79. Best of 2024: Top Nutrition, Health, and Wellness Advice We Heard (and Loved!)

If you have been waiting for a sign to start 2026 feeling strong, confident, and actually in control of your body again, this is it. The New Year Reset Program is back and this year it's bigger and better than ever. Last year it was four weeks. This year it's eight weeks, eight live coaching calls, deep dive support, and you get lifetime access to my full Breakthrough program. All for the exact same price as last year. Why am I doing this? Because I do not want there to be a single reason you don't hit your body goals this year while still living a full, real busy life. If you're ready to get a custom plan, real support and results that actually last, go grab your spot now. Seriously, pause this episode and go over and join the New Year Reset Program with me. Head to mindinmymacros.com reset or or scroll on down to the show notes and I'll link it for you there. All right, let's get into the episode. Welcome to the Mind and My Wellness Podcast. Your podcast for all things macros, movement, mindset, and everything in between. I'm your host, Dani Merenberg, an ex yo yo dieting cardio junkie turned sustainable nutrition coach who's helped over 1000 women feel confident in their skin by learning how to eat for their goals without sacrificing a life well lived. I created the Mind and My Wellness Podcast to give you simple, effective and manageable tips you can take away from each episode and implement in your daily life to look and feel like the best version of you. Each week, my guests and I teach you the secrets to mastering your health and owning your power. Nutrition, mindset, movement, and women's health are all topics you'll find here. Think of our time together as your productive little health break from the day. So grab your headphones, fill up your water, and let's dive into today's episode. Hello. Hello. Welcome back to the last episode of 2024 here on the Mind and My Wellness Podcast. I cannot believe it is the last day of 2024. This year flew by. This year was probably the biggest year of my entire life. From finding out I was pregnant, thinking that we miscarried, finding out I didn't miscarry, having our baby, and now being three months postpartum. I mean, this year has truly grown me in so many ways. Plus operating my business and working with so many amazing women alongside this, and getting to know so many women that have been through similar journeys or or on the same journey as me. It's just been truly incredible. And this year has been challenging. It has been so heartwarming. It has grown me into an even better version of myself, which is all that I can ask for. And I cannot wait to see what's ahead in 2025. I do have a couple exciting things coming for you guys in 2025. Little sneak peek, but more on that later. But today's episode, I thought it would be so fun to share with you all your favorite clips from my top episodes this year that pertain to nutrition and wellness and health, because there were some clips in there that were just golden nuggets and you guys absolutely loved them. So I'm compiling all of those in one episode today, and I hope you enjoy it. So if you listen to any of these clips and you want to dive in deeper down in the show notes, I posted a link that you can go to those specific episodes and listen to the full episodes. But I really hope that this episode and these clips can guide you in whatever it is that you need as you move into 2025. All right, my friend, now let's just jump right into it and I'll see you in the new year. This will really change the game in your past dieting experience. It will change the game for the future in terms of actually seeing the body changes. You want that last. No more yo yo dieting, right? I was just constantly looking for the next diet that would be that golden ticket to get me the body that I wanted. Yet everything would just come right back. And it wasn't until I really understood macronutrients, until I understood nutrition periodization and how to marry a lifestyle with that, where I saw my entire body recomposition change. But that wasn't even the best part. It was the energy. It was the quality of sleep I was getting. It was just the overall change in my demeanor where I just felt much happier and I felt less stressed. It was just this huge change across the board that was a result of focusing on how to actually, actually eat and plan my year accordingly to see these results. And so the approach that I use is one that's going to support your metabolic health, it's going to support your hormone health, your gut health and longevity. And we need all of these things working together to see these lifelong results. You cannot try to fight any of these pieces and expect to see results that are going to last or even results that you're going to be happy with. I want to make sure that I'm answering your questions. So another question that I get often is, can I just supplement with a fiber supplement, and you absolutely can. But my question back to you is, would you rather eat your calories or would you rather take a supplement to consume your calories? Because fiber are calories and there are carbohydrates. So if you're taking a fiber supplement, you definitely still want to count that. If you're strictly tracking macros, if you're in a very tight, restrictive calorie deficit where you want to be as accurate as possible, you're going to want to be tracking those supplements as well to your overall progress. Should I be taking creatine? There is this big misconception around creatine, and creatine does not, in and of itself build muscle. This is just a huge misconception that I see when individuals talk about creatine and take creatine. And what creatine is doing is it's aiding and supporting your workouts by providing that increased energy to your muscles, leading to increased endurance in your workouts. So you're able to actually push harder and see better results in the long run through the effects of creatine. However, you still have to put in the work. This is not a magic supplement. And I think a lot of people think of creatine as being this magic supplement that they'll just take, and all of a sudden their muscle development will start to occur, and that's not the case. I am just so excited to share this episode with you because I have been dying to interview Dr. Shannon from Evolo Fitness now for weeks. And if you are somebody who has been strength training, tried to strength train, doing endless amounts of workouts and feel the toll on your body, you're definitely going to want to listen to this episode where we talk about gentle consistency and how to apply that to body recomposition and hypertrophy training. This was actually something my husband said at one point because he does my workouts and he came from sports, came from heavy lifting, was always hurting his back, and he was like, I am seeing more muscle than I saw then because I would go so intense that I would be so sore the next day I couldn't do a workout or I would be hurt. And that would sideline me for two weeks and wreck my progress. And he's like, it's just gentle. Gentle but consistent. And that's truly what tends to snowball and move you forward. And then you show up a year later and you're like, oh, my gosh, I have these results because I've been able to stay consistent even though it wasn't so intense. Like Every single workout wasn't so intense. It's just that we slowly built workout by workout. And I always say gentle consistency always wins over intense inconsistency. And with these time bound challenges, I think, you know, for some people they work to motivate them and that that helps them kick a lifestyle habit going forward. But for most people, what it does is it just creates this really intense work out and they have a finish line and they're like, okay, all I have to do is get through these 75 days and then I can be done. And what happens at the end of the 75 days for a lot of people, they fall off. You might think that there are certain things that you can control more than you actually can, or certain things that you're doing that you think might be impacting your overall progress. And it's actually not making as much of a difference as you might think. So in today's episode, we are going to be diving into your rmr and your RMR is your resting metabolic rate. Your BMR actually makes up a vast, vast majority of the calories that you burn per day, and it makes up roughly 60 to 75% of your daily caloric expenditure, meaning the daily amount of calories you're burning per day. That is a huge, huge chunk that makes up about almost 3/4 of the daily calories that you're burning per day. So how, if any way, are we able to manipulate this? Are we actually able to influence our BMR to burn more calories at rest throughout the day? And the truth is, there's actually not too much we can do to increase our BMR outside of one thing, and that is to build lean muscle mass. Thanks so much for tuning in to today's episode. I love hearing from you. So shoot me a DM over on Instagram at mindandmymacros to keep the convo going. If you've learned anything from this episode or any of my past episodes, I'd really love it if you took a few seconds to leave a quick rating and review of on Apple podcasts or Spotify. I love hearing what you've learned or what you've taken away from any of these episodes. It means so much to me when you do that. And if you have any friends you know that need a little help kicking some old dieting mentalities to the curb and want some simple, effective and sustainable tips to feel their best, share a link to this episode with them. Thanks so much for listening and I'll catch you next time. Sam.