Why Losing Fat After 40 Is Harder (And the One Thing That Actually Fixes It) | Mind Pump 2922

Men over 40, you may be finding that losing body fat is more difficult than it used to be. Is it in your imagination? It is not. It is more challenging, but there are things that nobody tells you about losing fat after 40. We're going to break it down for you. We're going to give you the solution. It can happen. It will happen. You just got to do what we say. >> Justin feels attacked. Let's go. >> [laughter] >> We're all over 40 here. >> I'm already I'm already looking at my fuzzies all over me, dude. You guys got me all self-conscious. >> It is First of all, we're all over 40. The vast majority of our clients, uh, were in this age group, I would say, when we were trainers. >> Yeah. >> Um, and the truth is, uh, it is more difficult to, uh, improve your fitness and burn body fat or lose body fat, uh, after 40. Uh, here's the big challenge, and this is what you might be experiencing, is that you might have lost weight in the past. You might have done it successfully a few times. You're attempting it again, and what you did before, what used to work, suddenly doesn't work. It's not working. What's going on? It's very frustrating. I had this formula. Uh, I followed the formula, and, uh, my body doesn't seem to be responding, or I don't feel as good, or I feel burnt out. >> Mhm. >> Uh, what's going on? By the way, I do want to add this, um, that the way that we as coaches, okay, those of us who coach and train people for a living, the way we define if something worked isn't whether or not you got your to your goal result. The The way we define did it work is if you kept it. Right? If you got the the result that you were looking for and you maintained it. So, I do want to add that because although [snorts] you may think what worked before, I'm going to try that again cuz it worked before, it actually didn't work before. It worked halfway. It got you to lose weight, but then you gain gained it back. So, even if it did work like it used to, uh, what would end up happening is what always happens, which is you end up gaining the weight back. Nonetheless, nonetheless, I want to speak to this. It feels different. Something doesn't feel the same. What's going on? Uh why is it different? Is it just my age or am I uh am I losing my mind? What's happening? >> I I actually I actually think this is almost every client that I trained because rarely ever did you get a client that came to you um at their first attempt to get in shape. >> Yeah. >> Like that was that was rare. In fact, I I can't think of a case like >> People typically try on their own first. >> Oh, yeah. I mean, before they and and they've tried several times and and normally what's happened is exactly this. They've gotten a little bit older. Um there is there was a season in their life uh where they when they were playing sports when they were uh getting ready for that marathon um or just young when they were in their 20s working out uh where a modality of training or a method uh uh that they followed or a diet they did uh worked really well for them where they could get they could get in shape pretty quick. >> Um It's like their go-to method. >> Yeah. And so, they've already attempted this and applied this probably once or two or three times already. And it's just not working. And then they come to me and they go like, "Hey, here's the deal. I I've been in shape before and this is what's worked for me in the past, but I can't I'm seeing I can't seem to lose weight anymore. What's going on with me? How do you help?" >> This episode is brought to you by one of our sponsors Ketone IQ. So, what is Ketone IQ? These are exogenous ketones. Uh that's What's that, right? What is What are exogenous ketones? Well, let me explain. 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I take Ketone-IQ before I podcast every single day for increased sharpness, verbal fluency, better memory recall. Try it for yourself. Go to ketone.com/mindpump. That's k e t o n e .com/mindpump. That link will get you 30% off your subscription order, plus you can get a free gift with your second shipment. It's buy one get one free right now with MAPS programs, the top 10 MAPS programs. Buy one get one free. Go to mapsbogo.com. All right, real quick. If you love us like we love you, why not show it by rocking one of our shirts, hats, mugs, or training gear over at mindpumpstore.com. I'm talking right now. Hit pause. Head on over to mindpumpstore.com. That's it. Enjoy the rest of your show. Yeah, I know. Big a big part of this or a big part of the reason why this isn't working anymore is it's not that you're older. And yes, age plays a role, but it plays less of a role than we think. We tend we tend to place all of the blame on our age. And yeah, it is true that as you get older, your body your potential like your ultimate potential starts to decrease in terms of athletic performance, fat loss, and that kind of stuff. But a 40, you know, 5-year-old man has got pretty high potential. >> Yeah. >> Uh even when he compares himself to when he was 35 or 25. Age by itself doesn't start to play a major role until once you start to get your 50s and 60s, then it starts to play a much bigger role. So, what the heck's going on then? >> It's your behavioral patterns, man. I mean, your whole lifestyle's different at this point and uh >> I think it's like I mean, you fondly look back at like when you got in shape and that um you know, you just applied this one method that was like this intense form of training and uh you know, sleep was, you know, okay, but like you could pretty much rebound pretty easy and like I mean, the the the real difference for me that I've seen now I can actually relate. Like before I was like my clients would come in and they'd say these things and you'd kind of roll your eyes and be like, "Ah, you know, you're just not sticking with it or consistent enough or whatever it is." Uh but really it's like at this point now, you understand that it's you have to be a lot more intentional. You have these like smaller windows. You have uh more more stress that accumulates. Uh the recovery process a little bit more challenging to really like, you know, implement that. And there's a lot more kind of factors that you got to consider like more intensively. >> You you hit the the big one that I think that age plays a big role is just the accumulation of of stress. >> That's it. >> And we talk you on the podcast we talk a lot about that in the context of like a fat loss journey and exercise programming and diet and sleep in the context of a uh uh like it say like a a 3-month window of a training trying to get in shape. >> Yeah. >> But I think the the part that like we don't consider a lot too is like that there is that, right? Like if uh if I have a stress bucket and uh last night I didn't get very good sleep, I filled a lot of that bucket up. And if I got in an argument with my wife before I would work, I just add a little bit more to that on top of that. And then I also am underfed because I've just didn't have time to make any of my meals. So, now I'm getting you higher. And then I go to the gym and I just hammer myself. And then now now I'm over so there's that accumulation of stress in the the immediate. And then there's the accumulation of stress over >> Yeah, that's right. >> years and decades that that's what I think is the real differentiating thing between 40 years old and 20 years old. At 20 years old, we tend to be able to almost be able to dump that bucket out and start over so much faster. >> Yep. >> And and because you've only done it so many times cuz you're only 20 years old, uh you maybe it's not as bad. Whereas when you've had these behaviors to your point for decades of >> It builds. >> burning the candle at both ends. Yes, it builds or another way to say that stress bucket shrinks. >> Yeah. >> Right? Like maybe when you were younger >> You can't tolerate quite as much stress. >> Exactly. Your your your stress bucket was bigger, you dumped it out faster. Where now that stress bucket seems to have shrunk in a sense and your tolerance for all those things in in in in addition to bigger life stresses on top of that. >> well see here okay, to put it uh plainly, right? Um the reason why exercise triggers changes in your body the reason why you get stronger or you build more stamina is because exercise is a stress. It's actually a stress. In fact, if we if you were to examine you um and take blood tests and hook you up to machines and see what's happening during exercise, uh all all the machines would register elevated stress. You'd see elevated stress hormones. You'd see inflammatory markers go up. In fact, if we just looked at that, we would never have anybody exercise cuz we'd be like, "This is terrible for you." But obviously it's not. The reason why it's not is cuz your body, if you do it right that stress triggers uh a cascade of uh of things that happens in the body which starts recovery and then moves into adaptation. And the reason why your body adapts is it's trying to become more resilient to that stress. So, if I lift heavy things, the way that my body becomes more resilient to lifting heavy things is it becomes stronger. Okay? If I challenge my stamina, the way that my body becomes more resilient is it increases my capacity uh so I have more uh stamina. So, it is a stress, but what we don't realize So, a lot of us don't realize exercise is stress. It is. >> Mhm. >> We also don't realize that uh lots of things are a stress. Uh you're you're in your 40s now. You probably have bills. You probably have a mortgage or rent and kids to take care of. When you were 25, you didn't have any of those things. And although now you're used to it, so if you ask the typical 40-something-year-old about their stress, unless something big's going on, they're like, "I'm fine." But the reality is you you're there's a lot of things on your plate. And by the way, you can see this in the data. When you look at uh how much men earn, when [snorts] men become married and have children, their earning goes through the roof. Is it because all of a sudden they become smarter and more capable? No, they got more things to take care of and more things to worry about. And so you have in your 40s more stress on you, more worries, more responsibilities, and your body has a limited capacity to recover from and adapt to stress. So, when you have all these other things happening, and then you throw exercise on top of it, you better be judicious and precise >> Right. >> with how you apply your workout programming and the kind of workout program you apply. Now, when you're 25, you could have the worst you could have programming that it does excessive with stress. But because you don't have other things in your life and other responsibilities, and you can sleep in on the weekends, and you can hang out with your buddies, and you don't need to take care of your kids, you really don't have a mortgage, you're you're you're going to school right now, you got maybe a part-time job, like it's not a big deal. You can handle it. >> You can recover from bad programming. >> You In fact, you get in shape in spite of your crappy workout program. But now you apply that same crappy methodology on yourself in your 40s with all this other stuff that's going on, and you're like, why am I burnt? >> Mhm. >> Why am I not responding? Why do I feel tired? Uh and why is my body not losing body fat? One of the reason why your body's not losing body fat is too much stress on your body tells your body to hold on to body fat. Now, why would it want to hold on to body fat? Body fat is uh insurance against famine. One of the major stressors of uh of all of humanity of for most of the time. Not now, right? Now we live in modern societies. Not an issue. But our bodies have already are they're designed this way. When you get stressed, it tries to hold on to body fat. It's no different than it's like your bank account. When things get stressful in the world, you're not sure if you're going to lose your job, uh maybe you you know, they're cutting back. You're like, "Honey, we got to cut back on our expenses and we got to save this money just in case." That's what your body does with body fat. So, the one of the main uh reasons why this is so much more challenging for men has nothing to do with somehow the aging process is changing your body has much more to do with the fact that you've just got more stuff that you're dealing with and if you don't have proper precise workout programming, the stress you're applying is either wasted or too much and your body won't respond. >> I mean, I would add to that uh it becomes even more challenging sometimes when people don't realize all the things that you just like a lot you said like, you know, people that are like, "Why am I so tired? Why is this? Why?" Sometimes and I see this a lot where our bodies, they're so resilient and they they do such a good job of adapting. People adapt to all that and they survive and they think they're okay and normal. >> their normal. >> Yeah. And so they think I I can't tell you how many conversations I've had with somebody who's struggling with uh body composition change and they feel like they're doing a lot of the right things. They're like, "I'm doing this. I'm doing that and my body isn't change." And I'm asking the questions like, "Well, how's your sleep and how's your stress?" And I'm fine. >> I'm fine. >> Yeah. >> And and you and they think they're okay and they think their energy is okay and what they don't realize is over the course of decades it's just a adapted lower lower lower and they think they're fine because they don't know what good feels like. >> a great example of this. So I have a buddy of mine. Uh he does um God, what does he do? He's an electrician. So he's a blue collar worker. He's got four kids. Great guy. Great guy. Um otherwise healthy and he wants to start working out. He wants to start working out. Guess what time he has to work out in the morning? 4:30. Because he goes to work, he's got to drive to work, he's got these jobs and then he gets off at two or three o'clock but then he's going to be, you know, with his kids and his wife and have dinner and then go into bed. He's got a little one. Sometimes, you know, and his wife mainly handles it but look, if you're a man, your wife gets up with the kid, like your sleep's also getting broken even though she's kind of handling it. Uh and that's in his case. And so he's coming to me, he's like, "Oh yeah, I can work out uh you know, four days a week." I'm like, "Oh cool, what time?" "4:30." I'm like, "Well, what time you going to bed?" You better be going to bed at 8:30 at night. He's like, "Well, I got to go to bed at 10:00 because I'm doing Like listen, that's not going to work, dude." And so he's trying to apply his old methods and he's coming to me, he's like, "Why am I so tired?" I'm like, "Dude, you're That's too much for you right now. It needs to be the right amount of stress uh considering what's going on in your life and we have a general idea what this looks like for the average 40 uh something year old man. There's also accumulated issues with when you're with your movement. Okay, these are called movement pattern issues and a 45-year-old man has a higher likelihood of poor recruitment patterns and potential pain than a 25-year-old just because he's been moving uh on Earth for more >> or or not moving or lack of movement. >> Or say or not moving. Great example of this is your your engineer or somebody who's been sitting at a computer desk for 20 plus years. >> locked in positions. >> Yeah, total >> And so you sometimes hear is, "Well, I work out but my shoulder hurts." >> Yeah. >> Or I squat and I can't hurt cuz my I can't squat cuz it bothers my knee or my hip hurts. And that's because your you have this kind of accumulated movement pattern issues either from sitting all day or from doing the same thing all day or whatever that you might not have had in your in your 20s when in your 20s you're kind of coming out of your teens when you're playing sports and moving all the time. And so you got to consider that as well. And then finally, here's a big one that you need to consider. Big one. Time. You don't got all the time in the world to work out. You know, I see guys in their 20s go to the gym and it's usually, you know, midday or after school and they're in there for like 2 and 1/2 hours. Now it's cuz they're not cuz they're not working out for 2 and 1/2 hours. They're hanging out. They're working out and they're hanging out. 40-something year old dude doesn't got 2 hours to go spend in the gym. He's got a family, he's got life, he's got work. So the time that I do spend working out, it needs to be really effective and I don't have a lot that I can sacrifice. >> Efficiency is everything. >> So efficiency is very, very important. Now here's the one thing that makes the big difference. And we're going to get to kind of what this looks like, but here's the one thing. Building muscle makes all the difference in the world. So when you build muscle, you're leveraging this active tissue in a way to burn more calories for you, to improve your hormone profile. So building muscle's great for men for testosterone, it's great for growth hormone, it's great for insulin sensitivity. And here's the good news with building muscle. You don't need to spend a lot of time in the gym. The data supports this. You don't need to do a lot of crazy workouts to build strength. Now building endurance and stamina takes a lot more time. But here's the deal. If you're listening to this, you're like, "Look, I just want to get in shape and look better and I don't have a lot of time." You don't need a lot of time. You actually don't need a lot of time to build muscle if you approach it the right way. >> It It also lends itself really well to a calorie maintenance to surplus type of diet, too, which also lends itself well to lowering or reducing stress. Putting somebody who has got all kinds of stress, has all this stuff going on in their life, into an extreme diet to cut, to lose, uh also just adds uh exponentially more >> Build into it. Yeah. Build into a fat-burning machine and stop trying >> Much better strategy for this person when it comes to hormones, sleep, all other things like yeah, energy. >> I'm just going to communicate this. listening right now and you've tried this, and you're like, "Man, I I don't have the energy to do these workouts and work and do all this other stuff." If you do this properly, if you follow workout programming that's designed for someone like you, uh it won't take energy away. It'll add. >> Should add. >> Yes. What you'll find is you have more energy for work, more energy for your family. You're going to feel better day one, not, you know, 3 months later. You'll actually feel better. >> That that in itself is such a new mentality for people to address their workout and fitness in general of like something that's going to actually like increase their energy when they leave. >> That's right. So, here's number one, okay? Get strong at basic lifts. Okay? Basic lifts, and practice them often. One of the mistakes people make when they work out is they think they need to do different stuff all the time. This actually takes away from your body's ability to adapt in ways that build muscle. There's uh there's an adaptation process that happens with strength training. Some of it and there's a lot of crossover. So, it's not like it just goes from one to the other. A lot of it is kind of muddy, but this what it looks like. Initially, when you first start an exercise, the initial adaptations are all central nervous system. Okay? So, when I first I'm getting back into the gym, I'm practicing an overhead press, uh the strength gains I get initially are really just my central nervous system organizing better, organizing my muscles better, providing more stability cuz it's what controls the muscles. It's basically making me better at the overhead press. So, I get strength gains right out the gate from that. Once those central nervous systems adapt to a certain point, then the adaptation looks like bigger muscles, okay? But, if I change exercises all the time and do a bunch of weird stuff, uh I'm never really giving my body the opportunity to do this. So, number one with your strength training is get strong at the basic lifts. >> Basic fundamentals. >> The fundamentals. Your your bench presses, your deadlifts, your squats, your overhead presses, your rows. Uh don't mix it up a ton. Stick to the basics and get strong at those, and that'll give you the most carryover to your >> this is so important when we're talking about this this avatar specifically because time you are you made as one of the major uh issues, and this is the greatest ROI you can get on on training. >> 100%. >> Like, going in the And there's there's nothing wrong with, [snorts] you know, easy curl, you know, bar. There's nothing wrong with some tricep push-downs. These are all cool exercises. They have their benefits. But, when time is the issue and you are trying to make major changes as fast as you can, as efficiently as you can, uh the basic big lifts are the things that are going to give you the greatest ROI. >> 100%. Now, let's talk about diet a little bit. We're going to spend a little bit of time here cuz diet is the uh the the hardest thing, okay? So, getting into the gym, you know, 2 days a week, 3 days a week, uh that could be difficult difficult alone to be consistent. But, I'd be lying if I said that would be the most difficult thing you'd have to deal with. Easily by far, diet is far harder. >> There's nothing harder than diet >> when it comes to your your your health. Um exercise, being consistent a couple days in a week, difficult, but I could almost always make that work with my clients. The diet part was a big one. So, here's what we're going to do. We're going to give you like a few things to do. And And these The reason why we're only going to give you a few things is there's two reasons. One, uh these are things you can stick to, but two, these are the ones that make the big difference, okay? So, there's like there's a lot of things you can do with your diet to make it work better for you, but if you just did the the couple things that we're going to mention right now, most guys listening to this, most guys in their 40s listening to this who exercise properly, and we'll get to that, who follow good workout programming for them, if they follow these next pieces of advice for diet and they were just consistent with this, the average 40-something-year-old man's body fat percentage would fall somewhere in the mid-teens. >> Yeah. >> Now, give or take, right? Some guys can be a little leaner, some guys a little heavier, but most guys over time without having to do anything else, without having to count things and and track things and cut things or whatever, will fall somewhere around 13 to 18% body fat. That's where you'll end up falling for most people. Here's number one. This is a This is a one rule. That's it. Eat only whole foods. That's it. >> Mhm. >> Stay away from things in boxes or wrappers, stay away from fast food, stay away from candy, eat whole, natural foods. Now, notice I'm not saying eat less, notice I'm not saying, you know, this many grams of carbs. Just stick to whole foods. This will naturally bring your caloric intake down to where it needs to be. The studies on nutrition, on whole foods versus heavily processed foods, are remarkable. They're the best studies there are. >> The best part about this, too, is it it it keeps it so simple, especially for somebody who is busy and got so much going on. It's just like, if you're hungry, eat. Just eat whole foods. >> That's it. >> You don't have to overthink this. Uh it and your body will It'll right where it needs to be. Where this gets difficult is when, you know, 50% is whole foods and the other 50% is processed. Then this gets confusing, then this gets challenging, then that throws it off, and then this is where people will read cuz every time I tell somebody this, they'll say, "But what about how much carbs and how much fat and how many calories?" It's like, just hit the protein intake and hit eat whole foods and that is That'll take care of the rest. >> Yes, and so here's why, and I'll I'll I'll briefly cover this. We've had whole episodes on this, but um uh uh processed foods are designed uh in a way that makes you overeat. If you eat whole natural foods, your your natural satiety actually is uh quite remarkable at maintaining an appropriate caloric intake. There's this weird belief that if we just eat as much as we want that we're all going to be 350 lb. That's only true with heavily processed foods. With whole foods, if you ate until you were satisfied, barring any, you know, eating disorder issues, barring anything crazy like that, right? If you just ate when you were hungry, your calories will naturally fall in this place that allows you to burn body fat and build muscle. That's just where it goes. You'll actually be satisfied. In fact, uh here's the challenge with eating whole foods. Uh there's a couple challenges. We'll cover the second one here in a second, but the first challenge I found with whole foods is my clients will eat just whole foods and then they'll say, "But I'm craving that uh and I'll say, "Eat a whole food meal." Yeah, but I'm craving the whatever. And they know if they eat the whole food, it's actually like, "Uh, that doesn't I actually don't want to eat that." It's because you're not hungry. You have a craving. And processed foods will do that. So stick to just whole foods. And then the second part, what Adam said, make it very high protein. All of your meals, protein centric. Every single meal you eat, 40-50 g in the meal of protein, steak, chicken, fish, eggs, you know, cottage cheese, whatever. Eat it first. Eat the rest of the meal. Your calories will fall where they where they need to go. High protein builds more muscle and causes more fat loss. And by the way, they've they're they're they're there's new studies that are coming out on protein intake. On the show, we recommend about 1 g per pound of target body weight. The old data showed a little less. We always rounded it up to one cuz we always found it worked better. Guess what the data supports, fellas? >> Higher. 1 g. >> Yeah. The data supports 1 g, maybe even a little higher uh for building muscle. So if you're a guy and you want to weigh about 200 lb, aim for 200 g. But it's 50 g of protein in four meals. Aim for that. >> The the best part about this too is you don't even have to overcomplicate what types of protein. You can really enjoy yourself. >> Yeah. >> You can you can eat fattier cuts. You can enjoy ribeye, tri-tip. You can enjoy ground beef. Eating things like this, if you just stick to that rule of whole foods, eat it first, then everything follows. >> That's right. >> It'll take care of the rest. And so this idea of like even having to cuz I think a lot of times too people think high protein, they think right away chicken breast and fish. >> Like boring. >> Yeah. >> I didn't say high protein low fat. I just said high protein. >> That's right. Whole foods. >> That's right. >> And you can really enjoy good cuts of meat that and just eat it first and then let the carbs and everything else follow second. >> That's right. And then here's the part that makes this all possible. If you don't do this, eating only whole foods will be almost impossible. Okay, so here's what you got to do. Meal prep. This is the one thing that made the biggest difference with my male clients over 40. Uh once a week or twice a week, they would go out and they grill a bunch of meat, a bunch of chicken, a bunch of whatever, cook a bunch of ground beef, and and and prep their meals for them because here's what happens. >> Yeah. >> If you're trying to stick to whole foods and you don't have a meal available, >> not there. >> It's not there, you're screwed. >> Yeah, the environment just doesn't promote this enough to where you're going to go down to your local store and it's going to be an easy option that's convenient. Nothing's ever convenient within the whole foods realm, but you know, you can control that by prepping ahead of time and kind of making these last. >> I sometimes we really overcomplicate this too. Like a lot of the times the challenge that people have with this is just getting out of their way of thinking of like the way they've made dinner their whole lives before. Is this like >> Just got to make them bigger. >> You just got to be way bigger. Like that's all it is. It's just like if if if you made >> You can actually meal prep every night with dinner. >> That's that's exactly what I'm saying by overcomplicating it cuz some people are like, man, I got to means I got to spend all day Sunday meal prepping all this stuff. It's like that's one way to do it." >> Uh-huh. >> Or just if you say say just two or three nights out of the week, you actually make home cooked meals. >> up the serving. >> Just double or triple up the serving. Like just get used to instead of making a pound of meat for you and your spouse or family or whatever, it's four or five pounds. >> Yeah. >> And instead of cooking one or two cups of rice, it's five to six cups of rice. And that gets you for the next two or three days. And then when you do it again, you do it again like that. >> what I do. On Sundays, I meal prep and I make about five pounds of uh chicken thighs um or sometimes less chicken thighs and I'll do a big thing of ground beef. I'll make a big pot of white rice. Um and then I'll I'll cook a big thing of of broccoli or whatever, choose your vegetable. Uh you can make uh ground beef rice bowls, you could do chicken thighs and rice, whatever, it's all good. I enjoy it. We can choose different cuts. And then in my fridge, I got a bunch of meals ready to go. By the time Wednesday, Thursday comes around, I typically run out and that's when my wife will make extra dinner. >> Yeah. >> So she'll instead of making one tri-tip, she'll make two. And then I have more meals. And it's just it it By the way, fellas, the in your in your 40s, look, this has got a double There's a double side to this. There's another side to this of value. You save money. >> Hell yeah. >> Guys, listen. >> Especially today. >> You're taking care of your family, you got a job, you want to take some stress off your life, meal prep. It saves you money and it gets you lean. >> Yeah. >> It does both of those things. Now you're not eating out, you've got your meals. >> Two birds. >> It's That's That's pretty much it. Eat whole foods, very high protein, meal prep, diet part is done. Diet part is done. Here's the last part, okay? The number one thing that will increase your resilience to stress, okay? Cuz there are stresses in your life. And sometimes you'll hear people say this. I used to say this when I was a stupid young kid and I didn't understand what it was like to to to manage all these things. Sometimes you'll hear people say, "Well, you got to get rid of certain stresses in your life." Like, "Oh, what? My mortgage? I got three kids. Like, what am I going to get rid of? My job? Like, I can't get rid of these." Yeah, I What am I going to get rid of? Or I'm taking care of an old parent? Like what am I going to get rid of? Well, you can increase your your resilience to stress. And the number one thing, nothing comes close to this. Nothing touches this. No no recovery hack, no supplement, nothing is better than sleep. >> Mhm. >> And so, how do you do this as a man in your mid-40s? You prep for your sleep. You prep for it. You know what your bedtime is, an hour before you get ready. Go to bed at the same time, wake up at the same time every day. If you do that consistently by itself, >> all. >> it makes In fact, I had clients uh I had more clients uh than I can count right now. That I'm thinking, I can think of many clients I had in this uh category where when we nailed down sleep, it was like uh turbocharged. We nothing else changed. All we did was get their sleep done. Everything else became 10 times more effective. It was wild. >> So, let let's list off something cuz I've been helping some people with getting better at their sleep. And one of the things I'm starting to find, it's very similar to the way that we start somebody on a fitness journey, is we tend to build uh one or two good habits then stack on that side. And what I'm finding with a lot of people when it comes to sleep, their their sleep patterns or sleep habits are so bad that telling them to do all these things is too much at once. And so, my advice would be to and I'll give you a list of different things that tend that tend people tend to do to improve. And don't try and do all of them at once. Find the thing you're that's most egregious and try and get consistent with that one thing. So, it's like uh screen time, you know, past 7:00 or 8:00 you see all the time. People on their phones and they're like I see that all the time. I see late uh late night eating. Um I see uh doing work uh and eat work email stuff late uh at night. Um there's like these things are or drinking like right before like a bunch of water or fluid like right before it. There's like a handful of these things that people all tend to do. It's like pick if you're doing all of those, pick one and get really good at eliminating it. And then stack another one on it and just and then treat it the same way. Like, that's how powerful sleep is that it deserves that much attention to try and get better at it because the ROI on that so good. >> What I found is uh going to bed at the same time and waking up at the same time every morning makes the biggest difference. But, the challenge is uh always going to bed at the same time. And the thing that gets in the way uh from the people that I've worked with often times is uh tech. I got Netflix. I got to watch the show. I got whatever. Um and so, if you give yourself a hard and fast rule, 8:00 everything I'm not going on any electronics, going to bed is a lot easier cuz there's nothing to do. >> Yeah. >> It's actually a lot easier. >> No, I agree. >> Makes a big difference. >> You got a way to get bored. >> 100%. >> Let's go back to the workout. So, workout programming is everything. It needs to be appropriate for the avatar of a man in his 40s with responsibilities, with more stress in his life, who wants to build muscle and burn body fat. Programming is everything. There's a couple things you want to focus on with the programming. We talked about this already, the basics. But, some of those basics require a decent amount of skill. Uh a deadlift and a barbell squat, for example, require a decent amount of skill. They're phenomenal exercises. But, if you're listening to this, you may be someone that's like, "Man, when I deadlift, I feel like my back I'm going to throw out my back." Or, when I squat, uh I'm unsure or I feel it in my knee. Like, what do I do? >> Mhm. >> You can replace those two exercises with variations that are a lot safer that have pretty much the same kind of value. For example, instead of a straight barbell uh deadlift, do a trap bar deadlift. Instead of doing a traditional barbell squat, do a box squat. >> [snorts] >> Uh that's just a simple example of things that you could do in your programming to make the workout safer, but not reduce any of its uh effectiveness. Um so, here's what we have. We have a a strength training program for people who are over 40 and it's everything that we just said. It's called MAPS 40 plus, okay? We also have a program called MAPS Powerlift, which would be a great program to follow up with after 40 plus because both of them are to build strength. Build strength, build muscle, combine it with the nutrition tips that we gave, and you're going to watch yourself have this nice consistent pattern of getting leaner and building more muscle. And here's what we're doing right now because of this episode, if you buy 40 plus, you get MAPS Powerlift for free. It's a buy one get one free. It's happening right now. Go to mapsbogo.com. Get 40 plus and get powerlift thrown in for free. All right, I know you liked that episode. If you did, check this one out. 30% body fat. For men, this is way [music] too high. This is actually a bit high for women as well. So, in today's episode, we're talking about how you can go from 30 to 10. What is 10% body fat? This is when you have a visible six-pack. Can you go from 30 to 10%? Yes, it's possible, but not if you guess along the way. So, we're going to talk about how you can do that today's episode. [music] >> Now, there's a huge range, right, of like body types. Some people can run a little bit heavier and are a little bit higher body