Nutrition Expert Dan Garner Joins Us For Episode #56

September 08, 2021

Martial arts currently has a lot of quacks in it, that make claims on nutrition bordering on the obscene…Dan Garner aims to change that.

Dan is the owner and founder of Team Garner and is the head strength coach and nutrition specialist. Specializing and delivering consistent world class results in physique transformation and athletic performance, Dan has worked with many athletes from the youth leagues right up to the NHL, NFL, MLB and UFC. He is an international lecturer on sports nutrition and has been featured in several major media outlets. In addition to his coaching services, he has created many online products available for purchase and is a bestselling author on Amazon.

In this episode we discuss:

Education and Experience
Current state of nutrition for combat sports
Common myths about sports nutrition
The most important aspect of performance nutrition
Dropping bodyfat and building muscle
and more!

As Mentioned in this Podcast:

Stay in touch with Dan Garner on Facebook

Full Transcription of Our Podcast with Dan Garner

Interview with the Nutrition Expert Dan Garner talking about meal plans and nutrition

Corey Beasley [00:00:01]: Hey guys, is Corey Beasley from fight camp conditioning and I’m on the phone here with nutritionist Dan Garner. Dan, how are you doing?

Dan Garner [00:00:08]:I’m doing great man. How are you doing today?

Corey Beasley [00:00:10]: I’m doing awesome man. Thanks so much for taking the time to talk with us today man. I know you’ve got a lot of stuff that people need to hear, so give everybody a little two sense of who you are and what you’re doing?

Dan Garner [00:00:25]:Yeah. My name’s Dan garner. I’m a strength coach, a lab analyst and nutrition specialist. I’m most known most in the industry for my nutrition work. I work with a lot of athletes in the UFC, NHL, NFL and MLB, so a lot of different sectors within there. I do international lectures and seminars as well for coaches who want to learn more about how to really cover every angle towards body composition and performance for athletes from the nutritional perspective. Right now I really just built up the reputation to the point where I’m operating remotely right now working from Calgary, but coaching people all over the world. And my main client base at this point in time is elite athletes looking to get everything out of their body or people who want to be elite athletes or want the best results they possibly can.

Corey Beasley [00:01:22]: So Dan, you’re obviously in a spot. I know a lot of guys are always talking about, I want to train like, the elite guys and I want to work with the pro athletes and I want to do this and that. And where’d you start? How’d you even get started in this game?

Dan Garner [00:01:44]:I started very humbly like almost all coaches do, I began as a personal trainer, the standard personal trainer at the standard commercial gym work in the standard personal training hours. You have your morning clients from like 6:00 AM to 10:00 AM and then you have a break during the day. Because all the general population people, they’re at work. And then you have your afternoon crew from about 4:00 PM till about 9:00 PM so I had standard personal training work for a few years but was always on the grind. You know I graduated with honors from the functional medicine university as well I got a diploma in health, wellness and fitness. I got over 10 certifications and training and nutrition during that time as well. And while I was working at that gym, I also was building up my name online. So I’ve been doing safe book stuff and website stuff and I’m a bestselling author on Amazon as well. So this all just kind of built up over time. And the more noise that I made with the before and after and testimonials and stuff that I had going on, the more people heard about what I was doing and had questions and inquiries about it. And then I eventually ended up, I was born and actually in London, Ontario, Canada, about two hours less of Toronto and then ended up moving out West to work at a strength and conditioning gym here. But then eventually I’d outgrown that and my own brand was doing well, but I ended up to just keep rocking this thing on my own.

Corey Beasley [00:03:16]: Now, from a nutrition standpoint I know you’ve got a lot of stuff going on there. What were, how’d you kind of get into that round? I know, especially with like the personal trainers and strength and conditioning world, there’s just a lot of information out there, period. So where’d you get your start there?

Dan Garner [00:03:38]:Learning nutrition. It’s tough to say. I guess I’ve had a passion for learning everything about this industry since I was probably 14 because my dad bought me one of those old school concrete filled plastic plate York barbell set. I know you probably know what I mean. Right? I think a lot of us did. So my dad bought me one of those at a garage sale and brought it home. And then I was like, this is the best thing ever. And I’ve love the industry ever since. So I mean, I’ve been reading about nutrition and training for all the long time since I was 14. I could never shake it. It’s always been something that I’ve really destined to do. But I guess on paper, my initial introduction to nutrition with when I became a certified sport nutrition specialist, which was kind of a difficult time. I was in college at the time earning my diploma, but on the side was also going through the curriculum and to become a certified sports nutrition specialist. So that was my first on paper certification within the industry I’ve gotten pointed.

Corey Beasley [00:04:51]: So you’ve been doing that for how many years now? Since you got that certification and went to that program when you were in college?

Dan Garner [00:05:01]:Probably six, seven years now. Six, seven years since that first initial paper over a decade away more since I’ve been actually reading about this thing. And when it comes to me and like this industry and what I do, it’s just the amount of years says something, but the amount of hours have more because I mean, experience actually I don’t believe is very valuable in this industry. Believe it or not, when people talk a year, because when someone says, well I’ve been in the industry 20 years, but they’ve been standing still, they kind of had one year experience repeated 20 times instead of actually 20 years of experience. So I’m constantly always on the climb, challenging myself in different areas of this. I mean challenging myself in different realms like earlier, like with the UFC, NFL, NHL, MLB, all these different areas. Keeping continuing the climb so that I truly have a lot of experience and it’s been this long, but it’s been this long doing 12, 15 hour days every single day as well.

Corey Beasley [00:06:11]: For sure. Now, Dan let’s just go through kind of the process a little bit. And let’s say you got a new guy, calls you up wants to usually get your expertise, wants you to coach him through some things. Where do you typically start with somebody?

Dan Garner [00:06:31]:So a new guy wants to start up with nutritional coaching. Initially we’re going to do the interview process, get to know him, get comfortable, and then what I’m going to send them over some intake forms. So the intake form, if you get a really well designed questionnaire that I’ve been tweaking and tweaking over years, you can tease out really important physiological parameters as it pertains to maximum muscle gain, maximum fat loss and the maximum performance. And asking certain questions tells me a lot about people’s physiology. So when they’re filling out their initial intake forms, I’m really looking first and major categories. I’m looking for people’s vitamin and mineral status because what they say to me can give me an indication on if they have certain suboptimal or clinical deficiencies within a given area. And it’s important to understand vitamin and minerals. I mean, especially for MMA, MMA, I mean you need to be the most complete athlete or grappling. You need to be a very complete athlete and be strong, powerful, have endurance, have both aerobic, anaerobic and all this. Every single area needs to be covered. So when I’m looking at vitamin and mineral status, it’s really going to allow you to have the energy that you need in competition for example, a wrestlers that’s a very anaerobic lactic sport. It’s such a grind very hard. You have to produce a lot of energy in the absence of oxygen, but a lot of people don’t know that magnesium is actually required in six different steps during anaerobic energy production in the absence of oxygen. So if you don’t have magnesium that can be a limiting factor towards your performance. And it’s something that a wrestler probably wouldn’t think about. They’re thinking about hydration, they’re thinking about carbon up before a competition and making weight. But simple one mineral can affect their performance. So that’s what I’m looking at. Another thing would be definitely immune function. It’s actually your immune system that allows you to recover from intense exercise. Then when you really burn out your chest or whatever it is, and the gym is your immune system that’s going in there and cleaning up the debris and recovering you for your next session. And it’s also the immune system that prevents you from getting sick. So when you hear about a lot of guys during a fight camp or getting ready for a grappling competition, how many guys have you heard get sick within last three weeks? That always happens. And it’s because training takes a toll on the body and unless you take in the proper amount of nutrients for your current physiology, then your immune system could take a hit and then you’re just more susceptible to get sick when performance is supposed to be the number one thing that you’re doing, a few more things I look at. One would be hormone balance for sure. So what’s your testosterone to estrogen ratios? What’s that looking at? What’s your stress hormones looking like is all this hormone balance is involved in so many things like such as recovery, sleep, your actual strength output. So that’s something that’s very big and I’m looking forward within the intakes as well. Your actual digestive health. So your digestion is really important. Like if you’re one of these guys who gets bloated as a ton of gas, has the pregnant belly after they eat certain foods, their belly just really sticks out that’s a sign of inflammation and it can be a big problem. So inflammation can cause you to have sore joints. Inflammation is something that’s going to reduce your recovery in between exercise or in between competitions. It’s going to affect your sleep as well. So if you’re somebody who can’t fall asleep or somebody who can’t stay asleep, two different areas, this is going to be a factor or digestion is going to give clues as to how we’re going to help fix those issues, another thing I’m looking at too would be narrow health. So your actual brain health. So when it comes to nutrition, a lot of people when they’re thinking nutrition, they’re always thinking about the muscle cell. Its like, how do I have nutrition to burn fat? How do I have it to build muscle? Or how do I have it to carb up for competition? But nutrition also affects the brain. And this is really a new area of performance in that it’s going to separate a lot of athletes from who wins on what day a good example of it is fighting a lot of guys within a weight class were the same height, the exact same white. They have very similar reach and they also have both have excellent skill there’s very things that are even across the board and one thing that can give you a big advantage is your ability to be on within that day, quote unquote on with your brain, you have that feeling of being in the zone. Those people who are in the zone, they’re going to have better reaction time. They’re going to be able to execute their game plan better. They’re going to have better reflexes. All these things that actually the brain govern and not just the muscle cell. And there are certain nutraceuticals and things that we can do within nutrition to both protect the brain but then also enhanced brain during competition so that you have this feeling of being in the zone better. So that kind of what I’m looking at for the initial intakes, I’m trying to tease those things out of the form, but best case scenario, I like my athletes to do labs. That’s something that I’ve been an advocate about. If an athlete comes to me, I am going to, they don’t have to do labs, but labs eliminates guessing. When you have someone’s actual physiology in front of you, their actual blood work, their vitamin and mineral status or hormone balance, their gut health, all these things can be derived from intelligent lab work. And then you’re not guessing. You have a blueprint to move forward with somebody. Fat loss, muscle building or performance. And it’s the biggest thing you’re not guessing. It’s not a book about a diet. It’s not somebody’s thoughts. It’s not a charismatic guy speaking in front of you, getting you to believe his diet. It’s none of that. If you’re actual physiology and what we should do next. So I’m a big lab guy.

Corey Beasley [00:13:09]: I was going to ask you about that because it things that you’re talking about getting from a questionnaire. I mean that’s a lot of information that they’re getting from that questionnaire where I know a lot of times people are doing lab work and blood tests and saliva tests and all these different things that are available and pretty readily available and it shouldn’t be your house and ship them back and you get the results relatively quickly.

Dan Garner [00:13:34]:I know with the questionnaire there is a certain things that you can ask though to give clues. So that’s why I used the word clues earlier because a questionnaire, you’re getting clues and it’s up to me and all the knowledge that I would have within the round to make the best educational guests I possibly could within the area. So that’s how the questionnaire is designed to get all that information and that does it very well, but nothing is as black and white as labs and then your interpretation of the lab and how you’re going to apply them to your nutrition moving forward.

Corey Beasley [00:14:06]: That’s awesome. So you got your lab work, you have your questionnaire then it’s kind of like rubber meets the road people obviously from my experience at least a very emotionally attached to the food that goes in their mouth. And a lot of guys, especially, like for me it’s like a wrestling background and stuff. I think it kind of screws or this a little bit as we’re cutting weight and at such a young age making weight and then you feel deprived. And then what happens is you have this like love hate relationship with scale. And it turns into this like funny like roller coaster diet where it’s like, okay cool, I’ve got to make weight so I’ll start myself. Like me, I was a dumb ass. I would just chew tobacco, fit for a little while and go to the sauna and kill myself. I would weigh the big Apple, I’d weigh the glazed doughnut and honestly do the glazed doughnut weighed less so that route too. But I think this is just, people are like, Oh well I’ll just cut carbs and I will make weight. And then I’ll be fine. And they’ll starve themselves and deplete themselves all kinds of different ways and see, I mean guys aren’t making weight, guys aren’t performing well in certain ways and even guys aren’t being able to really truly understand how to lose fat or gain muscle at different times so that they compete in and do their best. So when we’re talking about rubber meets the road, now you’ve got all this lab work, you have all this information what’s next?

Dan Garner [00:16:01]:Well, what’s next is several things. So within the questionnaire I also have a lifestyle analysis as well. So here’s the thing is the best meal plan, I can make the most scientific meal plan in the world, but if you can’t follow it, what good is it to you? The most scientific meal plan in the world isn’t going to be any good for you if you can’t follow it. So what I like to say is the best meal plan that you could ever have is the one you can follow. If it’s something that’s lost on a lot of nutrition coaches where they feel they have this authority, where do everything that I say and it’s just never ever ends up working. So I have a lifestyle aspect of my questionnaire where we go over their work schedule or their training schedule and their stress and if they have kids or not, or if they’re taking care of anybody with a handicap or who is elderly. All these things factor in to the availability of their effectiveness towards scheduling and meal planning when they can eat, when they can have lunch, all of these things. And then I asked them to provide me with their schedule so that I can make my plan for them actually for them. So I’m not just creating a plan, I’m making a plan for them. That’s kind of the difference between just counting calories or actually making a plan that’s going to be efficacious for an athlete. So when I know their schedule, I can do several things. So number one, I can make the plan work for the schedule so that can actually follow it. And number two, I can utilize proper nutrient timing strategies. So I know when they’re going to train and I know when they should be recovering. I know when their sleep cycle is, I know all these things. So I optimize their sleep, optimize the pre-workout intra workout and post workout window and optimize in any area that I can. So you get a lot out of learning somebody’s schedule. So when rubber meets the road, first and foremost, we’ve got to make sure that the rubber actually meets the road and that they can start on a plan that’s going to work for them. And then beyond that, it’s the calculation of what their supplementation system should look like, how many grams of proteins, carbs, and fats should be coming in per day. What types of proteins, carbs and fats should be coming in at certain times and how many calories they’re going to take in per day.

Corey Beasley [00:18:28]: Now, once you have the plan, you developed a, customized it a little bit for their needs. How are they monitoring it? Like do you have them fill out a food blog?

Dan Garner [00:18:39]:No, I don’t have them fill out a food blog. I have them fill out a questionnaire once every Sunday. So I call it my weekly Sunday update. And they tell me that’s eight questions within the update. It can be yes, no. the more detailed the better. Just because since I’m a coach I don’t know what I don’t know about, so I want to be updated all the time and the update does a lot. So the update lets me know everything that’s going on. It keeps the athlete engaged, but then it also makes sure that we’re never spinning our tires in the mud because if a problem happened and we’ll address it like, Hey Dan, I lost no weight this week. Okay, let’s change the plan. Hey Dan, I didn’t build muscle or Hey, my sleep’s kind of off and my energy’s off. Like when someone telling me what’s going on every single week within my update, we cannot lose because we adjust accordingly and adapt to whatever is going on. So let me up apply that sent out and then it’s monitored by myself via a weekly check in.

Corey Beasley [00:19:44]: Now I’m now for a lot of guys, you’ve dealt with so many different athletes. Is there a common thread where people get hung up?

Dan Garner [00:19:59]:Into something an issue that they’re running into physiologically or a common thread as a myth that they consistently believe before coming to me?

Corey Beasley [00:20:14]: Let’s talk about both of them. I mean, if there’s myths, I think that’s important to address because nutrition world is full of them?

Dan Garner [00:20:19]:Yeah, for sure. We could talk for six hours and make this podcast just on this, but I’d probably say the biggest ones are carbs make you fat because of insulin. That is absolutely false. It’s been demonstrated several times, even within metabolic wards where everything is controlled to the complete degree, that is a falsified statement and carbs aren’t going to make you fatter than anything else. Another myth that happens consistently is people don’t feel they can eat before bed. This is also untrue. It’s what your total energy balances at the end of the day. That’s going to determine whether or not you’d gained lose or maintain weight, not when you actually eat it. So this before bed thing is a complete myth as well. Those are probably the two biggest ones that I see consistently that are that are incorrect. And then probably even though supplementation does have a time and a place I wouldn’t call it a myth, but I would call it a misconception in that people apply in over importance to the role that segmentation actually plays. So within getting optimal results, it’s very important in supplementation is in and is something I do utilize with my athletes, but in comparison to how many calories you’re eating per day, how many grams of protein, carbs, fat and the timing. It’s really good detail in comparison to those things. Those things need to be in check before looking into supplementation. Cause those are the things that’s going to get you 90% of your results. So when you’re looking to get over a plateau, don’t look for a supplement because I call that and majoring in the minors, you’re focusing on something that is of the least importance within nutritional biochemistry and performance. So just pull yourself out of that and work with a coach or have a look at your diet. Because a lot of people, they don’t have an exact diet in before they start looking at all these different supplements, supplementation avenues. Probably the best example of this is protein, most athletes know proteins important, right? So the typical conversation I’ll have with an athlete is or they’ll be like, Hey Dan, I make sure I get in my 30 grams of whey protein after every single workout that I do. And I’m like, how many grams of protein are you getting in per day? And then they’ll have no idea and they don’t understand that what you take in in the entire day is light years more important than when you had it. So they insulated like, because they majored in the minors. They need to look at what they’re doing in the day because just having a protein shake post workout is a detail in comparison to what the big picture looks like.

Corey Beasley [00:23:23]: Now do you think that the obsession with supplementation is for people looking for the easy way out or do you think it’s also because so many of the supplementation and all the money that they’re making and they’re sponsoring so many athletes and that’s more visible?

Dan Garner [00:23:43]:Yeah, I would probably say that it’s the easy way out for some of the population. And then probably just and unawareness of what the nutritional research and body of evidence actually has to say towards changing people’s body and optimizing performance. Because like there would be the one group that is looking just for a quick way to get results or drop body fat or whatever it is. And that’s just the wrong way to approach things. You should always be thinking long term, big picture, what can I do to be healthy? So there’s that group, but then there’s another group I believe that focuses on supplements first. Not because they’re looking for a quick and easy way. Cause a lot of these people are hard workers. They’ll do grappling three, four times a week, wrestling, strength and conditioning their cardio, their striking, they’ll do all these things. So it’s not like they have poor work ethic. It’s just that they’re applying their work ethic to the wrong Avenue within nutrition. They’re focusing on something that’s minor instead if they applied that effort to something that major, they would get such a bigger return on investment from it. A lot of these guys are so busy with all their scheduling. I mean a lot of these guys like just trying to do one martial art and be very good at it in conjunction with going to work and having kids, they’re going to school that alone is really hard. So when you look at the world of nutrition, you’ve got to look at the world on nutrition and say, okay, if I can only focus on two to three things, what should I focus on to get the maximum return on investment? And that’s when supplementation doesn’t enter the category.

Corey Beasley [00:25:30]: That’s when you, it’s just pure protein, carbohydrates, fats, and how many calories are taking in per day?

Dan Garner [00:25:40]:That’s correct. So it would be your calorie balance at the end of the day, your macronutrient targets. So how many grams of protein, carbs and fats you’re getting in per day. And then the Third Avenue would be nutrient timing because there are windows that combat sports athletes can optimize in several different points of the day, not just post workout to where they can do things to better their health and accelerate their recovery.

Corey Beasley [00:26:10]: So from your experience we kind of have those myths knocked out. What are some things that you’ve noticed in dealing with people? I mean, are people noticing when I do change and they do hit the major points versus majoring in the minors and they’re starting to get the habits straight. What are they noticing and how quickly?

Dan Garner [00:26:36]:So you and everybody else in the world knows people that have been in the gym for the last 10 years still look the same. And that is a humbling tough pill to swallow when you’ve gone to the gym three, four days a week for the last five to 10 years and you looked the exact name kind of stocks, it’s almost always a nutrition problem. So when people actually start focusing on their nutrition, getting their targets correct and also getting the targets correct for them, then that’s what is going to kick off the results, whether it be muscle building, fat loss, but then also health. So like you’re saying things that I noticed their fat, high percentage decreasing. They’ll get stronger in the gym, they’ll feel like they have more energy during practice or whatever it’s going to be. But I’m a lab guy too, so I see tons of biomarkers increase as well. So like you’ll see people go improve their cholesterol. So improve their LDL to HDL, their good cholesterol, bad cholesterol ratios together, they’ll reduce their triglycerides and then they’ll improve their vitamin and mineral status, which all these things I’m talking about, I’m positioning them in the sense for fat loss and muscle building and performance because that’s the type of audience who’s listening right now. And that’s what we like to talk about as well. But all of these parameters also go into prevention of disease and long-term health. So the big things I would notice is probably getting the results in whatever your goals are being healthier. And then also just more energy and less brain fog. People just feel better all around. And actually a major one that I forgot. People sleep better.

Corey Beasley [00:28:19]: Well, I think it’s good for people. I mean, it’s cool that you’re taking the time and you’re looking at all these different factors because a lot of times people are, especially in the aesthetic world of fitness, bodybuilders and fitness competitions and stuff like that, all they care about is aesthetics and a lot of people get so focused and they just will all they think about as aesthetics when the truth of the matter is when you do get your body firing on all cylinders, everything improves, right? Your energy. Your sleep improves, your performance improves, your body competition improves and stuff like that. And it’s not separate systems. They’re all in coordination. So it’s good that you’re taking the time to see the big picture, not just one aspect.

Dan Garner [00:29:06]:For sure. A part of the big picture is looking at all the different variables. I know I probably rambled quite a bit already within this conversation, but I probably mentioned a dozen different variables that we’re looking at for proper for nutrition and that’s when it comes to proper nutrition that has to be individualized. Like if I see somebody on say any social media platform or any coach or something that completely eliminates a macronutrient group. So they’re like, no, you should go to zero fat for this or you should dread just your cards for this. That’s the first thing that tells me that they don’t actually understand human metabolism. All the macronutrients can be worked in together and should be worked in together because they have different bowel chemistry in the body and provide their own unique benefits in the body and whatever you’re doing. Like all the way like straight up to competition. I’m not completely eliminating carbs. It just doesn’t happen and it’s a silly thing to do. So when somebody says that you should go on the low carb diet or they’re telling all their athletes to go on the low carb diet, that’s crazy to me because that is trying to fit all circles into a square. Like there’s no one diet that works for everybody. If there was the guy who invented it would be a billionaire because it would work for everybody. But it doesn’t happen the diets I worked for. People are the ones that are actually designed for them. And it’s not about completely eliminating a nutrient because it’s like being a construction worker and having a hammer when the only tool you have is a hammer. Everything looks like a nail. And then when you’re somebody who had maybe you saw success with a low carb diet, well now everybody looks like a nail to you and you say that everybody should be on a low car guy and that is just not how metabolism works at all.

Corey Beasley [00:31:04]: Yeah, for sure. Now with some people at that point do you think that the majority of people especially in North America, do you think they overdo one category and that’s what stemmed a lot of these diets coming out? Do think that a lot of people were just, I mean, completely obliterate in the majority of their diet is consumed as carbohydrates and sugar?

Dan Garner [00:31:37]:Yeah, probably so. I mean, if I had to say, I kind of want to say two things. I’m going to preface this next statement with is actually calories that make you fat and not just carbs are fat. So your total calories at the end of the day is going to determine whether or not you’re going to gain additional body tissue or not, those are my rules. Those are the laws of physics. Those are the laws of thermodynamics as one of the most deeply rooted saying that we have within nutrition science at this time. So I would say that it’s calories that make you fat and not carbs or fat. But having said that, if I had to say what people over eat the most, I would say carbs because most of them don’t need to be refrigerated. They’re really cheap to buy. They have a very long shelf life and carbs also provide very most of satiety. So satiety is feelings of fullness and after a meal that you’re full and content. But carbs provide very low satiety within the satiety index and their research and when you can, that just means you can eat a ton of them and not feel that full. It’s kind of like when you’re watching TV and then like the bag of chips was gone and you’re like, Oh shit like where did that go? That’s the satiety level that’s some carbs can have on you.

Corey Beasley [00:32:58]: So for the people that are listening, there’s a ton of information that’s out there. You’ve got everything dialed in pretty tight. You’ve got your systems in place. If they’re wanting to learn more about what you got going on or to what’s the next step for them, what would you recommend for them?

Dan Garner [00:33:28]:The next step for them. Well they can find me on Facebook @Dan garner, strength coach and nutrition specialist. I only do Facebook. I don’t have the other one. So that’s where I post content almost every single week there, videos, posts, images, anything that can help that. I feel like I would help people out. I post those probably five posts a day or so. But I mean as far as the next step for the majority of the audience here being combat sports athletes would be checking out the upcoming product for fightcampconditioning.com with the fight camp nutrition products. I created eBook and education and modules, theories for fight camp conditioning for you guys to check out. So within there, there is information on the mental side of the things are there pertains to goal setting and all sorts of different parameters as well from the mental and preparation aspect. But then also designing meal plans and just getting everything ready to rock. So I would say following myself for information on everything modern and going on in nutrition world. And for personally inquiries and coaching. And then to definitely check out the upcoming product that me and Corey, have thrown together for you guys.

Corey Beasley [00:34:47]: Yeah. And I’ll just give you guys a little heads up. I’ve talked to a ton of different nutrition guys that are out there and I was a little excited when I got to talk with Dan and see him, but he kind of put together, kind of blew me away. It’s a huge resource and I’ve spent the last couple of weeks kind of organizing all of it, putting it together and if anybody’s wanting to get this part of their training dialed in, it is an encyclopedia of information and A to Z. It’s a ton of stuff and but I think it’s going to be a real cool resource for everybody. So yeah, if you guys are wanting to check that out, we’ll definitely have that out here in the next couple of days. But Dan, thanks so much for sharing man. As a ton of information. I’m excited to see what you got coming up here and I’m excited to see what you got coming up in the future because I know it’s only going to get better.

Dan Garner [00:35:40]:Yeah, for sure. Thanks a lot for having me on and thank you guys all for checking out the podcast and listening to my rambling.

Episode Transcript

Full Transcription of Our Podcast with Dan Garner
Interview with the Nutrition Expert Dan Garner talking about meal plans and nutrition

Corey Beasley [00:00:01]: Hey guys, is Corey Beasley from fight camp conditioning and I’m on the phone here with nutritionist Dan Garner. Dan, how are you doing?

Dan Garner [00:00:08]:I’m doing great man. How are you doing today?

Dan Garner [00:00:25]:Yeah. My name’s Dan garner. I’m a strength coach, a lab analyst and nutrition specialist. I’m most known most in the industry for my nutrition work. I work with a lot of athletes in the UFC, NHL, NFL and MLB, so a lot of different sectors within there. I do international lectures and seminars as well for coaches who want to learn more about how to really cover every angle towards body composition and performance for athletes from the nutritional perspective. Right now I really just built up the reputation to the point where I’m operating remotely right now working from Calgary, but coaching people all over the world. And my main client base at this point in time is elite athletes looking to get everything out of their body or people who want to be elite athletes or want the best results they possibly can.

Dan Garner [00:01:44]:I started very humbly like almost all coaches do, I began as a personal trainer, the standard personal trainer at the standard commercial gym work in the standard personal training hours. You have your morning clients from like 6:00 AM to 10:00 AM and then you have a break during the day. Because all the general population people, they’re at work. And then you have your afternoon crew from about 4:00 PM till about 9:00 PM so I had standard personal training work for a few years but was always on the grind. You know I graduated with honors from the functional medicine university as well I got a diploma in health, wellness and fitness. I got over 10 certifications and training and nutrition during that time as well. And while I was working at that gym, I also was building up my name online. So I’ve been doing safe book stuff and website stuff and I’m a bestselling author on Amazon as well. So this all just kind of built up over time. And the more noise that I made with the before and after and testimonials and stuff that I had going on, the more people heard about what I was doing and had questions and inquiries about it. And then I eventually ended up, I was born and actually in London, Ontario, Canada, about two hours less of Toronto and then ended up moving out West to work at a strength and conditioning gym here. But then eventually I’d outgrown that and my own brand was doing well, but I ended up to just keep rocking this thing on my own.

Dan Garner [00:03:38]:Learning nutrition. It’s tough to say. I guess I’ve had a passion for learning everything about this industry since I was probably 14 because my dad bought me one of those old school concrete filled plastic plate York barbell set. I know you probably know what I mean. Right? I think a lot of us did. So my dad bought me one of those at a garage sale and brought it home. And then I was like, this is the best thing ever. And I’ve love the industry ever since. So I mean, I’ve been reading about nutrition and training for all the long time since I was 14. I could never shake it. It’s always been something that I’ve really destined to do. But I guess on paper, my initial introduction to nutrition with when I became a certified sport nutrition specialist, which was kind of a difficult time. I was in college at the time earning my diploma, but on the side was also going through the curriculum and to become a certified sports nutrition specialist. So that was my first on paper certification within the industry I’ve gotten pointed.

Corey Beasley [00:04:51]: So you’ve been doing that for how many years now? Since you got that certification and went to that program when you were in college?

Dan Garner [00:05:01]:Probably six, seven years now. Six, seven years since that first initial paper over a decade away more since I’ve been actually reading about this thing. And when it comes to me and like this industry and what I do, it’s just the amount of years says something, but the amount of hours have more because I mean, experience actually I don’t believe is very valuable in this industry. Believe it or not, when people talk a year, because when someone says, well I’ve been in the industry 20 years, but they’ve been standing still, they kind of had one year experience repeated 20 times instead of actually 20 years of experience. So I’m constantly always on the climb, challenging myself in different areas of this. I mean challenging myself in different realms like earlier, like with the UFC, NFL, NHL, MLB, all these different areas. Keeping continuing the climb so that I truly have a lot of experience and it’s been this long, but it’s been this long doing 12, 15 hour days every single day as well.

Dan Garner [00:06:31]:So a new guy wants to start up with nutritional coaching. Initially we’re going to do the interview process, get to know him, get comfortable, and then what I’m going to send them over some intake forms. So the intake form, if you get a really well designed questionnaire that I’ve been tweaking and tweaking over years, you can tease out really important physiological parameters as it pertains to maximum muscle gain, maximum fat loss and the maximum performance. And asking certain questions tells me a lot about people’s physiology. So when they’re filling out their initial intake forms, I’m really looking first and major categories. I’m looking for people’s vitamin and mineral status because what they say to me can give me an indication on if they have certain suboptimal or clinical deficiencies within a given area. And it’s important to understand vitamin and minerals. I mean, especially for MMA, MMA, I mean you need to be the most complete athlete or grappling. You need to be a very complete athlete and be strong, powerful, have endurance, have both aerobic, anaerobic and all this. Every single area needs to be covered. So when I’m looking at vitamin and mineral status, it’s really going to allow you to have the energy that you need in competition for example, a wrestlers that’s a very anaerobic lactic sport. It’s such a grind very hard. You have to produce a lot of energy in the absence of oxygen, but a lot of people don’t know that magnesium is actually required in six different steps during anaerobic energy production in the absence of oxygen. So if you don’t have magnesium that can be a limiting factor towards your performance. And it’s something that a wrestler probably wouldn’t think about. They’re thinking about hydration, they’re thinking about carbon up before a competition and making weight. But simple one mineral can affect their performance. So that’s what I’m looking at. Another thing would be definitely immune function. It’s actually your immune system that allows you to recover from intense exercise. Then when you really burn out your chest or whatever it is, and the gym is your immune system that’s going in there and cleaning up the debris and recovering you for your next session. And it’s also the immune system that prevents you from getting sick. So when you hear about a lot of guys during a fight camp or getting ready for a grappling competition, how many guys have you heard get sick within last three weeks? That always happens. And it’s because training takes a toll on the body and unless you take in the proper amount of nutrients for your current physiology, then your immune system could take a hit and then you’re just more susceptible to get sick when performance is supposed to be the number one thing that you’re doing, a few more things I look at. One would be hormone balance for sure. So what’s your testosterone to estrogen ratios? What’s that looking at? What’s your stress hormones looking like is all this hormone balance is involved in so many things like such as recovery, sleep, your actual strength output. So that’s something that’s very big and I’m looking forward within the intakes as well. Your actual digestive health. So your digestion is really important. Like if you’re one of these guys who gets bloated as a ton of gas, has the pregnant belly after they eat certain foods, their belly just really sticks out that’s a sign of inflammation and it can be a big problem. So inflammation can cause you to have sore joints. Inflammation is something that’s going to reduce your recovery in between exercise or in between competitions. It’s going to affect your sleep as well. So if you’re somebody who can’t fall asleep or somebody who can’t stay asleep, two different areas, this is going to be a factor or digestion is going to give clues as to how we’re going to help fix those issues, another thing I’m looking at too would be narrow health. So your actual brain health. So when it comes to nutrition, a lot of people when they’re thinking nutrition, they’re always thinking about the muscle cell. Its like, how do I have nutrition to burn fat? How do I have it to build muscle? Or how do I have it to carb up for competition? But nutrition also affects the brain. And this is really a new area of performance in that it’s going to separate a lot of athletes from who wins on what day a good example of it is fighting a lot of guys within a weight class were the same height, the exact same white. They have very similar reach and they also have both have excellent skill there’s very things that are even across the board and one thing that can give you a big advantage is your ability to be on within that day, quote unquote on with your brain, you have that feeling of being in the zone. Those people who are in the zone, they’re going to have better reaction time. They’re going to be able to execute their game plan better. They’re going to have better reflexes. All these things that actually the brain govern and not just the muscle cell. And there are certain nutraceuticals and things that we can do within nutrition to both protect the brain but then also enhanced brain during competition so that you have this feeling of being in the zone better. So that kind of what I’m looking at for the initial intakes, I’m trying to tease those things out of the form, but best case scenario, I like my athletes to do labs. That’s something that I’ve been an advocate about. If an athlete comes to me, I am going to, they don’t have to do labs, but labs eliminates guessing. When you have someone’s actual physiology in front of you, their actual blood work, their vitamin and mineral status or hormone balance, their gut health, all these things can be derived from intelligent lab work. And then you’re not guessing. You have a blueprint to move forward with somebody. Fat loss, muscle building or performance. And it’s the biggest thing you’re not guessing. It’s not a book about a diet. It’s not somebody’s thoughts. It’s not a charismatic guy speaking in front of you, getting you to believe his diet. It’s none of that. If you’re actual physiology and what we should do next. So I’m a big lab guy.

Dan Garner [00:13:34]:I know with the questionnaire there is a certain things that you can ask though to give clues. So that’s why I used the word clues earlier because a questionnaire, you’re getting clues and it’s up to me and all the knowledge that I would have within the round to make the best educational guests I possibly could within the area. So that’s how the questionnaire is designed to get all that information and that does it very well, but nothing is as black and white as labs and then your interpretation of the lab and how you’re going to apply them to your nutrition moving forward.

Dan Garner [00:16:01]:Well, what’s next is several things. So within the questionnaire I also have a lifestyle analysis as well. So here’s the thing is the best meal plan, I can make the most scientific meal plan in the world, but if you can’t follow it, what good is it to you? The most scientific meal plan in the world isn’t going to be any good for you if you can’t follow it. So what I like to say is the best meal plan that you could ever have is the one you can follow. If it’s something that’s lost on a lot of nutrition coaches where they feel they have this authority, where do everything that I say and it’s just never ever ends up working. So I have a lifestyle aspect of my questionnaire where we go over their work schedule or their training schedule and their stress and if they have kids or not, or if they’re taking care of anybody with a handicap or who is elderly. All these things factor in to the availability of their effectiveness towards scheduling and meal planning when they can eat, when they can have lunch, all of these things. And then I asked them to provide me with their schedule so that I can make my plan for them actually for them. So I’m not just creating a plan, I’m making a plan for them. That’s kind of the difference between just counting calories or actually making a plan that’s going to be efficacious for an athlete. So when I know their schedule, I can do several things. So number one, I can make the plan work for the schedule so that can actually follow it. And number two, I can utilize proper nutrient timing strategies. So I know when they’re going to train and I know when they should be recovering. I know when their sleep cycle is, I know all these things. So I optimize their sleep, optimize the pre-workout intra workout and post workout window and optimize in any area that I can. So you get a lot out of learning somebody’s schedule. So when rubber meets the road, first and foremost, we’ve got to make sure that the rubber actually meets the road and that they can start on a plan that’s going to work for them. And then beyond that, it’s the calculation of what their supplementation system should look like, how many grams of proteins, carbs, and fats should be coming in per day. What types of proteins, carbs and fats should be coming in at certain times and how many calories they’re going to take in per day.

Corey Beasley [00:18:28]: Now, once you have the plan, you developed a, customized it a little bit for their needs. How are they monitoring it? Like do you have them fill out a food blog?

Dan Garner [00:18:39]:No, I don’t have them fill out a food blog. I have them fill out a questionnaire once every Sunday. So I call it my weekly Sunday update. And they tell me that’s eight questions within the update. It can be yes, no. the more detailed the better. Just because since I’m a coach I don’t know what I don’t know about, so I want to be updated all the time and the update does a lot. So the update lets me know everything that’s going on. It keeps the athlete engaged, but then it also makes sure that we’re never spinning our tires in the mud because if a problem happened and we’ll address it like, Hey Dan, I lost no weight this week. Okay, let’s change the plan. Hey Dan, I didn’t build muscle or Hey, my sleep’s kind of off and my energy’s off. Like when someone telling me what’s going on every single week within my update, we cannot lose because we adjust accordingly and adapt to whatever is going on. So let me up apply that sent out and then it’s monitored by myself via a weekly check in.

Corey Beasley [00:19:44]: Now I’m now for a lot of guys, you’ve dealt with so many different athletes. Is there a common thread where people get hung up?

Dan Garner [00:19:59]:Into something an issue that they’re running into physiologically or a common thread as a myth that they consistently believe before coming to me?

Corey Beasley [00:20:14]: Let’s talk about both of them. I mean, if there’s myths, I think that’s important to address because nutrition world is full of them?

Dan Garner [00:20:19]:Yeah, for sure. We could talk for six hours and make this podcast just on this, but I’d probably say the biggest ones are carbs make you fat because of insulin. That is absolutely false. It’s been demonstrated several times, even within metabolic wards where everything is controlled to the complete degree, that is a falsified statement and carbs aren’t going to make you fatter than anything else. Another myth that happens consistently is people don’t feel they can eat before bed. This is also untrue. It’s what your total energy balances at the end of the day. That’s going to determine whether or not you’d gained lose or maintain weight, not when you actually eat it. So this before bed thing is a complete myth as well. Those are probably the two biggest ones that I see consistently that are that are incorrect. And then probably even though supplementation does have a time and a place I wouldn’t call it a myth, but I would call it a misconception in that people apply in over importance to the role that segmentation actually plays. So within getting optimal results, it’s very important in supplementation is in and is something I do utilize with my athletes, but in comparison to how many calories you’re eating per day, how many grams of protein, carbs, fat and the timing. It’s really good detail in comparison to those things. Those things need to be in check before looking into supplementation. Cause those are the things that’s going to get you 90% of your results. So when you’re looking to get over a plateau, don’t look for a supplement because I call that and majoring in the minors, you’re focusing on something that is of the least importance within nutritional biochemistry and performance. So just pull yourself out of that and work with a coach or have a look at your diet. Because a lot of people, they don’t have an exact diet in before they start looking at all these different supplements, supplementation avenues. Probably the best example of this is protein, most athletes know proteins important, right? So the typical conversation I’ll have with an athlete is or they’ll be like, Hey Dan, I make sure I get in my 30 grams of whey protein after every single workout that I do. And I’m like, how many grams of protein are you getting in per day? And then they’ll have no idea and they don’t understand that what you take in in the entire day is light years more important than when you had it. So they insulated like, because they majored in the minors. They need to look at what they’re doing in the day because just having a protein shake post workout is a detail in comparison to what the big picture looks like.

Dan Garner [00:23:43]:Yeah, I would probably say that it’s the easy way out for some of the population. And then probably just and unawareness of what the nutritional research and body of evidence actually has to say towards changing people’s body and optimizing performance. Because like there would be the one group that is looking just for a quick way to get results or drop body fat or whatever it is. And that’s just the wrong way to approach things. You should always be thinking long term, big picture, what can I do to be healthy? So there’s that group, but then there’s another group I believe that focuses on supplements first. Not because they’re looking for a quick and easy way. Cause a lot of these people are hard workers. They’ll do grappling three, four times a week, wrestling, strength and conditioning their cardio, their striking, they’ll do all these things. So it’s not like they have poor work ethic. It’s just that they’re applying their work ethic to the wrong Avenue within nutrition. They’re focusing on something that’s minor instead if they applied that effort to something that major, they would get such a bigger return on investment from it. A lot of these guys are so busy with all their scheduling. I mean a lot of these guys like just trying to do one martial art and be very good at it in conjunction with going to work and having kids, they’re going to school that alone is really hard. So when you look at the world of nutrition, you’ve got to look at the world on nutrition and say, okay, if I can only focus on two to three things, what should I focus on to get the maximum return on investment? And that’s when supplementation doesn’t enter the category.

Corey Beasley [00:25:30]: That’s when you, it’s just pure protein, carbohydrates, fats, and how many calories are taking in per day?

Dan Garner [00:25:40]:That’s correct. So it would be your calorie balance at the end of the day, your macronutrient targets. So how many grams of protein, carbs and fats you’re getting in per day. And then the Third Avenue would be nutrient timing because there are windows that combat sports athletes can optimize in several different points of the day, not just post workout to where they can do things to better their health and accelerate their recovery.

Dan Garner [00:26:36]:So you and everybody else in the world knows people that have been in the gym for the last 10 years still look the same. And that is a humbling tough pill to swallow when you’ve gone to the gym three, four days a week for the last five to 10 years and you looked the exact name kind of stocks, it’s almost always a nutrition problem. So when people actually start focusing on their nutrition, getting their targets correct and also getting the targets correct for them, then that’s what is going to kick off the results, whether it be muscle building, fat loss, but then also health. So like you’re saying things that I noticed their fat, high percentage decreasing. They’ll get stronger in the gym, they’ll feel like they have more energy during practice or whatever it’s going to be. But I’m a lab guy too, so I see tons of biomarkers increase as well. So like you’ll see people go improve their cholesterol. So improve their LDL to HDL, their good cholesterol, bad cholesterol ratios together, they’ll reduce their triglycerides and then they’ll improve their vitamin and mineral status, which all these things I’m talking about, I’m positioning them in the sense for fat loss and muscle building and performance because that’s the type of audience who’s listening right now. And that’s what we like to talk about as well. But all of these parameters also go into prevention of disease and long-term health. So the big things I would notice is probably getting the results in whatever your goals are being healthier. And then also just more energy and less brain fog. People just feel better all around. And actually a major one that I forgot. People sleep better.

Dan Garner [00:29:06]:For sure. A part of the big picture is looking at all the different variables. I know I probably rambled quite a bit already within this conversation, but I probably mentioned a dozen different variables that we’re looking at for proper for nutrition and that’s when it comes to proper nutrition that has to be individualized. Like if I see somebody on say any social media platform or any coach or something that completely eliminates a macronutrient group. So they’re like, no, you should go to zero fat for this or you should dread just your cards for this. That’s the first thing that tells me that they don’t actually understand human metabolism. All the macronutrients can be worked in together and should be worked in together because they have different bowel chemistry in the body and provide their own unique benefits in the body and whatever you’re doing. Like all the way like straight up to competition. I’m not completely eliminating carbs. It just doesn’t happen and it’s a silly thing to do. So when somebody says that you should go on the low carb diet or they’re telling all their athletes to go on the low carb diet, that’s crazy to me because that is trying to fit all circles into a square. Like there’s no one diet that works for everybody. If there was the guy who invented it would be a billionaire because it would work for everybody. But it doesn’t happen the diets I worked for. People are the ones that are actually designed for them. And it’s not about completely eliminating a nutrient because it’s like being a construction worker and having a hammer when the only tool you have is a hammer. Everything looks like a nail. And then when you’re somebody who had maybe you saw success with a low carb diet, well now everybody looks like a nail to you and you say that everybody should be on a low car guy and that is just not how metabolism works at all.

Dan Garner [00:31:37]:Yeah, probably so. I mean, if I had to say, I kind of want to say two things. I’m going to preface this next statement with is actually calories that make you fat and not just carbs are fat. So your total calories at the end of the day is going to determine whether or not you’re going to gain additional body tissue or not, those are my rules. Those are the laws of physics. Those are the laws of thermodynamics as one of the most deeply rooted saying that we have within nutrition science at this time. So I would say that it’s calories that make you fat and not carbs or fat. But having said that, if I had to say what people over eat the most, I would say carbs because most of them don’t need to be refrigerated. They’re really cheap to buy. They have a very long shelf life and carbs also provide very most of satiety. So satiety is feelings of fullness and after a meal that you’re full and content. But carbs provide very low satiety within the satiety index and their research and when you can, that just means you can eat a ton of them and not feel that full. It’s kind of like when you’re watching TV and then like the bag of chips was gone and you’re like, Oh shit like where did that go? That’s the satiety level that’s some carbs can have on you.

Dan Garner [00:33:28]:The next step for them. Well they can find me on Facebook @Dan garner, strength coach and nutrition specialist. I only do Facebook. I don’t have the other one. So that’s where I post content almost every single week there, videos, posts, images, anything that can help that. I feel like I would help people out. I post those probably five posts a day or so. But I mean as far as the next step for the majority of the audience here being combat sports athletes would be checking out the upcoming product for fightcampconditioning.com with the fight camp nutrition products. I created eBook and education and modules, theories for fight camp conditioning for you guys to check out. So within there, there is information on the mental side of the things are there pertains to goal setting and all sorts of different parameters as well from the mental and preparation aspect. But then also designing meal plans and just getting everything ready to rock. So I would say following myself for information on everything modern and going on in nutrition world. And for personally inquiries and coaching. And then to definitely check out the upcoming product that me and Corey, have thrown together for you guys.

Dan Garner [00:35:40]:Yeah, for sure. Thanks a lot for having me on and thank you guys all for checking out the podcast and listening to my rambling.

Nutrition Expert Dan Garner Joins Us For Episode #56

Full Transcription of Our Podcast with Dan Garner

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