Dynamic Dialogue with Danny Matranga - 340: Ozempic 2.0, Rapid Fat-Loss, Gym Anxiety, Top 5 Glute Exercises + More:

Episode Date: November 24, 2023

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Welcome, everybody, to another episode of the Dynamic Dialogue podcast. In this Q&A episode, we will be talking about the new weight loss drug taking the world by storm, Zepbound, as well as discussing rapid fat loss. How much of a deficit should you be in? Is there such thing as too small of a deficit? We'll talk about overcoming gym anxiety and settings that are uncomfortable for exercise. I'll share some of my favorite exercises for developing the glutes, and we will unpack greens powders and collagen, two of the more popular supplements of 2022 and 2023, and see if they're worth your time heading into 2024.

I hope you enjoy the episode. Thanks for listening. This episode is brought to you in part thanks to some of our amazing partners like LMNT. LMNT makes the best electrolyte product on the market. In fact, I've actually started drinking my LMNT each and every morning before I have coffee so as to optimize my circadian biology, make sure that I'm hydrated, and make sure that I have coffee so as to optimize my circadian biology, make sure that I'm hydrated, and make sure that I'm getting ahead on my water intake throughout the day and not reliant on stimulants, but instead being somebody who's reliant on hydration and the proper balance of minerals and electrolytes. If you want to feel your best all day, mentally and

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drink of Team USA Weightlifting, and it's used by athletes in the NBA, NFL, Major League Baseball, as well as athletes like you and I looking to take your fitness to the next level. My favorite flavors are definitely the raspberry and citrus. When I put a box together, I try to load up on raspberry and citrus. And when you put your box together, you can get a free sample pack containing all of Elements' amazing flavors like mango chili, citrus, raspberry, orange, and more. To get access to this free gift with purchase, scroll down to the show notes and check out using the special link for Dynamic Dialogue listeners. Okay, folks. So starting out with a little housekeeping here, a little bit of news, and that is specific to the weight loss

pharmacological kind of wave that we are living through right now. We are living through what can only be described as one of, if not the single greatest time in pharmacological weight loss specific breakthroughs that we have ever seen. And we now have a new player in the space. If you are familiar at all with Ozempic, it's probably going to blow your mind to hear that there is already a drug that in clinical trials has been shown to help even more with weight loss. And this drug is called Terzepatide, and it was originally formulated for use in the treatment of type 2 diabetes. But the new compound, or rather the new drug made by Eli Lilly, Zepbound, takes advantage of the same compound.

It's just administered differently. And the weight loss results are even better than what patients experienced when using Ozempic. Quite a bit better, I might add. Not a ton, like nothing insane, but a considerable amount better. Now, Novo Nordisk is a Danish company, I believe, that makes the Ozempic or is the producer of Ozempic semaglutide. The compound can be made by a variety of different manufacturers, but the name brand Ozempic is made by a Danish company,

Eli Lilly, which was once America's largest producer of insulin. I'm not sure if they are anymore, has now brought to the market in the form of trizepatide, which is not a new compound, but in this administration or this form, it is what they are now calling Zep-bound. or this form it is, what they are now calling ZepBound. The active ingredient terzepatide, again, has already been approved for the treatment of type 2 diabetes under the name Monjaro, but ZepBound has been approved for chronic weight management. So here we have it, folks. We started with Monjaro Terzepatide. Then we saw off-label usage of things like Monjaro and Ozempic for weight management, even though initially these drugs were designed for the treatment of type 2 diabetes. And now we see, thanks to Eli Lilly, that same compound Terzepatide that will be used and is approved for chronic weight management. So this is going to change things big time moving forward. There will be less utilization,

most likely, of these GLP-1s off-label from non-diabetics. And again, approving a drug for chronic weight management moves us into a new frontier in the fight against obesity. And many of you are coaches, trainers, health enthusiasts. I'd like to make it abundantly clear. I am not a doctor. I'm not a physician. I am not a pharmacological expert. I am just sharing with you the news that there is a new player that you will likely hear about because it will be marketed specifically to people who want to lose weight. And again, Eli Lilly is a huge pharmaceutical company in America. So I would definitely expect to see commercials for it on traditional television and media. Um, and if it is approved for chronic weight management,

I would imagine that the rate of prescriptions is fairly high because so many people in America, 40% specifically are obese and 70% struggle with their weight. So in this world, you know, where people turn to medication fairly easily, you could possibly see a world where 40 to 70% of Americans would be eligible to take this medication at the, of course, prescription of their doctor or their physician. But a very interesting kind of movement in this space. It's kind of been fast moving for a lot of you. I get tons and tons of questions. I had three questions specific to GLP-1s, one actually about Monjaro in this Q&A. So I figured it would be worth it to just say, hey, let's kind of phase away from do these drugs work? We know

they work. Let's phase away from are these drugs safe? That's not my job to tell you. I'm so far from an expert in the safety profile of these drugs. I would say do not take anything that's not prescribed for you or cleared by a doctor. But to clear the phase three clinical trial to get to a place where you're going to see commercials for it, you can just go get it at any old pharmacy. It's going to be prescribed to you. That requires quite a bit of rigor. So I'm of the assumption that it's probably no less safe than something like Ozempic. And we will just have to wait and see. But very interesting and another kind of movement in the frontier that is weight loss specific medications. Now, a lot of you want to manage your weight and you'd want to do that

without pharmacology. More power to you. I would never judge you one way or the other. I think it's actually quite fascinating how many people, I have found this to be very entertaining, how many people who use anabolic steroids to enhance muscle growth spit in the face of people who use GLP-1s like Ozempic, P1s like Ozempic, Monjoro, or now this new pill, or I should say new compound, Zetbound, to lose fat. It is enhancing the rate of weight loss and it is making it easier the same way anabolic steroids enhance the rate of muscle accretion and make it easier. No matter what people will tell you about, oh, you still have to work hard on steroids. Yeah, sure. But the work you do yields wildly disproportionate muscle growth. That is so obvious and beyond true. And if you don't believe me, you can just ask all those same people why they don't want women who use hormones,

uh, to, you know, present as male or, uh, present, uh, present as males who use hormones to present as female competing in female sports. We know the advantages that these male hormones provide for athletic performance, for muscle growth, for muscle accretion, for recovery. So if you're somebody who's considered these, please do not take this podcast as gospel. Talk to your physician, make sure you're somebody who's considered these, please do not take this podcast as gospel. Talk to your physician. Make sure you're making good decisions. But this is totally a new frontier. And I've worked with about a dozen clients now who have used Ozempic or Monjoro since

about 2021. And many of them have seen fantastic results. I think you have to be especially careful if you're using these compounds to engage in lifestyle behaviors that help with muscle preservation. So a lot of our coaching clients who use these drugs, we make specific lifestyle modifications, specific dietary recommendations to make sure they are not losing excess muscle tissue because these have such a powerful appetite suppressing effect. It can be very hard to hold on to lean tissue, which we know is so important when dieting. So just a little housekeeping there, something I

know you'll hear a ton about, and I'm not going to be the first person to tell you this. And I can say that for a fact because this probably won't drop for two weeks. And I'm imagining you're going to see a huge storm of stuff about this on your feeds and your podcasts, et cetera, but a very interesting new frontier. Okay. This question is from NY sooner dot carry. And she asks, does a smaller calorie deficit mean it will take longer to lose weight, like only 200 calories a day, for example? So spot on here, Kerry. Let's say the less aggressive the deficit, the slower the rate of weight loss. However, the easier it will be to comply. For example, we'll use 2,000 calories as a benchmark here. So let's say Sally has a

total daily energy expenditure of 2000 calories. That's how many calories she expends in a day. If Sally eats 2000 calories, she will maintain her weight. If she eats 2100, 2500, she will gain weight. If she eats 1900, maybe 1500, she will lose weight. Of course, the more you eat, let's use that 2,100 figure, the slower you'll gain compared to somebody who eats 25 or 3,000 calories daily. The larger the increase in percentage away or above your maintenance, the greater the rate of fat accumulation. And of course, the same is true for fat loss. rate of fat accumulation. And of course, the same is true for fat loss. One thing that I think you have to be very careful with when it comes to deficits and trying to be gentle with it is, yes, a small deficit of 200 to 300 calories a day can still lead to consistent fat loss. However,

it sets you up to, in all likelihood, fall victim to the number one mistake most people make when trying to lose fat, which is, of course, user error. Most people who track fairly accurately still have a margin of error of 1, 2, 300 calories. Even dieticians who are formally trained, when put in metabolic wards and asked to as accurately as they can assess their caloric intake underreported what they ate by a considerable amount, not nearly as much as an untrained person, but by an amount significant enough that a 200 calorie deficit or what you think is a 200 calorie deficit without being very accurate might just be maintenance, which is why I tend to recommend a more aggressive stance and

a deficit of closer to 400 to 500 calories. That way you can bake in that natural user error that happens so often for so many people because we are inherently poor at calculating, tracking, engaging our caloric intakes because quite frankly, it's not easy to do with a food scale all the time, 24-7. Even those of us who try our absolute best will occasionally have to do things like guesstimate or take a shot at it. And all those opportunities for user error or for just general mathematical, that's the inability to be mathematically perfect. The smaller your window, the harder it's going to be to ensure results. So I would say for a smaller person, 200 calories might be fine. But truthfully, for most people,

you want to probably have your deficit be closer to 200 to 300. I would say you want it to be closer to like 500. Now your surplus, that's where I was headed. Your surplus, you might want closer to two to 300. So you don't suffer from the same user error on the other side, which is like spilling way too many calories. I'm like, Oh, I'm only eating 200 calories over your maintenance. We know that humans have a tendency to under report, which means if you're going to, you know, set like, Oh, I'm going to do a thousand calorie bulk and under report shoot, dude, you might end up like way overshooting that. Now you could end up undershooting it, but you only want like 300 to 400 in a surplus to gain muscle. And I'd say closer to 400 to 500 deficit to lose fat. Taking a break from this episode to tell you a little bit about my coaching company,

Core Coaching Method. More specifically, our app-based training. We partnered with Train Heroic to bring app-based training to you using the best technology and best user interface possible. You can join either my Home Heroes team, or you can train from home with bands and dumbbells, or Elite Physique, which is a female bodybuilding-focused program where you can train at the gym with equipments designed specifically to help you develop strength, as well as the glutes, hamstrings, quads, and back. I have more teams coming planned for a variety of different fitness levels. But what's cool about this is when you join these programs, you get programming that's updated every single week, the sets to do, the reps to do,

exercise tutorials filmed by me with me and my team. So you'll get my exact coaching expertise as to how to perform the movement, whether you're training at home or you're training in the gym. And again, these teams are somewhat specific home or you're training in the gym. And again, these teams are somewhat specific. So you'll find other members of those communities looking to pursue similar goals at similar fitness levels. You can chat, ask questions, upload form for form review, ask for substitutions. It's a really cool training community and you can try it completely free for seven days. Just click the link in the podcast description below. Can't wait to see you in the Core Coaching Collective, my app-based training community.

Back to the show. Like this question a lot. Any advice for someone with gym anxiety? So gym anxiety is tough. I think it's driven by a multitude of different things. I think that we have a desire to present ourselves in ways that make us feel comfortable, in ways that make us feel like we belong, like we fit in. And the gym is a tough environment to just walk in and feel that, especially if you're not in the best shape, especially if you're new, especially if you're not super social and you see people who are already, you know, quite fit,

you might feel like you very much don't fit in. So there's, there's just this initial stigma of what fitness is supposed to look like and what gym goers are supposed to look like that I think sets the tone for why so many people suffer from gym anxiety? Like if you go to a sporting event with 50,000 people and they're all different weights and sizes, but they're all cheering for the same team and you want to quote unquote, look the part, all you need to do is throw on a jersey. The anxiety is lower even when you're surrounded by 50,000 screaming people. But if you go to the gym and a lot of the people are in great shape and you're still working your way up, maybe you're not quite there yet. You can't just throw on the same outfit and present

that same confidence that people who have been doing this for years do. And so I totally understand that kind of foundational disconnect, especially for newbies. Very, very difficult, very, very challenging. And one of the things that I think also contributes to gym anxiety is caffeine. A lot of people complain about having gym anxiety, but they neglect the fact that every time they go to the gym, before they even walk through the door, they slam like 300 milligrams, 400 milligrams of pre-workout laden caffeine or caffeine laden pre-workout. So if you suffer from gym anxiety and you use heavy doses of caffeine on a very regular basis, you are probably going to pay the price for that considerably. And I just don't know if for most people who are suffering from gym anxiety,

high amounts of caffeine are worth it. I might opt for a stimulant free pre-workout, um, to lower any of the anxiety enhancing effects of caffeine. So there's two things to kind of just keep an eye out for, um, and to pay attention to, uh, another thing that I just think helps to hear maybe is like, I've been doing this for 10 years. I still get gym anxiety sometimes when it's super busy. Um, when I'm in a new gym, maybe I don't have the right clothes or I didn't pack what I exactly what I need. So it can affect people who are in good shape and who are well experienced. And then lastly, I think is this kind of expectation that people are watching us or paying attention to us that simply doesn't exist.

There's a lot of power in knowing that people don't think about you as much as you think they think about you. And man, I cannot tell you how many times, and I'm not saying this to brag, but I can't tell you how many times I've been at the gym or one of the gyms in my area. And somebody has come up to me and said, Hey, you know, I like your content. I follow you. And I think to myself, holy shit, I've literally never even seen you in here. And they say, Oh, I see you in here all the time. I finally worked up the courage to come and talk to you. Um, and it's like, wow, I never even noticed you were there. And you know, I go back to when I worked at 24 hour fitness for almost half a decade and I would be out in town and I would see people and they'd be like, Oh, I always

see you at the gym with your clients. And I'd be like, Oh, you must go to 24,000 of people go there. So it kind of makes sense that, you know, you wouldn't see them, but they would see you. And I think like people that are there, they pay attention to employees. They pay attention maybe to trainers. They pay attention to maybe the cleaning staff a lot more sometimes than they do the other gym goers. So it's, if it helps put your mind at ease at all to know that these are fairly common place emotions, fairly commonplace anxieties that affect advanced lifters all the way to novices and that caffeine and a lack of preparation can enhance this. It helps kind of lower the

temperature, but it also helps to know that truthfully, most people are not watching and are not paying attention. Okay. Question here from Ishanka. What are my five favorite glute building exercises? So I know we've covered this on multiple podcasts. You know, I've shared my favorite glute exercises, probably four to five times. But one thing that I will say here when it comes to selecting exercises to build your glutes, whenever we make these lists, whenever we try to be like, oh, these are the best five, it's all relative, right? What might be best, the top five for most people, that might not be applicable to you. Let's say I say the RDL is number one, which is my number one. But if you have a terrible bulging disc in your lumbar spine, the Romanian deadlift is probably not an exercise

that you can push very hard on. So it might not be number one for you, but assuming you can do all of these exercises through a fairly full range of motion, I would definitely put the RDL at number one. I like that it lengthens the glutes. I like that you can do it heavy. And I like that you get some great additional training for the upper back, mid back, core, and hamstrings. Big fan of RDLs. Now, that might not be number one for everybody, but it's probably my top. My number two would be a lunge. This can be a split squat, a reverse lunge, a walking lunge. I like these because again, I find that that glute gets really lengthened. They're challenging. They're exercises with long progression curves. You can really feel your glutes working when you do them.

So big fan of those. Squats and leg presses, I kind of consider to be somewhat similar. You get a lot of knee flexion and hip extension and flexion going on. Yes, you're going to get some going on. Yes, you're going to get some quads. Yes, you're going to get some adductors, but I still think deep knee flexion is going to help you build your glutes. Don't necessarily know if I'd put it at number three, but it's up there. Hip thrusts, I like a lot, but I will say they're probably in the top five, probably closer to five. After number one and two, I think you could kind of pick and choose, but I like hip thrust because

you can do them fairly heavy and you can really load those glutes in a shortened position. 45 degree hip extensions. I really like step ups. I really like now some glute movements that don't often get a lot of love are things like seated hip abduction or standing cable hip abduction, because they don't work the gluteus maximus as much as these exercises I mentioned, but they do work the gluteus medius, which is a smaller muscle on the side of the glute, which is very important for performance. But I think it's important to know that there's only so many exercises that you can do in a given session. And a lot of people like hear me say, these are the top five, and then they're going to go do all five. I would say pick like two or three of the top five or what I mentioned and

spread them across multiple sessions. This is typically how I do things in our elite physique programming, which is fantastic for building your glutes. Like I would just follow that. You can click the link on my bio, go to corecoachingmethod.com and toggle through our online programs. You can just go to the link in my Instagram bio or down in the show notes, find that elite physique, fantastic app-based programming for women's bodybuilding. But there's of course a strong glute bias, but pick two to three of the ones you can do fairly heavy supplement with additional leg training to round things out. No pun intended. And I think you'll be just fine. Okay. Last question comes from Megan

Schurn and it is thoughts on greens powder and supplementing collagen. So let's start with collagen. Um, I don't dislike collagen. I don't think it's bad. I think that it may be helpful for your joints, for your skin, for your hair. And I think you can count collagen towards your total protein target for the day. But I think if you're going to add a protein supplement to enhance muscle growth and recovery, collagen might leave you lacking in certain amino acids that are quite important for recovery, specifically leucine, isoleucine, and valine, the branched chained amino acids. Collagen of the 20 amino acids that a protein may contain is one that tends to be lower in those. So, if you are looking to

include more proteins to enhance your body composition. I would stay more in the animal meat protein camp than the animal hide camp. Also, animal byproducts like eggs and dairy tend to be much richer. Even plant protein blends like brown rice and peas tend to yield more leucine, isoleucine, and valine. So, collagen is totally fine. It may help with a lot of things. It's just not a protein that I would expect if I were getting all of my protein from collagen, for example, to get a ton of those amino acids I need to maximize my physique. So worth taking if you can afford it, maybe not worth taking if you're choosing between that and maybe a whey protein and physique is your primary goal. As for greens powders, I actually like them quite a bit. I take Legion's Genesis every day because

it has two things I love, spirulina and reishi mushroom, amongst many other things. There's other products on the market like Athletic Greens, which despite its proprietary blend and high price tag, many people love it. There's a lot of people making greens powders. I think what would matter to me as a consumer is I want to see the serving size of that scoop. I don't want a tiny little scoop with a little bit of shit. I want a big scoop with a lot of nutrient-dense green byproducts, whatever those are. So serving size is something I would prioritize. There are certain quote unquote green compounds that might matter more to you. For example, spirulina, I really like. Reishi mushroom, I really like. I probably wouldn't

supplement with a greens powder that didn't have those things. You might be looking for different things in your greens powder, which is why it's a proprietary blend for me, not knowing exactly what's in there and in what dosages is mildly problematic. So I do think that they can be beneficial for enhancing your exposure to micronutrients, vitamins, minerals, polyphenols, plant compounds. But I do believe there are a number of limitations for what these things can do. They do not contain fiber, so they are certainly not a replacement for eating vegetables in that, well, they could be. You could get all your fiber from whole grains and then supplement with a greens powder. That'd be better than not eating any fiber or greens.

But again, you got to pick a good one made from a quality manufacturer that has, you know, reputable dosing and transparent labeling. Okay, folks, that'll do it for today's Q&A episode. I want to thank you all so much for tuning in. Remind you to leave a five-star rating and review on Spotify and Apple Podcasts and tell you that I will catch you on the next episode. Thanks for tuning in.