4 Minute Fridays: Eat These 4 Foods For A Healthier Gut, Muscle Building Snacks & How To Lose Weight Using Your Mind
Apr 05, 2024
Read time: 3.8 minutes
Welcome to 4 Minute Fridays, my weekly newsletter where I reveal cutting-edge tips to optimize your health and body.
What's In Store For Today:
- Eat these 4 foods for a healthier gut.
- Strapped for time? Try these muscle-building snacks.
- How to lose weight using your mind.
Today's issue is brought to you by ​High Performance Founder Private Coaching​.
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There's a question I get asked in this newsletter and on social media often that I wanted to address with you:
Dan, I want to lose weight, but don't know what stops me from getting started.
In that question lies the inherent problem itself.
When people want something, whether it be losing weight or a new job, the focus is too much on the outcome and not enough on showing up.
Want to lose weight? Stop focusing on the weight loss and start going to the gym.
Want a new job? Stop focusing on the new job and start focusing on meeting as many people, networking, and putting yourself out there.
What stops most people from getting what they want is simply not showing up and taking action.
You can't win anything if you don't show up to the arena.
Whatever you want is on the other side of showing up. Full stop. Nothing else matters.
That needs to be the focus before anything else or else you'll keep spinning your wheels gathering more information and going nowhere.
The information you need will be found when you commit to simply showing up. Once you've done that you can analyze and optimize.
Remember that nothing happens unless you show up. Make that the one thing and you'll be surprised at what you can accomplish.
That being said...
Here Is Your 4 Minute Friday:
1. The 4 Best Foods For A Healthy Gut
We all know that gut health is important. What you may not know is that there are a variety of foods that lead to having a healthy gut.
There are 4 in particular you should be aware of:
The first is probiotic-rich foods like Kimchi that can help fill your gut with healthy bacteria (1).
The second is prebiotic foods like kiwis that help feed the healthy bacteria from the probiotic foods (2).
The third is amino acid-rich foods like milk or eggs can help soothe and strengthen the barrier of your gut (3).
Finally, if you consume polyphenol-rich foods like blueberries and raspberries it can help fight off bad bacteria in the gut (4).
Combine all 4 of these into your nutrition and you're on track to building a healthy gut.
Which ones are you currently eating? Which ones do you need to add?
Reply back to this email. I'd love to know.
2. Try Out These Muscle-Building Snacks
Here's the situation: You're strapped for time but don't want to lose any progress you've made in the gym.
Try a muscle-building snack.
This is a spin-off of the concept of exercise snacks (5), which can transfer nicely into your training.
Instead of doing an hour in the gym, you can split up some of the work throughout the day to get the adequate volume for building muscle​.
Examples of Muscle Building Snacks
- Pushups between desk sessions
- Do a few pull-ups any time you cross a doorway
- Bulgarian split squats before sitting down on the couch
- Body weight rows on a study desk
Again, this is a great strategy for someone who is pressed for time and still wants to make gains (7).
3. How To Lose Weight Using Your Mind
One of the best strategies to lose weight is using the mind to control the body​.
A study was done on overweight people that resulted in a 5x increase in weight loss compared to talk therapy using a technique called Functional Imagery Training (FIT) (6).
In addition, users of FIT lost 4.3cm more around their waist circumference in six months -- and continued to lose weight after the intervention had finished.
Functional Imagery Training is an intervention that uses tools like visualization to train your inner game of getting lean​.
Here's what the lead researcher on how they trained their subjects:
This is similar to what we do with our private coaching clients​ and we have an entire module dedicated to the mental side of fat loss in our ​Lean Body 90 program.​
I'm a firm believer that visualization of both the goal and process is powerful when done in conjunction with your actions.
As with training the body, you must train your mind and this is a great way to do it.
Client Of The Week - Danika, Entrepreneur
Danika is an entrepreneur who struggled with emotional eating, and low energy and needed to make a change.
In 12 weeks, she lost 21 lbs, dropped 4 inches from her waist, and went down 2 dress sizes.
She's at her lowest weight since high school, her energy levels have doubled, and she now feels more confident in her body than ever before.
Here's how we did it:
- Due to her busy schedule, we incorporated short 30-minute cardio-strength workouts 3 times a week.
- On the diet side, we focused on eating at least .8 grams to pounds of body weight so we could lose fat and gain muscle.
- Her only form of cardio was walking 8-10k steps, which she said helped reduce her stress and contributed to her energy levels.
- The whole way we made sure she stayed accountable for the plan while adjusting it to fit her lifestyle.
I'm proud of our work together and proud of Danika for transforming her health!
One Quote To Finish Your Week Strong
“Start where you are. Use what you have. Do what you can.”
You'll find more motivation starting from where you are than waiting for the perfect conditions.
Have a great weekend!
- Dan
When you're ready, here are 3 ways I can help:
1. The Lean Body 90 System: When you’re ready to get in great shape, Lean Body 90 is the obvious choice. You can get in great shape and reach your fitness goals in just 90 minutes a week. Lose weight and build muscle even without hours in the gym or highly restrictive diets. Join 1000+ students here.
2. Are you an entrepreneur who wants to get lean, boost energy, and get in your best shape? Apply for private one-on-one coaching here.
3. Promote yourself to 245,000+ subscribers​ by sponsoring this newsletter.
References:
- Wastyk HC, Fragiadakis GK, Perelman D, Dahan D, Merrill BD, Yu FB, Topf M, Gonzalez CG, Van Treuren W, Han S, Robinson JL, Elias JE, Sonnenburg ED, Gardner CD, Sonnenburg JL. Gut-microbiota-targeted diets modulate human immune status. Cell. 2021 Aug 5;184(16):4137-4153.e14. doi: 10.1016/j.cell.2021.06.019. Epub 2021 Jul 12. PMID: 34256014; PMCID: PMC9020749.
- Davani-Davari D, Negahdaripour M, Karimzadeh I, Seifan M, Mohkam M, Masoumi SJ, Berenjian A, Ghasemi Y. Prebiotics: Definition, Types, Sources, Mechanisms, and Clinical Applications. Foods. 2019 Mar 9;8(3):92. doi: 10.3390/foods8030092. PMID: 30857316; PMCID: PMC6463098.
- Wang B, Wu G, Zhou Z, Dai Z, Sun Y, Ji Y, Li W, Wang W, Liu C, Han F, Wu Z. Glutamine and intestinal barrier function. Amino Acids. 2015 Oct;47(10):2143-54. doi: 10.1007/s00726-014-1773-4. Epub 2014 Jun 26. PMID: 24965526.
- Pacheco-Ordaz R, Wall-Medrano A, Goñi MG, Ramos-Clamont-Montfort G, Ayala-Zavala JF, González-Aguilar GA. Effect of phenolic compounds on the growth of selected probiotic and pathogenic bacteria. Lett Appl Microbiol. 2018 Jan;66(1):25-31. doi: 10.1111/lam.12814. PMID: 29063625.
- Islam H, Gibala MJ, Little JP. Exercise Snacks: A Novel Strategy to Improve Cardiometabolic Health. Exerc Sport Sci Rev. 2022 Jan 1;50(1):31-37. doi: 10.1249/JES.0000000000000275. PMID: 34669625.
- Linda Solbrig, Ben Whalley, David J. Kavanagh, Jon May, Tracey Parkin, Ray Jones, Jackie Andrade. Functional imagery training versus motivational interviewing for weight loss: a randomized controlled trial of brief individual interventions for overweight and obesity. International Journal of Obesity, 2018; DOI: ​10.1038/s41366-018-0122-1​
- You obviously will get better results by having a dedicated training regime. But in this case doing something is way better than doing nothing.