Secret Sauce of Personalized Fitness, Nutrition, & Health Solutions | Danny Fam | Ep. 10

Podcast intro and episode setup 0:00

Welcome to Healthy Point of View podcast, where we explore the latest trends and topics in health and wellness. Whether you're looking for tips on nutrition, fitness, mental health, or anything in between, we've got you covered. Join us as we chat with experts, share stories, and learn how to live a healthier and happier life. Welcome to another episode of a Healthy Point of View podcast. I'm your host, Sam Tahata. And today we have a fantastic episode that we're gonna be talking about. We've been waiting for this one.

Danny, what's up, man? Hey, What's going on? All right. So Danny I've known you for a long time, almost like high school. Yeah, we used to compete together, you know, NPC bodybuilding and all that stuff. And I was excited about doing this podcast because there's been a lot of things cooking in the whole health and wellness industry, specifically on my side, the functional medicine side. where I've actually talked to some other experts in the industry that are talking about how do we tap into personal trainers to actually understand more of the functional medicine side and integrate it together.

So the other day, you and I, we always have these random conversations on the phone to see what's going on and how we best position our businesses, especially because we're so close to each other. We work together on a lot of stuff. And I was telling you about You know a very close contact of mine with muscle and fitness plus Rob Fletcher was the host I was actually on his podcast and you know you and I were talking about that and we're actually thinking about really watching this whole program when we're working with personal trainers, not just these regular personal trainer that are at these big box gyms.

Danny's athletic background and education 1:51

We're talking about personal trainers that have this extra level of exercise science that a very educated in getting them to really understand the functional medicine side. And the interesting thing is when he started talking to me about this and we were having this conversation, the thing that I brought up to him, I says, Rob, I'm already doing it. And I got the expert who's making it happen, which is my boy, Danny Fales. So, so you and I talked about that. I really wanted to do this podcast so we can have the listeners really understand.

Like we have a lot of doctors that purchase that liquid be the product of a 4,000 doctors throughout the nation. Then I always try to figure out how do they optimize their business to really take it to the next level and give their clients the best course of treatments. So I want you to introduce yourself, kind of let people know your background, your education. and a little bit of a, you know, how you and I connected when you were training me. Yeah, definitely. And I appreciate you having me on.

It's definitely a pleasure to be here. So yeah, my background has been in athletics, sports and athletics. Growing up, I grew up in New Jersey, played everything under the sun, soccer, basketball, football, baseball. Always active, always into health, Always into being strong, feeling strong. Um, you know, kind of fast forward, high school, 15, 16 moved here. Um and I was kind with no one. You know everybody had their own posities here, everybody have their clicks and groups. And I kind need to establish myself.

as a young man, but just kind of as an individual trying to make it in this world, of course. And my passion at the time was in baseball. So I tried out for the varsity baseball team at Stillman Douglas High School. I played varsities baseball there for four years. Very successful there. All throughout the journey there was all about health, fitness, lifting weights, nutrition, recovery, and all that kind of spoke to me. Aside from athletics, I knew that was my passion. That was the fire that got me up every day to want to be better at baseball or want be to better athletics.

So my purpose always derived from fitness and health overall. Graduating after high school, I knew being a professional athlete is, if you're not in the top two or three percent. It's not the easiest thing. You know, it's a great dream when you were a kid. And you kind of grow up and you realize that, you know you got to kind have to have something else. Have that backup plan. Yeah, baseball is not going to be forever. Sports aren't forever And I kind of looked into personal training and immediately gravitated towards it.

I got a very entry-level certification to start. And about two or three weeks later, I enrolled into FAU, Florida Atlantic, to study exercise science and health promotion. Studied that for five years there, the Florida uh, graduating there. And during my, um, during, my year, three or four years at the end of college, I opened up the fit training.

Functional training philosophy and injury prevention 5:18

Right. Yeah. Okay. So initially it was, those training people in their backyards. I was training, people, in the garage. It was strange. People in there at. The park. That was bringing my band to band bag of bands and open up a trunk and we were, we're wrong. Um, I hear you say there was like a gym in Whitehouse Point too then. I remember that one of the guys at the Firehouse, you helped them with this first bodybuilding, Craig Fuller. And I remembered it was, like, man, this gym was beat up. But that's what most bodybuilders like.

Okay. And that's actually at the probably point in time we met the bodybuilding scene. You were at LA fitness in coconut Creek. Right. The whole crew was there. Yeah. Oh yeah. Lines room. I'll never forget that place. Um, and then from there, yeah, just again, stepping stone or, you know, kind of a bucket list with the buddy building thing and men's physique. You were actually, when I got in, it was still new, you were like one of the first ones. That's when they launched the whole thing with the board shorts.

At that point, I was in the fireman's calendar, everything else, and my legs were not that great. So I told myself, wow, actually I can walk with those chicken legs. I tried, man, but I didn't try to work out the legs, that's awesome. One of the things that, you know, when I decided to start training with you, this was right before COVID. You know the thing that really made me realize you're the trainer and the expert that I need to work with is your education level and not just understanding exercise and movements, but actually understanding like the body's mechanics, the bodies biochemistry, with your education and exercise science.

You know, for the years of me being in the wellness industry and working with a lot of different wellness coordinators, qualified wellness coordinator, I knew that you knew things at a whole nother level, which that's one of the things that I truly appreciated. And, you know when I made that decision to start actually working out with you, and I remember the first session, we were like inside of this studio, right? That's it. A little 300 square foot spot. And you're like, all right, you got to be jumping on this.

And it looked like I was doing like some James Bond type of stuff. You know? And I said, man, what did I just sign up for? This is like for pregnant women type a deal. I left out of there the first day, and I remember sending you one of those little gif things. It was just like the little thing my legs were ready to give out. And I said, man, he just beat me up. Whatever this like exercise that I thought was like for pregnant women, I'm going to keep on going. So what I want to do is kind of dive a little bit deeper about the type of exercise.

That you specialize in this functional training because you utilize a lot of different bands, T-Rac, the T.Rex, TRX bands. And you had me doing All kinds of different positions and hanging muscles that I didn't I had no polite and had muscles in those areas. So what made you get into that type of training? Great question. Kind of coming from the bodybuilding world, kind of inside looking out, I'm seeing guys, 50 year old, 60 year-old, arthritis, bursa, just any, every kind pain and ailment, the posture was horrible, they could barely tie their shoes, you know, can't reach their back, barely move, and they're young, relatively speaking.

And just kind like, unpeeling the onion, Their bodies just were not able to withstand that kind of lower, that intensity based on the foundation that they lacked. So a lot of the single leg movement or reach and touch the comb on one leg and try to keep the hips square. The little movements like that tell a large story, tell large picture. So we can't expect to lift heavier or go under a squat bar if our shoulders don't have a range of motion to hold the bar, support the bars. If our shoulder don's have the range motion, then our back immediately compensates and just trickles down into an injury.

You do that day over day, week over week, year over year, over time. Your body is in shambles, it's just shut.

Training through COVID and building a coaching team 9:53

So, coming from kind of an exercise science background, knowing how the muscles act to me where they originate, where the insert, how they move, How they respond to exercise, the physiological benefits, everything. You know really made me understand that less is more and the jack there's so much more that can be done by just doing less Yeah, and I remember you telling me that because if you actually go up in higher weights More weight doesn't mean that you're gonna get better results actually you potentially might get an injury definitely a higher weight and uh, I Remember you tell me just trust me go through this make sure your form is right.

We're building up your core and three months after we started training, man, I got shredded. I remember people in the gym saying, yeah, what are you doing? When you see what you're doing, running around here with Danny. And You know, I feel like you specialize in a lot of these different types of exercises, right, that don't require all of this big machines and everything else. It's one of the reasons why you're able to survive the whole COVID epidemic business-wise, when you went and started doing the online training and whatnot, you know.

Who has all this equipment at home? Yeah, there's a few of those wealthy people out there that have all these machinery. But you were able to take with your clients that were already doing these type of trainings and get them to do it at home, which is a few bands and everything else. Would you say that's right? Yeah, definitely. We were using gallon of water for bicep curls and deadlifts. Yeah, I mean, we just, you know, do what we could with what. And we knew it was something that needed to be done.

We couldn't just let our health fall to the backside. Although the first couple of weeks were nice, no structure and no rigid schedules, but. Yeah, you know, if you're a good trainer or you are a great coach, but you understand how the body moves specifically, You can get a workout in a closet. Respectively speaking, I mean you don't need a lot to really, to work your muscle and to achieve results. Yeah, and throughout that process of you doing this type of training, I've noticed you've also been able to educate and train a lot of these trainers that want to take the training skills to the next level.

And throughout the years, you have had a variety of trainers come in through the door, a get educated by you, work for you. And then some of them, just like in my business, they want to grow their world supply on their own, which I think is a beautiful thing, right? Because we're entrepreneurs, so we are not going to be stuck with anyone forever. So you've been able to develop some really good quality trainers, now you even have even more new ones where you're at than is in the liquid beta. How is that process bringing on new trainers that don't have the expertise in your style of training and being able to take them through the process and get them to be able do what DeFit offers?

So, it's a great question. Also, I initially looked for the intangibles. Things you can't teach, things you cant buy, Are you respectful? Are your hardworking? are you punctual? Is your attitude and your mindset in a healthy environment to help others become healthy? If certain things aren't aligned, then I don't even look through the resume as far as how many years of experience you've had or who you worked for or under. At the end of the day, it's a personal business. It's personal service. your members coming into the door and you don't have that rapport and that connection.

They could care less about your expertise. So go into your question about the process. That's one of the first things. Whether it be a phone interview or in person, just having an open question and answer conversation like we are now. understanding that they do have the qualities and the characteristics that we're looking for in our business model. And, you know, taking it to the next step, kind of unpacking the, I'm feeling the onion and understanding what their goals are for the future. Do they want, is this a career or is it a hobby?

Personalized wellness, diagnostics, and client results 14:36

You know? Because if it's not a carrier and you're not immersed in the industry, it just not gonna fit. It's just gonna be bad. and on you selfless at the end of the day, you have to be self-less to the people that are investing in you. I know you can't. It's hard to, yeah, it's not that. Yeah, I mean, at that end day you're there to help these people out. There's a reason why they're making that investment. You know, they are making an investment for themselves, utilizing their expertise as the personal trainer.

So you hit on one thing when you are You used the word personal, right? Personal trainer, personal. So I wanna talk about that. When you and I used to train, we would always feed off of each other. I would ask you questions when it comes to personal training, some of the nutrition stuff. And then you would also ask me questions about peptides and the blood work. You got a client that's experiencing this and you send them over to do bloodwork. And, you know, it made me realize that you have something that we need at Wikileaks for our clients and vice versa.

Your clients need what we offer out of the wellness center, right? And one of things that's always missing that I've noticed that's missing in the world of personal training, especially in these big box gyms, those type of person traders, is that everything is almost like cookie cutter, right? And they take that personal where things are supposed to be personalized to the individual They don't do that, right? So one of the things that you and I have been able to create when you decided to move your studio next to Liquivita, when that opportunity came about and built up that beautiful location next of Liquavita is We've been able to create a personalized approach for every individual client, right?

A personalized with their fitness, their nutrition, and also all of the diagnostics alongside with all their supplementation, peptides and everything else. So I want to talk more about that because I see how our clients are gaining tremendous benefit from this. because for years, our clients, they can inject themselves with all the peptides in the world, but if you're not moving your body, and you not doing the appropriate exercises, building up your core, focusing on your nutrition, what you are intaking, it doesn't matter how many peptide you inject yourself, you aren't going to get the results you want in your own body.

and vice versa. Your clients, they can train all they want, but if they're not figuring out what golds they should be working on internally, they're not gonna see the results just by working out. So tell me a little bit like a story of someone that you've experienced, one of your clients, throughout this relationship with Liquid Vita, and what kind of benefits have you seen as the coach? And what kinds of benefit have they seen results-wise? Certainly. Yeah, there's been a number of our active members that have utilized our services to begin with and I've referred to Liquid You know, for some wellness checkup.

There's a few that are in my mind right now, but probably, I would say, 67-year-olds range, you know. Sanitary lifestyle overall. I've been with me for about five or six months, training pretty consistently, at least two to three days a week. You know, without going down the barrel of the health history, they had kind of an unhealthy childhood, alcohol, saturated fats, fast food, etc. And it didn't dawn on me. It didn't dawn on me at the time that all the past 40-50 years we think of just time, but we don't really understand what that's like inside of our body.

We're just packing in all this junk and all of this shit for just so many years without moving or sweating or excreting any of these toxins. The couple that the two that I'm thinking of are, you know, kind of apprehensive to the functional medicine curve and kind where that industry is is kind at right now at the stigma may have or not, but When I brought them over there, we did the comprehensive blood panel for them and we found all these deficiencies and all of these allergies that they were experiencing for years that had no idea of.

And just by removing certain things and adding or replacing They were able to, within just a few weeks, just reduce their body fat, their overall visceral fat. Their cardiovascular health was much better. You know, VO2 was better and their performance in their daily life just improved. That's a beautiful thing. Data is everything, right? We trust in God, everything else has to produce data. So when you have that quantifiable data where you can train exactly what's happening with your client on our end, on the clinical side, it's fantastic because we know that we're making a change.

And same thing with you. When you have that data, and you can actually see the true full body composition analysis, unlike before, you guys used to do a body, how was it? The caliber. And it doesn't give you the exact data when the DEXA scan, where now you could actually say, yeah, man, this guy, look, he's eternal fat, that visceral fat went from this percent all the way down to this, right? His chances of having cardiovascular disease or some other kind of chronic illness has reduced tremendously.

You know, so those things to me are truly important. Tell me a little bit of like the process that when you get a new client, now that, you know we have this established relationship that that's not as easy to find when someone goes into a personal training studio, tell me of the processes of, like, how does it start? How do you actually educate this client to actually bring them over to the wellness center, to be beside and put them through that process? Sure. How does that work? So when a new guest enters our door, the first thing we take them through is a very thorough initial health evaluation or assessment.

Just kind of diving into their health history. What kind about them here, what their strengths are, you know, their goals are particularly. And kind understanding a little bit about their daily life, daily routine, habits. From there you kind put a story together as far as whether they're the beginner, intermediate, or advanced. As far from a fitness level. And then there's certain things in our questionnaires that we specifically ask to correlate or to kind of refer the information with like we'll figure out in the staff there, specifically cardiovascular health.

You know, you'd be surprised how many people are extremely stressed out with no sleep and the resting heart rate is above 80, 90 beats per minute. And they're, young individuals for the most part. Yeah. And the process or the conversation from working on outside of your body, because that's most of our members want to look at on the outside, we're kind of changing that and making them look deeper into the internal, inside of the body. So with that information, we, you know, bring them next door and do just that.

Go through the DEXA stand, do the blood battles, go through a whole bunch of programs. But it really is just an eye-opener that our stores are next to each other and people really don't, for the most part, I want to take care of what goes

Heart rate monitoring and recovery focus 22:58

on the inside, but if they really knew what the insides look like, they pay more attention to it. It opens up their eyes, like they start realizing, it's like oh man, I got to really work out some of these things. I've got change some my habits, you know, maybe I have to stop smoking, a little bit clearer, and do it in conjunction. with the personal training, which obviously, you know, as a personal trainer coach for a lot of these individuals, especially where we're located, it's a very F1 area, I can only imagine the results that you're seeing from your patients having this additional data where you can really see what's going on with your client.

And it gives you an additional step where can create even a further personalized approach for what you're gonna do and recommendations for the diet and what they should be eating. Do you use any kind of apps with your clients? Yeah, so we pretty much are fueled with TechnoGem. They have a suite of digital services. That's all that unique equipment that you have. You had the whole executive team come down and check out the facility. Yeah. Beautiful stuff. I mean, state-of-the-art equipment. So the manufacturer themselves have an app that we integrate actually with the in-body.

Okay. So we can upload assessments, upload measurements, uploaded their workouts. We can prescribe them exercises or workouts to do on their own. from a fitness standpoint, from nutrition, we recommend them to my fitness now. It's been very straightforward and very easy for the average user to use. So we've been sticking by that. But other than that, our target demographic, as you said, the area we're in, some of the tech has kind of just flew right over them. I've kind peeled back how much digital It requires a little bit of hand-holding with them.

But the app that we have, does that also integrate with like some of the wearables like Apple Watch or Ring? That's awesome. Yep, that's also awesome I have a Garmin watch. Many of popular apps also with it like Strava, Fitness Paligan, I can mention. Apple Watch picks up to it. Okay, so health app. And I bet you got some of those clients that are just like, they want to know everything. Oh yeah, I got a couple in mind right now. Which is good that you at least have the ability to offer them that, you know, obviously with the older clientele, technology is not the best friend, but when you actually have that available to be able to give these people the optimal results, that's it.

That's fantastic. And we're using the heart rate monitors within the facility. Okay. What is that for? Like, how are you using the heart rate? Yeah, it's a good question. I wanted to make a point on that because there's, you know, Orange Theory, there are a lot of studios that are using it to focus in a fat or to be burning or be working at a particular percentage or particular fat loss percentage, or heartrate percentage. Sorry. While that is very important for us, we're really focused on how A, where the heart rate spikes initially under exercise or after physical activity, but how quickly it comes down.

So measuring the health of the hurt, not so much burning fat at this particular zone. But if you're in that zone after you stop working out for the next 20 minutes, then you got a problem. If I just sound like recovering. Yeah, they're both working way too hard. Way too much. That's interesting to say that. So, you know, obviously, my partner and chief medical officer of the company is Dr. Christopher Davis, who's an interventional cardiologist. You know he speaks a lot on that and I remember our former chief Medical Officer, which unfortunately passed away.

Dr Robert Willicks was my medical warden. I remember he's actually exactly what you're saying. He would actually bring that up with his patients. And he would, actually, after they did, let's say, like a VO2 max, he will get their heart rate and look at exactly, what your talking about to see what

Goals, partnerships, and future services 27:18

came out of that. Now, and he wouldn't tell them, hey, lemme just tell you right now. Then he'd pull out a calculator and said, You're misusing, you're overusing X amount of heartbeats for a year. And the number was crazy. That's pretty crazy where all of a sudden he says, listen, your heart, to begin with, only has X amount of beats. It's just like anything else. You know, wear and tear, eventually it's gonna give up, you know? And he would say, it say don't overwork your heart, right? You gotta do some things and keep that heart rate down, especially that rested heart rhythm, is if not, your wasting heartbeats.

So the fact that you do that and monitor heartrate and everything else is phenomenal, fantastic. That's very important. Very important. So what are some of the things that you're looking towards, especially now it's a new year, right? And I know you are very goal-oriented. And you don't only establish goals for your clients, but you establish a lot of goals yourself. I do that because you consistently reach out to me, hey, what do we got to do? Let's do this, let's this event. This upcoming year what is in it for us?

So this upcoming year obviously is going to be a stem off of the last year, which was our opening year. You know, our first year in Fort Lauderdale meets the new location. And, you know just kind of dealing with everything that it came with from being delayed to opening to delays in permits to staffing to budgeting, etc. So kind working out all the kinks and Kind of dialing in on a strong team, which we have a really strong thing behind us right now and really dial in to our target market in our local outreach.

OK, so, you know, kind of the theme for this year is really just getting outside my comfort zone. and aware in a sense that I'm kind of putting positions like this to speak and kind broadcast my knowledge and my passion for the industry. But also to make connections and to create partnerships in the I know are credible companies in the industry that I can back my name against and vice versa. So developing those strategic relationships this year is going to be crucial. That was awesome. And we're going be implementing some new services.

Can you speak Ottoman? Not yet. No, I don't want to over commit. Under promise and over delivered. Exactly. But they are going to include Likovita, you know, so the comprehensive package of the program that we're putting together. We're hoping to launch this quarter, first quarter. We're really hoping to capitalize on the partnership that you and I have formed and tie the two stores together and just really create the best healthy life for our customers. That's the truth. The relationships is everything.

One of the things that I see for this year that i told you about is plugging us all in. It's with Rob Fletcher with Muscle Up Fitness. He's on Muscly Up fitness plus podcast. Is the host of the talk show is is bringing what you and I do together, which we've created this wonderful thing. And be able to educate other trainers and be the ones that are kind of spearheading that for the industry nationally, you know, so there's going to be some education that comes by and. um you know we'll be working together on that so i got a few meetings with a Few of these organizations that you don't want to bring you in on so I I truthfully think that doing what we're doing is really giving that that client that overall service for their health.

You know, they're getting it on the clinical side. They're giving it mindset wise, nutrition side, physical training side and this is what people need so they can get the results.

Fun facts, yoga, and closing advice 31:28

So, all right, so time for a little bit of fun facts about yourself. Your big into exercise and you know health and wellness. What are your things that you love doing for yourself health awareness wise? Well, that's a great question. So fun facts would probably have just picked up playing tennis. That is. Yeah. Your mom plays tennis? My mom's played forever. I've made fun of her for years. Like play real sport. You know, I always just used to rag on her. She played over 20 years, just recently picked it up maybe six months ago.

Okay. Um, and kind of what we were speaking about before, you know, coming from an athletic background, I just kind, uh, just picked it up one day and I'm obsessed with it. Not only for the physical feats, but just the mental escape. There's so much noise during the day that. I wouldn't call it noise, there's just a lot to overcome. So just not having to make any decisions or not have to be on a specific schedule. Just chasing that yellow ball around for a couple hours on Bramble. A little fun fact.

And I like yoga. I love doing yoga. You know, people have been telling me that I can do yoga and I do want to do it. And I just got to commit to it, you know. Initially I was like, man, I'm going to be in this thing where everybody knows how to all these crazy positions. how to do any of it. But people tell me it's not like that. So you do the regular yoga or hot yoga? I do both. If I had to choose, I'd do regular. The regular? Yeah. Why is that? Me personally, kind of get a little distracted with how sweaty I actually am in these yoga classes.

It's just too much. Yeah, it feels amazing. Don't get me wrong. He makes with, you know, obviously, breathing and allowing your muscles to warm and lengthen that way. But man, you're just literally just sitting in the puddle. Yeah. Just getting a downward dog here. Awesome. So Danny, go ahead and leave us off with one thing to tell the listeners that they really need to consider for their health awareness and their fitness goals. I would say the consideration needs to be if you're resistant to starting because of financial commitment or added expense, the thought process behind that needs the shift towards it being an investment in your health, in the longevity of your life, to live a happy, longer and healthy life and realize that you only got one, you have one body.

You got one shot, you got a one life. You have one way to make it healthy and operate until it's optimal performance. So it really needs to be looked at as an investment in your health versus just added expenses. Because we hear that often. It's daily, we're rebuttaling pricing and, oh, I can find it cheaper. That's always priced. Don't negotiate with your help. Yeah. By the end of the day, man, it your helping. If you know you can't do it on your own, that's worth your husband. I agree. So Danny, where can people find you?

I'm at DFIT training studio Fort Lauderdale Beach 3712 North Ocean Boulevard and I am there Monday through Friday 7 a.m. to 7 p. m. and we're open Saturdays 8 to 12 p m Social media, what's your handles? Danny underscore DFit as my personal and the business page our gym is DFит training Studio. I love it daddy, love. So guys, just remember health is wealth. The most important currency in the world is your health, because without it, you got nothing else, right? In all of us, it doesn't matter if you're a professional athlete, It doesn' matter, if your the top business owner, we all have accountability components, We have mentors, coaches to hold us accountable, to get us to the next level, Right?

We a fitness expert, Danny Pham with DeFit. All right, he's got all of the great trainers. Make sure you follow him. Tune in to more content we have coming. So that was today's episode with deFit, make sure to go ahead, follow, subscribe, share, do all the good stuff, and then check us out for the next one.