Muscle for Life with Mike Matthews - Danny Matranga on “Convincing” Friends and Family to Get Fit

Episode Date: December 8, 2021

Almost everyone knows someone who is unfit and lives an unhealthy lifestyle. In fact, chances are good that someone you care about or even a family member fits this description, whether they’re overweight, obese, a heavy drinker, smoker, or completely sedentary. So, it’s not too surprising that I’m often asked by people who have started their fitness journeys and seen the benefits of getting healthier, “how can I convince my friend/dad/wife/cousin to lose weight, start working out, or get fit?” Of course, we all want our loved ones to live long, healthy lives. But avoiding disease, dysfunction, and an early death aren’t enough. We want to see our closest friends and family thrive and live out the best version of themselves. And this is what I’m talking about on this podcast with Danny Matranga. We discuss the first step to helping someone else get fit, habit stacking, the importance of not giving “blanket” fitness advice, why you should be positive rather than critical, and a lot more. In case you’re not familiar with Danny, he’s a coach and owner of Core Coaching Method, an educator, and the host of his own podcast called Dynamic Dialogue. Danny knows all about not only helping people get fit, but making that process enjoyable, which is why he’s a great guest to talk about the best ways to encourage others to adopt healthier habits. So, if you’ve ever wanted to “convince” someone you care about to start working out, start dieting, lose weight, go to the gym with you, or just exercise enough to not be sedentary, you don’t want to miss this podcast! Timestamps: 0:00 - Pre-order my new fitness book now for a chance to win over $12,000 in splendid swag: https://www.muscleforlifebook.com/ 8:04 - How do you "convince" someone to start working out, diet, or live a healthier lifestyle? 9:16 - How many people are obese? 11:52 - What are the government recommendations for how much to move? 17:12 - What's the first step of encouraging someone to get started? 20:26 - What is habit stacking? 24:02 - Why you should be positive and encouraging rather than criticizing. 27:09 - Why you can't give the same advice to everyone. 35:44 - How has social media affected expectations of how much work it takes to get fit and healthier? 43:07 - What about people who aren't ready to make any changes yet? 48:09 - What about people with physical limitations or accessibility issues? 48:56 - Is a TRX useful? 1:01:28 - The formula for "convincing" others to get fit. 1:05:24 - Where can people find you and your work? Mentioned on the Show: Danny Matranga’s Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/danny.matranga/ Dynamic Dialogue Podcast: https://www.buzzsprout.com/911641 My New Book Muscle For Life: https://muscleforlifebook.com/

Well, today is the day, my beauts. Today, I am leaping out of the plane with the parachute, and I'm hoping there isn't just raggedy laundry in it. Today, I'm belly-flopping into the old watering hole, and I'm hoping that there isn't a pack of piranhas seething under the surface. Today, all right, fine. I'm just kicking off the big book launch bonanza for my newest fitness book for men and women of all ages and abilities called Muscle for Life, which is releasing on January 11th next year. And it's currently available for pre-order over at www.muscleforlifebook.com. lifebook.com. Also, if you pre-order the book now, you will be entered to win over $12,000 in splendid fitness swag that I'm giving away, including a Bowflex bike, a Hypervolt Go, smart fit adjustable dumbbells, all kinds of Legion goodies, and a lot more. Now, what is this book all about? Well, I have worked with tens of thousands of people over the years, and the biggest struggle for many of them is just getting started. It's

gaining enough momentum to reach the virtuous circle phase where achieving results motivates them to keep going, and then that leads to even better results and so on. And that's especially true of many people I've heard from over the years who are in their 40s and beyond. They often think it's too late to get into great shape, and it's even harder for them to overcome that inertia and find their stride than younger folk. Well, fortunately, research shows that it's never too late. It's never too late to build muscle, lose fat, and get healthy. And in this book, Muscle for Life, I provide a time-proven and science-based blueprint for eating and exercising that can help anyone get from

wherever they are to fit, regardless of their age, regardless of their abilities, and regardless of their circumstances. So again, go over to muscleforlifebook.com and pre-order the book now and make sure to forward your receipt to the email provided on that landing page and you will be entered into the giveaway. And also check out the landing page because you can do other things to easily tend to even 100x your chances of winning the grand prize, which is thousands and thousands of dollars of cool stuff. Again, that is muscleforlifebook.com. Good morning, afternoon, evening, whatever applies to you. This is Muscle for Life. I'm Mike Matthews.

Thank you for joining me today. And before we get into it, if you haven't already, please do subscribe to the show in whatever app you are listening to me in so you don't miss any new episodes. And it also helps me because it boosts the rankings of the show. the rankings of the show. So this episode is for anyone who knows someone who is not in shape, who is not living a particularly healthy lifestyle. And that's all of us. Chances are someone you care about is not in shape and not living a particularly healthy lifestyle, maybe a family member, maybe a partner. And chances are you have at least tried to encourage these people to make positive changes,

to eat a little bit better, to move around a little bit more, and chances are it didn't go over very well. Now, I'm assuming these things because I am often asked about this by people who themselves have made great strides in their health and fitness and who want to help a friend or a dad or a wife or a cousin do the same thing, want to help them lose weight and gain muscle and gain strength. gain muscle and gain strength. And in really every case of the people I hear from, they want the best for their friends and their loved ones. They want them to live longer. They want them to live better, not just avoid disease and dysfunction, but to thrive, to flourish. And that's what this podcast is about. In it, I talk with my buddy, Danny Matrenga, and we discuss how to help people take their first steps, how to help them overcome

inertia and start moving in the right direction, start getting results, which then motivates them to continue. And eventually they reach that virtuous cycle phase where they're getting enough good results to want to keep going. So they keep going and they just keep on getting more good results and so on and so forth. That's the goal really, right? Because eventually that becomes a lifestyle that becomes a core set of powerful habits that we can continue for the rest of our lives. And so we talk about stuff like habit stacking, the importance of not giving a blanket one size fits all fitness advice, being positive instead of critical, and a lot more. And in case you are not familiar with Danny, he is a coach. He is the owner of Core Coaching Method, and he's

the host of his own podcast, which he has had me on called Dynamic Dialogue. And Danny has a lot of in the trenches at the Coalface experience, helping everyday people get fit. He understands not just the science, the theory, but also the practical. And sometimes those things don't quite align, meaning that what has been shown effective in a scientific study may not work well with personal training clients because they can't stick to it, for example. So sometimes you have to inject a little bit of art into the science to make it actually work. So if you have someone in your life who you care about and who you would love to see leading a more active lifestyle, living a more healthy lifestyle, then this episode's for you.

Hey, Danny. Happy, what is today? Wednesday. Happy Wednesday. That's a thing, right? Yeah, I mean, it is now. Oh, Danny. Happy, what is today? Wednesday. Happy Wednesday. That's a thing, right? Yeah. I mean, it is now. Oh, yeah.

Oh, it's hump day. It's hump day. We're over the hump. Yes. So then we can drink ourselves into oblivion or something on the weekend, right? I've made it through the first 20 hours of my miserable 40-hour work week, and I can see the weekend. I'm almost drowning myself in sedatives, in alcohol. Almost there. And sports ball. Don't forget sports ball.

Hey, I will. I will. I will give a lot of my Sunday to football, so be careful. I'll watch the occasional sports ball game. If it's playoffs, otherwise it takes too much time, and I'm just not into it enough. I always enjoyed sports growing up. I enjoyed playing and I enjoyed collecting cards, but I never got into watching. Yeah. I love it all. I think it's an extension of some of what I do in the fitness space and just working with people. And then you have a deeper appreciation as somebody who moves your body more and pursues athletic endeavors. When you see somebody do some shit that just most humans can't, you go, all right, that was pretty cool. There's an extra level of appreciation there. For sure. For sure. It's fun to see freaky people doing super freaky things.

Exactly. But what are we here to talk about? We're here to talk about how... This is the question to pose to you, right? And it's something that I know you've been asked many times and I've been asked. And so I've addressed this privately with people, but it occurred to me when I was going over a little list of potential ideas, the things we could talk about that I've never written about it explicitly or really spoken about it much, maybe just tangentially. And that is, how do you convince, I'm putting that in scare quotes for people listening, because it's not, I think that's the wrong frame for the conversation, but this is what I'll be asked. How do I convince or even how do I force, but how do I convince my family member, my brother,

I convince my family member, my brother, or my spouse, or my close friend to start working out, or to start dieting, or to just start living a healthier lifestyle? Totally. I think the reason that those questions are posed to us with the convince as being the operative word there is because people are at a place of desperation. A lot of people that you love, that I love, that the listeners of this podcast love are not living a life that is quote unquote healthy. And again, in recent years, what that means has been debated, bickered, yelled about. Nobody wants to go out on a limb and say, hey, being obese is probably not a good long-term health plan for yourself because nobody wants to be

dragged through the streets as being insensitive. And I can get down with that, but there are a lot of people out there who are really struggling. And I took a look at the data because I was like, okay, how many people in my life, in your life, in most people's life are living unhealthy, your life and most people's life are living unhealthy, overweight, obese, not moving, not meeting activity guidelines. And so in 2015, I had to dig these numbers up because I needed to have something to work with. But in 2015, the CDC, and again, trigger warning, regardless of what you think of the CDC, this data seems to be pretty darn good. 36.9% of US adults were obese in 2015-16. So the obesity prevalence was about 37% amongst adults. And we know it's been climbing rapidly with children and children are outpacing

adults. And the reason they're outpacing adults is because children get their food and exercise habits from their parents. But in 2018, that number jumped up to 42.2%, which is a 1.7% increase per year. If you extrapolate that out to 2021, that would be 47.5% of adults are overweight or obese or obese, up to 70% are overweight. Yeah, that's obese. And that's conservative. If that's just extrapolating the rate increase from 2016 to 2018, that does not take into account these otherworldly impacts of something like a global pandemic.

Like staying at home for a year and feeling like the world's going to end. Some people would argue that that's probably not the best thing for your long-term health. I would tend to agree with that. So the operative number here that I'm working with is 50%. It's, I think, 47. Yeah. Obese. Yeah. And then overweight upward of 90, or sorry, 80. Upward. Yeah. Up to 80. And so if you think about that, that means about half of the people in your life are obese and eight out of 10 people that you know are overweight. And for us fitness fanatics, for people who love to go to the gym, for people who love to exercise, that's unfathomable.

But we are in the minority. And one of the things that I think we have failed at is trying to, I don't want to say extend the olive branch because it's not really like we're brokering some peace deal here, but we haven't done the best job of communicating to the people who don't move, who don't exercise, who don't monitor their diet at all that, Hey, I know I work out five days a week. I know I track my macros and I know I take protein powder and creatine and stuff that to you seems like overkill, but you don't have to start there. You can start with anything. I even looked into

it because I wanted to know what are, and again, I wouldn't rely on the government to be your kind of fitness coach here, but what is the government recommendations for movement? And the CDC wants people to move for 150 minutes a week and perform two strenuous muscular sessions, things that challenge your muscles more than normal. That's the verbiage. So 150 minutes of movement and two resistance training sessions per week. That is something that 77% of Americans don't do. So we know 50% are obese, 80% are overweight, and 77% don't meet the movement guidelines. So there is a lot of wiggle room between where most of us and most of your listenership is at and where the average American is at. And I think what we need to do a better job of

is bridging that gap, wouldn't you say? Yeah, I agree. And that's one of the reasons why I have this new book coming out, which is for men and women. It's called Muscle for Life. And it really is to cater to middle-aged people. And then you can also, though, add into that people, especially who are very new to all of this, have a lot of weight to lose and who you wouldn't start with something like my existing programs, like bigger, leaner, stronger. If I have a 55 year old guy who has to lose a lot of weight, he's, he doesn't do any exercise right now. And he, let's say has never done any strength training. I'm not going to start him with heavy barbell bench pressing and squatting and deadlifting. He could work up to that, but I'm going to start him with some body weight stuff.

That's where we're going to start. And then we're going to work into some bands and then we're going to work into some dumbbells only. And maybe he can grab a trap bar at that point. And in time, he could work up to if he wants to go that far to something that is more traditionally a strength training program. And so I totally agree. And that's one of the goals for this book of mine that's coming out is I hope to show people that there is a relatively smooth on-ramp to a lot of what you see on Instagram. And even if you see in my own stuff and it seems completely out of the realm of possibility for you, I do understand that and know though, that if you want to get to the kind of stuff that I do, and you want to have at least the type of physique maybe that I have,

you can do that. But currently, I don't have a book. I don't have just one thing I can give that person. You know what I mean? Totally. And I think that's been the larger struggle, which is most people who are in these large percentages that I've been naming, most people who exist in these majority groups of being deconditioned, overweight, obese, not active. I don't think, I really don't believe that they want to be that way. I do believe that they would like to probably lose some body fat. They'd like to move better. They'd like to feel better. They'd like to be a little bit more confident. Maybe their confidence isn't affected by the way they look, but I've worked with the general public for a decade now, and I can tell you that most people, it fucking is. Whether they're going to tell you that upfront or whether five, six, seven personal training sessions in, they're going to tell you that they haven't had sex with their

husband in 10 years. One way or another, I think that there's a lot of people who deep down are dealing with, I really want to change how I look and feel, but it's daunting. And I think what you just said, like, this is a long runway. We don't need to start with five days a week of resistance training. We can start with one or two. We can start with body weight. And that's the biggest thing. When people ask me the question, how do I convince my loved ones to work out? Or how do I encourage my loved ones to work out? The first thing I can tell them is, you got to acknowledge one, where you're at, what this means to you, what your habits are, and then rewind in your mind and think to how you got here.

You probably didn't start off following, you know, a really nice calculated split where all your volume was dispersed evenly and you're calculating your RPEs and you're working off one repetition maxes and you're, and you're waiting patiently for your three-minute rest period to end so you can perform your beautifully executed barbell work. No, you probably started like a lot of us started, where you just went to the gym, you threw shit at the wall, and it stuck. And for most people, honestly, if all you did was go to the gym and train like an idiot,

or what the initiated would call training like an idiot, that would be phenomenal. Yeah. But if you enjoy it, that's a great place to start. If you enjoy it, you'll do it. And one of my biggest frustrations, and I am so guilty of this because when I was first getting started in the fitness industry and I was an insecure personal trainer looking to make a name for myself, the first thing I would do is I'd find anybody who was doing something exercise related that I felt was suboptimal and I'd bag on them. Oh, CrossFit, that's so dumb. Oh, Zumba, that's so dumb. And again, warranted. These things are probably not optimal long-term for muscular development, body composition, injury prevention, whatever. But it beats the shit out

of doing what 80% of Americans do, which is nothing. So again, you've got to acknowledge where you're at first. And then whoever this loved one is, it's much trickier with spouses, I found. But whoever this loved one is, first order of business is meet them where they are at. If you can find something for them that is enjoyable, that makes them want to show up, that might have some kind of community, whether that's you going with them or them going to a class, that stuff is exponentially better than nothing. So I think the first step, look at the person who you're trying to work with here, meet them where they're at, and lower that bar to wherever you need to lower it. Because again, if they're currently doing zero, simply going on a walk with them after dinner is better than nothing. Offering to say, hey, do you want to go get a healthy lunch instead of going to Chili's for

the third time this week? There are things that we can do, but it starts with, I think, first lowering our expectations and meeting people where they're at. our expectations and meeting people where they're at. And I totally agree. And finding something simple. I like the tiny habits approach to use B.J. Fogg's, to use his term, right? Where you're finding something. And then this works for all of us. Anybody listening, you could use it yourself if you're wanting to get started with something, but feeling a lot of resistance. listen, you could use it yourself if you're wanting to get started with something, but feeling a lot of resistance. All right. What is something you could do that's so easy that there's no way you're saying no to it? So if we're talking about fitness, right? And again, this is a discussion I've had privately also with people who will ask me for some advice on getting started,

or maybe they've tried to get started several times and it hasn't gone well, and they don't want to fail again. And what I'll find many times is they try to do too much too fast. And even if they knew what they were doing and they understood like, yes, five days of strength training per week is better than one. Correct. Um, adding in some cardio, that's even better. Correct. And following a proper meal plan, that's better than just trying to eat clean. Yes. Correct. Uh, but, but then by trying to make the, those major C changes all at once,

it was just too much for them. So I'll bring it back to, uh, okay. So let's just, i like to start with something exercise related and then if we're talking about diet something maybe we can remove one thing so can we pull the soda out or reduce it or add something can we add some protein to the diet and on the exercise side of things could we start with it may just be going for a 30-minute walk a few times a week or if a a person, sometimes people, especially these days, people working from home, they often have calls they have to do. And so I'll propose

to them, why don't you then, let's say you have a 30 minute call you have to do at 4 PM. Can you go for a walk while you're doing the call? Right. I love that. And then we get these habits, we get some momentum, and then they feel up to adding a little bit more and same thing on the diet side. And eventually then instead of, again, trying to go from zero to 100, we just get gradually there. And after a couple of months, now they're smoothly in the groove they were trying to force themselves into in the beginning. Totally. And there's a lot to unpack there. The first thing that you hit on that I love is habit stacking, which is that to borrow from another habit author is a James Clear thing.

And habit stacking is take something you have to do and combine it with something that you know that you need to do. So if you know that movement is a priority, and like you said, you have a phone call to do, take the phone call on a walk. Try to combine things that you have to do. So if you know that movement is a priority, and like you said, you have a phone call to do, take the phone call on a walk. Try to combine things that you have to do with things that you need to do. With regards to nutritional changes, that tends to be the most challenging one for people. And I think I love the idea of, hey, don't eat fast food, start with that. Or hey, eliminate processed foods if you can. Or even something that I do with clients, which is, because I find that the minute you start taking things away from people,

you really run the risk of scaring them off. One of the things I really like to do is tell them to do more, more, more, more. More protein, more water, more vegetables, and more sleep. I'm not going to take anything from you. I just want you to focus on eating more of these things. Because what I know from my practice, working with clients, working as a nutrition coach with people for years, if you eat more protein, you eat more vegetables, and you drink more water,

you don't eat as much crap because your satiety is through the roof. You're getting the nourishment that you need. And oftentimes, that works even better than telling people to give up some stuff. But I do like the point, like if you obviously are pounding back multiple sodas a day, or you're starting every day with a 600 calorie Starbucks McFlurry Frappuccino calorie bomb, basically a mass gainer in a 16 ounce cup. You should probably cut out the obvious stuff while making some small behavioral changes there. And if you start small, if you hold people's hands along the way, you will get them there. But one of the things you hit on this, and I think this is a good segue, is almost everybody

who wants to lose weight has tried before and they failed. And so one of the things that I think those of us who are initiated or those of us who are privileged enough to be asked for help, because we are already in the rhythm, we've already got it. People look to us and go, damn, you've got this figured out. Like, shit, you look great with your shirt off. I saw you at the barbecue and your plate was half vegetables. How do you do it? saw you at the barbecue and your plate was half vegetables. How do you do it? One of the things we often do is we remind people of their failures. We will tell, oh, well, remember the time you tried keto or, oh, well, how is this any different from that MLM bullshit you fell into? Or how is this any different from the intermittent fasting? And even though it's nice to get jabs in and it

makes us feel good, it's generally bad practice to remind people of their past failures. So if somebody comes to you as tempting as it might be to, quote unquote, watch film and be like, see, this is where you fucked up. Look right here, you did this, this and this. Try to stay away from negativity. Try to stay away from reminding people where they failed. If you keep reminding people, oh, this is what, your third or fourth time trying to lose weight? You just got to stick with it this time.

Come on, you always start and stop. That is a huge mistake that I think we make because again, for us, it seems easy. But for these people, it's like, hey, I'm coming to you because I'm trying to maybe start a habit. Yeah, maybe it is the fourth or fifth time. But undermining their confidence by reminding them of all their past failures, never a good idea. And this is very common with spouses.

This stuff tends to be this low-grade background bickering that's really common with spouses. And so if you can, instead of doing that, opt for recognizing even the smallest, seemingly most insignificant positive shit. Like, hey, I saw you took that call when you went for a walk and I just wanted to give you, or I saw you went for a walk when you took that call. I just wanted to give you kudos or like, hey babe, I saw you had a big serving of protein on your plate. That's awesome. Or hey, you went to the gym three times this week. Give me a high five. Recognize more of what people are doing positive, even if it's not moving the scale, even if it seems insignificant, and try to the best of your ability to at least

reframe negativity or failures as learning opportunities and never hammer them. Because oftentimes, we're dealing with people who already lack confidence as it is. Yeah. Compliments and like you said, just positive acknowledgements can really go a long way. And that's, I think, a good just general relationship tip, not even just romantic relationships. Totally. I mean, that's a business tip for any people who manage people. And it's something that it doesn't come naturally or to me, it actually doesn't probably because it starts with, I never cared much to get complimented myself. Like totally my own judgment of my work, for example, or, um, myself has always mattered more to me than other people's ideas about me and the things I do or don't do.

And so that's something I've had to just get into the conscious habit of with I'm thinking particularly with people who work with me where I'm not someone to put people down, certainly not to attack them as people. If they make mistakes, I'll point out mistakes. But I was not instinctively the type of person who would make a point of noticing when people are doing things well and just pointing it out. Again, probably because I never expected it or cared one way or another, whether I got it from bosses or peers. Totally. And all of us have some level of insecurity, where and how much that is, is highly variable. And it probably has a lot to do with how you were raised, how your parents treated you, your environment, your nurturing environment as a kid. If you're a hyper-secure adult who doesn't need a lot of

compliments, that's awesome. And you and I are probably both people who give less compliments than maybe we should because we operate just fine without getting them from other people. But giving a compliment is a little bit of a superpower in my opinion when it comes to coaxing somebody along in Getting them to do something that is probably uncomfortable is high friction and not necessarily easy and kind of just segwaying into this next piece that I think a lot of people really struggle with because If you're listening to this and you listen to muscle for life or you listen to my podcast

You're probably already initiated. You're probably already somewhat into your fitness. And when people come to you and they ask you for advice, it's very, very important when you give a prescription, whether it's as a fitness professional, a fitness author, a fitness podcaster, a fit friend of somebody who's not fit, or just somebody who's generally come to for advice, that you put this advice into context. And so this is... I'll share a failure I made a lot early on in my training career. I started personal training when I was 18 years old, going to school to do my undergraduate work, working with mostly moms and mostly older people.

And so I couldn't have been more of a 180 from my target market or not necessarily my target market, but the market that I got to work with because not everybody's signing up to do personal training with the 18-year-old kid with the retainer and the pimples. A lot of people were like, are you even old enough to do this? And so what you need to do is you need to acknowledge what works for a now 26-year-old. I have a girlfriend, but I'm not married. I don't have kids. I don't have nearly the amount of responsibilities that a 44-year-old mother of two might, who's coming to me for weight loss.

You know, I might need to apply a different context to her life. And so for me- You can't just tell her, well, it's not a matter of not having time. Don't give me that bullshit. It's just priorities. That would work with you, where if you were to say, no, I just don't have the time. It'd be like, Danny, you have a girlfriend, you don't have kids, you're 26. What are you talking about? Of course you have time. But that's not the same with... It's not. And I do it all the time because, again, it's frustrating. We're imperfect beings. And I still, to this day, I get trapped in this,

well, we have 176 hours in a week. If you worked two 40-hour-a-week jobs, that would still give you like fucking 96 hours a week to work out. Come on, give me three of those. I'm going to dunk on you with math, you lazy, sedentary, degenerate, damn it. But it's not particularly warm or helpful. And so again, learning from the mistakes I've made, when you're looking to meet somebody where they're at, when you've made the decision to front load the compliments, to front load the kindness, to push off negativity, you will already be laying the foundation. The next step then is saying, okay, look, I'm 26. I got no kids. I work out five days a week.

That ain't going to work for you probably. What is your BAM? What is your bare ass minimum? Can you give me two hours? Okay, cool. If you can give me two hours, let's get two total body resistance training sessions. And this is where we get to have a little fun because for people like you and I, we have a rough idea of what's probably ideal for building muscle from a scientific application of training principle standpoint. Should you train one to three times a week? Probably. Two's probably the sweet spot as far as frequency goes. Should you focus on compounds over isolation exercises? Most likely, especially if you're crunched for time. Should you train only in one rep range? Probably not. You should probably

diversify a little bit. Should you train a little bit more anaerobically than aerobically? Yeah. Okay, cool. Well, Mary Muffintop, who's 44 and has two kids, guess what? If she can go to the gym twice, she can actually follow that criteria. She can train two total body resistance training-based sessions that are selecting for mostly compound movements, trained somewhat close to failure, but not to failure, and achieve phenomenal results. And if you tell that person, hey, you know that starting with just two times a week is probably phenomenal. And if you get to do that and you get to a point where you've done it for three, four, five weeks in a row, we can

explore adding another session. That's a lot more palatable than going, well, I'll tell you what, I go to the gym five days a week and I track literally everything I put in my mouth. And that's just what it takes if you want to do it. Because we use these opportunities oftentimes when people come to us to toot our own flute instead of actually providing advice that's through a lens that's contextually applicable to this person. And so I think what we do once we've laid this foundation of, yep, I'm here to help. I'm not here to dunk on you. I'm going to give you positive feedback. Make sure that your prescriptions are relevant to the person. Like, holy shit,

so many people miss this step and they just give blanket recommendations that would work phenomenally in a vacuum. Or it's like, okay, yeah, if I was a discount code income-driven influencer who like my primary dealings in the day are posting a few things that make me money, and then I have all day to train and do whatever I want, that's not going to apply to the 80% of people who are overweight, the 50 plus percent now who might be obese and the 77% who don't meet movement requirements. We got to start small. And many of these people have heard, and you've seen a lot of these headlines, a lot of these articles, particularly over the last couple of years, how useless exercise is for losing weight. And that's something I've talked about and why that's just wrong, period. But many people who are currently not doing anything and who could use some gentle

persuasion to start doing something, in my experience, many of these people, they don't realize that doing one or two strength training workouts per week and going for a 30-minute walk every day is going to do wonders for them that that that's actually all they need with you combine that with some basic understanding of how to control their food appropriately it could be portion control it could just be a a sensible depending on how much weight they have to lose they may not need to bother with weighing anything, measuring anything, just a good, simple quote unquote, intuitive eating kind of approach where you're getting most of your food from the stuff that's good for you. You include some stuff that is not very nutritious, but it's nice to eat. And that, that little program right there

could help them lose a hundred pounds and completely transform their fitness. But many of these people, they, again, in my experience, they've been surprised. Like they don't believe me at first when I tell them that that totally, like, really you're saying all I have to do is like two hours, maybe three hours of strength training per week and go for some walks. And, you know, maybe if I want to do a little bit more on the weekend, I could like ride my bike or something like that's it. That's all it takes. And those people are often surprised as well when they ask me, okay, so what is your routine? Like they're thinking that I'm in the gym 10 hours a week training days. Yep. Like two days. Right. Um, and, and I don't eat, I haven't eaten a car,

but was the, uh, I've eaten a carbs since, since 2013 or whatever. And, and I flog myself like a, like a religious zealot. If I, if I dare eat any sugar and they're, they're surprised to hear that. And for people listening, you probably, I give a periodic updates of here's, here's what I'm doing. Here's how it's going. But I lift weights about five hours per week and I do 30 minutes of cardio six or seven days per week and i just stack that with usually work calls so i have calls i have to do anyway i would do it on the podcast if i could but i'd be breathing it would be obnoxious but but i have calls usually i have to do and if i don't have a work call i like to take a little bit of time. And I've been better about this recently to just stay in touch with friends.

Whereas previously, all I would do is work and I wouldn't really have much social interaction at all with anybody outside of my family. Right. And so but I'll usually be on a phone call and 30 minutes on the bike, medium intensity. So I'm breathing a bit, but I can have a conversation and that's it. And, and then the diet side of things, some people, you know, I follow exactly what we've basically been talking about is higher protein, a lot of nutritious foods. I'm not a big quote unquote junk food person, but I'll have some ice cream once a week, eat a big pint of ice cream. Cause why not? And maybe, maybe if I end up going to a restaurant, I'm going to eat whatever I want there, or I'll cook something like a big pasta

meal or something like that. And again, so people are often surprised at what they can get out of what seems like a little or just an inappropriately low level of effort, especially when they look on Instagram and see people doing two a days. And totally, I do feel that social media has not helped because we tend to find people in our space, the people who have the most followers, the people who have the best physiques, they will often promote hellacious, incredibly difficult workouts,

posting about their hard work and their dedication. And, oh, I threw up a meme. Hashtag no days off. Yeah. I threw up a meme. My workout routine is analogous to being a warrior or a lion. I am so fucking, I've transcended alpha. You plebs could only dream to be as hard working as I am. And it's like, bro, your definition of hard work is like a two-hour arm day. This woman is dragging two children around, exhausted, barely getting any sleep. The real hard workers in many cases are the people who are trying to integrate exercise into their life. It's just chaotic and it's hard. And I do struggle a little bit. I grapple with the

intellectual gymnastics that would be required for somebody to write an article that says exercise doesn't help you lose weight. Oh, you've seen them though, right? is good, but in a lot of ways requires some intellectual dishonesty and some intellectual gymnastics that those of us who are initiated would go, hold on a second. Yes, for a long time, we have absolutely put way too much stock and way too much weight into how important exercise is for weight loss compared to nutrition. I say this all the time. If you want to find out just how hard it is to quote unquote outwork a bad diet, do a 10 calorie assault bike sprint. Tell me how you feel because that's the equivalent of one tortilla chip. One tortilla chip has about 10 calories. And if you've ever been to a Mexican restaurant, you know that nobody fucking eats one tortilla chip. You eat them until they bring whatever the hell else you ordered. And to try to burn that off would be futile.

So I do understand where these people are coming from, but we're framing it so disingenuously. Even if exercise directly did nothing to help you lose weight, which it does, albeit exponentially less than monitoring your nutrition, following the habits we've outlined already, what it does for you indirectly is phenomenal, particularly resistance training. We know resistance training improves insulin sensitivity. We know it improves muscle mass. We know it improves strength. We know it improves bone density. We know that it builds confidence. We know that it improves coordination. These things all matter independent of what you fucking weigh. And also, it's going to encourage you to have more, you're going to do other things well. You're going to work a little harder when you've got this resistance training habit in place. once they got into a rhythm working with me as a trainer five, six, seven years ago. They'd be like,

I'm not going to eat that today. I worked way too hard. And I was like, I kind of like that. Not that you should restrict things, but somebody who for a decade and a half, a decade plus was like, I don't give a shit about my body. I'm not worth the exercise. I'm not going to care about what I eat. For them to then become, you know what? I busted my butt today. I'm going to give my body what I think I need, not what I think I want. And that's a really cool place to get to. So to undermine exercise's ability to support being in the right caloric environment for weight loss, I hate that. I think it's disingenuous. And I honestly think the people that probably write these articles might fall into the camp we're talking about now. Maybe there's somebody who has tried every exercise modality in the book and failed and felt inclined to write some

tacky Forbes article about, hey, study shows exercise doesn't help weight loss. Compensatory overeating. You just can't get away from it. Yeah, exactly. This is their straitjacket they've stuffed themselves into. And it's like they're trying to project. It's exactly what it is. And it's unfortunate. And again, if you lead with empathy and you try not to just, hey, that's stupid, that's dumb. I'm going to come out and attack this person. And instead you go, okay, maybe they're a lost cause. But somebody out there in this 340 million Americans,

if we assume that 80% of them are overweight, we're talking north of 250 million people. There's 250 million people out there who might be inclined to hear me out when I say, yeah, you're not going to lose 50 to 60 pounds eating like shit and lifting weights twice a week. But you might lose 50 to 60 pounds if you lift weights twice a week and pay half the amount, a little bit, 50% more focus on your nutrition. We really can move mountains if we just start small. But I would say our large failure as an industry, as a whole, has been overselling the importance of beast mode, hashtag team no days off, hashtag you got to want it more than I do. I do think we've fumbled that and we should instead

be promoting, hey, if you're getting out there two to three times a week and not eating like an ass, you're going to get there so long as you remain patient and understand that this process is allowed to be slow. And if you're doing it right, it's probably going to be slow. And that's another thing is set these expectations in advance. I do this a lot with the clients that I work with online and with my coaching company is people come to me and they want to lose 50, 100, 150 pounds. And I often will tell them, hey, month one, you might not lose anything. And I want you to be okay with that because our first month is going to be about habits. And there's so many things happening physiologically inside you when you start this

that looking at month one and what that scale says in month one as a barometer for your success, it's probably going to disappoint you. Let's wait till month two or three, because people want it and they want it now. You know that, especially as somebody who runs a supplement company, you know that people are just hardwired to lean into instant gratification. And I think if you can start by saying, okay, I'm going to be nice to you. I'm going to be encouraging. I'm going to be complimentary. I'm going to scale this for wherever the hell you're at. I'm going to put it into the context of the other stuff that matters. If you have kids, I know exercise and tracking calories is probably going to be three or four on the importance level. It's not going to be number one like it is for me.

And I'm also going to take the time to go the extra mile to let you know that it's not going to happen fast. And that if you're cool with that, we might get somewhere. These are the things that you have to do with people. And we're fighting an uphill battle, but I think it's one we can win. We just have to get out of this default. I need it now. I want it now. And my smartphone has conditioned me to make me think I should get it now. If you like what I'm doing here on the podcast and elsewhere, definitely check out my health and fitness books, including the number one bestselling weightlifting books for men and women in the world, Bigger Leaner Stronger and Thinner Leaner Stronger, as well as the leading flexible And there's probably another subset of people we should quickly comment on. And that is people who are not ready to make any changes yet.

And that can be hard to accept when it's somebody close to us, somebody we care about, and they are living a very unhealthy lifestyle. Let's say sedentary, overweight. Let's throw in, I mean, usually there's obviously their diets are not going to be great. Let's throw in alcohol. Alcohol, cigarettes, drugs, you name it. Yep. And poor sleep hygiene. drugs you name it yep and and poor sleep hygiene and you see basically that this person is slowly killing themselves and and then so and i just know that fortunately uh i haven't i haven't

dealt with this firsthand but i have um worked through it with many people secondhand who who were dealing with it firsthand and and they can get very frustrated because it is frustrating when you're trying to help somebody. And it just doesn't get anywhere, especially when you're dealing with something that is so black and white in terms of the data. And you would think that I could just show you that, look, here's all the evidence

that if you keep going down this road, it is a dead end. And you are going to end well. You are going to hit that wall sooner, probably, rather than later. What are your thoughts on that? I think it's a great point. And, you know, we talked a little bit off air about the pandemic and I'm not going to bring that back up. But I do think that we've learned in the last two years that if you just try to dunk on people with data and look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look,

look, they're not going to be as receptive to that. And if somebody is not ready, it presents, of course, a lot more friction and it's a lot larger challenge. And so I don't think- Like arguing with people, for example, it just never worked. When have you ever won an argument in the sense where the person after the heated exchange was like, you know what, Danny? You are right. And I was totally wrong. I have learned something today. Thank you. It doesn't work like that. You're not going to have Uncle Larry go, you know what? You really framed my obesity and alcohol dependency in such a way that I'm massively encouraged to take up an extremely anxiety-

I'm coming to the gym with you tomorrow. Yeah, yeah. Let's fucking five days a week. Let's hit the arm day. No, it is awesome. Can we do some supersets? In all actuality, if somebody is not ready, hammering on them is going to make them that much less ready. I think what you do here is you lead by example. You extend soft offers of, hey, would you like to join me for a walk? Hey, I'm cooking up a healthy dinner. Can I make you something? Especially if these are people who live in your

orbit. If maybe they don't live in your orbit, you might have to work a little harder. But I don't think... Because for people like you and I who are analytical, we like the data, we like to see the numbers. You have to remember most people are not going to respond well to that. And telling somebody that they're killing themselves when they're likely already using food and being sedentary and technology as a quote unquote buffer between some probably deeper seated emotional stuff, like piling more negativity on them probably isn't going to help. So for those people who you meet with the most resistance, I think the first thing to do, let them know that you care about them. Let them know that they matter to you. And don't make it about you. Don't be like, hey, if you don't lose this weight, you're not going to be here for your grandkids. That's the break in case of emergency, last case scenario shit. I have deployed that with clients and it works really well.

And sometimes it loses you a client. And so one of the things you have to acknowledge is that you have to tread carefully. You can only do that when you've really established a good relationship with somebody. When they respect you, when they know that you really have their best interests in mind, you are not trying to just dump on them. You know what I mean? Totally. And I think that you have to remember that even inside of some romantic partnerships, some family hierarchies, people question each other's intentions all the time.

And so just remembering like, hey, this isn't about me. This is about you. I love you. I care about you. I want you to get the most out of life. I'm here if ever you're ready to make a change. In fact, I'm going on a walk in about a half an hour. I'd love it if you joined me. Small, simple things like that can really make a big difference. Another population that we don't talk about often, and this is something that's close to me because my dad's disabled, is people who maybe have physical limitations or they have accessibility limitations, whether it's class-related, whether it's like, hey, I just don't live in a neighborhood where there's a gym that I can get to, or I just can't afford a

membership, or I don't have the time, or hey, I'm super overweight and I can't go. I just going to a gym wouldn't happen. I'm so overweight that that wouldn't happen. Or using my dad as an example, he has Parkinson's disease. So certain forms of resistance training would probably be likely to be a greater risk for injury than they would for helping them. And so when you have people who maybe want to do it, but they're having a hard time doing it, just reminding them to do the most you can with what you have. So for people who are stuck at home, you can do things with bands, with body weights, with walking. I mean, shit,

the thing that I recommend for almost everybody who's training from home is a TRX, like a suspension trainer. These things are phenomenal for giving people external stability to do things like squats. You can train musculature that's super important and so often under-trained in the general population, like the lats and upper back with things like rows. And they call them T-flies and Y-flies to train some of the musculature of the shoulder. And you get a TRX, you can effectively train your entire back. You get a couple of dumbbells, you can effectively train your entire upper body and lower body. And just with that, or even bands, God, COVID taught us a

lot about the versatility of bands. You can bring two people who might not necessarily be inclined to go to a gym, be able to go to a gym. Physically, they're not going necessarily be inclined to go to a gym, be able to go to a gym. Physically, they're not going to be able to go to a gym. You can bring it to them and help them out. So don't write anybody off. Nobody's a lost cause until they've decided that they are, in fact, a lost cause. I do think one of the things content creators, trainers in the fitness space do a lot is we try

to curate our content. We try to curate our messaging and everything that we do to the people who are already initiated. I was going to make a post about how you could exercise two days a week, but then I decided to make a post about this sick ass anatomically correct lateral raise. Yeah, blood flow restriction training for my biceps so I can get in an extra five sets per week. Exactly. Yeah. Like, oh, did you know that if you adduct the, you know, ubulus to quote my favorite movie, the anchor man, like, oh, if you, if you adduct the ubulus to five degrees, you'll work the trapezium. But like that is going over so many people's head. But don't ever go to five degrees you'll work the trapezium but like that is going over so many

people's head but don't ever go to 10 degrees don't yeah that's the the never do this thumbnail you know and like those things are so uh they're so that we we are like moths to a candle to that stuff because we love it and and sometimes we laugh it off like i i there's this one guy i'm not going to name names, but he's notorious for posting what are effectively stupid, idiotic exercise iterations. But then he leaves these monster captions and uses the most esoteric language about bullshit. And anybody who really knows, knows this guy's a clown, but a lot of people don't know he's a clown. He just uses really big words and really crazy exercises. And we get caught up in that world when a lot of us as trainers-

He probably trains professional athletes. That's what the- He does. You must know who I'm talking about. You must know. I'm going to ask when we stop recording, but then this guy is a meme essentially because- He is quite literally the meta meme right now in the fitness space. Like I literally joked on somebody's post the other day, they shared an exercise that he did. And I was like, you know, my fantasy football strategy this year was not to pick any players that this guy trains. And so far I'm undefeated. It's silly,

but we gravitate towards the stuff that we like, towards the stuff that scratches the itch of five, 10 years in the space. And not many trainers and coaches are out there making content for the 250 million Americans who aren't moving, who aren't lifting weights, who think they're a lost cause. And so one of the things I try to encourage anybody, whether you're a trainer, a nutritionist, a dietician, a strength coach, yes, is it? With great power comes great responsibility. You have knowledge that can help a lot of people if you just take the time to frame it properly, be encouraging, not dunk on them, and make a little content for the everyman. There are a lot of people out there who really need it and we're just, I think, not serving them well. And quite frankly,

that's why you were asked to write a book for that population. It's not because you know the... Well, yes, it is. It is because you know these upper echelon, higher level things about training nuances, nutritional nuances. But what makes you successful and what makes your supplement company successful, what makes your book successful is your ability to interpret that and then repackage it in a way that is accessible for so many more people. And so I would challenge anybody who's listening who's really invested in their health and fitness. Think about how you might repackage what you know to better serve the people who are coming to you for help in the first place. Don't just tell them what you do. Don't tell them what they should do. Don't tell them what's optimal. Don't try to impress them with jargon or this advanced level knowledge

and sophistication. Save that for the other meatheads who... Absolutely. And again, just speaking from my own experience, I spent a lot of time as somebody who got into the industry in my late teens and early 20s. It's dominated by really intelligent men in their late 20s to early 40s who know a fuck ton about a fuck ton. And I just wanted to be one of the guys. And I felt like, hey, the best way for me to do that is just get as smart as I can be and then show everybody how smart I am, right? That's going to help people. That's going to help make a difference. And yeah, it gets you some clout with the people in your circle. But the people who are coming to you for help, the people who you see in your life that are

really struggling, the people that you look at and go, God, I really wish that they would make this change and they're not making it. If you are communicating to them the same way you're communicating with your peers, your contemporaries, the people you look up to, the people you want to impress, they're not going to respond to that. You have got to make sure that your messaging, again, that's another pandemic term. If your messaging is off, it's very unlikely you are going to convince the 70% to 80% of Americans who aren't doing much to do something. So I think one of the things we all have to take ownership of in this industry is getting our messaging or at least making a point to have some of our messaging reach that huge

swath of people who are completely confused, who are liable to try a juice cleanse, who are liable to do vegan keto fasting, you name it, who are going to try to do some- Seven different fat burners and- I'm going to do 75 hard because going from zero days of exercise to 75 consecutive double days seems reasonable because that's what the people on the internet who are in the best shape tell me is reasonable. So I think we could do a better job. And it's something that I've really been interested in doing a better job of myself. Yeah, that resonates with me. And that

really has been my goal since the beginning is to make make what what what could be complicated and some some of the stuff especially on the training side of things it gets fairly complicated um when we're talking about what your average person needs to know it's uh it's not it doesn't seem complicated to us and to a lot of people listening but if you remember what it was like to be new, I do. And there were, I had all kinds of questions and I've always been a decent learner, but it took time to sort through a lot of what was complexity. And now the beginning, my goal has never been to impress anybody in the industry or to earn any accolades from the gatekeepers or the intelligentsia. Really, my goal from the beginning was to just communicate effectively to everyday people who need help. And one of the reasons for that is because that is one of the few things now I've worked for myself and had businesses and made money and stuff for some time

now. And there aren't many things in life you can come back to again and again and get the same joy and kind of charge and thrill out of. Making money is certainly not one of them, because once you get beyond not having money problems, then- What is it? $82,000 a year, they say? After that number, your proportionate increase in happiness starts to decrease with each dollar? Right. And I would say that that, of course, depends on circumstances. So if you have a family of four living in Manhattan, you know what I mean? That's going to be a bit different than a single dude living in Toledo. Where is that? Ohio,

I think. Ohio. And so, but regardless, there is that ceiling. And then beyond that, the satisfaction you get from money, it shrinks to the vanishing point um but but helping other people and and getting that firsthand like having somebody email me or dm me just to say hey i just want to let you know i read your book and and i followed the program it's been six months and here's here are the changes not just the physical changes but all the other changes a lot of other stuff we've been talking about. There's a lot of satisfaction in that. And it never gets old, which is pretty cool. It's awesome.

So that's been my orientation from the beginning. Whereas, again, I'm a person, I don't even take compliments very well. They make me feel a little bit awkward. So I haven't been oriented toward, oh, I just want the smartest people to think I'm smart too. And I just want them to accept me. And it's not that I think I'm better. It's just not my personality. That's all. And so it's worked to my favor though. It certainly has. And the reason I bring that up is because I find so frequently in our space, we almost piss on communicating to the layman. It's like, yeah, anybody could- Talking about simple little things and using simple words and- Did you equate for protein intake? Did you equate for volume? Like, what do you hold on? You know, like, listen, we can have all of the, you know, behind the scenes off the air jargon talk and, and we cannot allow our industry to evolve further into a meathead intellectual dick

measuring contest. Okay. That only serves us. And I think it's great, but I think the people in the industry, like yourself, like myself, a lot of the good ones, we understand that there is a massive amount of people out there that need the basics. They need these things to be communicated to them in a way that is actionable, in a way that they could go, hey, you know what? That makes sense. So think about it like this. You know where you're at now. Think about where you're at when you started. know where you're at now, think about where you're at when you're started. If you could be where you're at now, go back in time and talk to yourself when you first got started, would you use the

words you use with your peers? Would you even say hypertrophy or would you just say muscle growth or muscle growth? Yeah, totally. And I think we're all guilty of, you know, some of the jargon becomes almost second nature, but when second nature. And just to circle the wagons here, because we've gone down some really cool avenues. When you're dealing with a loved one, a family member, a coworker, a child, a parent, and you want what's best for them, you know probably intuitively that they are suffering because they're not in good fitness. Maybe they have some metabolic disruption from being very overweight. Maybe their mobility is challenged because of a weight problem or because of pain from being overweight or sedentary.

Coming to these people with words they can't understand, with recommendations they can't implement for the sole purpose of- Yeah, with 15-step checklists. Just start here. Here's the first 15 things that- Here's your hyper-restricted meal plan, your incredibly high-volume, high-frequency training program. You know better. And if you wouldn't give it to yourself on the first day you started, you shouldn't give it to your mom, your wife, your grandchildren, whoever. And so the simple formula I found is in convincing, to use the word, in convincing people with a high amount of friction to start doing something better for themselves. First off, remind them that this is about them. It's not about you. It's about their best interest, not about your interest for them. Let them know that you care about them. Be more encouraging than you are negative.

Whenever there's an opportunity to bring up failures in the past or be negative or paint failures as fuck-ups, try to do the opposite. Try to acknowledge and recognize small victories. Try to paint failures as an opportunity to learn because we know intuitively that much of what we know as the fitness bourgeoisie, we know that this stuff comes easy. And it came easy to us because we fucked it up a million times and figured out how to make it make sense. And so when they fail, pick them up. Lead by example.

Offer to be there to support them. Even if that means you go to the gym with them and you don't hit the workout that you had programmed because you got to hit the workout that works for them. Nothing kills me more than being like, hey, I'm going to the gym with my nephew. Oh, what are you doing? He said, we're going to do powerlifting. All right. Well, that's going to end with you not being able to walk for three days. Meet people where they are at. Be the kind of person you wish walked into the gym on your

first day and was like, hey, do you want to work out with me? Even if it doesn't necessarily apply. These are things that work really well. And I think oftentimes our passion for wanting to help the people we care about comes across as pressure. Don't let people mistake your passion and desire to help them as pressure. If they are ready and they've asked or they're showing signs of being ready, offer support. But you can't really pressure people into this. There's a lot of truth to the statement that people only change when they are ready. to the statement that people only change when they are ready, but you can create an environment where people are more likely to be ready more quickly by making exercise seem accessible,

somewhat easy. You want to get a total body lift in. Hey, dude, you want to have a salad instead of onion rings and a cheeseburger? Small things like that can go a really, really long way. At least you can get them to start thinking with it. That's the first stage to any change, right? Is at least to start thinking. And ideally, then you could get them. And this is, again, this is something that I haven't used with myself. If I'm feeling friction about doing something, I first get to where I just imagine doing it,

where I'm now, I'm comfortable just imagining me doing what I need to do. And then it's pretty straightforward to go and do it. But in other people, if you can get them to, again, start thinking about whatever it is that maybe it's starting an exercise routine, why that would be good. If they could start first, just imagining themselves going for that walk every day, and then that can lead them to the first instance of it. Totally. I mean, it's a big stone wheel, right? And you're staring at this huge stone wheel

and you push on it, you push on it, you push on it, and it barely budges. But if you push on it long enough, you push on it just enough, you get just enough leverage. Once that fucker starts rolling, it's really hard to stop. And so what we're really doing here is we're trying to help people move a really big stone wheel. And they're sitting there looking at it, wondering how the hell am I ever going to move this thing? And you kind of have to help them and you have to encourage them, hey, get up and push again. Push on that wheel again. Push on that wheel again. Because one day that wheel is going to move.

It's just hard. And I think that for us, it comes easy. And maybe one of the best pieces of advice I could give you is just try to remember that just because it comes easy for you doesn't mean it comes easy for everybody else. And to lead with that. Great advice and great, great interview. Thanks again for taking the time to do this. And let's wrap up with where people can find you and your work.

And if there's anything in particular you want them to know about, maybe relevant to our conversation or not, or something new and exciting you have coming. Totally, yeah. So you guys can find me on Instagram. My username is danny.matranga, just my name. I've got a podcast, the Dynamic Dialogue podcast.

And I talk about a lot of this stuff. I've got a podcast, the Dynamic Dialogue Podcast, and I talk about a lot of this stuff. I field questions from my audience and most of the discussions are about implementing nutrition and training tactics for everybody from the complete layman to some of the more advanced trainees that I work with. And I also have a coaching company. All of that stuff is linked through my Instagram. So pretty easy to find me if you just check me out on social media. Awesome. Hey, this was great.

And we should do another one. Maybe after this one goes up, we can brainstorm another one. This was fun. Anytime, man. I'm happy to come on. Well, I hope you liked this episode. I hope you found it helpful.

And if you did, subscribe to the show because it makes sure that you don't miss new episodes. And it also helps me because it increases the rankings of the show a little bit, which of course then makes it a little bit more easily found by other people who may like it just as much as you. And if you didn't like something about this episode or about the show in general, or if you have ideas or suggestions or just feedback to share, shoot me an email, mike at muscleforlife.com, muscleforlife.com, and let me know what I could do better or just what your thoughts are about maybe what you'd

like to see me do in the future. I read everything myself. I'm always looking for new ideas and constructive feedback. So thanks again for listening to this episode and I hope to hear from you soon.