Health, Sex and More: Men Tell Us What Finally Got Them to Embrace Fitness over 50.

Ever felt it's too late to start making healthy changes? This episode of Optimal Aging is for you. We're chatting with three inspiring men, all over the age of 50, who decided to rewrite their health narrative. Listen in as Bennett, Jerry, and Blaine share their stumbling blocks, the catalysts for change, and the practical steps they've taken to reclaim their health. They prove that it's never too late to adopt healthy habits, and even small changes can dramatically enhance your life's quality post 50.

Resources and Information

My new course to motivate men over 50 to get off the couch and into fitness

Life Priority Supplements -- Affiliate Discount  here
Functional Aging Institute -- Use FAIMM50 discount code
Prime Fit Content – Engage the over-50 market

Transcript

Jay: 0:00

I've been reporting and writing on the fitness over 50 world for five years now, and there's one question that still drives me more than any other why don't more people exercise regularly and eat a decent diet? Well, lately I've been coming at it from a different angle and focusing on people who have made that decision to begin healthier habits. What got them started, how did it go, and what do they have to say to others who are still stuck, like they were not so long ago? That's the topic of this week's episode of Optimal Aging, the show that connects gyms and studios with more people over 50. I'm your host, jay Croft of Prime Fit Content.

Jay: 0:44

I'm going to introduce you to three men today all of them over 50, who exemplify some of the common paths that people take later in life and they finally decide to get unstuck, make a change, even if it's just a little one, just to start, so that they can have the better life that they want and deserve. You'll hear something in their stories that will either motivate you to start exercising or help you understand how to better communicate with your members and your prospects. Some people want to lose weight or feel better or look better. Others have health issues to reverse, or hobbies to enjoy, or they've finally accepted that they probably have a lot of time left in their lives and they want to enjoy it as much as possible. Exercise really is the miracle drug for all of those desires, and more especially after age 50 or so, but most people just don't do it.

Jay: 1:40

Now I've interviewed just men for this podcast, because it relates to a project I've been working on that I'll tell you about in just a minute or two. But a lot of this is, of course, true for women as well, and each of these three guys I've interviewed started exercising later in life, after going through a period of struggle. I was mostly curious about what finally got them to take action, because this is the topic of my new digital course, which is designed to give men over 50 the insight and no nonsense information they need to start, not to be 25 again or look like a movie star or do anything amazing, just to feel better, move better and, yes, even look better at any age. Don't come to think of it. That would be pretty amazing, wouldn't it? Because you're not too old, you're not too banged up, you're not too overweight.

Jay: 2:35

So let's start. First up is Bennett, who's 68 and wanted to take better care of himself as he approached retirement, which occurred during the pandemic. Bennett had a desk job for years and ate fairly well, but enjoyed his white wine and stopped exercising years and years ago when he met his long term partner, and over those years he'd gained a lot of weight and had begun suffering from arthritis and neuropathy. Then he decided to take that first step.

Bennett: 3:08

I started to have health issues I never had before.

Bennett: 3:12

I've never, had arthritis in my 40s or 50s or neuropathy arthritis in my knees, arthritis in my ankles all of which is manageable, but weight is not good for any of these conditions. I think that was probably the driver. I worked 10 hour days. The job had a lot of stress. The job would keep me up at nights. I just didn't think I had the time or bandwidth to do this other than on weekends. Plus, I have two German shepherds that took up basically my free time on weekends. It was probably a time issue and feeling tired at 7 when I get home and then feeling motivated to go to the gym and stuff. Another thing that changed is I retired during COVID, so now I certainly have more time. Now Change things in terms of time ability. That probably helped too. I don't tire. Currently my knees are certainly better.

Bennett: 4:03

I feel my overall health has improved for things that don't work well in your body, that hurt in your body because you have too much weight. Just cutting that back helped. Once you trade your body to eat slightly different. I've eliminated the cheese and I've eliminated white wine. These are the only huge reduction I've actually made.

Bennett: 4:24

Once you start having a routine and not attending to former vices, you automatically start forgetting about them. If you do something every day, you don't remember what bad things you did, like a year ago. So I've kind of trained my body to eat a little bit better, to drink less white wine, but I've not made drastic changes in nutrition as some people do. And frankly, yes, sure, I know what to eat and vegetables are good and all that, but I'm just not going to do that. I'm just not willing to eat kale four times a day because it's the right thing to do. I think if you try to do too much too quick, you're going to lose interest in it. It becomes too much. I'm not going to make lifestyle changes that I can't keep up with.

Jay: 5:12

I like how Bennett wasn't going to just dive into a hundred lifestyle changes and try to accomplish too much too fast, even if no one ever did actually tell him that he had to eat kale four meals a day. Next is Jerry, 64, who found himself in a downward spiral. Poor energy was leading to overeating, which led to gaining weight, which led to poor energy on and on right. Like Bennett and countless others, he knew he needed to start moving and make some dietary changes. He started slowly, built on his small successes and then found his exercise bliss in a rowing studio.

Jerry: 5:51

Six years ago I was diagnosed with AFib and I got put on some medicines that really made me quite lethargic and it was really hard, and so the more lethargic I was, the less I moved, and the less I moved, the more I was depressed. The more depressed I was, the more I'd eat, and so it was this spiral or cycle that kept between my mind, body and spirit. Two years ago, I was at my wits and I've been working with my doctor to try to figure out why I couldn't get any energy out. I started using a CPAP machine and that helped me get some energy for sleeping at night just getting better sleep and then two years ago, she prescribed for me a daily injection called sex senda, and sex senda is just one of those things that helps with your metabolism, and from having a lifetime of being on diets of every stripe, of every kind, I have a pretty good idea of what the things are you need to do. Right, it's the order of your caloric intake and an exercise. Oh, and one of the things I was saying that I missed earlier that I, where I lost my thought was about the emotional eating, and that's been a part of my life since I was a kid was just a pattern that I've always had a family that did that and inherited it and continued on with it. I've always wanted to get back into shape. I've always wanted to feel better, right, so it wasn't a matter of desire, but for me it was a matter of just trying to get things started.

Jerry: 7:20

Taking my collective learnings from a lifetime of diet and exercise and weight gains and weight losses and all of that, I knew that I couldn't do anything drastic. I knew that was not the answer to do fasting or shakes or keto, and so I looked at what are some of the small things that I can do more, and one of them was to try to eliminate the like white, anything white in my diet white sugar, white flour, white rice, white potato and all of that. But it actually wasn't eliminate, it was to reduce, because the other thing that I decided was that I'm not going to. If I want something, I'm going to have it. So if I want a dessert, if I want to have a pasta meal, whatever it is, I'm not going to deny myself that. But I'm going to try to do it and try to work it into my reasonable living, my reasonable portions, and not do it because of emotions or that kind of thing.

Jerry: 8:17

And then I took on some walking. I started doing some walking and I started losing a few pounds, and it wasn't a lot, it was like every month maybe a pound or two, and I was really but one of. But he began the cycle of where the more I lost, the better I felt, the more energy I had, and so it got easier to continue doing the things I needed to do to continue my journey. I was down probably 25 pounds over the course of a year and a half and again really happy with that, because I was trying to make life changes, not make not do a complete drastic diet and then rebound. But in January of this year I started doing row house rowing and I actually took to it. I liked it. It was hard by first, but over time I was able to develop the necessary form and skills to do it more efficiently. It's mostly mostly legs, but then it also has a lot of effect on core and on arms, and so I started actually not just losing weight because of it, but I actually started developing some muscle tone, and it's particularly in my core, which I've never. That's always been my problem area my midsection and that progressed really nicely and the more I did it, the more I liked it and I made a commitment to continue doing it.

Jerry: 9:36

I had total knee replacement a month ago and the results of that. First of all, my doctor said good on me for doing what he called the prehab, which was to get my leg into shape prior to the surgery, and I do credit that and I credit the rolling in particular with having built up my leg muscles and all the everything around my knee to where I had a really successful surgery. After a week I was pretty much mobile as far as just getting around my condo and I could do short walks outside. I walked the halls here and stuff. Within a couple weeks I was out walking outside, taking my dog to the dog park, which is a couple of two, three blocks away, and fast forward to Thursday I actually got back. I do physical therapy, so I was doing biking and stuff in the stationery bike. But Thursday I came back to row class and I was able to do almost a full class and it felt good and it felt really good on my knee.

Jerry: 10:38

So I'm two years into this journey. I've lost 70 pounds, but half of that has been since I've been doing just in the last six months, since I've been doing the rolling and I'm fine with where I'm at. But I feel, you know, confident that I'll continue this process and I feel by doing, by easing into it, by making a part of my life, I feel like there's a much better chance for sustainability in keeping it up. And I'm 64. I'm probably in the best shape I've been in as an adult and that's great because I'm semi-retired and I look for retirement the next year or two and it's nice to know that I'm going to be able to live a healthy and safe life, at least based on my lifestyle choices.

Jerry: 11:22

One of the benefits for me of getting older has been not giving a damn what other people think, and that wasn't the case before at all, but now it's. I am who I am. I'm not going to wake up with a 24 year old's body and be slim and a model, a runway model. That's just not going to happen anymore. Part of this, too, has been with a process of trying to be trying to develop attributes that I want to attract. In other words, I don't want to be around people that are depressed and sad or anxious or downer Debbie Downers right To avoid that. I have to become the person that I want to attract, and so that's. I want somebody who is physically active. I want to be around people that are healthy and that like to do things, that are trying to still get some joy out of life, dave.

Jay: 12:15

Finally meet Blaine, who's 53 and jacked Seriously jacked, I mean the dude has the body of a 28 year old fitness model. It wasn't always that way, Not until he got divorced a few years ago. I knew that if he wanted to reenter the dating pool and meet attractive women, then he needed to work on his own presentation first. He's a new man. Here's Blaine.

Blaine: 12:39

Blaine. My confidence is all time low and I knew that I had to do something. Because here I am going through a divorce and about to be single again and I said, hey, I need to get healthy. I took a good look at myself. I definitely wasn't in shape and didn't exercise at all. I implemented a program and started slowly eating better and picked a meal a day and changed my diet drastically, started cutting out all the sugar and started working out at home doing pushups, and then I started seeing some progress and then also bike riding, and then I decided to get a gym membership. So I went into the gym and started feeling much better. Hey, the main reason I did that is because I had to get back out there. I had to get back on the horse and start riding again and I really felt that, since my confidence was low, that I couldn't do that. I feel great and if I wouldn't have done that, who knows where I would be today.

Blaine: 13:29

I was in the military, so I've done a lot of calisthenics and I knew that I needed to start somewhere. I just I did have that background. So that's, I knew that, hey, that's something I wanted to do and if it stuck, then I would reward myself with a gym membership and do that. But I knew also I needed to build some strength up too, before I just went and jumped in a gym and went gung-ho. I knew because even if I would have started at the gym right away, there's a ramp up period that takes a while and nothing happens overnight, and I knew that. So that's why I was able to start off just doing like pushups, setups, pullups, ride my bike, doing some cardio and things like that before I jumped all in.

Blaine: 14:09

But within a few weeks I started feeling better, especially after eating wasn't eating right, and once I cut out all the sugars, the processed food and all of those things, I really felt a lot better. My outlook on life was better. Everything was better. It's just it keep things that keep getting better and better. And when people notice that you've made, you've changed your body composition and think you look better, it's a really good feeling, very good feeling.

Jay: 14:34

Okay, I've talked to countless men, just like Bennett, jerry and Blaine and probably just like a lot of people listening to this, or a lot of people who drive by gyms and studios every day and think maybe someday I'll go in there and start working out again. It's hard being stuck. There's so much misinformation out there. People are scared to make change. They're intimidated to be vulnerable in a setting like a gym or a studio. So many reasons to stay on the couch and deteriorate. There are so many more reasons to make that change and start living a healthier life. If you're in the fitness business, you know these reasons. You need to be reaching out to people in your community over 50, so that they know these reasons, and that's why I want to offer a special 50% discount on my course that I created just in time for holiday gift giving. It's short, simple, takes about an hour and requires just a little bit of willingness to look inside yourself so that you can start to align your knowledge, your values and your action. When you are done with my course, you'll already be on your way to moving better, feeling better and looking better, and if you're a gym or a studio owner, you want to check this out and learn how to use it to turn prospects into clients. It's powerful stuff.

Jay: 15:59

The link is in the show notes and it's on primefitcontentcom, along with a ton of other useful information for fitness professionals and consumers alike. So check that out, primefitcontentcom. Thanks for listening. I hope you enjoyed this show and I hope you'll subscribe, tell a friend and write a review. All of that helps us grow our audience. You can learn more about me and my content business at primefitcontentcom. Send me an email at jjayatprimefitcontentcom. I'm also on Facebook, linkedin, instagram and just about anywhere else, so check me out. Love to hear from you. Again, thanks for listening. Join us next time.