HEALTHY LIFESTYLE
How To Stop Obsessing Over The Wrong Things To Get In Shape After 40
You’re barking up the wrong trees
Over the Christmas holidays I fell into a Reddit Vortex one day and ended up scrolling through the Beginners Fitness questions.
I’ve been coaching ‘beginners’ for over 15 years, so maybe I can help out…
Oof.
- “Should I do incline bench press or flat bench press?”
- “Is this workout split better than this workout split?”
- “Should I eat chicken or turkey?”
- “Should I take zinc oxide or zinc picolinate?”
On and on it goes. An obsession with the minutiae of health and fitness. Essentially it’s:
A belief that with just one little tweak we can ‘fix’ our body shape overnight.
Being interested in these details isn’t bad per se…
…it’s just all academic if the rest of our life is a complete shitshow, which on Reddit it transpires is often the case.
My flirtation with Reddit is over, so I thought I’d explain to you, my wonderful reader, a few things you actually SHOULD obsess over instead, if you’re trying to get in shape in 2024.
The 4 Things You SHOULD Obsess Over
First up let’s be clear:
- You DO need a workout plan that hits every body part if you’re trying to get stronger, or one that gets your heart rate up for a certain length of time or builds some stamina or whatever your goal is.
- You DO need a dietary approach that restricts your calorie intake if you’re trying to lose weight, or that keeps your protein intake high if you’re trying to build some muscle.
Those are fundamental things that need to be in place.
But the actual specifics of any workout or diet plan or supplement ‘stack’ should be much lower down the priority list for anyone over 40 trying to get in shape compared to the following four areas of your life…
#1 Stress
Stress has the power to wreck everything, regardless of how amazing and well researched your diet and workout program is.
If we are mentally and physically stressed, our cortisol levels are high, that puts the brakes on fat loss, puts us at risk of insulin resistance and type II diabetes, and slows down our metabolism.
It also messes with our hormonal balance, causing low testosterone symptoms for men, and low estrogen symptoms for women.
Unless we tackle stress in some way, doing our best to keep stress low, then your workout program and your diet program don’t really matter, they’re not going to work the way you want them to.
You can manage stress by:
- getting out for walks in nature,
- supplementing with ashwagandha,
- having some weekly Me Time (hobby, workouts, whatever) and…
… one of the best ways to lower your Cortisol and manage stress is by obsessing (a little!) over this next area of your life…
#2 Sleep
I managed to lower my Cortisol level by 58%, as I outlined in this article, by improving my sleep, walking more in nature and taking Ashwagandha.
Lo and behold, my workouts and dietary efforts suddenly started working, where for the previous few months, and to be honest, YEARS I’d hardly made any progress at all.
Sleep gives us the mental and physical recovery time that we need to:
- feel motivated and have enough energy to stick to any diet or workout program;
- balance our hormones and regulate our metabolism and hunger signals;
- recover from any exercise that we’ve been doing; and
- feel mentally ready to tackle each new day!
Unless we’re getting that recovery time, our natural Testosterone and Estrogen production is hindered.
This has all sorts of knock on effects for our mood, our energy, our libido, and our metabolism.
How do you prioritize sleep?
- Get to bed at an appropriate time, having a hard-stop of say 10–10.30pm;
- Structure your TV watching and evening activities around that, like it’s an appointment, with your pillow, you have to keep ;-)
- Make sure your bedroom isn’t too hot, too cold, too bright, too noisy, use eye masks and ear plugs if you need to block things out; and
- Please, for the love of God, keep your phone out of the bedroom so you can’t look at it if you do wake up at two o’clock in the morning!
#3 Hormonal Balance
Obsessing over your hormonal balance will have much bigger payoffs than obsessing over whether to eat brown or white rice.
Men over 40 can rev up natural Testosterone production by prioritizing sleep, managing stress, getting outdoors, and potentially supplementing with vitamin D and zinc, and by cutting your alcohol intake.
That gets your Testosterone levels up and will allow your workouts to actually pay off and retain what muscle you have and build extra muscle as you get older.
Same advice goes for women with Estrogen levels. Sleep, Stress, Alcohol, getting outdoors — all those things keep your Estrogen on an even keel, so your healthier eating and fat loss efforts pay off, and can help you thrive despite the female Menopause.
#4 Habits
Your main obsession, since you’re already busy as hell, should be to get all these sleep, stress and hormonal balance habits happening on autopilot.
There is no point in you researching the best workout program, the best diet or supplements, if those things never happen consistently.
You need to build a ‘streak’ of days and weeks of Doing The Thing.
- Diligently researching and then creating a snazzy spreadsheet for your gym workout plan… then you don’t stick to it for longer than two weeks before you get bored or because life gets in the way — pointless
- Drawing up lists of the best healthy breakfasts and lunches and family dinners, … then the wheels fall off after three days because you didn’t figure out how to make sure you had the right groceries in the house — pointless
Focus on habits and creating consistency by asking yourself:
- How can I make sure that I consistently work out three times a week?
- How can I make sure I consistently eat the right things for breakfast, lunches, and dinners, and avoid junk and booze in the evenings?
- How can I make sure that I consistently take time to look after my mental well being?
- How do I make sure I consistently get to bed at the right time?
Obsess over solving these puzzles, so that this all happens on autopilot each and every week, and you can keep your Work, Family and Life plates spinning too.
Don’t Get Bogged Down In The Minutiae
Obviously don’t overlook the importance of a ‘good’ workout and diet plan if you’re trying to get in shape.
Push yourself a little bit in every workout, and restrict your calories a little bit most days if you’re trying to lose some body fat.
But within those parameters you have a LOT of wiggle room, without needing to worry if everything is perfect.
You’ll notice that most of the things that solve the Sleep, Stress and Hormonal Balance puzzles involve simply looking after yourself better.
And that’s the thing — once you understand that fat loss, muscle gain, body shape improvements and a healthy body happen as a side-effect of taking better care of yourself, you realize you really don’t need to be on Reddit asking about the best pasta shape for losing belly fat ;-)
Over 40, fed up and out of shape — get free access to my Programs Vault (40+ friendly programs for diet, workouts and healthy lifestyle) and you’ll be subscribed to my weekly newsletter too!
