body parts. Usually they are agonist body parts, for example, the chest and triceps or the back and the biceps. And I have been hitting them for 30 to 45 minutes hard, six to seven days a week.

Now I know what you're thinking, isn't that a lot of training? It is a lot of frequency, but I am having to fit these sessions into 40 to 45 minute windows in between clients at the studio and in the morning before I leave for work or in the afternoon in these really small pockets.

And at first it was really difficult for me to accept the fact that my workouts might have to get shorter because I've always dedicated a certain amount of time to them and part of my identity is like, hey, I go to the gym, I do this, I do that. And don't get me wrong, things change. When you have a kid, your identity shifts but that was a little bit of a fight for me. But doing things frequently and having short workouts has in no capacity affected my ability to make progress. It's helped me

stay focused on things. Now, I won't lie to you, it hasn't been easy, but it is the kind of thing that has been fun. And I find that those moments each and every day where I can get a little bit of a workout in, even though it's shorter, even though it's quicker, even though it's usually just one to two muscle groups, if the intensity's there, and I know I don't have all the time in the world to do it,

and I know it's really important for me to stay focused. I can still get a good workout. And I might have to go more frequently because I'm working less muscle groups at a time and doing less total work in that time. But I think it's working and it makes me, it makes me happy to just be able to do it because I know a lot of people just quit, they just give it up when they have the kid. And that would have sucked for me. But you know, you make sacrifices and I think what I found is the old adage I've always said, one is better than zero, short is better than nothing, works really fine. And so I've actually up the frequency,

but decreased the time so I can fit it into what I have. And it's working great. And I'm still making time for a cardio and sauna on the days that I can't train I do a quick five miles on the assault bike which takes me between 10 and 15 minutes then I get in the sauna. That's the best I can do right now but I would recommend this for people who are busy you know you can do frequent workouts that are shorter they need to be intense you need to push yourself, but they do not need to be an hour. If you don't have an hour, they can be a half an hour.

If you don't have a half an hour, they can be 15 minutes. Will it be as effective? I don't think so, but will it be better than nothing? Hell yes. Now, nutrition has really changed a lot. And most of my focus on nutrition is simple. I just focus on getting enough protein. But my main goal, frankly, with nutrition,

is to help my wife and baby get what they need. So I am constantly preparing food. That has kind of been my biggest contribution as a dad outside of going to work and providing for the family in the more gender prototypical whatever way, women can do that too. Of course, I'm very good at cooking and I have quite a lot of creativity in the kitchen. And from a nutrition and physiology perspective, I know what my wife needs as a breastfeeding female from a calorie perspective, from a fat and a protein perspective. So what I'm doing is I'm focusing on lots of fiber,

lots of healthy fats, lots of nutrient density and variety, staying away from things that she's not supposed to have right now, but really helping her be hydrated. And then when I serve myself, just making sure I get the same nutrient-dense food, healthy fats, starches, et cetera, but I need to add a little more protein because of my muscle mass, becausees, etc. But I need to add a little more protein because of my muscle mass, because of my size. But we do not have as much time to go to the store whatsoever. We're busier. So I have set up several automated grocery deliveries. So now, depending on who you are

and your means and what you have access to, this may be for you, it may not be for you, but I just wanna tell you a little bit about my system. I like to use credit cards to accumulate miles and points for the spending I already have. And my Amex Gold card, no, I'm not getting paid by Amex to say this, but my Amex Gold card gives me four times points on groceries and food delivery. So once a week, every week, I have things that we want to eat and snack on

automated coming to the house. And the cool thing is you get points, you get miles for this. So a lot of the time that my wife and I travel places, which I love to do and we're excited to do with the baby. I'm doing that with miles and points that I generate from business spend and household spend. And I think one of the things you'll see a lot with influencer types and people on the internet is this desire to like flex and look like they're super duper wealthy. And you know, I don't think that that benefits a whole lot of people. And I'm not going to sit here and tell you the exact details of my wife and I's financial position. But I would say that it's nice to be

able to travel for mostly low cost, reduced cost, or free because of these miles and points that you earn from the normal shit you buy. And if you're a family that spends $500 a month on groceries, that's actually 24,000 miles a year if you use an Amex card, which is worth quite a bit if you transfer the points where you use them to fly. So I was like, look, I'm going to the grocery store all the time.

I like earning points on my shopping. So I just set up automatic deliveries with the Amex Gold from various grocery stores to deliver fresh produce, local produce, high protein snacks. So every week we're getting stuff that we can snack on. Things like nuts, things like cheese, things like fruits, things like vegetables, things like Quest chips, all kinds of stuff. Once a week we get like a supply drop at the house to make sure my wife has what she needs. Once a month I'll go to Costco and load up on frozen berries, Greek yogurt, all of those essentials that I like in bulk.

And then maybe once every 10 days, depending on time, I might actually pop into the grocery store and replenish things. But we've really tried to automate our food stuff. So more stuff comes to the house. There's so many options for free. I have found that Amazon, via various grocery stores, including Whole Foods, Walmart, Target,

all offer either free pickup or free delivery, depending on whether or not you have a membership. So not only do we get a lot of time back, not only do we reduce our exposure to germs and stuff that you don't maybe want to bring around the baby, we're also able to get regular food to the house and earn valuable points and miles that we use to travel by kind of syncing everything up. That's just one of the weird things I've really focused on doing.

I've always been like this, like if I'm going to spend that money and somebody's going to give me points for it or not, I'll get the points. So yeah, that's just really kind of been the focus. Tons of grocery delivery. I will admit a lot of DoorDash because we're really behind on things, but there are healthy options around us, but that's not something that I would really recommend a ton.

Let me talk a little bit with you guys about finding ways to stay active now that we have the baby. Now he's an infant, so that's a little bit different than if you had like a toddler but one thing we found is he's easy to carry he sees a whole lots of things like walking and hiking but with the home gym that we have being able to put him up and one of the many devices we have that like positions him so he can see us regularly I put him in there so he can watch me work out or my wife will do the same thing. Or if I train her, I'll wear him.

And that's kind of cool. It's neat to see him get to take it all in. It's neat to see him get to absorb it and enjoy it. I do think there is something to be said. We just want him to see it. We want him to see what it looks like to move your body and to be healthy. So we oftentimes prop him up or engage with him as much as we can in the movement stuff. But that has been a little harder if I'm being totally honest.

My wife's postpartum recovery has been fantastic. Now every single woman is different. Every single child delivery is different. Every single postpart woman is different, every single child delivery is different, every single postpartum is different. So I wouldn't say to expect this for yourself or expect this for other people, but I can't recommend enough the importance of exercising around your pregnancy as you're trying to conceive during your pregnancy, at tolerance and what is safe and post pregnancy. Once you're cleared, it will really help you.

And I do think a lot of women navigate around delivery, whether it's prepartum or postpartum, anxiety and depression. There's so many emotions swirling. And exercise, eating right, getting sleep can help with all those things. But most women, by the time they deliver, they've probably been already experiencing

low sleep and lack of activity. As the last month of pregnancy is really tough So doing the best you can to try to stay the course the entire time and stay consistent with movement and adapting and adjusting To your body as it changes but staying consistent can make for a healthier labor healthier postpartum Etc When it comes to just kids in general, kind of a closing thought here, I wasn't super, I was always receptive to having kids. Wasn't something that I felt like I needed to plan.

I know so many people do. My wife and I feel very fortunate that we were able to conceive, totally aware of all of the people who are struggling with fertility right now. A lot of that has to do with lifestyle and various factors, things that I'm passionate about on this podcast. There's so many things that I'm passionate about and health is one of them and health

is such an extension of our ability to conceive and start a family. And so we are just super, doper lucky that we had, we were in a position to be able to do this even though it wasn't exactly planned. And at first, I'll be totally transparent, I was kind of nervous like so many people. I'm not only responsible for myself, I'm responsible for my wife and taking care of her and our family and her safety and all that, but now also this child. And you know, I'll be 30 this year, but a lot of my life I've been taking care of myself by myself. And it does give you some skills.

There's so many young men in America who are not launching, that are not able to take care of themselves, that still live at home, that deal with addiction, that deal with anger, that deal with the inability to start, that see the economic inequality of the world and feel frustrated. I'm in this Gen Z millennial kind of cohort of young men who've been getting their absolute fucking ass kicked by kind of the changes and transitions in society. It won't surprise many people who are listening, who have sons, who have daughters with boyfriends, who maybe have nephews, grandsons, partners, whatever, that a lot of young men are flat out struggling.

And I'm very fortunate not to be one of those young men. I feel that I'm well adjusted. I have my roots down. I wasn't in high school during the pandemic. All kinds of crazy shit have really been affecting men. The Manosphere, all this garbage on the internet, tons of adversarial crap with women. And I'm just like, okay, I'm doing okay.

I'm fairly well adjusted, but deep down, I don't know if I'm prepared for this. I don't know if I'm ready for this. I think I'm doing better than a lot of guys my age, but am I really ready to be a dad? and I had a lot of doubts about it a lot of fear It's only been five months. So I truly don't know if I have an answer for you even now, but um it's very cool on special to have the privilege to

don't have the privilege to try to provide for a family to the best of your ability, to try to raise a son who's going to grow up to be a well-adjusted, hopefully good form of masculinity in this world, whatever that means, to see him smile and all that. It's all been worth it. And I honestly, I don't know if there's ever a moment where you're like, I know how to be a parent. I know I figured it out.

I haven't had that yet. I know it's really early. I could imagine my kid being 18 and me still being like, well, I don't know if I ever really figured that out because it is challenging to lead and to guide a person who ultimately is gonna become their own person. But I think like the biggest positive that came from this whole thing to close was my dad

was, you know, I never ever thought my dad would have a grandson or a granddaughter because I wasn't planning on having kids until I was in my mid-30s. And I mentioned earlier on the podcast, my dad's on hospice. And if any of you know anything about hospice, it's where you go when you're ready to die. So the timetable wasn't great, but they have had four or five visits, my son and my father, that have just been so touching, so unbelievable to watch. I feel like in that time, my dad undies, which is a weird phrase to use, but he like reverse ages. He finds new energy, new health, new attentiveness. It's like seeing him 10 years ago when we bring the baby around. It's remarkable. One

of the most incredible things I've honestly ever witnessed. And it's really, really special. So for anyone out there who's navigating fitness and health as a parent or as a busy person or as a caretaker. I would just encourage you to adapt, find ways to keep it going, adjust, never give up because the best reason you have for getting in shape are the people you love. I want to thank you all so much for tuning in and remind you to share this episode to your story, tag me, connect with me, send me a DM about what you enjoyed. Welcome back to the show.

I plan to keep this going. Let's leave a five star rating and review on whatever you listen on. Okay, whether it's Spotify or Apple makes a difference, helps more people find the show. I will catch you on the next episode.