What is a dad bod?

It's like our home ones hitting this news button. But don't worry, we're not doing become grumpy old men quite yet. But let's talk turkey, or rather how to keep your testosterone levels strutting like a peacock. Here are eight natural ways to keep your tea in tip top shape. And, trust me, they're easier than folding a fitted bed sheet. And those guys out there, you know what I'm talking about. Kristi, my wife can test to this my efforts. When I get that out of the dryer, I roll it up into a tight ball and I just throw it in the top of the closet. I don't even try to fold those fidget sheets in where I just don't know how. So I refuse to invest any time in it. But no, testosterone is not just a buzzword from fitness mags. It's literally a crucial hormone for men's health, and as we age, our tea levels tend to take a bit of a dive.

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?

All right, 2% Collective, fasten your seatbelts and prepare for an epic journey of transformation, connection and hearty laughter on the 2% Solution podcast, with our latest guest, cam Hall. As the founder of Fight the Dad Bod and the visionary behind the impactful initiative Dads Making a Difference, cam's journey from a high school vice principal to a beacon of hope for dads everywhere is simply remarkable. Picture this a man who embodies resilience. Having faced a medical scare that would leave most reeling, cam turned adversity into advantage, showing us that sometimes our greatest ideas emerge from our darkest hours With humor that'll have you chuckling and wisdom that'll make you ponder. Cam delves deep into what it means to truly make a difference, not just in your life but in the lives of those around you. But it's not all serious talk.

So, when you think about all the challenges that humans face, but especially men, and some of these societal norms like, how do you approach these conversations and ultimately encourage to reevaluate their relationship with alcohol, do you know what I mean, because I know that that's a tough conversation to have, especially because it's been so normal. We've grown up with it. It's just how we connect. A lot of the times we go to the pub, we go to sporting, have a few drinks, and that's how men open up sometimes. And and so how do you? How do you approach this man? I guess I? I'd love to know, yeah, it's a great question and again, it's funny because I, you know, I was in that culture, I drank for 30 years. Me even like talking trash on. It is a little bit, a little bit funny. But yeah, you know, it's kind of just, it's guys, it's how guys relate. How do you, how do guys relate?

But let's cut to the chase. How do you actually up your protein game without turning your kitchen into a 24-7 diner? Here's my secret sauce High quality protein supplements. Not the sugary Frankenstein flavored kind, but the good stuff. Look for powders, plain and cool, with low sugars and real ingredients. Why do I love protein powder so much? It's like a Swiss army knife for your nutrition. Whiz it into a smoothie and you're sipping on a stealthy nutrient. Ninja, it's like tossing a flavor grenade into your bland breakfast routine. And boom, you're fueled up and fired up without the fuss. For those days when the thought of cooking is as appealing as a root canal, protein powder swoops in like the culinary Calvary.

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.

I'd love to hear your thoughts on this a bit more because I know we're referring to a lot of men right now. But I know this challenges everybody. I mean everybody can benefit from a booze vacation, but I, um, but I know this challenges everybody. I mean everybody can benefit from a booze vacation, um, but I like to talk about men specifically for a second, because there are some societal norms, especially in developed countries, especially in North America, where alcohol is just it's so normalized, right, and it's very prevalent everywhere. I mean, you brought up the Superbowl, like just think about sport, right? I I remember that was one of the toughest adjustments I had. I remember going to my first Canucks game and not having a beer the whole game, where I was doing at least one period before right, where that was a big adjustment but it was just so normalized.

I've talked about me being hospitalized through burnout and then also discovering I have an autoimmune condition. And just you know, there's been some pretty big health scares. But you know I look at them as more as wake up calls. They were these moments bringing my awareness to something that I obviously wasn't paying attention to. And as soon as I started paying attention to it and started changing certain things changing certain foods and how I moved, how I recover things slowly corrected itself. And this is the one thing I want to really hammer home today is that as soon as you decide to start making some changes, you'll start making some changes. It seems rather simple and almost idiotic how simple it is right. You're probably yelling at the thing yeah, duh, duh. Well, yeah, duh duh.

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.

Weight settles around the middle. The fuse at home gets shorter. None of it is dramatic, which is exactly the problem. It is slow enough to explain away for a decade. 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.

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.

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.

Your body cannot tell the difference between a predator and an unread email from your boss, so it holds the allocation system open and keeps making the same trade. Energy now, maintenance later. Run that for a decade and later arrives. That is the fatigue. It is the interest payment on ten years of borrowed energy. Gallup's most recent global workplace data puts 40 percent of employees experiencing a lot of stress on any given day, with only 20 percent engaged in their work. Those two numbers together describe a very specific exhaustion: high activation, low meaning. It is the most draining combination there is, and it is the water most of the men I coach have been swimming in since their early thirties. Nobody arrives at a coaching call saying they have chronic autonomic overactivation. They arrive with a pile of separate small complaints they have never connected.

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. Fat is the macronutrient that makes a meal satiating, and when it came out of the food supply, sugar and refined starch went in to replace it. If you are a man over 40 trying to change your body composition, cutting fat is not the lever. Is saturated fat bad for you?

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. Seven years ago I went looking for four dads over 40 to test an idea.

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.

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.

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.

One payment for the full twenty-eight days. The next group starts Monday 4 January and runs to Sunday 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?

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.

Actuaries quantify lives. That is a real job and a useful one. 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.

When your week falls apart there is a minimum version of the plan, so you keep the streak instead of quitting. Do I need a gym to join? 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. I am not in Vancouver. Can I still do it? Yes. The programme runs online and the cohorts always include men outside the city. The calls are scheduled Vancouver time, so check that works for you before you apply. What does MERGE60 cost, and can I get a refund? It is $999 for this cohort. A deposit holds your place and the balance is due before kickoff. The deposit is refundable up to seven days before the start date, and after kickoff there are no refunds. The terms page spells all of it out in plain language.

So I stopped selling hours and started building the smallest thing that actually holds. I coach men over 40, mostly dads, mostly people who are successful at everything except this. The framework is thirty minutes a day, which is two percent of it . Fifteen minutes of movement, five of stillness, ten of reading something that makes you better. I started using that framing in February 2016 and it has not changed, because the size is what makes it work. It is small enough that a man cannot argue with it, and small enough to survive a week where everything goes wrong. I wrote a book about it, The Whole Life Fitness Manifesto . I ran it as free 28-day cohorts for years. In 2019 I built a version specifically for dads over 40 and called it the #DadBodyProject , and went looking for four men to test it.