How fast can a man over 40 safely lose fat?

Happy Fit Tip Friday everyone. Welcome back to the 2% Solution Podcast, where small steps lead to big changes Dai Manuel I'm , your guide on this journey to a healthier, happier you, and today's episode is a special one for all my fellow fitness enthusiasts and anyone looking to shake off some extra LBs. We're talking all about the top five reasons you're not releasing weight and what you can do about it. Trust me, it's not just about cutting back on the midnight stacks, though you know, if we're honest, that's probably a good start. And you might be wondering what do I mean by releasing weight? Why not losing weight? Well, here's the little thing Now. It's psychological, but it's intention of language and you guys know I'm really big on language, especially that self talk, that voice that's in our head.

We're not all going to be. I'm not saying don't go to the gym six days a week, don't get a six pack. Maybe it's what you do for a profession. You have to be. I did fat and body fat assessments for an NHL team here in Ottawa quite a number of years ago with ultrasound, and if you want to make the training camp you've got to come in at 12%. Oh really that's your entry point, maybe, unless you're a gold tender. But that being said, you've got to come in like that. Is that sustainable? Not when you're 75 years of age. Sure, I've developed different coping mechanisms to keep you in good stead, to keep you functional for what you want to do. Find out what you want to do in life. That should be your starting point. What do you want to do in life? You want to travel. You don't have to be as fit functionally as you would be if you want to be able to bicycle every second day.

Because I find that the way you speak is very empathetic but also relatable and accessible, and that's not always the case, especially in our space, let's be honest. Yeah, yeah, I've been told that and I appreciate that and I guess it comes from the seeing the people around me how their choices over time especially my older folks in my family how it catches up to you over time and gives you poor health, whether that's metabolic disease, heart disease, stroke, diabetes, alzheimer's, just obesity and wanting to change my genetic tree, as they say. So I can't say. There's one point in time it probably took from late 2019 to like 2021, two years of just experimenting. But experimenting is probably the thing that's going to get anyone listening to figure it out, right, yeah Is test, test, test, retest, track and measure.

If you're not familiar with the slow carb diet, it means you eat low carb six days and you like gorge yourself on the seventh day. I didn't like gorging myself on the seventh day. I'd have cream puffs for breakfast and I'd have ice cream sandwiches and jelly bean and I didn't like it. So what I do is I decided to sprinkle it through. So I'm more of a modified slow carb diet. I try to eat a lot of low carb. Like he says, don't eat nuts on the slow carb diet because you can't have just a handful. I do measure all my food. I use an app called chronometer, so I recommend people when you're going to go on a diet, it should not be about losing the poundage. It should be about I'm going to feel healthier, because a lot of people go. It's April, may. Let me get my bikini body or whatever a speedo body and then in August you start eating like crap again because you're like, ah, who cares?

You know, whether you're doing this by yourself, with a coach, it doesn't matter, it doesn't have to be very complicated. We can talk about the 2% of your day. How to carve that out, to do that Within a week or two. Dai, when you, for example, just track what's going in your mouth, a whole bunch of revelations and insights start to pop out for yourself. I'm not even asking you to eat so much protein or calories or whatever. I'm just saying track it. And you say oh, now I see I eat the chicken nuggets for my kids plate all the time I drink an extra few glasses of beer than I thought. On Saturdays I'm eating the appetizer, the chips of the Mexican restaurant.

I'm a very fast eater. If my wife has made very clear to people that know us because if we're invited for dinner she will die, will be done in five minutes. How long are you planning for like, and I'm like, ah, whatever it is, what is, but I'm trying to work on that too. But but after doing that small sort of shift, how did that build your confidence or give you that confidence to move forward and start doing other things? Because I'm wondering what you start doing after that. Because I know you could do 50 pounds just with nutrition. But dude, joe, you're fit, dude man, you got a lot of muscle mass. I know you got a sports background, you're also coach, so I know fitness is a big part of it. So I'm curious like, when? Where did it go from there? What else helped you with that 50 pound weight release. I started doing some exercising. Yeah, so I was a sit-ups man. I started doing sit-ups.

I'm talking from a science base and there's anecdotal information out there, and then there's empirical. I'm more of an empirical person and if there's science to back it up, it's never 100% concrete, but it offers me a little bit more credence than my late mom used to tell me to stand on my head and prevent air loss. Hey, nice, full head of hair. It really works. What are you talking about? You got a big head of hair. My brother's hair is actually thicker. That being said, there's no quick fix. Out there and the social media small bullet-sized windows, you hear of information from celebrities saying do this or do this, or even from an equipment perspective, here's a piece of equipment that's the latest and greatest. It'll burn three times the number of calories from anything that you used before.

Back on almonds like your Adam Vegas poker table and make sure your dinner plate is a carnival of lean meat, seafood or a legume parade. But why increase protein intake? For one, it's satiating, meaning you feel full longer, which is a bonus for weight management. A study published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition found that participants consuming a higher protein diet reported greater satiating. See, it makes you feel more full longer. Plus, a high protein intake has been linked to improved muscle mass and strength, which is critical as we age to prevent sarcopenia, that's, the loss of muscle mass we're discussing preserving your independence over the years, and that's no small feat. Now let's talk about metabolic health. Did you know your body burns more calories digesting protein than fats or carbohydrates?

I still think that is true and I now think it is close to useless as advice, because it describes the destination and not the road. Here is the road. You change the defaults, one at a time, and you wait. Protein at breakfast for a month until it is not a decision. Then fat at every meal. Then the evening cutoff. Each one takes about four weeks to stop requiring thought, and the compounding is what does the work , not the intensity. I have watched this play out with enough men to be confident about the timeline, and the honest version of it is that the first six weeks feel like nothing is happening, and then the fourth month is when someone asks you what you have been doing. Does eating fat make you fat? Not in the way the low-fat era claimed.

The evidence is strongest for replacement rather than restriction, so eat more olive oil, nuts, fatty fish and seeds. If you have a family history or a problem lipid panel, that is a conversation for your doctor. How do I eat well without counting calories? Protein at breakfast, fat with every meal from whole foods, four dinners you can make without thinking, stop eating about three hours before bed, and keep real food in the car and the bag so a hungry version of you is never choosing from what is in front of him. Change one default at a time and give each about four weeks. Sacks, F. M., et al. (2017). Dietary fats and cardiovascular disease: a presidential advisory from the American Heart Association. Circulation. 2025 Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee systematic review: food sources of saturated fat and risk of cardiovascular disease.

Ask a man over 40 how many times he has started again and he will usually laugh before he answers. Five. Six. He owns the equipment. He knows what to do. FIG. 01 A man who gets six weeks in and stops is telling you about the fuel, not the engine. Ask a man over 40 how many times he has started again and he will usually laugh before he answers. Five. Six. He has lost the same fifteen pounds three times. He owns the equipment. He knows what to do. He has proven, repeatedly, that he can do it for six weeks. That last part is the interesting part, and it is the reason I do not believe this is a discipline problem. A man who cannot do something never gets six weeks in. A man who gets six weeks in and then stops is telling you something about the fuel, not the engine. Because the thing that got you started is not a thing that can keep you going.

Thirty years of coaching, one cohort of twenty-three men, and every number I have, including the ones that do not flatter me. FIG. 01 The unglamorous part nobody photographs. The honest answer to how long it takes to get back in shape is this: you will feel different in about two weeks, you will be measurably stronger in about six, and you will look different somewhere between weeks eight and twelve. If you are over forty and you have been out of it for years, put those numbers at the slower end and stop reading the ones that promise otherwise. Every "six week transformation" you have seen is measuring the wrong thing at the wrong time. It measures the photo. The photo is the last thing to change. That gap, between the day the work starts paying and the day it becomes visible, is where almost every man I have coached has quit.

In June 2019 I published a post looking for four dads over 40 to beta-test an idea. Seven years later that idea is the whole of my working life. This is the full version: where it came from, what it actually involves, and the promises it refuses to make. FIG. 01 The work is small and repeated. That is the whole trick. Every man in this work arrived the same way. Successful at his job, good at being a dad, present at the things that matter, and quietly falling apart in the one area nobody could see from the outside. He had usually tried to fix it a few times. A gym membership in January. A diet that lasted until the first work trip. A burst of running that ended when his knee or his calendar gave out. Each attempt confirmed the same story: I know what to do, I just cannot make it stick. That story is wrong, and the DadBody project exists to prove it. He does not lack knowledge.

Six numbers, ten minutes. You cannot argue with them in week seven and they will keep you honest in week two when nothing looks different. Then pick the smallest week you will actually repeat. Three sessions, a protein target, a step target, and a bedtime. Repeat it for sixty days. Retest. That is the whole method, and it is boring on purpose. How long does it take to get back in shape? Most men who train three to four times a week feel different within two weeks, feel stronger within four to six weeks, and start to look different somewhere between weeks eight and twelve. Sixty days of honest consistency is enough to change your baseline. It is not enough to finish the job. How long does it take if you have not trained in years? Longer to look different, faster to feel different.

The men who hold onto progress are the ones whose plan survives a bad week, a work trip and a sick kid. Consistency at 70 percent beats perfection you abandon in week three. The 2% Solution. Play it here, with the full transcript on the page. The least exercise that actually does something, and the part everyone leaves out. You have done it five times. It is not discipline, and the fix is unglamorous. Seven years ago I went looking for four dads over 40 to test an idea. What it became, and what it refuses to promise.

The adage use it or lose it rings all the truer as we age. Start implementing functional fitness into your lifestyle today to ensure a capable, pain-free future. Written in 2017, and it is the earliest piece in this archive that argues for healthspan over lifespan. That argument is now the whole premise of the coaching. The specific home programs named in the original have been left out because two of them no longer exist. The 2% Solution. Play it here, with the full transcript on the page. Most men over forty who feel exhausted are not sleep deprived. What is actually going on. What held up from my 2016 column, and the part I oversold. The real timeline, and every number from a sixty-day cohort of twenty-three men.

DadBody 28 is the shorter option if you would rather not wait. Still not answered? Read every question or message me directly and you get me, not an assistant. One hundred fifty episodes on movement, stillness, reading, nutrition, mindset and recovery. Search the transcripts or listen from the archive. Browse episodes Start here: the whole library Apply for one of twelve 0 of 12 places filled Every result above is a real man who will tell you about it himself. Named with permission, and shortened at their request.

Tell me honestly where you are starting from. Can I do DadBody 28 from outside Vancouver? Yes. It runs online, with coaching scheduled Vancouver time. Still not answered? Read every question or message me directly and you get me, not an assistant.

Application only. Apply for a place Not ready for the full application? Just say hello . FIG. 01 Sixty days is long enough to change something and short enough to finish. I ran this with twenty-three men and told them to name their own price. Matt P. lost twenty-eight pounds in seventy-five days, two hundred and seven down to one seventy-nine. Jason S. lost five kilos and put visible muscle on. He said his sleep quality went to a hundred percent, which is his phrasing, not mine. Maurice T. held his sobriety through the whole sixty days and tracked his own biometrics consistently for the first time in his life. FIG. 02 Randall T.: 21 months on. Randall T. came out of hernia surgery faster than his surgeon expected. He then stayed on with me and twenty-one months later his body fat is eight point one percent at fifty-nine years old.