Is a dad bod unhealthy?

It's not just simply adding more weight to your frame, it's actually creating some internal conflict if not dealt with over time. So, while BMI can be helpful, it should be used with other measures and professional health advice for more accurate picture of individual's health. One of my favorite things is DEXA scans and these are scans and I've shared on social. I typically go. I usually go once a year and it's basically a full scan of your body and it will tell you how much body fat you have and it will even tell you where it's distributed on your body, how much lean mass you have, your bone density. It's really really cool. And then it gives you a report based on all these DEXA scan machines all around the world and it gives you a more accurate how are you doing for your age, your gender, right? So I can see.

So, for example, you know I've got a pretty high muscle mass now and my BMI now is, you know, if you were to meet me and some of you have met me, and you know some of us have connected online and in person and you know you've met me and and then we've trained together. Right, I pretty healthy dude, pretty lean, but my weight to height and hip ratio and all this other stuff they like to look at, I'm actually classified as overweight, almost obese again, but my body composition is very different from when I was 14. So you know, take, take, for example you know athletes with really high muscle mass. You know they're going to have a pretty high BMI, but they're not overweight. Right, they're not obese, but they will be considered based on the body mass index.

I was fortunate enough to go to a talk not too long ago that was given by a functional medicine practitioner. They were really speaking to this idea of looking for root causes, but also this idea of making the focus more on health span, not as concerned about lifespan any longer. I was wondering if you had a comment on that, because I know your perspective on this, especially with the fitness industry, I believe, will be quite unique. Baselining is important. When I meet with clients individually, I use ultrasound to actually show what the inside of the deep adipose tissue looks like, which is the second area of our gut area on top of the superficial layer that has direct connectivity to health risk stratification, some cardiovascular disease and so on.

Hey there, wellness warriors, welcome back to another episode of the 2% Solution. I'm your host, I'm Manuel, and today, on the Fit Tip Friday episode, we're diving into a fun and thought provoking concept. Could you imagine a restaurant where you could only order based on your body mass index? Today we're gonna explore body mass index and how it affects our health, and imagine what it would be like to eat at a restaurant where your order depends on your BMI. So get ready, because I'm hoping this is informative but also equally entertaining. Now, I remember the first time I learned about BMI and this is actually going way, way, way, way, way, way, way back when I was like 14 years old. I remember being at the doctor's office with my mom, you know, getting a checkup, and this is when I was at my largest.

Framingham is like a suburb of Boston area, right? So it's something that's been run, I believe, by Harvard, for a long time, and they're following people over generations, checking their Omega-3 index, their vitamin D levels, things like that, and then just saying what health outcomes have they had with these profiles, and they're able to see from this large pool of study participants what health habits are actually resulting in greater longevity and reduction in disease. So cool. I love those studies. I do. I love like twin study right, All those studies kind of connect? Yeah, absolutely. You need to see the findings they find. But also it's neat because with a big enough cross-section you can. You can see trends, you can see what's working kind of impact. I mean not give you an absolute, but it gives you an idea of the trending.

Childhood obesity isn't just about carrying extra weight. It brings a host of severe health issues which I hinted to earlier. That study from Nature points out that obese children are at a higher risk of type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular diseases, but even mental health issues like depression and anxiety. Specifically, the study highlights that obese children are four times more likely to develop type 2 diabetes and have a 25% higher risk of developing cardiovascular diseases compared to their peers that have a healthier weight. Additionally, they are 30% more likely to experience those mental health issues like depression and anxiety. These kids are also more likely to become obese. Mental health issues like depression, anxiety. These kids are also more likely to become obese adults, leading to a lifetime of health challenges.

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.

But also, as we age, it doesn't mean it's a real instant verdict that we can't get healthier than we were in our 20s, as an example, you know. So please speak to that. I'd love to hear your thoughts. Yeah, it is a mindset thing, and where my engineer hat comes in, and you know I- call myself a physique engineer. I love it. Is if we can create massive awareness of what choices we are making that lead to these feelings, that lead to our training and our eating and our diet and thinking that we don't have enough time in our schedule and whatever else. Rather than try to unravel the psychology, which is very difficult and I'm not a psychologist either I'd rather say why don't we just measure or track to measure the things we want to measure? What do we want to measure? We want to measure what's going in our mouth of how it makes us feel.

This is the original post from June 2019, kept unedited. 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.

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.

Not evenly. Arms and legs are roughly what they were. It is the waistband. You open the document, read the same paragraph four times, and go and make a coffee. You spend the day being patient and professional and the person who gets the leftover version of you is the one you would most like to be good to. This is the tell, and it is the one that finally makes men do something. Any one of these means very little. Five at once is a pattern, and the pattern has a name. Partly, and I want to be careful here because this gets oversold constantly, including by me in older writing. The mechanism is real. Cortisol released under stress affects where the body stores fat, favouring the abdominal cavity, and visceral fat is the metabolically dangerous kind. It is the fat associated with insulin resistance and cardiovascular risk, not the kind you can pinch.

Training is one third of it. The framework is thirty minutes a day split between movement, stillness and reading, held inside a small cohort with real accountability. The body changes because the days change. What is a dad bod, and is the project about getting rid of one? The dad bod is a body shaped by a decade of putting everything else first, and it gets treated as a joke or a life sentence. It is neither. The project is not about chasing the body you had at 25. It is about rebuilding the energy, strength and self-respect to be useful for the next forty years. The original 2019 #DadBodyProject post is archived here unedited . The framework it describes is written up on the Whole Life Fitness Manifesto page. The 2% Solution. Play it here, with the full transcript on the page. The post that started all of this. Republished unedited.

And the industry these men turn to was not built for them. It was built for 25-year-olds with disposable time, selling intensity, novelty, and before-and-after photos. A 47-year-old father of three does not need intensity. He needs something he will still be doing in March. The culture treats the dad bod as a joke, or occasionally as something to be proud of, and both reactions let everyone off the hook. Here is what it actually is: the physical record of ten to fifteen years of putting yourself last, written in the only ledger that never lies. That framing matters because it changes the job. The job is not to get shredded, and I will not sell it to you that way. The job is to become a man whose body can carry the next forty years: the grandchildren, the work, the travel, the bed you want to be able to get out of at 75 without a plan and a handrail.

Grip strength. Whether you can get off the floor without using your hands. Those move in one direction and they move because of what you did. The question I have been asking men since 2016 is a version of this: how do you want to spend the last twenty years of your life, and how will your health affect that? Nobody has ever answered that question with a number on a scale. The argument I made in another 2016 column still holds and I have not found a better way to put it. Nobody wakes up unhealthy. It does not happen from one meal, one skipped session, one bad month. It happens from a normal day repeated. Drive to work, sit for eight hours, drive home, eat, sit, scroll, sleep.

You aren't really thinking about being healthy or the like, rather you are just BEING. That's the difference between goal setting and lifestyle shifting. One method is great for gauging progression, but the other, it's just about living life as it is. As your best version of you, because deep down you know, 'I got this!' Then connect with me to get an overview for what the Dad Body Project journey entails. Note: this is not a free offer, it will require a nominal investment along with your time and energy. It will require work, but as challenging as it may be, I guarantee what you achieve will be worth it. Originally published on LinkedIn, 7 June 2019. Republished here unedited. Seven years later this is still the work, with better tools. If you are the man this was written for, MERGE60 is where it happens now. The 2% Solution. Play it here, with the full transcript on the page.

And why most timelines lie to you. 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.

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.

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. The framework is thirty minutes a day, two percent of it: fifteen minutes of movement, five of stillness, ten of reading something that makes you better. Small enough that you cannot argue with it, and small enough to survive the worst week of your year. That runs inside small cohorts with real accountability. MERGE60 is sixty measured days, twelve men, application only. DadBody 28 is the twenty-eight-day starting point.

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.

If your question is not here, message me and ask it. I would rather answer it now than have you guess. A sixty-day small-group coaching programme for twelve men, run out of Vancouver. You get a training plan, a weekly call, daily logging, and measurements taken at the start and again at the end. Because twelve places go fast and the wrong twelve men make it worse for everyone. The application takes a few minutes and tells me whether the timing is right for you. If it is not, I will say so. Access to weights makes it easier, but the plan is built around what you actually have. Tell me your setup on the application and I will build to it. Three to four training sessions, a weekly group call, and a couple of minutes a day to log. If your week falls apart, the plan has a minimum version so you keep the streak instead of quitting. Yes. The programme runs online.

I am in the other business, which is helping people qualify theirs. The question is not how many years you get. It is what is in them. The two questions I have been asking men since about 2016 are these. How do you want to spend the last twenty years of your life? And how will your health affect that? No one has ever answered either of those with a weight. “No one has ever answered either of those with a weight.” In 2016 I wrote that the fitness industry is broken, and I have not changed my mind. On any given day the industry will tell you a fat-reduced diet makes you skinny, that abs come in three minutes a day, that anything less than an hour five days a week is pointless, and above all that a particular body shape will make you happy. Those four claims are wrong, and three of them are wrong in a way that makes people give up.

31 January. A new group starts every five weeks. See every cohort date, the trainer and what is included There are thirty places. Applications keep the room focused, they are not a test of how fit you already are. Point your phone camera at the code to open a WhatsApp chat with me directly. What is DadBody 28? A focused twenty-eight day reset for men, run by Dai Manuel out of Vancouver. Four daily habits, a training plan, and weekly coaching, with thirty places in the cohort. How is it different from MERGE60? DadBody 28 is the clean first step. MERGE60 is sixty days, twelve men, deeper one-to-one coaching and full baseline-to-retest measurement. If you are ready to act now but do not want the longer commitment, start here. What does DadBody 28 cost? $99 as one payment for the full twenty-eight days. There is no subscription and nothing renews on its own.