Dynamic Dialogue with Danny Matranga - 76 - Why I Don't Love Veganism, Post-Workout Meals + More!

Episode Date: November 2, 2020

In this episode, Danny answers even more of your questions! We talk all about plant based diets, eating post-training, creatine supplementation and MUCH MORE!Submit your questions via Instagram when Danny posts a "Any Questions" IG story prompt or HERE anytime!Check out the FREE guidebooks HERE!---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:“Why do you not suggest a plant based diet?” 1:58“Does taking creatine with black coffee as a preworkout work?” 7:32“Should I front load my calories before my evening workout? I am hungry after training, but it is close to bed?” 11:54“What is the best way to get back on track with training?” 15:08“Tracking macros: do you account for greens, reds, and fiber supplements?” 19:02“How do you work around an injury?” 20:07“If you just paid for a trainer for 6 weeks, but do not feel like you are getting much out of it, what should I do?” 21:12Support the Show.

Welcome in guys to another episode of the Dynamic Dialogue podcast. As always, I am your host Danny Matrenka and today I'm going to be answering some of your questions. Before we get into that, a little bit of housekeeping for you guys. I have actually uploaded a brand new free guide to my website. uploaded a brand new free guide to my website. You guys are amazing, and you've downloaded these guides thousands of times, whether it is my Nutrition Fundamentals Guide, my Fat Loss Tips and Tricks Guide, my Fundamentals of Personal Training, which is tailored towards personal trainers,

From the Trenches, which covers all of the ins and outs and nuts and bolts of programming, my Five Supplements for Better health guide, you name it. But this new guide, which I'm really excited to bring you, is about 12 pages. It's titled The Definitive Guide to Muscle Gain, and it covers training tactics, nutrition tactics, volume, intensity, exercise, selection, and programming requirements that I think people should be aware of when it comes to building a program or looking to create a program focused around building muscle. So if you guys

want to get your hands on these completely free guides, all you need to do is go to www.coachdanymetrenga.com slash free downloads or go to my website, click the free resources tab, and select free guides. There's over a dozen of them on the website. All of them, like I said, are completely free, and I think you'll enjoy every single one. So getting into your questions, and this first one is a bit of a doozy. It's actually something I've wanted to talk about on the podcast for a very long time. This question is really well aligned with something I've wanted to talk about on the podcast for a very long time. This question is really well aligned with something I communicated with a colleague about of mine yesterday when we were just talking generally about nutrition, the nutrition space, why it is the way it is. And the question comes from at Benny Jacket.

And she asks, why do you not suggest a plant-based diet? And she asks, why do you not suggest a plant-based diet? And before I get into this, I want to unpack the term plant-based a little bit. Because I really think how we define that is going to give you guys a little bit more insight as to why I'm not necessarily a fan of conventional plant-based dieting. So when I hear the term plant-based, I think vegan. Okay. So I do not recommend a vegan diet. Now, conventionally, I think that when you hear plant-based, we should think a diet that is based around eating mostly plants or a large amount of plant matter. That is something that I'm actually totally cool with, especially for general population and people who just want to be healthier.

But I do not recommend a vegan diet, and I want to be very clear about that. It does not mean that I disagree with people who've selected a vegan diet. It doesn't mean that I don't see the ethical, potentially positive ethical outcome of a vegan diet. It does not mean that I think that our traditional and conventional American livestock practices are conducive for the long-term health of the environment, nor does it mean that I think that we treat animals who we raise to slaughter particularly well. I don't necessarily condone all of those practices, and I think that context and nuance are critically important

to breathe into any dialogue that we are going to have about nutrition. I think it is far and away the number one most missing piece in this whole debate about how it is that people should eat. However, some of the issues that I do have with a vegan diet, right, assuming that veganism is defined as a way of living that excludes all forms of animal exploitation, cruelty, right, all of that stuff, all of the animal byproducts from our diet, are really, really simple, right?

Like, the things that I really dislike are that they tend to leave people who, generally speaking, need protein a little bit on the protein deficient side, and they're hyper restrictive. Okay, that's it. I think that there is a lot of merit to eating a more, I guess you would call, planet-centric diet where we focus on the impact that our diet and nutritional choices have on the climate. I think that's awesome. But I have found for most people, it's really, really difficult to stick to a completely vegan diet. I've also found that a lot of the proponents of veganism are very aggressive and abrasive in the ways in which they go about trying to either, I guess you could say,

reprimand or call out non-vegans. And I think they're a little bit aggressive in their projection of veganism as the ultimate way of eating, right? Like, look, again, with the protein thing in context, it's not to say that you can't have adequate protein on a vegan diet. You can eat tofu, tempeh, legumes, nuts, seeds, algae, nutritional yeast, whole grains, sprouted grains, all this stuff has some amount of protein. And of course, I come from the body composition, helping people lose weight space, where protein is like

the best tool I have at my disposal, other than leafy greens. And I actually recommend most of my clients eat a ton of both of those things. Eat, hopefully, ethically sourced, ethically raised animal protein that you can get your hands on if you can do so, right? If you can get protein that is raised with the climate in mind, maybe from a small local farm, even better. If not, look, I think that the aggregate of your decisions is going to be much more representative of what it is that you care about rather than just the way you eat. And what I mean by that is to say, like, look, if you care about the climate, I think that your nutrition can reflect that. I think that your nutrition can reflect that, but I also think the things that you buy, the companies you support, the waste you produce, all of that stuff goes into a much larger, representative, impactful way of interacting with the planet. Just saying I'm a vegan independently does not mean you're doing enough or not enough to help the planet.

There are other ways you can do it, and if you're somebody who says, hey, quite frankly, I enjoy having meat in my diet. I do want animals to be treated better. So I try my best, but I'm not perfect. I don't think that makes you a bad person. And one of the issues I think that that comes from this space, specifically the vegan space, is a really, really aggressive pushback against people who are not all in. And while again, I do think that a vegan diet is more healthy than the traditional Western diet, if you are getting adequate protein, I do not think that it's a diet for everyone. And due to the hyper restrictive natures of the diet, the difficulty people have sticking to it, and the number of people who follow the diet that can't hit adequate dietary protein totals for performance, which are the people that I'm working with, that is why you will not see me recommend it. And that is why, to answer the actual question, I do not suggest a plant-based diet or a vegan diet with adequate protein, I think, is a great way to eat, specifically if we're comparing it to the traditional Western diet.

So the next question I have comes from at Genevieve Quibod, and she asks, does taking creatine and black coffee as a pre-workout work? Yeah, I think that's completely fine. Instead of taking them together, as I imagine, you're probably going to limit how good the taste of your coffee is by putting creatine in it. I might actually just drink coffee prior to training and then take your creatine after your training. If you have fully saturated creatine stores, it's very, very unlikely that you're going to need supplemental creatine to get through your workout and get the most out of your workout. You just want to replete or replenish those stores when your workout is gone. There's a lot of reasons to take creatine and caffeine around your training, right? We know creatine helps ensure we have adequate ATP and

muscular potential for training hard. We know that caffeine gives us energy, helps us stay alert and fight off fatigue. There's no shortage of potential drawbacks to caffeine, right? We know that caffeine gives us energy, helps us stay alert and fight off fatigue. There's no shortage of potential drawbacks to caffeine, right? We know that it's a diuretic, perhaps. One issue that we would probably have to be particularly careful of with coffee is the ability that caffeine, specifically coffee, has to increase bowel movements, right? With intestinal contraction. Creatine can also cause some GI distress. So if you're sensitive to either of those things, again, not taking them at the same time,

but perhaps splitting them up into two dosages might be better for performance, both from a physiological standpoint, but also from the fact that you might not land yourself on the toilet for a half an hour in your training session. That's something that can really, like, put a damper, no pun intended, on your actual training. So I think that the two in conjunction are fine. I just wouldn't take them together. I would look to split them up. Next question, also about creatine, it seems to be the most, one of the most common topics, comes from Esther Kinberg. And she says, does creatine timing matter, which is a question I've actually answered on this podcast before. And I think it's a really important one to talk about because more and more people are taking

creatine, which I think is awesome. But people want to do it right, which is important. So the number one thing you need to do when supplementing with creatine is to make sure that you're landing in between that range of between 2 and 5 grams of daily creatine supplementation. This is, of course, to keep your creatine stores adequately full, if you will. Now, if you're not taking between 2 to 5 grams consistently, you don't get to have the discussion about creatine timing, as is the case with nutrition, right? We don't really want to talk about when it is that you're getting those macros if you're not even getting those macros in. So the main goal is to hit that two to five grams daily. Now, if you're doing that and you want to get the absolute most out of your creatine supplementation, there is a small amount of literature to suggest that taking it around

your workout, we call that PERI workout, P-E-R-I dash workout, PERI meaning around, dash workout, peri meaning around, might be better than taking it otherwise, and only by a small margin. Why could this be? Well, when you train, you activate an enzyme known as GLUT4, which helps pull sugar, amino acid, and other things into skeletal muscle tissue. Glute 4 is the pathway that we often think about when we think about insulin. Insulin opens glute 4, but so does resistance training. And it's a big pathway for the transmittal of sugars from the bloodstream into working tissue. But creatine can sneak in there too, and you could make the argument that the body is mildly, slightly more receptive to this stuff, to creatine, around the

training window. So if you want to get the most out of it, right, I would say around the workout. Next question comes from Happily Lauren Marie, and she asks, should I front load my calories before my evening workout? I am hungry after, but it's close to bed. So again, everything in context, assuming that you're hitting your overall macros and that you're stratifying your food across the day, I think it is probably more beneficial for you to have some of your calories before your training, but also allocate some for post-training, even though it's close to bed, because I don't necessarily think it is ideal. And you guys can make your own opinion about this, but consider the two physiological outcomes here of person A, who

eats a ton of calories prior to training and gets all of their nutrition in, trains really, really hard, goes to bed, sleeps the average six to seven hours people sleep, and then has their next meal in the morning, which would put your pre-training meal, let's say 90 minutes before training, but your post-training meal, about seven, eight hours, maybe longer, depending on how long it takes you to get from the gym to actually being asleep, you know, you might be eight, nine, ten hours before you have that quote-unquote post-workout

meal. I am more aligned with the idea of having a little bit less prior to training and even having something small before bed, meaning like 90 minutes before training, I have a meal and then on the way home from the gym before I go to bed, I maybe have like an apple or a banana with a protein shake. Doesn't have to be a huge meal, right? I think what's important to remember here is that eating in the evening is not, despite many of the myths that you've probably heard, more likely to make you gain body fat than eating in the morning, so long as your calories and macros are balanced.

So I do think that there is more merit to the second, right, the second hypothetical situation where we eat a little bit before and we eat even something small after as opposed to eating a lot before and then not eating again until the next day. I actually think that would be a really good idea for a study. It's very likely that somebody's already done a study using similar criteria. This is stuff that people in the nutrition space do have a tendency to look at. But I don't know if we will ever see that. I might look into it, but I would prefer a client of mine to get something in after that training, even if it's small, if they're going to be sleeping for seven to nine hours after. I wouldn't recommend not eating anything within nine hours of training, because I don't necessarily know if you'd be optimizing recovery while everybody's different

and your total macros are the number one most important thing. I do think nutrient timing is a tool that we should be looking to leverage in our favor rather than looking to kind of work against? OK, so at VDOLF3 asks, what's the best way to get back on track with working out? Assuming that you've taken some time away, because that is a question that I get pretty regularly here, which is how do I get back on track with working out? If I myself haven't been working out for months due to the pandemic or work or whatever it may be, right? I think the most important thing you can do initially is not to bite off more than you can chew. And to try to slowly, you know, like just like getting into a pool, dip your foot back in, start with just that first workout schedule three workouts your first week

back instead of seven you know i do think it's important to build some momentum and think about sustainability and can i replicate this and can i build on this in place of what a lot of people do which is go i'm going all in i'm going right back to where i was which is a, I'm going all in, I'm going right back to where I was, which is a fantastic thing to do if you can do it. But unfortunately, not everybody can. So you end up in a situation where you go, yeah, I worked out five days a week for years, I took three months off because my gym was closed, and I just didn't have the motivation. And this week, I'm going back five times at 5am my exact routine. And like two days in, you sleep through your alarm. You failed on your goal.

You're super upset. And a lot of people actually end up feeling defeated because the initial goal they set might have been a little bit too much for where they were at that week. Maybe not where they are going to be in a few weeks, right? You might get back to that old routine in no time. But how you go about setting goals for returning to play or returning to your initial exercise habits is really important. So instead of saying, I'm going to go exactly back to where I was, I might say, let's say you were doing five days a week. I'm going to start with three days a week. And if I can get to all three days before Thursday or Friday,

I'm even going to try to go on the weekend and get in there four times this week. So you give yourself a ideal goal of three times and then a stretch goal of maybe adding a fourth or fifth time. That way, you don't look at yourself as a complete failure if you're not able to immediately pick up your old habits, which for most people isn't necessarily super easy. The other thing you can do is you can get started on something like a program. I have found that people who purchase my programs often say that it's really nice to go to the gym and not have to think about anything. They just show up and execute.

It's a secondary level of motivation and accountability. The level above that is hiring a coach or hiring a trainer, bringing somebody on board to hold you accountable to getting back into a rhythm and doing it in an intelligent way. But the best piece of advice I have for you, bar none, is not to bite off more than you can chew on your return to health your return to getting into a routine look at where you were look at where you were wanting to be and try to close that gap quickly right i'm not saying take forever be a total lazy ass and you know be like i'm gonna start this week with one workout. No, come on. Be realistic. You got to challenge yourself. But at the same time, you also have to be realistic.

Not everybody is built like David Goggins, okay? Not everybody's going to be like, oh, I woke up one day when I was 400 pounds, and then within a month I was fucking running ultramarathons. Look, I don't remember how long it took Goggins to get to running ultramarathons, but what I can tell you is that most people are not built like that. Most people do a degree of backtracking and there's some failure and hiccups baked into anything that we're going to pursue. So I think you can set yourself up better for success if you make a point to return to form slowly and in a structured way. Okay, this question is from

at Care Bear. She asks, tracking macros, do you account for greens, reds, and fiber supplements, assuming all calories count? So I track green supplements. I don't take a red supplement. Legion Genesis includes a lot of that stuff. But if I were taking that, of course, I would track that too. I don't take a fiber supplement. If I was taking a fiber supplement, I would track that. The things that I tend not to track when I'm eating are leafy, cruciferous green vegetables in their whole form, right? Like I'm not going to track broccoli. I'm not going to track leafy greens like salad. I will, of course, track the dressing or anything I put on top of those vegetables or anything I cook them in

but the leaner you get the more deep you get into a cut I believe it's exponentially more important each pound each body fat percentage each week into a diet that you really fine-tune and hone in on your tracking because the leaner you get the more each calorie tends to matter. So it's really, really important. At William Lem asks, how do you work around an injury? My answer is very simple. Of course, it depends on the injury. You should work with a physical therapist or professional who knows how it is. You can go about returning to form and rehabilitating an injury if it requires rehabilitation.

If it's just general tightness, or you feel sore, or you're not sure what it is, a general good rule of thumb is not to stop moving, but not to do anything that directly agitates that tissue. So if you, for example, hurt your bicep tendon because you went out and played flag football and decided you were going to huck it up like Patrick Mahomes, maybe don't hit heavy biceps for a week. Maybe instead you focus on doing upper body work that does not bother your biceps tendon, you do a lot of legs, and give that tendon a chance to chill out. Like, just be smart, be intuitive, try to move if you can,

but the best thing you can do is get an accurate diagnosis for your injury, and do the rehabilitation work required of you if, in fact, rehabilitation is needed. At Overrated Loser, great username, asks, if you just paid for a trainer for six weeks but don't feel like you're getting much out of it, what should you do? feel like you're getting much out of it, what should you do? This is a tough question because I think a lot of people sign up for coaching or trainers expecting the trainer to do the work when in fact it is the coach or trainer's job to provide the guidance. But it is in fact the job of the client to provide the energy and requisite effort needed to actually reach the goal. So I would challenge you and say, if you feel like you paid for this six week service, but you're not getting much out of it, I would ask,

are you putting everything into it? Are you doing everything that your coach is asking you? And if they're not asking you much of you, and they're not giving you perhaps the education and the energy on their end to really make everything make sense for you so that this is a process where you realize like, hey, I just have to show up, execute and follow the plan. And maybe you go out and you get a new coach, or maybe you tell this coach that you need a little bit more help. But just paying for six weeks of training doesn't do shit. You have to actually show up and do the work. And and unfortunately this is something that I think a lot of people don't fully anticipate when they sign up to get a professional to help them they think

that the simple act of signing up kind of in and of itself is going to solve the issue but unfortunately it doesn't you still have to show up and you still have to do the work, as is the case with just about everything that you're going to probably attempt to accomplish. So guys, that's going to do it for today's episode. I really hope you enjoyed it. If you did, be sure to follow me on Instagram, follow me on Twitter, subscribe to the podcast on iTunes, Stitcher, Spotify, everywhere you can find podcasts. And if you have the time, share it. Leave me a five-star rating and review on whatever platform you use.

It is tremendously appreciated and helps more people get their health and fitness questions answered. As always, guys, I hope you have an awesome day. Be safe, be well, and get after it.