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Health & Fitness Redefined
Health and Fitness Redefined with Anthony Amen. Take a dive into the health world as we learn how to overcome adversity, depict fact vs fiction and see health & fitness in a whole new light.Fitness Is Medicine
Health & Fitness Redefined
Masculinity isn't toxic. Misunderstanding it is.
Masculinity is under attack, yet most critics don't understand what they're criticizing or how their rhetoric harms young men. Through historical context and personal reflection, we explore what masculinity truly means and why it's essential for a functioning society.
• Masculinity is biologically rooted in the Y chromosome, creating different tendencies and drives than those found in women
• Throughout history, masculine roles have centered around providing, protecting, and pursuing goals for the benefit of family and community
• Modern society has swung from demanding emotional suppression to criticizing action-oriented masculine traits
• Men derive happiness from working toward goals and seeing progress, particularly when their efforts benefit their families
• Depression rates among men aged 20-39 have nearly tripled since 2005, reaching 14.3% between 2021-2023
• Obesity affects nearly 40% of young American men, lowering testosterone and exacerbating identity issues
• Exercise is the most underutilized antidepressant with no negative side effects, particularly beneficial for men
• Complementary gender roles aren't oppressive when communicated clearly and respected by both partners
• Men need to feel valued in society through having responsibility and purpose
Fitness is medicine.
Learn More at: www.Redefine-Fitness.com
Hello and welcome to Health and Fitness Redefined. I'm your host, anthony Amen, and today we've got another great solo episode for all of you. Today, guys, this one is for you. I want you to sit back and we're going to take this all in. We're going to dive into, specifically, men and masculinity. What is it? How can it be defined? What is it correlated and linked with?
Speaker 1:I am very excited to talk about this topic because it's been top of mind for me for quite some time, something personally I have struggled with as a kid and not understanding what it was. Same with depression. I struggled with that as a kid as well, as you all know, and it's very personal to me because now we're seeing a lot of issues of people attacking masculinity, but I don't even think people know what they're attacking and I don't know if they know what they're doing to our young men. So if you have a young guy in your life or you are highly recommend to listen this episode we're going to dive head first into this. It is going to rock your socks. I'm going to say things that I think are just going to be eye-opening to everyone. So please share this below this episode of guys, we need to get the word out.
Speaker 1:Let's do this first. Let's start with what is the definition of masculinity? Basically, go from here and webster the quality or nature of the male sex, the quality, state or degree of being masculine or manly. Obviously it's hard to define masculine inside masculinity, but basically the quality of nature of the male sex. So what is the male sex? As we we all know, we have X and Y chromosomes for being a male, xx is female. So we're really hitting on that Y chromosome, about what that does to men, how it makes us act differently, how we are different than females. And before you sit here and say that men and women are the same, you are totally wrong. Biologically we're completely different. On top of that, that biological level makes us completely different as individuals. I can tell you from a lot of experience being a guy, obviously, and being heavily involved in this industry men and women are just built different. Men and women think differently.
Speaker 1:If you are married, you know exactly what I'm talking about. How many times do you think your wife says one thing and you get the exact opposite out of it? Or you think your wife wants something, and then you're totally wrong and it's the other way around, or you think something's not a big deal and it's like, oh, I guess that was a big deal. So that's what makes marriage fun? Right Is understanding the differences between men and women and trying to take how both of you feel and think, put it together to create, first of all, life and then raising a kid, but to teach that kid ideological space upon who they are, and then try to create some love and be there for each other for the rest of your life. So anyway, let's go back. I think it's important to understand when we talk about masculinity with any topic, isn't a history of it? Right, like where it comes from, how it was? So I'm gonna go all the way back.
Speaker 1:Hunting and gathering right. Hunting obviously was left off for the men. Men were expected to go on to groups, right? Nothing, nothing was done. Individualized. Everything was done in about pods of like 15 to 40 people, and men were going out hunting for animals. They were looking for whatever they could find in the local area.
Speaker 1:Women were gatherers. Their job was to go pick fruits, pick veggies, find little things to eat around, as well as being the caretakers for the kid. Well, they were the ones that gave birth. They were the ones that could feed the kid, right, they would produce milk which would ultimately feed the baby, and then the men would be responsible to bring home the big game to build structures as they started to civilize a little more. To build tools was predominantly men, so men were constantly trying to come up with ways to make their jobs a little easier for themselves so they could provide more for the community and for the families. Then, when you bring that into starting to the point where we really were being communities right, look like ancient greece as an example it was all about heroism and strength. You look at greek gods the greek gods like zeus, right, super muscular. I was all about heroism and strength. You look at Greek gods the Greek gods like Zeus, right, super muscular. It was all about I'm the god of thunder, I'm in charge, save people, kind of deal. But even if you take it to Spartan ideology, which a lot of people watch 300,.
Speaker 1:Right, men were supposed to be in line. Right, they're supposed to follow each other following one leader that was a guy, and then they were supposed to be tip-top shape, were supposed to have some kind of military background as well as courting women. Right, men were supposed to be like okay, I'm going to hold the door open for you, I'm going to do this for you, I'm going to do this for you. Take care of their needs. That continued all the way up to the Middle East at times, especially the courtmanship. You would always see history films of men who had to learn how to dance. Right, in order to woo women, you had to learn how to dance, but you also were a knight or you were a farmer. You always did the backbreaking labor while you did court your women.
Speaker 1:So, moving forward from that part, in the 20th century, norms were created about being the breadwinner. Cause, as far as financial aspects of it, I always think this is where I kind of disagree. First off, it says men were breadwinners and that started in the 20th century. But that really depends, right, cause if men were hunting and bringing in food and bringing in livestock and all that stuff, like, weren't they really the breadwinners at that point as well? Same with they had a fine land they had. They weren't even knights, templar, right. I know that's fake, but anyway, like there was always, we were breadwinners, with just a different point it wasn't financial, but it was other aspects of us being breadwinners of it and then that kind of went through culture.
Speaker 1:As far as, personally, the 80s and 90s like for a lot of people listening as far as myself, men always support women it was He-Man. If anyone remembers He-Man, right, he was super jacked out of his mind and that's what you grew up with and understood and thought what a man was as a kid a lot of overweight, of being soft, and this is where we're gonna really talk and sit for a while. So I I want to break this down because this is a tough topic, right. So there's two sides to this. Men, we're supposed to be soft men on earth. Now, right, we're supposed to come up with our feelings, have emotions. Uh, we're supposed to be a little more emotionally intelligent, be vulnerable, have respect for everybody around us, which I think we always had.
Speaker 1:But it was steered away from the fact that you know, boys don't cry and boys are not supposed to cry and supposed to hear our emotions. And you look, people that are like 70s, 80, 80-year-olds now, so that's like a 50-year age gap from that. So they're born in like the 40s, 50s, it's World War II era. Exactly the opposite. Hold all the emotions in Everything, just kept personal. They did A, b, c, d, e and didn't complain or say a word. And that's how they just spoke to the B, because they were men.
Speaker 1:I really think there's a middle ground to this. I feel like as society, we always jump from one end to the other. I do agree that men need to show emotions and it's okay to show emotions and it was tough to really open up at first. I myself have emotions, right, so I get upset. I let my wife know, I cry once in a while. But the difference is, when you get down is you want to be able to pick yourself back up, and that's where we see that lag right. So we teach people it's okay to cry. We teach people it's okay to be depressed, but you don't want to sit in that depression at all. And men are creatures of movement, creatures of habit, and we need to do things. So when you tell someone it's okay to cry, it's okay to be upset, that's fine, get it out, but don't do that for more than a couple hours. Get up and start doing these. Just start controlling.
Speaker 1:Controllables like we talk about with health, right, all the time In fitness it's. Start going for a walk, go work on the thing you're working on. Go to work, don't give yourself in a cubbyhole. When you see your body motion stays in motion, right, and the body rest stays at rest. When you're putting yourself in motion, you start putting yourself forward, start getting better and better and better.
Speaker 1:Go into uh, high earners, high providers, are people that like high-end entrepreneurs right, if they always they get depressed, they get upset, but they get over it right away, right, they know that, hey, it's okay to be upset, but I put things into motion where I'm now because I'm reaching towards this goal that is bigger than me and I'm striving for that. So that is going to make me know it, because I need to know I need to get up and move, and owning a business has taught me that a lot. It's. I used to think it was okay that I could be depressed and down for a long time, but I can't because I had a business. I feel that depended on me, right, and that taught me hey, like I need to move, I can't sit here and sulk, I need to go help all these other people out there. I need to move this company forward because no one's going to do it but me, and that made me happy when my gym started growing up and my business started thriving and it gave me happiness and satisfaction.
Speaker 1:Because we all know because we've listened to almost every episode last year that it's not achieving a goal that makes you happy. It's the closer you get to that goal that truly defines happiness, and the happiest right before that goal becomes accomplished. So knowing you're doing something to better other people is really strives to make men happy. Relate that back to a family structure. Now that I have a kid, I can talk to him from a personal standpoint. When I'm doing things for my wife and I'm doing things for my son, it makes me happy, knowing that I'm bettering them and I'm giving them a better life. That, by by far, is the key to my happiness. My business has turned to bettering myself to now bettering them, and it was a lot at first and it was a lot to really digest. But I understand it now and it means so much more that this becomes successful and that this blows up, because I need this for my family.
Speaker 1:I am the one that's responsible for my family when it comes to these kinds of things. I am the one that's responsible to keep my family unit moving forward right. Here's the key. As a guy, I see that family and I see a goal. I have a goal in my mind of what I want my family to be like, and the closer I get to achieving that goal, the better and happier I feel. This relates to masculinity. Why is masculinity related to this? Because it's what makes me happy is moving my family unit closer to a goal, moving my business closer to a goal for my family union. And it's not that, it's not a bad thing. This is, this is what drives men and I think this is related to that y chromosome and our testosterone levels. It's we get thrilled and excited and motivated to go do these things.
Speaker 1:If you do this conversation with my wife, it'd be the exact same opposite. Everything I mentioned she doesn't think about from a hole in the wall. She sees it as it's. I'm going to comfort and guide and take care of and be there when I'm needed and hold the family together like good right. So I'm thinking I want to bring it here and level it up. And this is where men fail, and it's okay we're allowed to fail, because if I just do that without my wife, things start falling apart. Nothing's held together because the glue ain't strong, but my wife being that glue that's holding it together and holds us close and tight and I'm pushing us here. She's keeping everything together, all those pieces together, and we're able to get there because we do it in tandem with each other. Right, we understand that we each have a specific job to play and inside that job we're working on the same goal, but just in different aspects. Growing a business working on the same goal, but just in different aspects.
Speaker 1:Growing a business I want to bring my business up. I want it to be a high income business. I can't just focus on one avenue because if everyone that knows the size of business, when you focus heavily on sales and that's it, your operations falls apart, your finances fall apart. Everything just starts crumbling around it and you realize, oh shit, I need to hold everything else together before I start bringing my business all the way up here. You need people to hold it together and having gender roles is not a bad thing because it helps the family move. If I have two individuals and I don't understand what our jobs are, nothing will get done. If I take a business and my operations manager thinks that they want to focus on sales, the operations are going to fall apart. If my sales guy wants us to start just focus on cleaning and not anything else, because he decides that today he's going to do that, the sales job is going to be left and no one's going to be pushing you forward forward.
Speaker 1:Everyone inside of an organization understands the roles that they play inside that organization and it's communicated between everyone. Going back to just the people born in the 40s, 50s, things weren't communicated. This for a lot of family structures fell apart, why that divorce rate is so high Over 50% Crazy Divorce rates, by the way, on the way down for those that don't know that. But anyway, they didn't communicate. The communication was like they had a slight understanding of what they're doing. But there's always gray areas with things like going into business. Sometimes your job overlaps, sometimes the salesperson is doing what the operations person is doing, because it's a gray area and you're really not sure who's supposed to be working on what. So I can communicate it to the person.
Speaker 1:The business the best communication moves forward. And then the family, with the best communication, moves forward. Communicate to my wife hey, a, b, c, d, e, I'm working, you're working on blah, blah, blah. We fix it. Move forward, bring it up, but we understand our primary drivers and that's what makes us happy. If we switch roles and this is not to say like everyone's going to be like, oh, everyone's different, there's people that are different. Of course, this is the majority of people and this is what we need to understand. Majority of people think this way. If you're someone that thinks differently, it's fine, but communicate it.
Speaker 1:So anyway, going back to my thought, is what makes me happy? Moving things up towards the goal makes the wife happy Raising and being the glue inside of the family. That's stereotypical of how men and women think, and I think that has a lot to do with men being more competitive in nature. Look at men's sports. Look at men wanting to fight. We've just been doing it for thousands and thousands a year. Not to say that women don't. I know they do, they're great at it, it's awesome. But more men do it in that aspect than women, right? So more men obviously is a genetic predisposition to it. It's understanding that this is what I want to do, and feeding into that and feeding into that drive is what, ultimately, is going to make you happier. Now, why is this important? Anthony, you keep diving into happiness over everything.
Speaker 1:Well, let's talk about toxic masculinity. Someone woke up one day and decided that men are toxic. They're all assholes. Men are not assholes. And you start telling them that the second society, in and of itself, falls apart. Men are a crucial part of society. Like I said, with the examples I just gave for the last 15 minutes, go rewind if you don't understand. You need both. You need men and you need women, and you need them working on their specific jobs in order to move society and culture, everything else, forward, thinking that one sex can take both jobs. You're wrong. You've never owned a business. Clearly, you've never ran a big corporation. You only would understand us to do that. Don't work for a multi-billion dollar corporation with a thousand employers and tell me that you can do all their jobs. Anyway, why are we gearing to happiness? Let's talk about depression rates. It's specifically those between the ages of men of 20 to 39. Over the last three decades. Between 2005 and 2006, the rates were 4.7% Between 2013 and 2016,. 5.5% Between August of 2021 and August of 2023, that rate has almost tripled at 14.3%. What happened in 2021? The rate of growth has tripled.
Speaker 1:Oh boy, a lot of culture stuff saying that men shouldn't be men. They don't understand and men started out lashing because they think maybe I want to be a woman because women get more respect than men do. As a white male, I can personally tell you a lot of people criticize you all the time. You don't understand You're a white male. You blah, blah, blah. It's not true.
Speaker 1:Everyone's an individual and everyone has their needs and, like we said, everyone has jobs and goals, and to focus on and respecting people as individuals, not by their race and not by their sex, is super important. And telling a specific race and sex that they're not needed or that masculinity is toxic and who they are is defining the person and what makes them happy is wrong, is really effed up on so many levels and shouldn't be left out. You need to just treat everybody like an individual, and this is what pisses me off more than anything in the world. Treat everybody exactly the same, regardless of who they are. Stop giving people special tickets and telling the other ones are going to take away those special tickets just based upon their non-negotiable like their color of their skin or their race or their sex. Stop. Everyone's an individual and we as people, as we know talking about the goal. Society become happy when we start thinking about achieving a goal. So give everyone the same opportunities and let them fall and let them pick themselves back up and let them move forward, and that's ultimately how I think you're going to start covering these depression rates, because 14.3% is ridiculous.
Speaker 1:Now, biggest drivers, I think a lot of it has to do with everyone talking men down. A lot of guys don't want to be guys because they're like what does it mean? Like no one even knows what it means that people can define what a guy is or what a woman is anyway, which is making this way worse. So, but if you understand what, who you are, and you help understand an identity as a guy cause, because you know what makes men happy, same thing with women you can start taking a society and moving that society forward and feeling better. I mean, go back to 2005. 2006, depression was 4.7. It was one third of what they are right now. So like something changed and thinking that, like what you say has nothing to do with it and what society tells them to do with that is disgusting.
Speaker 1:People are killing themselves at an alarming rate and we need to wake the fuck up and stop suicide and stop telling people that they're nobodies and that they can't accomplish anything and just give people everything they need. But the key is letting them fail so they can pick themselves back up. And stop telling somebody that because of their sex or because of the color of the skin, that they can't, they're not, they don't fit anywhere. Right, you're white, you don't fit it. You're a male, you don't fit. No, we need to appease to the norms of individuals and really help them out. I know it's a lot of gibber in there, but it's just annoying, all right.
Speaker 1:On top of that, current obesity rates, I think, play a lot of role and specifically tied into testosterone. As we all know, the more obese you get, the testosterone rates drop. What does testosterone have to do with anything? Well, it's literally the male sex hormone. So when men have less testosterone, they have less muscle mass. Their metabolisms drop. They have so many other issues. They start getting female characteristics right. We need to fix the obesity crisis. Take our 39.8% of US. We've been 20 and 39 are obese. It's a crazy number. But start understanding 39.8% of US between 20 and 39 are obese. It's a crazy number. Start understanding what drives and motivates men and start telling men it's okay.
Speaker 1:Working out fuels me more than anything. Physical labor fuels me. I spent eight hours from 6 am to 9 am for the last two and a half three days working outside. I feel great right hitting the ground like we're supposed to doing the soil 20 yards of soil, seeding, mulching the whole nine yards like. Get your bodies moving and get your muscles activated. Start going to the gym and working out, increasing your muscle mass to increase your testosterone level, to drop the amount of body fat on your body. And we've shown that a time and time again. The most underutilized antidepressant with absolutely zero side effects at least negative side effects is exercise, exercise, exercise, exercise. Ssris have side effects to them. They don't always work. You know what works Exercise. You know what we have to teach. Men is okay To work out, to be men, to grunt, to lift heavy weights, to get outside, start doing manual labor, work.
Speaker 1:And it's okay to be a guy, it's okay to have an understanding that this is my responsibility. If I take responsibility for things, I'm more likely to be happy. I'm less likely to kill myself. Why? Because I have other people that care about me, because I have a specific job and role to play in this society. It is my responsibility to be there for my family. It's my responsibility to move my family union forward. It is my responsibility to make sure that everyone is happier tomorrow than they were yesterday. That is my responsibility. I can only do that by how I know, which is me as a me personal example, watching my business grow and thrive to help my family and support them.
Speaker 1:For people, that's different. You might have a job to move up your corporate ladder to help your family learn and grow. Yours might be to take them on vacation every single day. It's fine, as long as you understand that the woman you married and you both have an understanding that this is what we need to do in forwardness. A better life looks for us. Your job as a male is to help get you there. Your partner's job is to help make sure you don't fall apart.
Speaker 1:Both roles are extremely important. Both roles are completely misunderstood. Both roles are extremely important. Both roles are completely misunderstood, and all we're doing by saying that men are wrong, is we're pushing people out to the curb and we're watching our society fall apart around us, and this is why a lot of men are starting to turn and think differently, especially those between the ages of 18 and 20. You see time and time again, this is supposed to be political, but just look how that group is now going more Republican because they feel left out. They feel left out. It doesn't matter politically or otherwise, but that group feels left out and we need to help them. We need to tell them that it's okay to be a guy, it is okay. It doesn't matter about anything else, it's being a man and knowing that you have certain responsibilities in this world to have, and that is what we need to focus, focus on so you don't turn to drugs and you don't turn your life upside down because you feel like you're unwanted. You need to feel the wanted in the societal structure and you need to learn to. Once you fall, you get back up. If your family falls, you pick them back up. That is your job, your job. Okay, I digress.
Speaker 1:I hope that all of you found this insightful and I'm sure I'm going to get a lot of backlash for some of the things I said. I know I stumbled on a few words here and there, because it just means a lot to me. If things were taken out of context, you can ask and I'm happy to clarify for you because I know I went everywhere around that I was just talking from the heart for this entire episode. But I just hope you all understand that it's not okay to make men feel confused and tell them not to not be a guy and that's wrong to be a guy. Is it okay you're going to say for men to get angry and men to have word rage? No, of course not. There's differences, right, and you need to understand those differences and men should be respectful. Men should be understanding to what their family means, but men should also have drive and passion to move their families forward and that is the definition of masculinity and that is a definition we need to push upon society.
Speaker 1:Thank you, guys, for listening to this week's episode of Health Fitness Redefined. If you like these solo episodes, you like these crazy complex topics, let me know Happy to do more. Until next time, don't forget, fitness is medicine. Thank you, outro Music.
