Dynamic Dialogue with Danny Matranga - 420: Health and Wellness Trends in 2026

Episode Date: January 8, 2026

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Welcome in everybody to another episode of the Progressive Overload Project. As always, I'm your host, Danny Matranga. Today, I'm not joined by anybody as we get closer to the holiday season, just jumping in and recording a nice solo podcast here for you guys today. As always, covering the basics of fitness, nutrition, sports, culture, politics, and more. But diving into a little bit of a plan ahead episode as we close out 2025. and get closer to 2026. I'm definitely pretty excited about a new year.

I'm sure you are too, but like many of you, I've had time to reflect and think a lot about what I'd like to accomplish as well as all the things that have come and gone in the year past. I'm also looking ahead at some trends. So we'll talk about 2026 fitness trends, a little bit of the predictions that I have for the year ahead,

what I think we can expect more of, less of. Talk a little bit about nutrition where I think things are going. as well as some Super Bowl prediction, some cultural stuff, and more. Hope you guys enjoy the episode. So as I sit down and kind of look ahead at where I think 2026 might take us and some of the trends we might see, not only culturally, but especially in health and fitness, I can't help but look back on where we've been. And what a year it has been, we've really seen wellness culture explode.

wellness isn't really something that like fitness only people are focused on now it's become majorly mainstream as you've noticed if you listen to the podcast it's become increasingly political and cultural and i really think the mainstreaming of not only like health focused discourse but health in general is on the menu for 2026 more and more people are interested in their health more and more people are interested in losing weight with the kind of continued on ramp of glp ones and all the success that people who are using those are having more people are into wellness whether that is through the avenue of you know pharmacological assisted weight loss because of the discourse we're having about public health about the ingredients in food the awareness

post-pandemic no matter how you slice it i would say wellness and just the general focus on wellness culturally has gone up and up and up and up since 2020 the productization has gone up right along with it, which kind of brings me to one of my predictions, which is that 2026, no matter where we're at economically, no matter where we're at culturally, and no matter where the average person is at, is going to continue to see a massive scale and rise in the productization of wellness and the productization of fitness. What I mean by that is more and more stuff, more and more crap coming at you kind of constantly and in never-ending fashion, whether that is aided and abetted by AI or influencers or social media, more of the same wellness stuff you have

gotten used to. One of my bigger frustrations, and I expect us to continue in 2026, as more and more women kind of, and women are the primary drivers of wellness purchases and household purchases, but as more and more women come from the Gen Z millennial age bracket into that paramedopausal window of their life, they're going to spend more and more and more money on wellness. And you are seeing wellness marketers and wellness trends become increasingly aware of this. I have never seen more products marketed to women, specifically women in middle age and menopause. Now, a lot of these products just flat out suck. Some really work. Like, I'm excited to see more and more women getting into weight training, but there's so much predatory wellness crap out there. And I really

expect that to continue into 2026, and really the rest of the decade is kind of continued gendered warfare. So if you're a coach, if you're somebody who is, you know, either training women or you are a woman who's interested in your health and your fitness, you need to be fundamentally aware of the fact that there is an entire fitness industrial complex that exists to kind of market to you. And it is in no way, shape, or form slowing down. Interestingly, I'd also like to make note of the fact that I think that, I think, a new trend for 2026, is that thin is very much back in. Now, again, a lot of things changed culturally during the pandemic.

We went through a period of what I would call body neutrality. Now, you could call this body positivity. A lot of people immediately scoff when they hear the term body positivity, because they think that means basically giving overweight people a pass to be overweight, independent of and totally ignorant of how excess body fat negatively impacts health. That was always kind of blown out of proportion by wellness advocates. My opinion is pretty simple. I believe that you can be healthy at a massive variety of shapes, sizes, and body fat percentages,

and the pursuit of your health and wellness should never, ever, ever be implicated, adjusted, or changed by where you're at right now on this day. If you're heavy, you shouldn't have a hard time approaching fitness or feel like you're an outsider to fitness. I think our culture's done a terrible job there. But we all know that you can't be healthy with tons of excess body fat. So there's been a little bit of a cultural correction there. And I've noticed with the, again, rapid acceptance of these GLP ones, being super, super thin is very much back in. The heroin chic, very thin vibe is back. You see it in Hollywood. I made a post about

the Wicked cast recently. Ariana Grande and Cynthia Arevo are the star of that film. Them and some of the other women in the film have gotten noticeably thinner. And mind you, I think for the totality of their acting career, both Ariana Grande and Cynthia Arevo are categorically smaller women. They're thin, they're fit. They're in great shape. And it became apparent from a lot of the marketing material for the film, like red carpet events, et cetera, that they had gotten like very thin, both of them and other actresses. I think that that movie being incredibly popular and getting so much press coverage, you know, you saw a lot of this material, so people started commenting.

And while it's not entirely my place to comment, I do think this is indicative of a trend, which is Hollywood culture, popular culture, is going back towards an extreme, thin look, and that is very much back in. And I think this is the pendulum swinging from a little bit more of a focus on, quote, unquote, thick and quote unquote body neutral, quote unquote body positive. You saw a lot of larger bodies and body types represented in media. Not so much anymore. I think there is a prioritization of thin and thinness.

Another trend I expect to see continue in 2021, piggy- or sorry, 2026, piggybacking on the GLP-1 stuff that's happening right now. But I want to make it pretty clear, this is not a, you know, This is not an indictment of GLP-1s, but I expect people who do not have a medical rationale for using these, people for whom these drugs are not prescribed for obesity or diabetes, using them for body composition. And I think you're going to see a lot of compounding pharmacies, a lot of online pharmacies slash telehealth clinics prescribing these. I know it's harder to get the medications compounded, but I continue to see them. by people, and this is just my opinion, I think we'll see more of this, who are already

fairly thin to begin with. And I think that could be problematic. I tweeted, I really like GLP-1s for the medically indicated treatment of obesity and diabetes. I'm less so optimistic or stoked about GLP-1s for losing 10 to 15 pounds and already thin women. I have noticed that is a pretty, let's say, growing sector of the GLP1 users are women who are already very thin and already probably healthy, maybe even leaner than healthy. Again, the social construct of what is a thin and healthy woman has been warped here in America. I really do think even after, you know, that period of body positivity, the goalposts are still way too towards lane. Now, you can pursue what you want. But when you're already really thin and you're using these compounds to get even

thinner, I don't think it's worth it. And I've heard a lot of people who actually need the medication for the treatment of diabetes and obesity express frustration because some of the higher quality medications can be difficult to get when everybody and their mother wants to use them if they've decided to lose any amount of weight. And I do think if you're talking about losing less than 20 to 25 pounds, these compounds likely aren't entirely necessary. they work so very well. I understand wanting to use them. But I don't necessarily think it's great for super thin people, but I expect that to totally continue. Some trends I also think we will continue to kind of battle out as we kind of talk more about nutrition here. Our clean foods,

foods independent of dyes and colors, I expect this very much to continue. I was listening to the Focus Group podcast with Sarah Longwell recently, and she actually was interviewed. viewing a group of Trump-Biden-Trump voters or non-voting Biden-Trump voters. So basically people who voted for Joe Biden in 2020, voted for Trump in 24, and they had kind of been selected out and parsed out as people who were uniquely fans of Robert Kennedy. And I talked a lot about his decisions at HHS on the podcast. Not actually, you didn't actually hear a lot from the people in this focus group. about public health-related stuff.

What you did hear was a lot about nutrition. And what I thought was interesting is many of these voters, there's a reason I'm bringing up the political outside of this, I promise, had very little to say about Donald Trump or RFK. They just had a lot to say about nutrition in general. They all wanted better food. They all wanted the government to play a role in making sure that Americans had the best food, food free of die,

food free of artificial sweeteners that kept coming up over and over and over again. band in Europe kept coming up over and over and over again, listening to these voters. And again, this matters because a lot of these people said, in 2020, I voted for this party. And in 24, I changed and voted for this party. And when they were interviewed about why that was, and given the chance to speak their mind, a lot of it had to do with food. And I think how people vote, how people spend their money, says a lot about where their conscience is. And I think we are seeing a huge focus on food. And people who want our food to be. of the highest quality, free from some of the unnecessary additives, preservatives, and junk.

And I actually totally get that. I think that is part of why Robert Kennedy is very popular, even though some of his other ideas around like vaccinations might be a little bit more inflammatory and less popular. Attacking the food, making sure we have good health supply or a good food supply can lead to healthy people, that should be no surprise. If that is as ingrained as I believe it is in people's psyche. That is totally going to continue, and you are going to see a lot more products. I've actually seen a few products from Frito lay, a Dorito product, and a Cheeto product, and they brand these as NKD, naked, basically a shorthand for naked, and they have no colors, no dyes, and I believe they advertise a few other things. I have not seen these serving sizes.

now if you told me these products were 20% smaller meaning like a 12 ounce bag is a 10 ounce bag and 20% more expensive meaning a $5 bag is now a $6 bag I would totally believe it I don't think most consumers give a hoot or a shit or a holler no matter what about the calories or the general health benefits when they buy products like this but I do think they're way less likely to say no

to a product that is health hayload or health So I think you're going to see a massive industry kind of push to meet consumers where they are at because this has become a major issue for the American consumer, the American voter, and that is, does my food have stuff in it that I don't think should be in there? No matter where people's education is, everybody has an opinion about food. So I thought that that was just so very interesting. I do think we're seeing some trends kind of fizzle out. those is the carnivore diet. Very, very happy to see that. I'm actually seeing a return in

kind of emphasis on the plant-based diet. I think the proteinification of America is here to stay for at least one more year. What I mean by that is I think we will continue to see a ton of protein products on store shelves, a huge emphasis on protein oatmeal, protein cereal, protein chips, putting protein into junk food because, again, the health halo of protein has been kind of passed along, and now you can put protein in almost anything. And much like when you used to be able to say vegan or keto or any buzzword, that would signal to the consumer, hey, this is a good choice. Protein is what you want to buy. I don't think that's bad, but I do think fiber might join the ranks as people kind of become a little bit more educated.

And again, the, gosh, the way in which GLP1 drugs have really changed. and shifted the dialogue and the discourse. People are just talking a lot more about things that have to do with satiety and gut health and digestion. And that is giving fiber, which has literally, you guys, always been the least sexy, least fun thing to talk about in nutrition. Nobody ever wants to talk about fiber, guys.

It is just seen as being really, really boring, not particularly exciting how it works kind of feels esoteric we don't really digest it that well it's more for the microbes that live in our gut and when you stop and actually think about the way in which it has a positive effect on blood pressure weight satiety blood lipids it's definitely something everybody should be eating and only nine percent of americans yet enough i think marketers are going to realize this i think you're going to see more products related to fiber gut health and digestion because one of the principal things people who are using these compounds run into is digestive motility issues. A few quick notes that I thought I would share with you guys

before we transition here. As we kind of head into a new year into 2026, it can be tempting to jump on fads, jump on trends, jump into things that are new and novel and exciting, do not underplay or undervalue consistency and discipline as we head into the new year. A lot of you guys are better off recalibrating your consistency and discipline to a higher degree than you are adding in anything new. There's a lot of fun and sexy stuff, but I caution you, before you just go add a bunch of new things ask, am I really playing at the level I can be? This is something I've checked in with myself on recently, and the honest truth is I'm not. And I could get a lot more out of my health

by doubling down on the habits I already have and just elevating the quality. It's never a bad time to kind of check in on yourself. And counterintuitively, or paradoxically, I find that simple is better, even though there's so many ways to do it, so many things. as you can do to improve your health, simple is better. Okay, moving in, talking a little sports, we'll keep it short here. I was really devastated by the Rams Thursday night loss to the Seahawks last week. We're heading down the kind of final stretch of the NFL season, and it looks like, for the most part, the NFL is going to be pretty tight.

There's nobody that really kind of is showing out as being, you know, particular better than anybody else. Like, I think there are some good teams, but there isn't any one definitive great team. And, you know, the parody, there's some really bad teams, but there's also just a ton of teams that could technically win the Super Bowl.

It's hard to say. And so I still think the Rams have as good of a chance as anybody out of the AFC. Denver looks really good. So does New England. The Texans defense is fantastic. The NBA is kind of starting to pick up and going to full swing.

I've also been paying a lot of attention to some of the combat sport stuff that happened over the weekend. I thought it was hilarious that Jake Paul and Andrew Tate both had fights on the calendar this weekend. Those are two interesting characters in pop culture. Andrew Tate lost a kickboxing match to somebody I've never heard of, and Jake Paul got knocked out by Anthony Joshua, who is an incredible boxer. And honestly, like, I do.

think Jake Paul is a pretty impressive boxer for taking on these fights. He's an unbelievable entertainer. But that was an impressive knockout. And also, I have to give Jake Paul a lot of credit for, you know, fighting somebody of that level and that caliber. You know, he had probably heard a lot of people badmouthed in him or trashing him about fighting Mike Tyson, who was like in his late 50s when they fought and he fought somebody much younger who is very capable and yes he knocked him out and broke his job but i i just stopped and kind of took pause for a minute and was like wow what what we are really getting here with sports and combat sports is personalities fighting other personalities and i don't know where this goes it actually made me think about the time that mark succorberg

was going to fight elon musk and how funny that would have been if that had happened i wonder if that continues. I bet we continue to see influencers and celebrities fighting each other in the new year. Here we have in the show notes, something I thought was really interesting because Christian, our editor, sent me something on this. Matt put this in

the show notes. Having to do with the types of games kids are playing and somebody put a psychologist explained why 90s kids think differently than Gen Z. The games you played as a kid literally rewired your brain. Here's what's changed. My wife sent me this too. And

there was a lot here in the article, but one of the things that kind of jumped out to me was most of us, most of you listeners, are probably children of the 90s, early 2000s, maybe a little older than that. And as we head into the holidays, it can be a time for things like traditions, such as board games, old movies,

things like that really are substantially different from the ways kids entertain themselves, now in a very digital world and an increasingly digital world things that we all kind of quote unquote grew up on and have nostalgia for are unimaginably boring

to young kids kids today and again what a boomer way to say kids today but young people today do not find entertainment in some of the stuff that we did because their barrier for stimulation

is so high I say this to people all the time. Imagine if the first social media you ever used was TikTok, meaning at, let's say, 10 years old, and a lot of you were going to hear that and be like, 10 years old, that's way too fucking young. I promise you, there are 10 year olds who have phones who are on TikTok, a lot of them. If at 10 years old, and I don't know how old you guys were listeners when you got a smartphone or when you got access to the internet, got my first kind of computer with access to the internet when I was like 12 or 13 and I got my first smartphone when I was about 16 17 now that was kind of the infancy of the smartphone there weren't a ton of

them I think the iPhone came out when I was like 12 or 13 but I got a smartphone um when I was in high school and that was when I really started using social media I think I had a Facebook account at 15 and I started using Facebook and Twitter, 16, 17, 18. I got Instagram when I was like 18. But these products and the generation before that, my generation started with MySpace, MySpace, Facebook, Instagram, especially early Facebook. These products were substantially different than the products that kids are using now.

And we could call them technologies. You'd call them products. But I want you to think, if the brain, of the average millennial and Gen Z is really, like, irreparably damaged from exposure to Facebook and exposure to Instagram in their young adolescents and teenage years. How are we setting up this next generation for success by giving them something way more powerful? And I really believe TikTok is that I think TikTok is a much more aggressive, much more powerful algorithm.

It has substantially higher variety and more frequency and more novelty. And I think about this all the time. Like, yes, 90s kids think differently than Gen Z kids for a lot of different reasons. We played board games. Our video games were structured very differently. They had lower graphics. They had probably substantially less psychological underpinning,

designing them to be addictive. but kids now are just starting with this insane high level for stimulation that it it blows my mind it actually blows my mind i think where will they be in 10 years like it's tic talk let's say something comes after tic talk and then beyond that like a lot of adults suffer from what they call quote unquote brain rot now um because just jumping from facebook to instagram to tic talk fucked up a whole generation i worry about the kids that start with TikTok, way less than the video games. You know, somebody was saying, like,

well, you know, video games now are very different. I don't worry that much about the changes in video games. My wife and I play video games sometimes. I'll play video games from time to time. I get the same fucking experience at 30 years old playing Pokemon that I did when I was 15, that I did when I was 10. I play a lot less, and I play for substantially shorter durations. Like when I was a kid and I got a new Pokemon game, I'd beat it in like four days.

Now it takes me like four months. But ultimately it feels really similar. The gameplay loops haven't changed a ton. The graphics haven't changed a ton. I think the primary differentiator now between kids and kids back in the day is kids back in the day read, they write, they play outside, they have more social things. kids now are existing in primarily online spaces with access to 4U algorithms that shoot them rapid, highly variable content. A few fun things in the politics space. We did get an Epstein file release, quote-unquote release. The discharge petition to release the Epstein files gave the

Department of Justice until, I want to say the 18th of December, which was Friday, or 19th of December, which was Friday, to release the Epstein files in their entirety. And what we got was definitely not that. It appeared that only a small percentage of what the FBI and DOJ had were released. Most of what was released were heavily redacted, including entire pages that are just black boxes, which looks really lame and corny, coming from the people who promised for years and years and years to supply their voters, their fans, their audience, whatever, there was an entire media apparatus built around the conspiracy

slash unknown mystery of Jeffrey Epstein and his estate and who he was serving and the people that he was, you know, people that were implicated in whatever he was doing for that release to finally happen, finally be made public. And mind you, this was at the direct request of Congress. This could have been released at any time by the people who said they would, for it to be this redacted and this incomplete, spurs, a ton of questions, a ton of controversy. It's my impression that this will be politically just a very erosive for the Republican Party, corrosive, I should say, erosive too, and that it will lead to some base erosion, but this will be very corrosive as we get closer and closer to the midterms.

The Republican Party, as is the case with any political party, can only handle so much scandal. But this does not look good. And I think a lot of people who are not particularly political, they're very interested in this because, like so many things, this is like a made-for-netflix conspiracy. It's absolutely insane. The stories are sensational.

They're out of control. They're hard to believe. they're really dark. Some of what's actually written down in here is really, really gross. But I think a lot of people know that the president, as it stands, had a relationship with this guy, and for all of it to be this redacted, it's a little strange, something else that's kind of strange, and also, I thought, was a little bit funny, are the Patriot games, which seem an awful lot like the Hunger Games, kind of a fitness-related thing in and of itself.

But the president was speaking about this the other night. Patriot Games will be an athletic competition where in which one male and one female youth athlete from each state will compete in some type of physical event that is probably comprised of multiple physical events and their winner will get a prize. Now, I thought this was funny because there was something floated out not that long ago, maybe by the same name, maybe by a different...

No, it might have been the enhanced games. I think it was the enhanced games. This was something that was very close. I believe Donald Trump's son was involved with this, but the enhanced games were an Olympic-style competition where in which the athletes were going to be allowed to use performance-enhancing drugs. Very different, but this is for teenagers

who are basically going to compete against each other with another teenager on their team. 50 states, 50 teams, a boy and a girl from each team. It sounds very Hunger Games. Kind of interesting. It weirdly aligned with this kind of very performative, outward physical fitness push, whether it's the return of the president's fitness test,

whatever these Patriot games are, just shit like that, kind of funny. Lastly, when I got home from filming the Coach Em Up podcast, I flew out to Austin. That'll be out in about six weeks, by the way. For those of you who like sports performance, love the pod, want to hear me rip on women's sports performance, some of the changes in our industry definitely check that out i'll be interviewed by coach tim

riley he's badass he's trained some of the best athletes in the world very cool podcast but on my way back i noticed that the president was addressing the nation and he gave a pretty crazy intense speech very fiery very passionate um about the way things are going how he feels about the way things are going um and he seemed a little bit frantic i have to say just having listen to it. I thought it was very interesting. But that's it for the episode today, guys. Keeping it short, don't have the guys. Hope you did, in fact, enjoy it. If you did, be sure to leave the show a five-star rating

and review on Apple Podcasts as well as Spotify. You can find me at Danny Matranga. You can find the show at the Progressive Overload Project. Be sure. Again, leave me a five-star rating and review, and we'll catch you on the next one. Bye, guys.