Dynamic Dialogue with Danny Matranga - 73 - Environment Design for A Fit and Healthy Life

Episode Date: October 9, 2020

In this episode, Danny talks about changing the environment you create to better reach your goals and improve your life! We talk about nutrition, lifestyle, and much more today!A new FREE GUIDEBOOK is up NOW! Click HERE and scroll to see the Definitive Guide to Muscle Gain! The best day to start is TODAY!---Thanks For Listening!---RESOURCES/COACHING:Check out my programs and E-Books! Click HERE!I am all about education and that is not limited to this podcast! Feel free to grab a FREE guide (Nutrition, Training, Macros, Etc!) HERE!Interested in Working With Coach Danny and His One-On-One Coaching Team? Click HERE!Want To Have YOUR Question Answered On an Upcoming Episode of DYNAMIC DIALOGUE? You Can Submit It HERE!Want to Support The Podcast AND Get in Better Shape? Grab a Program HERE!----SOCIAL LINKS:Follow Coach Danny on INSTAGRAMFollow Coach Danny on TwitterFollow Coach Danny on FacebookGet More In-Depth Articles Written By Yours’ Truly HERE!-----TIMESTAMPS:Listen up AMERICA! 1:56Limit your exposure to hyper-processed and “overeating” foods! 80/20! 4:31Keep the “healthy” snack available on the GO! Work, the gym, the car! 9:26Keep a gym outfit in your car ready to go! 11:39Set aside a specific time for your training/exercise! 13:54Pre-training ritual! 16:20Supplements need to ACTUALLY be taken! 17:49Tackle or pill box! 20:14 Habit Stacking! Go for a walk! Mobility! 21:33 Support the Show.

Hey everybody, welcome in to another episode of the Dynamic Dialogue podcast. I am your host, Danny Matranga, and today's episode is going to be all about environment design and habitualization of your routine, or ritualization if you will, so that you can see success. We're going to cover 13 of my favorite tips, ranging from food to training to supplementation and lifestyle. All of these are just, again, habit-based environment design tips that you can employ regardless of your fitness level or your experience. These work amazingly well for experts or beginners because they're scalable. And again, for coaches out there, you can share this with your clients.

because they're scalable. And again, for coaches out there, you can share this with your clients. Before we get into that, let's talk a little bit about current events, though. So I am going to be reducing my podcast upload frequency, probably about an episode a week. So I'll go from two episodes a week, probably down to one here for a little while because I have grown my family by one member. I have adopted a little puppy named Cooper. He's a miniature schnauzer. He is awesome. But much like a person or a client, he requires a lot of training. And he requires that training very frequently.

And he requires a lot of attention, affection. And I need to set up his environment for success. That's actually what inspired this episode is the training regime, if you will, or routine, I should say, that I have the puppy on. I'm taking him out all the time and trying to put him into an environment. I create every environment that he's in, hopefully, that sets him up for success. So he doesn't end up going to the bathroom inside so that he learns his training, his tricks, and his behaviors quickly while he's still in this super impressionable period. We're in the midst of the absolutely most insane political spectrum I think I've ever seen in my entire life. And that's saying quite a bit because effectively,

I've had the Bush presidency, which was pretty crazy, right? The Obama administration, right? The Obama presidency, which was full of all kinds of stuff, politically speaking. And we saw that crazy election in 2016. And then I've lived through the Trump presidency. So all three presidencies I've lived through have been as contentious as any in history. And what we've seen in the last couple of weeks is nothing short of insane. And, you know, I think that Joe Biden and Kamala Harris ticket has been continuing to harp on the point that we need to come together. We need to unify. We need to really focus on this being an America for everyone and try to work across the aisle and end this bipartisanship politically. But I also think that we need to take that and internalize it. So what I mean by this before we get into the episode is it's a very politically charged

climate. Politics are really near and dear to people's hearts because they touch on issues that are really, really important and really do impact our day-to-day life, like race relations, okay? Law enforcement, right? That stuff is in the news like crazy and it's hypersensitized, but so are things like healthcare, right? So are things like the Supreme Court vacancy, the seat we're trying to fill, the pandemic. There's so much crazy stuff going on that is really close to people. Some of this stuff hits people uniquely, like obviously healthcare and the pandemic go hand in hand. Many people are trying to metabolize all of this stuff at once. So it's really sensitive. So what I'm trying to say is

be patient, be kind, keep an open mind. Remember, most of you live here in America. We're all on that team. We're all on Team America. We want the country to be a good place for everybody. And the best way we can do that in this moment in time is to just be as kind and understanding as we can to everybody around us. Because it has been insane. And I know a lot of

you know I'm politically inclined I don't want to go down that rabbit hole but I just want to remind you it's very sensitive time for people on both sides of the aisle and we as we as a country are at our best when we work together so it's 9 57 a.m here on the west Coast. We're getting into today's episode talking about my 13 favorite tips for ritualization and environment design success. So starting first with food, my first tip is to limit your exposure to foods that make you want to overeat or to foods that are hyper-processed and devoid of nutrients. Whether you are an athlete looking to optimize your performance or you're new to this whole fitness thing and you want to get in better shape and drop some body fat, one of the best ways to do that is to limit your exposure and how much you eat highly processed

foods because they tend to be higher in calories, they tend to be really easy to overeat, and they tend not to be as nutritious for our bodies as whole foods, single ingredient foods, and minimally processed foods. That's not rocket science, right? It doesn't mean that processed foods are bad, and it certainly doesn't mean that you can't enjoy them in moderation. But one of the best tips I've given to my clients over the years, and something that works tremendously well for me, is to limit how many of them I bring in the home. So step one is just minimize your exposure to that stuff. When you go to the store, buy the two or three processed foods you really like, and that's it, right? Don't let your

cart be chicken breast, broccoli, brown rice, Oreos, Cheez-Its, and string cheese, right? Maybe your cart can have a lot of variety of relatively nutritious single ingredient foods that you enjoy that are aligned with your goals. So for most of you listening, that's going to be things that are rich in vitamins, nutrients, antioxidants, minerals, and of course, things that are high in protein as well. Those are going to be really important healthy fats, right? So buying a lot of that stuff, but sprinkle in some stuff you enjoy. We call that the rule of 80-20, right? 80% of the stuff you need, 20% of the stuff you like. However, changing your exposure to that in the home is critical because when you go out and about, whether you're out to eat dinner at a restaurant, you're at a friend's house, maybe you're at a get-together in a social setting, that 80-20 rule usually doesn't apply. It tends to be like 100 to

zero, mostly crap, very little things that are nutritious or aligned with your goals and if you're trying to be creative you might be able to mess with that ratio a little bit and work it more in your favor but most people aren't creative enough to win reliably in those situations so controlling the home environment is critical limit your exposure in the home to the things that you know you have a tendency to overeat and overexpose yourself to the good stuff so you have an opportunity to make more good decisions. Really, really simple. That's it. Okay, so that kind of segues nicely into my third tip, which is to select snacks and select things that you can grab really quickly that are aligned with the goals you have that you might fall short on.

So if you're somebody who tends to miss your protein intake a little bit, buy some snacks that are higher in protein. If you're somebody who might miss your opportunities to eat fresh fruits and veggies, pre-prepare some fresh fruits and veggie snacks. Or just set a greens powder right next to your protein shake if you do that, right? Because then you can add a scoop in. Easy little wins like this are huge. They're really, really, really important. My third tip is minimize the opportunity at which you overeat. Now, this does apply more so for those of you looking to lose body fat than it does for those of you who are not. But what I mean by this is, in general, overeating and the opportunities that we tend to overeat tend to be social or when we're out to

eat. So minimizing your exposure to super social settings or choosing to eat before you show up, or just eat lightly whilst there, or maybe dropping the frequency at which you go out to eat at restaurants down from three times a week to just once a week, that's a huge win. And it doesn't mean that you can't go out and make good decisions. It just means that in general, most people have a harder time doing that than when they're at home. So I'm a big fan of saying,

hey, let's just be realistic about this. It ain't super easy to go out to eat three times a week and eat the stuff that's aligned with most people's fat loss goals unless you're picking the right restaurants, which can be really hard to do if you're meeting a friend or going out to eat with a loved one or maybe you're going on a nice date, right? So limiting the exposure to those types of environments is a very, very easy to implement tool. And hey, you know, I'm a finance buff. You guys know if you've been listening to the podcast for any length of time or following me on Instagram, I really appreciate and have a special place in my heart for personal finance. I think that wealth, acquisition, and having financial freedom is a really, really important part of being healthy.

And I'm going to be honest with you, a lot of people spend a disturbingly high amount of money eating out when they could be preparing foods at home. Cooking is something that if you do it enough, you end up learning quite a bit about it. It becomes a skill. You can love it. It's a trade-off I think more people should make. So there's multiple reasons to do it, but that's one that I'm really big on. Okay, so the fourth tip I have for you is keep that snack I mentioned, right, whatever it may be, available for you in your work setting, in your car, and in your gym bag, if possible. Why? Because when we're at work, in the car, or at the gym, a lot of times those are the opportunities where we can go, oh snap, I had a second to think while I was away from it all, or it just popped into my mind, I haven't

had a lot of protein today. So go to that gym bag and make sure that you have that protein bar ready for when your workout's done. Or maybe you keep a protein shake like I do in powder form in your glove box. So in case I'm like, this happens often where I'm commuting and I'm like, damn, you know, I haven't eaten in like five hours and I'm getting a little hungry. Well, I could use some protein. There's benefit to higher frequency protein feedings. And I keep a little funnel with it. I just open up my water bottle, funnel my protein powder in, shake it up, and I drink

that in the car. Far from perfect, but it tends to be a really, really nice, what I like to call fail safe to hold me in check. It's a nice little way in which I can go insure I've got a little bit of insurance and security baked into my day to day doing. So if I'm at work, it's there in the car, it's there, maybe it's in the gym bag, whatever works for you. But give yourself what I like to call a life preserver, right? And put them in a few different places. It's a tip that has worked really well for my clients, and I'm sure it will work for you. So just, again,

going over that again, minimizing your exposure to hyperpalatable foods. That's environment design related, right? Be very, very specific, right? To keep snacks around your house or around your work environment that are specific to your goals. That's environment design as well. And then again, from a habit standpoint, we're talking about minimizing the opportunities to overeat, whether that's eating out or perhaps that's going into super social settings without having eaten anything prior to showing up. And then again, using and leveraging life preservers by putting them in different places in case you might need some protein or maybe it's some fruit, whatever it may be. So this next grouping is going to be related to your workouts. And again, we're sticking in that vein of environment design and habits that help you be successful and that scale for whatever your fitness level may be.

So the first one I have for people, and this is probably more geared towards beginners because advanced lifters don't tend to fall into this issue a lot. However, I've saved my own ass with this trick a few times and I've been lifting for several years, and that's to keep a packed gym outfit in your car ready to go. So we all have clothes that we like to wear to the gym. Now that I work out in my garage, it's basically just my pajamas. But many of us have a series of five to 10 gym outfits that we like to put together that we really enjoy wearing to the gym. But we all have that one pair of shorts or that one tank top for ladies. Maybe it's that one pair of leggings and that one sports bra or whatever you wear to the gym. Okay. That we wear it, but only when all of our other stuff's dirty and we hate to wear it because it's just not our favorite outfit.

So take that outfit, put it in a grocery bag, put a pair of socks in there, put a pair of underwear in there, put an old pair of sneakers in there if you have it, and just let it sit there. Let it sit in the back of your car. pair of sneakers in there if you have it and just let it sit there. Let it sit in the back of your car and let it sit there so that on a day where you're like, oh shoot, I got an hour to kill here. I have two hours to kill here between things that I have to do. Or, oh my god, I forgot to pack my gym clothes to work, which happens a lot. You're always, you've always got your back. It's always there, right? So if you're out and about with time to kill, your stuff is there. If you forgot your gym clothes, which happens a startling number of times. I cannot tell you how many times a client has shown up and had to work out barefoot

or in whatever ridiculous shoe back when I was working in the corporate setting where you couldn't work out barefoot, where they had to work out in like flats or something that they wore to work because they remembered their whole outfit, but they forgot their shoes. Just setting yourself up, again, that's environment design. It gives you the ability to leverage any extra time or additional time that you might have to help you reach your goals. And having these environmental things set up for your fitness is a really, really simple thing that you can do to cover your own ass and set yourself up for success. So again, I've covered

that. And now we're going to move on to one that I think is a little bit more habitualized or tied to your calendar. And that will be bracketing or setting aside a specific time of day every single day that you're going to go about working out. So that might mean every day I work out Monday through Friday on my way home from work and maybe leave work at five. That means you get to the gym around six, maybe let's hope it's closer to like 515, 530. And then you work out till 630. Right? Or maybe you wake up at 445 to work out from five to six, and then you shower and you head to work. to work out from 5 to 6 and then you shower and you head to work. But setting out or carving out a specific part of your day and going to the gym during that time regularly,

no bullshit, trying not to miss it if you can't avoid it, is far and away the number one thing the people that I've interacted with that have the best physiques and the best performance do. All of the people I saw at the corporate gyms when I worked there that had the best physiques and the best performance were in the gym at the same time almost every single day. They simply negotiated a place in their calendar. It was the same Monday through Friday usually that they were in there. You could set your fucking watch by them. And the same thing can be said for people who weren't maybe that advanced, but we're seeing a lot of success.

When I saw new people come in, they did incredibly well when they were on a routine. I'm not saying that going as often as you can whenever you can is a bad thing, but setting up a daily time really helps you ritualize this stuff quite quickly. And there's a lot of power in doing something like that. It makes it very, very easy to stick to. And those things quickly become a routine. They become a habit. And hopefully they become a non-negotiable part of your long-term self-care. Your ability to say, hey, now I got to go to bed tonight because I wake up early every week to go to the gym or every day during the week to go to the gym. Well, that feedback loop starts to form and it starts to work.

Maybe you start getting tired earlier because your body and your circadian rhythm adjust to it. So you go instead of saying I have to try to go to sleep now, maybe after a month you just naturally fall asleep, wake up ready to go and crush your morning workout. And before you know it, you're one of those people that you're like, damn, you know, hey, I work out at the gym five days a week before work, which is awesome. For most people, that's all they want. It's all they want. For people who want more, that's a fantastic place to start. But really carving out that time is one of the most valuable things you can do. So this next tip is kind of a ritualization or a habitualization of some behaviors leading into your routine.

But one of the things that I like to do for clients and for myself is to set a consistent pre-training meal unless we train fast in the morning, in which case I set a consistent post-training meal so that stays the same every single day. And it starts to set the stage and lay the foundation for getting to the gym and performing at a high level before we even get in the car. For those of you who are working out from home, before this stuff even starts. So it's super simple. Stuff like having a set pre and post workout meal that anchors something to that workout. When you do that, then you work out, right? Or when you work out, then you do that. It anchors something to that workout. When you do that, then you work out, right? Or when you work out, then you do that. It anchors two really easy-to-follow behaviors to one another, and it sets yourself up for success down the road,

which is really, really nice. The other thing you can do is use tools like playlists or even ways in which you go about preparing for the gym. Maybe every day before you go to the gym, you load a couple things up in your gym bag, or maybe you listen to a playlist that you really like on for the gym. Maybe every day before you go to the gym, you load a couple things up in your gym bag, or maybe you listen to a playlist that you really like on your way over. All of that stuff gets you in the mood, and it gets you in the routine to train, and it starts to stack and glue things together, and that's really, really big. So that's everything we have for

environment design and habitualization around training, But one of the ones that I actually want to touch on, and before we do it, I just want to like state the caveat that supplements aren't important enough to represent 25% of the habits that you should have, right? Like I broke this up into four categories, food, workouts, lifestyle, and supplements. So you think, oh, 25%, 25%, 25%, 25%. Now, this is little shit. It's small. It's not nearly as important as lifestyle, nutrition, training. However, supplementation is valuable when done properly. And one of the things I've seen an alarmingly high amount that frustrates me is a lot of really good people spending a lot of money on supplements that they don't take or forget to take.

And if this isn't you, skip right ahead. But this stuff drives me nuts. So from an environment design standpoint with regards to supplements, you have to have them somewhere that you can see them or remember to take them. Right. So for big stuff like protein shakes, it's practically like a food or even a greens powder. Like in pre-workout. Right. Those are the things that people tend to not to or even a greens powder, like in pre-workout, right? Those are the

things that people tend to not to, or tend to remember to take. But smaller things like multivitamins, fish oil, zinc, magnesium, stuff that often comes in capsules, stuff that there's utility for taking, for whatever reason, people forget to take this stuff all the time. And I think it's because they come in smaller bottles and we tend to stick them away in the back of cabinets. One of the things I like to do is put them on my bathroom sink or put them on my nightstand. So I remember to take them every day before I go to bed. And while some supplements tend to be more effective when taken at specific times, for a lot of people that's way in over your head. One of the things you can do for time-sensitive supplementation is set a reminder on your phone, and hopefully over time that will get you in the habit, but a lot of people do struggle with that.

I have found, in general, taking almost every health-related supplement, like I said, whether it's fish oil, multivitamin, zinc, vitamin D, magnesium, you name it, stuff that a lot of people take for a lot of different reasons, taking most things at night isn't going to hurt you, right? Especially if it helps you get in a rhythm. I'm not a doctor, right? Gotta throw that caveat in there too. Don't listen to a thing I say. But worst case scenario, you put them on your nightstand and take them every day before you go to bed. Or you put them on your kitchen sink and you take them every day after you brush your teeth after breakfast,

right? Silly stuff like that. Or sorry, bathroom sink. Or hey, maybe you put them in your kitchen and you take them with breakfast every day. Put them somewhere that they are visible. That is huge. The second tip I have is to use a tackle box. This is an interesting one, but a tackle box or just a normal pill container for most people will work just fine. If you take a lot of supplements, you can use a tackle box. That's what all the good bodybuilders use for their steroids, a big old tackle box. But a tackle box is just for fishing, right, bait and tackle. And you toss it all in there,

and you compartmentalize all of your different stuff. And so that could sit out on your counter as well, but then everything is already ready to go. You don't even have to open the container. So a pill box works really, really well for most people. But one thing I do know is that a lot of people take a lot of supplements. And if you know me, you know I'm a fan of less is more in that regard. However, if you take a lot, you might need a tackle box.

If not, go ahead and use a pill container. But put that out because that won't expedite things. It makes it go a lot faster than reaching into each container and grabbing one supplement at a time. So you front load the work, filling them up, but it makes it that much easier when the time comes because as frustrating as this may seem to some of you, a lot of us just don't do it because you're plain old lazy. That's something I see a lot with gen pop. Okay. So last piece is going to be lifestyle. And I want to talk about two things specifically. That's something I see a lot with Gen Pop. Okay, so last piece is going to be lifestyle. And I want to talk about two things specifically. It's going to be neat, non-exercise, activity, thermogenesis, and sleep. So the first one is using habit stacking, which is a goal I've

borrowed, or a philosophy I borrowed from James Clear, author of Atomic Habits. If you're not familiar with that book, stop this right now and go get it. It's fabulous. Fabulous, fabulous, fabulous. However, using habit stacking with walking or stretching mobility-related goals, for example, is unbelievably effective in my experience. One of the things I'll do for clients who have a weight loss goal is after every meal, I tell them to take a 10-minute walk and then maybe shoot me a text about what they ate after every meal, I tell them to take a 10 minute walk and then maybe shoot me a text about what they ate in that meal, right? So say, hey, I'm on my walk for my meal. Here's a picture of what I had. And what that does is it starts to set a habit of

when I eat, then I go for a walk. And what going for a walk does, if you've listened to the podcast, you know, I harp on this all the time. Itids digestion, right? It helps normalize blood sugar after a meal. It increases creativity and reduces anxiety while giving you the opportunity to get out in some sun and synthesize some of that oh-so-important vitamin D. Lots of good stuff. It also increases your step count for the day. Three 10-minute walks for most people is going to equate to about a mile's worth of walking, Three 10-minute walks for most people is going to equate to about a mile's worth of walking, which is a pretty big deal for most people looking to lose weight or just increase their general metabolic health. If you're somebody who's a little bit more performance-oriented, your goals are a little bit maybe beyond that of the general population, one of the things that I actually like to do is incorporate mobility work into my TV watching time. So when I watch TV, I will,

when the commercials come out, right, or when the commercials roll through, I will spend that entire commercial break working on one specific mobility workout or routine that's tied to my performance goal. So for me right now, that might be thoracic mobility, so I can hit my driver further, or some external rotation work for my shoulder so that it holds up to the volume of bench pressing and Olympic weightlifting that I'm doing right now and I'll just use that time be like hey I'm still going to sit back and relax and enjoy TV and some days I do every other commercial some days I don't do it at all but hey while this stuff is just rolling and it's effectively not valuable to me, just drop into a nice little mobility routine. And if you watch TV for an hour, you might get a commercial

break every 15 minutes, you might be able to get four relatively long one to two minutes about mobility work, minutes of mobility work in or what you might call postures or routines or stretches, whatever they may be. And so that's a great way to habit stack. So that way, you're integrating it all into your existing lifestyle. So that's it, guys, I hope you find this stuff valuable. It's all kind of delivered to you in the same way I would talk to a client. So I hope it doesn't come across as patronizing for those of you who are experts and who do know what you're doing. But for those of you who are new, I do want to be sure that this is as digestible and accessible as possible. So if you're new here, do me a favor. Hit that subscribe button on iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher, wherever you're listening to this podcast.

Share it to your Instagram stories so that if you gained even a fractionable piece of something, some value, you got something out of this, somebody else might too. So sharing it helps. And if you have time, leave me a five-star written rating and review on iTunes. It makes a huge difference. If you want to continue to learn more from me, go to www.coachedaniematringa.com. You can see the free resources tab has over 10 free guides on everything from fat loss to muscle gain, as well as training philosophies and principles for personal trainers. Tons of awesome stuff on there. Thank you all again so much for tuning in and I'll catch you next time.