How do I lose weight after 40?

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. The first thing for me was my training and I firmly believe, dai, that the root of obesity or the solution to obesity probably starts with muscle mass and not so much weight loss, right, and so if we can just lift something heavy, that's going to go a long way. And when I started doing that regularly that's another problem as I wasn't consistent with it. Even with CrossFit, I wasn't necessarily consistent when I started doing it.

So yeah, less is more often. Well, I like it and I know that you have your own little story about that journey to fitness after 40. But I'd love you to touch on that. But, more importantly also, how do you inspire, motivate and, more importantly, educate people that are maybe over that 40? And they don't know or feel? Maybe this is part of the better way to sort of frame this. You know, I know people get to that sort of place in life and they can feel really low, right, like you know, in our 20s, well, we've got metabolism, we've got that youth on our side, right, we often have lots of just natural energy output and it can often offset all that. Well, it's just called alcohol calories, extra food calories, you know, just all the other excess stuff. But then in our 30s we get into sort of family mode and we often put our fitness on the back burner.

And when you combine those two lots and lots of movement, which is stressful in your body, with not enough energy coming in it's a vicious cycle that feeds on itself because your body will compensate. People don't understand. The more you try to run and burn yourself out with this cardio and you're not eating enough, the more the body says oh, I got to shut down and survive, I've got to preserve those calories, and you burn fewer and fewer calories. And then you wonder why you can't lose weight. Eating 800 calories a day and running two hours a day, right, so the less is more is really important. I've had female clients come to me like that. Their hormones are out of whack, they're on thyroid medication and all we do is we say let's drop everything. Let's drop everything. We're going to train maybe three days a week. We're going to lift heavy.

I strapped on my cassette player yeah, I know dating myself again with a tape playing on Endless Loop A went to side B, wynch went back to side A, and so on. I'd ride until I had exhausted both the tape and myself. Only then would I ride. I had more and more daily activity, incrementally, eventually joining the gym. Over 14 months, nearly 18 months, I was transformed. This time, adolescence itself was on my side as I shot over a 6'1" it's a big growth. Sport that definitely helped me burn more calories. My weight didn't change that much just to qualify that, but I did see body fat melt away as new lean muscle mass appeared. Now with a better understanding of the science and biology of health, I know that my physical changes came from a combination of cardiovascular and resistance training.

Moving on to question three how do I get rid of stubborn belly fat? Now, that's stubborn belly fat. We all have a story to tell, don't we? Stress, though, is probably the biggest and number one villain here Releasing hormones that love to hang out in your midsection. Cortisol is a prime one, and cortisol is a good steroid. Okay, it's a hormone, I should say, but we also see people get cortisol shots, usually to help with dealing with excess inflammation and sometimes chronic pain or pain. And so here's the thing.

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. Well, here's the idea when we lose something like losing our keys, what do we want, subconsciously and consciously?

For example, set a specific goal, like running a 5K charity race for a cause you're passionate about. Running a purpose can be a powerful motivator, also a great way to keep you accountable. Now question two what's the best diet for weight release? You understood, I didn't say weight loss, weight release. Why do we release weight? Because we say bye-bye, bye-bye weight. I don't want me coming back, because when you lose stuff, inevitably you try to find it again. Right, think about losing your keys. Everyone hates losing their keys. So, subconsciously, we're so used to losing stuff and wanting to find it again. So remember weight release. So what's the best diet for weight release? There's no one-size-fits-all answer. Think of it as assembling a puzzle. A balanced diet with a calorie deficit is like finding the perfect piece.

You could literally give a person a pill that would rid them of all the excess body fat in their body. That wouldn't make them healthy, it would just make them lighter. Their body fat counts still may be high because you have to do other things and it's not easy. At the end of the day, for myself, humans don't plan to fail, they fail to plan. Why don't we plan? It's all about this the brain does not want to burn extra energy because it works so hard to get that energy in the first place and think of it prehistorically, if you want Famines and so on, even hundreds of years ago. That's how we're wired and for that reason the brain really doesn't want to give up calories, which is why exercising is so hard to do, and I won't try and pin you down to an answer on this, but a lot of people I chat with, I'd say, 99% of them. When I ask the question, do you love doing exercise?

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.

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. He lacks a structure small enough to survive his actual life, and other men to answer to while it does. I have been in the fitness industry since the late nineties. I owned gyms, I trained hundreds of clients, and I watched the same pattern repeat until I could not unsee it. A man would arrive motivated, train hard for six weeks, hit his goal, and then slowly return to exactly where he started, plus a few pounds and minus some confidence.

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.

Tracking is a diagnostic tool. It is excellent for two or three weeks if you genuinely have no idea what you are eating, and after that it becomes a substitute for changing anything. The men who get lean and stay lean are almost never the men with the longest logging streaks. What works instead is structure, decided in advance, so that the decision is not being made by a hungry version of you at 4pm. This is the single change with the best ratio of effort to effect that I know of. Thirty to forty grams. Eggs, Greek yogurt, leftover meat from dinner, a shake if you must. It changes what you want to eat at 3pm more than anything you do at 3pm. Olive oil, avocado, nuts, seeds, oily fish.

The current version of what it became is written up here . Archival republish. This is the post that started the DadBody project, published to LinkedIn on 7 June 2019 and reproduced here unedited, closing call to action included. The beta it advertises is long closed. It is here as a dated record of where this began. FIG. 01 Where the project started. IF you are a dad over the age of 40, then read on. If not, no worries, feel free to share this message with someone that may fit the profile. I'm looking for 4 more dads to beta-test a program that I've developed over the past 3 years. The #DadBodyProject. As a dad, husband, brother, friend and community leader, I know all too well how challenging it can be to try to fit it all in. As men, we're often pulled by careers, family, community, and our own dreams and ambitions. That's life.

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.

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.

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.

I am Dai Manuel. I have coached in this city for close to thirty years, and for most of that time I was not a very good personal trainer. Good at the training, bad at the business of it, and the reason for that is the reason men over 40 come to me now. FIG. 01 Dai Manuel, Vancouver. If you searched for a fitness coach in Vancouver, you have probably already tried the usual route. A trainer, three sessions a week, a good first month, and then life happened and the whole thing quietly unravelled. That is not a character flaw. It is a design flaw. Three hours a week with a trainer means 165 hours a week without one. The gap is where every result is decided, and it is the gap the entire personal training model politely ignores, because its revenue depends on you needing it again next year. I coach men over 40, mostly dads, mostly men who are successful at everything except this.

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.

The small group I run twice a year for men who are done doing this alone. 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.

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.

I will not tell you what you are not allowed to eat. And I will not pretend that any of this is complicated, because it is not. It is small, boring, and repeated, and the only genuinely hard part is deciding that you are worth two percent of your own day. Most men I meet have not decided that yet. That is the actual work, and it is the reason I am still doing this after thirty years. Applications are open for the next MERGE60 cohort. Twelve places, application only.