EP 187 - What Really Happens to Your Body After 40, 50, and 60

Added: 2026-05-06

[00:00:00]What is going on my brother? Welcome to the Over 40 Alpha podcast where I help men in their 40s, 50s, 60s,7s, and beyond get stronger, leaner, and more powerful than ever before so you can become second half strong. I'm your host, Funk Roberts, former professional athlete turned master metabolic trainer, certified hormone and testosterone specialist and health and fitness expert for men over 40. And over the last 10 years, I've helped thousands and thousands of men completely transform their bodies, their health, and their life. And this podcast is for you. This is where I'm going to share all my tips, my strategies on how to naturally increase testosterone, how to improve your overall health, how to I'll share mindset strategies, workout and training advice, nutrition, recovery, sleep, supplementation, everything you need to become second half strong. And if you've been if you're tired of doing all the right things or you've been dealing with belly fat or low energy or your body just doesn't respond, you're in the right place. Listen up because after 40, it's not about working harder. It's about working smarter. smarter with your hormones, smarter with your recovery, and of course, smarter with your lifestyle. So, let's get into it because today I'm going to talk about what really happens to your body after you reach the age of 40, 50, and 60. And I'm going to give you the seven major changes that happen at this age. I think it's really, really important. I want to talk about this because knowledge is power, right? And and we talk about that all the time, but often this this specific topic gets missed. A lot of the times it's like these are kind of the highlevel things that happen as we get older, right? Here's what you need to do. Here's what you need to do. But unless you really understand the major changes that are going on in our bodies when we reach 40, 50, 60, all of the all the advice of other fitness people or even myself sometimes telling you do this, do this, do this. It's still not going to resonate as much as if you understood, oh, the reason why I'm feeling low energy, the reason why I'm gaining this belly fat, the reason why my muscles are softer, I can't build muscle this way, or the reason, you know, whatever it is, this is the reason. So now I have I'm more intentional about what I do with my overall health. I'm more intentional with the the actions and the next steps that I take because now I understand that if I do these things, a this is most likely going to be the outcome if I stay consistent. But that all starts understanding what really happens to our body because I get that question all the time and man, I don't know what's going on with my body. I don't know what's happening, what what's really going on.

[00:02:26]And a lot of the information out there, unfortunately, is not really geared towards us guys in our 40s, 50s, 60s.

[00:02:31]And a lot of the the guys out there who are coming into the space, although it's amazing they're coming in the space aren't really giving you the full picture or as much as they could, I think. I don't know. Who knows? Who knows? Maybe they are and I'm just missing it. But this this episode's about giving you that information.

[00:02:49]Before we before we get into it, listen, man. I'm doing something really really big and I want you to be part of it.

[00:02:55]It's the Men Over 40 virtual health summit. It's happening from June 8th to the 14th, 2026. This I'm bringing over a hundred we are myself and Nick Lamb have partnered together to bring the very first ever virtual health summit.

[00:03:08]Literally every single speaker over these seven days uh in seven pillars are speaking directly to you the man in your 40s 50s 60s7s all the struggles all the questions that we have and I'm bringing the best top doctors top fitness experts top specialists and you don't have to move. You can just you're just going to you're going to be part of this summit, this virtual summit, online summit at men over4summit.com which is absolutely free. You're going to be sitting in front of your computer and you're going to be going talk after talk after talk.

[00:03:36]And as I mentioned before, there's six main pillars, mindset, mental strength, and manhood. So all the talks will be geared towards that. We've got testosterone, health, and hormones.

[00:03:45]We've got workouts, training, pain-free mobility. We've got a day where we talk about nutrition, supplementation, peptides. We got a day we're talking about sleep, recovery, biohacking. And then there's a day where it's lifestyle and relationships and legacy and self-development. All geared to you guys, them in their 40s, 50s, 60s and beyond. Because let's get real. As I mentioned before, we're the most underserved demograph we're probably the most diseased on all levels when it comes to health, fitness, mind, mental mental health. So, please go to men over4summit.com. Sign up right now. I'm going to give you four free gifts when you sign up. But sign up right now. I know probably when you listen to this, there's still some weeks left, but you do not want to miss this, man. This is going to be spe This is going to be the biggest event for men that's ever happened. So, jump in there.

[00:04:34]You'll see a list of of people who have already already interviewed. So, men over4summit.com, men over4summit.com right now. Go there, sign up, name, email address, country, and you'll you'll be signed up. You'll be on the e newsletter. You'll be part of the Facebook group. And I'm going to give you four free gifts. All right. Okay.

[00:04:52]So, let's get started. Let's dive into this. All right. So, as I mentioned before, as we get older, even with me, you know, turning 40, 50, it definitely hits differently, right? And it's not just a mental thing, but a lot of times it's physical. Mentally, yes. Because we get told all the time that, you know, oh, you're 40, things start to decline, and you know, this is when things start to happen. But even even with all that noise or all that information, you you know we you have a life like you're the last thing you're thinking about is okay I'm reaching 40 things are about to change like you're not like okay tick tock tick tock things are going to change like right now. It doesn't generally happen that way. It's a slow grind is actually what happens and then all of a sudden it hits you because now you start feeling the symptoms of what's happening to your body. Right? So, it's a kind of like a slow process that happens in your 30s, but in our 30s, we're, you know, we're we're we're we're doing everything we can to to with our career and our family and just to self-development and we're probably still trying to find ourselves and navigate life and new kids and there's a whole bunch of things happening, stressors and finances and, you know, so yes, of course, there's going to be you're not going to be focusing as much as as you can on your health and fitness because we're trying to serve everybody else. That's another thing that us guys do too much of at at we have to do. We have to provide protect procreate but we can't do that at the cost of our own health because then we won't be able to provide protect procreate. So what happens is and again this has happened to me so I'm not just talking out of my butt. I mean I was a fitness guy. I was posting on YouTube in my late 30s you know playing volleyball doing all kinds of stuff and it it this also hit me pretty hard because I didn't know what was happening. But you start noticing things that you can't ignore. Like you start like there are certain things that you can that start to happen that you're kind of like, you know, maybe it's just I had a bad day or maybe, you know, I was working too hard in in the in the in the backyard. You know, I was in my backyard. I was doing some gardening, helping my wife, maybe just, you know, building a shed. Whatever it is, probably worked a little bit too hard in the back in the backyard. That's why, you know, I'm really stiff and, you know, I can't move and feeling the way I'm feeling. And sure, those situations happen and the reason why is probably because of that. But some of the questions that we start asking ourselves is, "Yeah, but you know, back in my 20s, what was I would build a whole freaking uh uh fence fencing system? I go to work the next day and then train, right? But things don't work that way as we get older, unfortunately." Right? So, you start noticing things things like you gain fat faster, right? like that that belly fat slowly starts to to to to increase and it does so so sneakily, right? Because the other thing too is sometimes you don't want to look at yourself in the mirror. Sometimes you don't look at yourself with the with the with the shirt off. Sometimes you get to a point where you can still hold the belly, pull in the belly and still feel the abs or still see a little outline, but then you lose it, right? You start to lose it and then you're not looking at yourself in the mirror anymore. Like let's face it, that's not happening anymore. Like without a shirt on, right?

[00:08:02]You know what I mean? Like like you're you're not looking at yourself in the mirror without a shirt on with selfrespect, right? You're not like like because because it's not just about the look of the belly. It's what comes when you have too much visceral fat, too much belly fat. So, you know, you may play games with ourselves. We're very deceptive. We play games in our heads saying, "Oh, it's not too bad. It's not that bad." you know, trying to justify, but we can't justify because it is life or death. So, you gain fat faster and not just in the belly, but maybe man boobs, right? Maybe now you get the man boobs. Like, how freaking embarrassing is it to have man boobs? It's embarrassing to know you you probably need a bra and then you start joking about it and you start pushing it aside.

[00:08:46]No, that's that's unhealthy. You start to lose muscle much easier. In fact, sometimes you just don't have any muscle, you you're just like a you may still be the puffy guy, but you're just it's all soft. There's no muscle, right?

[00:08:58]And as you're getting older and you're seeing all these other, you know, and and and and social media doesn't help a lot because, you know, you see all these older men in 40s, 50s, 60s are on steroids or whatever. They're jacked or ripped right now. Now, they work hard to get that way, don't get me wrong, but I'm just saying like you see though, you see it and you're seeing guys your age.

[00:09:15]I mean, if you go to my brotherhood, over 40 alpha brotherhood, I mean, every single day you're seeing six-pack abs and guys who who've transformed their body. It's it's it's incredible. It's so inspiring and motivating to know that that's possible. You know, your energy starts to dip. That's the other thing.

[00:09:31]So, you're losing muscle, your energy dips, you've got all these these, you know, it's very difficult to stay focused full on all day. And if you have kids or you have grandkids, that that just I mean, it's just you're just going going going, but you're also running yourself down. your sleep's going to get worse. I mean, most most men in this age group, 40s, 50s, 60s, they're not getting enough sleep and his body just doesn't doesn't respond the way it used to. So, the question becomes, is this aging or is this something something going wrong, right? And that drives us mostly to see a doctor, which we should be doing more, right? That drives us to doctor because, hey doc, I'm not feeling good. Right? your wife or maybe someone in your family may have just had a a health issue or you're starting to feel really feel outside of things I talked about some other unhealthy things happening. You end up going to the doctor. The doctor maybe run some blood or the doctor asks you questions, you know, and your doctor only has 10 15 minutes with you. So, they're not really diving deep into your history or really going to ask you probing questions. So, they're going to most likely tell you, "Oh, it's just you're just getting older. let's run some tests and see. And they'll get the lab test back and maybe you have high cholesterol, maybe your blood pressure is high, maybe whatever it is, but they're not really going to tell you exactly what's going on with your body at this time and why these things are happening. So, in the end, it's like these things are changing. You go to the doctor, the doctor's going may give you some type of diagnosis and try to put you on prescription pills, but that doesn't solve the problem of what the why is this happening, right? All this, but but let me tell you this, things are changing. Um, we're going to go through the seven changes that happen, but it's not the end. It's just a different phase of your your our lives, right? It's a second half strong, as we call it, right? If you understand what's going on, you can still dominate with these specific tips and strategies I'm going to give you at the end. The mo the most biggest thing I want you to get out of this episode is what are these changes? Okay? What are what's happening? And I want you to try to understand what's happening. So, it's going to give you a better idea of like when when when your friends ask you or when you go to see the doctor, you can ask probing questions that will lead the doctor to have to think a little bit more about what to do next and next steps and then you can take the right steps. So, let's talk about number one.

[00:11:43]Number one, testosterone drops significantly. Testosterone levels naturally decrease at this age. So, once we reach the age of 30, your testosterone levels naturally decrease 1 to 2% every single year. Okay, this is a big one. This is huge. Don't let anyone tell you that this is not big, okay?

[00:12:00]Because by the time you reach 40, by the time you reach 50, your testosterone levels are significantly lower.

[00:12:06]Sometimes 20 to 40% lower. And now we're in an epidemic where testosterone levels are the lowest they've ever been.

[00:12:12]Specifically in men in their 40s, 50s, 60s, 70s. I mean, across the board, even younger guys, testosterone levels are lower than they've ever been. But for us, it's the lowest ever. Which blow which should blow your mind, right? And what what is what's testosterone? It's our number one male hormone. It is responsible for everything from muscle building muscle, our energy, fat storage and fat burning, our libido, our mood, our drive, our mental health, our sleep, the ability to sleep to fight chronic health issues. When you don't have testosterone flowing through your body naturally at about 600 nanogs per deciliter, which is kind of like our alpha zone, right? because I'm going to explain this a little bit more detail in a second, but like when you don't have that going through your body, then all of these things uh uh uh uh increase like all of the ways you're feeling like you know your mood's low, your gaining belly fat, muscle mass is declining, you can't sleep, like all of these things are generally related to your testosterone. You don't have any drive, you don't have any any any you know like like the your mojo. You lost your mojo, man. The mojo's gone. And so that's t testosterone is literally at the core. I mean, if you just sit back and think about like I just said we're in an epidemic where testosterone levels are the lowest they've ever been. Okay, number one. Number two, what has what has completely blown up in the last 2 or 3 years? It's TRT clinics. They're everywhere trying to jack testosterone into you because the TRT clinics also understand what's happening here and also understand the importance of testosterone. TRT meaning testosterone replacement therapy like steroids, right? They understand. Totally understand. But what the solution is a little bit too far. The solution needs we need we need we we need to go back to foundation before we can jump into the solution because just giving you TRT is not going to answer the qu is not going to solve everything. You still have to have the lifestyle to go with that. So if you didn't even have the lifestyle before and now you're just jacking testosterone, it's not going to make a big difference. You may feel a difference at first and you know you're going to see some difference but it's not a sustainable thing and that's costing you money and now you're just subjected to it. But that's this is not about TRT. This is about understanding the importance of tes testosterone because when you go so I I say 69s per deciliter because that's in my program we I help men naturally increase testosterone through our programming right workouts nutrition sleep recovery all of those things all of the pillars and so we need to have a KPI a key performance indicator because most men don't know like like when you go get your t testosterone levels total tea I'm talking about the range is from 300 to a th00and and that range is normal. So just imagine me telling you that no matter if your testosterone levels are 300, no matter if your testosterone levels are a thousand, that's normal. So you're telling me that 700 points make no big difference in the way someone feels and the way someone, you know, their drive, their sleep, their their hormonal balance, their health. You're you're telling me that somebody with 300 and someone with a thousand is exactly the same? No. How much? How does that even make sense to you? No, it shouldn't make sense to you. And it's it makes no sense. And I even think they keep pulling it down more. So, we have to have a we have to have a a like an indicator. What is the What do I need to get to? Because 300 is low. 400 is low.

[00:15:43]You're going to be suffering still from a lot of those things I'm talking about when your testosterone levels are 300, 400, right? Five and six. Like six is kind of like and this is an arbitrary number, man.

[00:15:55]Like there's no research specific, but 600 from what I'm seeing in the 10 years plus that I've been doing this and seeing when guys are posting their testosterone levels and how they're feeling and how they're looking and their transformation and their their their lifestyle. 600 is is is where I'm I want everyone to get to naturally. And 1,200500 let's go. Cuz in the 80s, 1200 in the 80s was normal. pretty much not normal but you know like it wasn't like out of the ordinary that a lot of men like our our our fathers and and our grandparents and granddads had you know 1,00200 nanogs per deciliter of testosterone flowing through their body like that was not unheard of was like that that was come almost like 600 would have been low so the diagnosis generally happens under 300 right low I mean we're not even going to talk about high testosterone right now we're just going to talk about low but the point I'm trying to make is this is a very significant ificant change that happens that really affects us on all levels of who we are as a man or who we are as a person as an individual because it is our number one male hormone. It is the one that drives everything in our overall health in our overall life in our overall mental health. You know we are again leading the league in suicides and mental health issues and just the the the drive to to do anything right we lose it the energy the drive the commitment. So that's number one, testosterone. We need to live a life that's naturally intentionally and naturally increasing our tea level. But that's one thing that's happening to you and that's the reason why you got to get tested. Like you got to go get your testosterone levels check checked. I got a testosterone level kit if you're in the US, but you can get that checked. But you also have to push back because your doctors are generally not going to want you to get tested. There's a whole thing going on about it costs money and all this other stuff. So, you will have to push back because they're going to just ask you certain questions like, "Oh, well, do you still waking up with morning wood?" And you may be waking up with morning wood, but that doesn't mean your tea levels are 600 NOGS. I want you to write that number down, and that's the number I want you to to really truly drive for. 600 NOGS per deciliter. Okay?

[00:18:04]So, number one, T levels decrease.

[00:18:06]Number two, muscle loss acceleration.

[00:18:08]I've talked about this before and a lot of things I'm going to say in all of these podcast episodes and whatever we start to call this morning drive or whatever it is, whatever I call it, you're going to hear a lot of repetition. It's just the way that it's just the way I roll, man. The more repetition, the more you hear things, the more it's going to be ingrained.

[00:18:26]Like I say the same things in my co live coaching calls every week with the brotherhood. I mean over the last 10 years you know to the point where these guys they could they can literally become coaches trainers and help other men over which they do actually. But but it's just ingrained, right? And it and and it keeps it top of mind, right? So muscle loss, sarcopenia, natural loss of muscle due to aging. Again, this starts to happen after 30, right? So once we get into this decade, in our 30s, we're losing about 3 to 8% per decade. So this is a decade thing, but that's a lot of muscle. And then it accelerates as we get older. So in our 50s, I think like 55, it accelerates and then accelerates again in our mid60s. Right? The main cause is aging. This does happen. Now again, don't get it twisted. You're going to hear people who tell you sarcopenia is not real, right? And listen, sar you copenia is real, but you don't have to succumb to it, right? If you were in your 30s still training, working out, then you're not going to succumb to cyclopenia. It just makes sense. But if you're not, which most guys are not because most guys at 40 are finding it very difficult to build muscle, hold muscle, or even having muscle anymore.

[00:19:39]Even even if you're, you know, you know, you do hands-on a lot of hands-on work, you know, I mean, again, most guys who do hands-on work are pretty jacked up, which is great, but still, you know, like like that's physical work, which you know, the top of mind for someone who does physical work most of the times. Most of the times, because a lot of times you you just you chalk up the physical work as you're I'm still building muscle cuz I'm doing the physical work. But that that's those are two different things. You're you're doing physical work, yes, but you still there's still ways to build muscle. The point is the this compounded psychopenia that's happening by time you realize it at 40, 50 is generally because of inactivity physically, right?

[00:20:22]Consistently or you have some type of chronic health issue or you have inflammation like inflammation, right?

[00:20:28]You're not getting enough protein so you're not feeding the muscles what it needs. And and and a lot of the symptoms that come up with that is like you're going to start feeling weaker and you're going to get more injured and you're going to lose your stamina. You're not going to have loss of stamina. Like just walking upstairs or what have you. It's just like, "Hey man, how come I having problems walking upstairs like that?"

[00:20:46]Now muscle and walking upstairs isn't the same. But if you're not training, then you're not building stamina, right?

[00:20:52]You're going to be tired more. You're gonna have difficulty just doing regular tasks. Climbing stairs, getting up from the chair, right? And so, and this doesn't have to be like muscle like you can be skinny, right? So, now you're having unintended weight loss because now you're losing weight. You're getting lean because there's a lot of men out there who are skinny or losing weight, but they're losing muscle. They're not losing fat. So, they get skinny fat. And then when you don't have muscle, your metabolism slows down. You get weak. You increase injury. And so, yeah, that's the cause. The aging the aging process is real. But if you're not specifically training or getting enough protein, right, the muscles, the protein that your muscles need to grow and repair, right, the changes changes in our hormones, testosterone, growth growth hormones, insulin like fat grow, IGF-1, right? That plays a role, right? So, so and just the size and the number of your your muscle fibers start to decrease, your your type two two muscle fibers start to start to decrease, right? start to get weaker and and now you're you're you're slowly getting muscle atrophy.

[00:21:59]You're slowly getting weaker. You're slowly moving slower. You're not being able to run or jump. And this is like literally it's it's it's it's circenia is unless we're doing the in the gym. It is not it is it is now again if you have been in your 30s in your 40 and and also to build muscle because it's not just in the gym it's the environment that you create around it. nutrition, sleep, recovery, all of those things are actually when you're building muscle.

[00:22:26]So, we have to create the environment lifestyle. But if you're already building muscle and getting in the gym consistently, we're hoping and I'm hoping that you're going to build a lifestyle around that. So, circenia is the second thing that's happening. So, yes, it is happening. Yes, you do feel softer. Yes, it is not something that you cannot change because all of these things I'm talking about you can change.

[00:22:45]So, that's the second thing is circle pain. The third thing is that fat storage, right? And I talked about that in my last podcast episode. My last episode was about belly fat. Fat storage increases especially around the belly.

[00:22:58]And there's again the reasons hormonal shift and insulin sensitivity drops. So now you're more insulin resistance which is becomes more and more um it's more and more uh uh uh uh apparent in in men over 40. Obesity has become a major insulin resistance obesity become two major things that we're leading in.

[00:23:17]Health and chronic health issues that we're leading in. Of course, our testosterone levels are dropping and our cortisol levels increase. Cortisol is a stress hormone that plays a factor when our we have chronic cortisol, chronic stress throughout the day, nights, when we wake up, when we go to sleep, and throughout the day. And yes, we do need cortisol throughout the day to do certain activities. Getting out of bed, we need cortisol. Driving to work, we need cortisol. In the gym, when we're working out or doing a workout, we need cortisol. If we're presenting something, we need cortisol. But when it's chronic, that causes belly fat storage. And that increases again through the hormonal shifts, through insulin, insulin resistance, the stress, cyclopenia. So a lot of these things stack too like now we got testosterone levels decreasing.

[00:24:00]When your testosterone levels decreased, that promotes uh uh um uh that promotes abdominal accumulation. So now you're getting more fat, right? When you have sarcopenia, no muscle, it reduces your basil metabolic rate, meaning you're burning fewer calories at rest. Right?

[00:24:16]visceral fat. That's the accumulation.

[00:24:18]That's the fat that's actually usually subcutaneously subcutaneous fat. Like yesterday, I was at a I was at a I was um my wife and I go to this thing uh called Love Language. Big up to to starting from scratch and his crew. Big up. Big up. Big up Scratch. Love you, man. We go to this thing called Love Language in Toronto and it's from 4:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m. So, we go dancing during the day. Okay. 400 p.m. to 9:00 p.m. Okay. Generally speaking, it's really only two hours for for myself that kind of I can only last but it's great to get out, right? Myself, friends, Lance, Tara, and the crew.

[00:24:53]There's a lot of now, you know, this is the third time we've gone and now like there's a crew of people that you see all the time. Like literally, it's the same people slowly, but I think like it's May, it's April now. I think, man, it's once a month and it's going to just blow up. But I see the guys in there, but there's a lot of guys that, you know, because it's an older crowd, right? Obviously from 4 to 9, it's for us older crowds. 50s, 60s, right? So, it's an older crowd, good-looking crowd, great-looking crowd. The guys, you know, they're aged, right? And guys who probably were jacked and, you know, felt good and whatever. Not saying they don't feel good, but whatever. Now you look at them and it's like ah so I remember I was standing be beside some guy who you know pretty big guy but then you know so from like you look up from the face the good-looking guy you know he's jacked and then the belly man the belly was so protruding right and you know I don't care personally but I know that because I'm a guy and I know that that's like a hindrance for him I think that's like that's like god I got to get rid of this belly but that's visceral fat because I could see that that was protruding so much that if I was to tap his belly, it would probably have been hard, which means it's viscerally around the internal organs, which means it's more metabolically active and dangerous. I also want to say, "Hey, man, like go to over 40.com. I'll hook you up. We'll get we'll we'll have we'll have everyone ripped by then." But but again, like you know, and then the insulin resistance I talked about stress, all of these things. And the reason why this happens, right, the the the belly fat storage, again, it's more lifestyle than anything. Those things will definitely contribute to it. But a lot of things contribute to what I'm talking about.

[00:26:33]Poor eating habits, right? We're eating crappy crappy crappy foods, lack of movement and exercise, lack of sleep, quality sleep, more sedentary than ever before. Sure, we'll go dancing. Half the guys in there aren't even dancing. The girl, the women are, by the way, go to Love Language if you're a single man. Go to Love Language. I'm telling you that place is it's literally 1 to 20 men to women in there. It's insane. And even if you do sports, even if you are playing a sport, cuz here's the other caveat I'm going to drop on you. If you're 40, 50, 60, and you're still playing that sport that you love, basketball, you're running once a week, maybe you're playing slow pitch, maybe you're still playing volleyball, maybe you're playing uh uh hockey, shinny hockey, um you know, like all of the the things that keep you active, the the sports you love to play, because one of the things I always say for my guys is I want you to go back to dominate the sports you dominate. It's soccer you're playing, but you still get you're still you're still have the belly fat, you still tea levels are low, you still can't build muscle, whatever that is.

[00:27:36]That's because you still have to do everything right. Most of the times you're sabotaging the time you're spending out exercising or playing a sport by eating unhealthy, chronic stress, not not not uh sleeping like you can't out out you can't out uh sports activity, all that other stuff. So just just I want to give you because a lot I hear this, oh but I play this sport or I do this or I go, you know, running once a week with my buddies or I do this. Yeah. Yeah. That's not going to solve it because the rest of your lifestyle is is is sabotaging everything. Like just one unhealthy eating day is going to sabotage everything. So again, belly fat starts to happen. You start to feel it. You start to see it. Those are the reasons, but we can deal with that. We have we have the technology to like the $6 million man. We can restore you. Okay.

[00:28:28]Number four, your recovery slows down.

[00:28:30]You just don't bounce back like you used to, right? You're sore longer. your joints uh stiffness increase, your injuries take longer to heal, right? And again, the recovery is real. It slows down, man. You can't do the same things you used to do or go out the same way you used to go out. Why do you think we go out from 4 to 9 on a Sunday? Because we got to get up in the morning on on Monday, right? We got to work. We got to run businesses. We got to do things on Monday, but we still want to enjoy. And we know that man, even if you have one drink, like if Angela has a drink, it destroys her the next day, that one drink, one and you're dancing and you're metabolizing it and still because the whole recovery physically, mentally, all of the things when it comes to recovery, it slows down. We can't we don't recover the same way. And again, this is due to hormonal changes. This is due to this is also due to the mitochondria, right?

[00:29:24]It's our the mitochondria is our body's energy factory, right? and it produces less ATP and accumulates more oxidative stress as we get older. A lot of times it's due to our lifestyle. I don't want to keep harping on it's due to our lifestyle because it's due to our lifestyle obviously, but the hormonal changes that happen and the mitochondrial stuff that happens, you know, that's that's physiological, but we can again we can we can deal with that. There's things we can do to to to reverse it, right? But then chronic inflammation, our body's immune system takes much longer to manage inflammation. our body takes a lot longer just to manage stress, right? And then you know it's just the blood our blood flow reduces. So that that diminishes our body's ability to deliver nutrients that where we need whether it's from a workout or just the nutrients that our bodies need in general. So our body becomes less able to recover at the speed at which we want to. So even that's why when you work out we're not training six days a week.

[00:30:24]That's why when we go out dancing, we're not staying out till 1 2 3 in the morning anymore, right? Because we need to we need to set up a smart recovery process. We can't just hammer hammer hammer and expect us to recover because we're going to run ourselves we're going to run ourselves into the ground. So, so, so understand recovery like these are like realizations that you have to be okay. Okay. So, my recovery isn't the same because when you understand that if my recovery is not the same, then I'm going to make a better choice. I'm going to make I'll make a better health or life choice. Right? If you don't realize that your recovery is not going to be the same or it's not it's not here intentionally, then you're just going to make the same choices you made when you're in your 20s and your 30s and and continue to think like, am I not recovering? Why do I still feel tired?

[00:31:10]It's just going to be that ongoing thing. It's like, dude, because we don't recover the same way. Respect. You got to put respect on every single thing I'm telling you right now. all seven of these things I'm going through, put the highest respect on each one of those things because when you respect something, you're going to treat it with respect and then you're going to intentionally do whatever you need to do to freaking reverse it. Put respect on the fact that you don't recover. The fifth thing is joint health and mobility decline. We've got to put the utmost respect on this because our card, like I'm dealing with back issues. I'm sitting in the chair right now. My hips are a little jacked up. So I know that mobility is going is paramount in my life. Mobility, flexibility, but but joint health and mobility decline.

[00:31:52]Cartilage will start to wear down in because inflammation's creeping up and all that wear and tear in our bodies.

[00:31:58]This is where it catches up. It almost it almost feels like at 40, like when you reach 40, it's like the knee starts hurting more. Just walking up to your shoulders all jacked up. My hips, man, my hips are so stiff. I get my back, my lower back. God, man. I can't getting up in the morning. I can barely even walk.

[00:32:15]I don't even I don't know what happened.

[00:32:17]I don't know what happened. I just bent over. I pick up something. Boom. My back. I don't know what happened. Dude, this is what's happening. Years and years of wear and tear catch up. You may have had older injuries that we didn't take care of or took care of. You may have been working in a doing something where you're doing the same thing over and over and over again, right? That wears that's wear and tear. You may have been an athlete. I mean, we all have a ton of wear and tear. My wife and I talk about this all the time. It's like when we get when we're older, the wear and tear because we have so much damage like the, you know, when you're a high high level athlete, a professional athlete on a professional level, you're destroying specifically in our tendons and our in our ligaments, all of this stuff, wear and tear, osteoporosis, stiffening, this will catch up to us. and it catches up to us and it almost paralyzes us into to not wanting to do anything, not knowing what to do, not going to the gym, right?

[00:33:13]You know, not being able and then like think about this, you know, if you have shoulder issues and you're at your mother's house and your mom wants you to move boxes and you can't move boxes, how deasculating is that? You know, you can't pick something up or you know what I mean? Like it's just it's so deasculating when you can't do the just simple things because you're all jacked up and the worst thing is like oh my back I hate I say it all the time and I hate saying it and it it's one of those things mentally that I just hate saying all the times. I'm my back man my back my back man. Like I it's just h you know I I go through so much pain on a daily basis and I don't say anything that most people don't even realize that I have a back issues but then when they see start they see me walk or whatever like hey man's something wrong with your knee or your back or whatever. No man it's just my back. It's just it is what it is. But mobility helps um you know I go get stuff done. But anyway the point I'm trying to make is joint health and mobility decline definitely is real. So, we have to put stuff in place, right?

[00:34:10]And so, so understanding that, okay, the reason why my knee's probably hurting is I did have a knee injury way back in the day, and I didn't do much to it. So, that's probably why that's that's kind of creeping up, but there's a lot of other things that go into that knee injury. There's the stiff hips, there's, you know, the not not too much belly fat, not enough, you know, core, your probably your core isn't strong enough.

[00:34:33]So, there's a lot of other things that are happening. your body's compensating in different ways, maybe an imbalance, like it's not it's generally not the knee. The knee is kind of like where the where the pain comes in, but it's it's it's a lot of stuff around the body. The body works as one. So, it's a lot of things around the body that aren't working. And that's just where that that's where the indicators the body's going, "Hey, hey, hey, your body's broken, but I'm going to show you this by a knee or a back or what have you."

[00:34:59]Unless it's like structural damage, right? um and something structural, it's generally something else around the body. The glutes aren't firing, whatever it is. Uh which is good. And even if it's structural, we can rebuild as well.

[00:35:12]But that's another thing that starts to happen when we get to 40, 50, 60. These things kind of start happening all at once. We don't realize why is all this stuff happening at once? Because it's wear and tear throughout the years a lot of the times. Number six, sleep quality takes a hit, right? And this is really truly another big thing, but sleep is the foundation of your overall health and how healthy you can be. I mean, if you get that that 6 to 7 hours, no, sorry, 2 to four hours of restorative sleep because it is quality, not quantity. It's quality. Quantity is going to be the qu the quantity. The the the more time you you have to to get be in bed obviously is going to give you a better chance at getting the quality.

[00:35:52]But I have a story where I was sleeping 7 hours in bed every single night and my Whoop strap was telling me I was in the red every single day. Like it it was I couldn't understand it. I thought my whoop was was uh Whoop strap here was was was broken because I'm in it tells me I'm in bed 7 8 hours a day every single day. But why am I in the red? Why is my recovery 10 and 12 and through 14?

[00:36:17]That's just a number that that's a whoop thing. And if you know what I'm talking about, you know exactly what I'm talking about. My recovery is low. Why is my recovery low? And so I threw the whoop out. And then literally hooking up with with Nick Lamb and going through my sleep certification, I realize, oh, it's restorative sleep that we should be talking about, right? And then I go back look at the stats.

[00:36:37]Restorative sleep is 20 20 minutes. Deep deep restorative sleep. Deep sleep. RMM sleep. Like that's when the magic happens. That's when muscle growth happens. That's when testosterone production happens. That's when you can burn that belly fat. That's when chronic health issues get your immune system replenishes. That's when your brain, you know, your brain refreshes and and brain dumps so you can, you know, be more focused next day. That's when you're setting yourself up with much better energy the next day. Like I mean, sleep is the key fighting chronic health issues. Sleep. I mean, a lot of, you know, you look at the underlying reasons why people are obese and, you know, all of these other deficiencies and everything. A lot of times sleep is at the for at the at the at the and it's common because the reason why we we don't put respect. Remember I told you got to put respect on all this stuff.

[00:37:25]You don't put respect on sleep. In fact, we're we're generally we're generally celebrated for not sleeping, right?

[00:37:32]We're celebrated. You pulled that all nighter. Eh, oh sleep I'll sleep when I die, right? I get up really early and I go to bed late. You know, I'm a night owl. Like no, man. Because in our again you can get away with that in your 20s but not in our 40s 50s 60s7s and beyond.

[00:37:47]You can't get away with that. And oftentimes that's driven through high stress. Oftentimes that's driven through family demands. Oftent times that's driven through hormonal changes. Right?

[00:37:56]Testosterone lowering cortisol being on our phones all day, not having the ability to manage stress, right? Because we don't we don't put the things in place that we need to manage stress. Now then we have and we have all these fragmented sleep factors like sleep apneoa and you know like all of these all of these things that you know people men who have no reason to be on CPAP or whatever freak it's called or sleeping devices should not be on sleeping devices in your 40s 50s and 60s you got to you know and then that leads to poor focus that leads to it's just a vicious cycle but understanding how important sleep is and understanding that yes as we get older because of the way our life style and not enabling are not being able to to to not having a a system in place to handle stress right affects our sleep cuz then we bring it into our sleep and not having uh the a sleep you know you need to set up literally like a I call it the sleep production there's got to be a whole production you have to treat sleep like a whole production like you know like the whole process of getting to sleep it's not difficult It's not difficult and it works 100%. We did a sleep challenge and it worked on everyone who was in our sleep challenge, 20day sleep challenge. But we got sleep definitely takes a hit as you get older and then mental and emotional changes happen as we get older, right? And that's the one no one wants to talk about, but stress toler stress tolerance is going to drop because yes, we can grind grind grind, but when we get to our 40s, 50s, 60s and beyond, the house is broken, man. The grinding is difficult. We can talk ourselves into it. We can make we can put the mask on and let everyone else see it, but as soon as that mask comes off, man, it's over. You know it as much as I do. We can't tolerate stress like we used to. Our motivation does fluctuate and all of those emotional and and and all of the the things that that happened to us when we were younger that we haven't taken care of, all the things that we suppress, right? We don't the fin and then all the pressures, career pressures, financial pressures, things that we regret when we were younger, you know, aside from all the hormonal changes. Then we get anxiety. Then we get depression. We look at things outside. What's going on in life? What what does that person have that I don't have? We look back at our lives, right?

[00:40:11]And we try to find beacons, grandkids, you know, little little, you know, winds here and there. But the overwhelming low self-esteem, increased fatigue, reduced motivation and drive, anxiety, relationship issues, finances, everything just accumulates. Burnout.

[00:40:30]Right now we get burnt out. Just can't do this anymore. We're more irritable, right? Irritable male syndrome, increased anger, impatience, we're moody, we're triggered, the media sucks, this guy sucks, that guy sucks, anxiety, depression, difficulty concentrating, difficulty just focusing, and then that's a whole midlife crisis happens.

[00:40:50]So now we're making we're we're questioning our lives, we're questioning our choices, we're questioning our careers, AI's coming in, we don't know what's going on. Like there's so and then we isolate. We don't get ask for help. And and on top of that, if you if your hormonal issues are affecting your libido, that's the other thing that decreases and that adds to your mental health decline. And then suicidal thoughts start to creep in. This is real, man. This is real. And those things start to happen as we get older because we're not we haven't dealt with it or we're not talking about it or we're not asking for help. And this is the stage where most guys live the dangerous lie. And this is the lie. And this is why I'm I'm uncovering these seven because the lie we tell ourselves is, "Oh, I'm just getting older or this is how it's supposed to be or maybe I just missed my window." But that's that's that's not how we do it. But we have to stop telling ourselves that lie because the truth is aging. Yes, it's real. But our margin and we can get in the best shape of our lives 100%. Best shape, best health, we can live the second half of our life the best ever.

[00:41:50]But the margin for error and the intentionality that we have to be when we do these things and make choices has to be there. We cannot live outside this margin. Okay? Can't eat the same way we used to. We can't train the same way we used to. We can't even think the same way we used to. And that that's good news because when the margin is smaller, there's only fewer choices that we have to make. If the margin is larger, then there's all kinds of things we have to make. Now it's here. Decline is optional. Doesn't I don't care where you're at right now. I don't care how bad you are, how great you are, how bad your health is, how many health issues, how much pain. It's optional. We can turn this around. I'm telling you 100%.

[00:42:33]You can do this. Every single thing we just talked about can be slowed, can be stopped, and can be reversed.

[00:42:40]Everything. And it's not about trying to be 25 cuz that's a losing game. It's about stronger, leaner, more powerful, more intentional. So, what are the things that we do? We start working out.

[00:42:50]Go to my YouTube channel for free. Start using the swollen shredded workouts.

[00:42:55]24-minute workouts. Perfect. It helps you. You want to build muscle. You want to burn fat. You want to help start to kickstart your testosterone production and your growth hormones. You want to start to protect your joints by making your muscle stronger. You want to increase your metabolism by using a workout that's not only going to help you burn calories during, but after. And you only have to do it two to three times a week. Right? These workouts are there for you. this it's there but you got to start being consistent. So 2 to three hours is consistency and you want to train smarter not harder. So you want to add mobility or yoga in between those days. Monday, Wednesday, Friday you're training. Tuesday, Thursday you're doing mobility. Even every day you're doing mobility. Why? Because we don't want to beat our bodies into the ground. We want to control the intensity of our workouts. 30 minutes, no more. 24 minutes and shredded workouts, right? We want to learn how to use proper form, but then we also want that strategic recovery in between in the Tuesdays and Thursdays. It's not just rest day. It's mobility or yoga or Pilates or something that help with our mobility and flexibility. Cuz remember, what are some of the things that happen to us that that increase, right? The pain, the joint pain, all of those things start to increase. So, we've got to address that.

[00:44:01]Then, we got to eat for our hormones. We got to eat for our hormones. We've got to eat for our hormones. That means every single meal that we have, we have a source of protein, healthy fats, carbs and uh complex carbs and uh and uh and fruits or ve vegetables, right? We want to stay away from all the ultrarocessed garbage, all the excess sugar, all the seed oils, all the chronic overeating, all the foods that are causing inflammation, right? So, so that's why this margin for error, the list is big of the foods you want to eat, but you know, it's selective. We got to stay away from all the other foods. All that all the other foods that are just destroying us. All the foods that yes, we could probably get away with. Sure.

[00:44:40]you know, bread and muffins and bagels and pizza and tortillas and pasta and all cake and, you know, all of that stuff that baking soda and making stuff with that and or canned fruits and canned stuff, fruit juices, you know, processed ve canned vegetables like and and like French fries and so ketchup and mustard and all that stuff, you know, convenience foods like pre-cooked foods and and fast foods and cereals. like you should not be eating cereal, you should not be eating processed foods, like all of these things, processed meats, drinks, all that stuff. It's a long list of things to stay away from. But that means that list of things to eat are going to be more specific. And then recovery needs to be our superpower.

[00:45:24]Recovery from chronic stress, more mobility as I mentioned, but also breath work, gratitude journaling, meditation, ways to fight our our our chronic stress, right? So we have to add those things in. We've got to we've got to learn how to do them and then apply them. And then optimizing our testosterone levels naturally, right?

[00:45:41]All of the things that we're going to do. Getting sick four to 2 to four hours sleep, quality restorative sleep, right?

[00:45:48]Not just getting in bed and staying there, but getting that quality sleep, right? Eating the foods that are going to help fuel our hormones, making sure that we're working out three two to three times a week, right? Getting our mobility in place, right? Adding supplements at the very end, but the nutrition is key. Hydration, one gallon of water a day, right? smart and and and and managing our stress. All of those things are going to help optimize your testosterone levels and get it to 600. I see it all the time naturally because it's a foundation of everything. That's the foundation. And when you when and this is what's going to happen and again, I'm not just talking out of like I'm talking out of I'm not just talking out of science and research and all this stuff. Anecdotal, man. This happened 10 years. I see it every freaking day inside the over40 alpha program over40alpha.com.

[00:46:36]Every day, man, you're going to build muscle again. You're going to drop that belly fat. You're going to drop the body fat. You're going to wake up with energy. You're going to sleep better.

[00:46:44]You're going to have less chronic health issues. And when you do have those health issues, you're going to be able to bounce back much faster. You're going to feel sharper. You're going to have a better libido. You're going to have more confidence. You're going to have more self-esteem. You're going to have a brotherhood. I'm telling you, you're going to be in the best shape of your life. second half strong. No doubt. But you got to put in the work. But you also have to understand you have to treat all of those seven things I talked about with respect, man. Put a ton of respect on that. This is what's going on with my body right now. This is what's happening. And I pour respect on all those things. And I put so much respect on it that now I have to disrespect it by putting the other things in place so we can reverse it and slow it down. With respect, you're going to apply disrespect. I don't know if that makes sense. Right? You got to respect the fact that this is what's happening. The disrespect happens when you stay in the margin so you can show it. Oh, I respect that you're doing this, but I'm going to show you how I can reverse and how I can become better second half stronger and reverse this and get into the best shape and health of my life so I can live the my best life after 40, 50, and 60.

[00:47:48]Bodies change, no doubt. But these are signals. They're not sentences. These are signals telling you, I got to train smarter. I got to eat better. I got to sleep better. I got to recover better.

[00:47:57]And I got to live life with more intentionality because if you're over 40, 50, and 60, you're not broken.

[00:48:03]You're just using the wrong strategy.

[00:48:05]Listen, if you need help, go to over40alpha.com. That is $1 for 30 days.

[00:48:10]Go in there. I will give you everything you need. Workouts, nutrition, nutrition coaching, weekly coaching calls. Like, it's everything you need. Over 40.com.

[00:48:18]$1 30 days. I'm going to prove to you that I can help you start to lose weight, build muscle, and get in great shape in just 30 days. and then you're going to stay for the rest of your life like everyone else does. And also before you go and thank you for being here with me, make sure you sign up for the Men Over 40 Health Summit. I'm telling you, over a hundred doctors, fitness experts, specialists. We're going to even deep dive even more into the things I talk about specifically for you men over 40, 50, 60, 70 spread over 7 days, over six major pillars, one proday. Go to men over4summit.com. It's free to sign up.

[00:48:51]So just sign up for free. And thank you so much for being part of the my journey today. I love you guys. I'm off to Perth, Australia for the UFC. I work with the UFC. That's for another podcast. I love you guys. I'll see you on the other side. Get it done.