Most entrepreneurial dads want to stay healthy and fit, but they find it hard to balance their work, family, and health.
Most entrepreneurial dads want to stay healthy and fit, but they find it hard to balance their work, family, and health. Many times, it doesn't seem like there's enough time in the day for exercise and fitness when all the stresses of life pile up. This is why 60% of people over 40 are overweight or obese. What can be done to combat this?
Dr. Anthony Balduzzi created The Fit Father Project to help dads and business owners just like you. Dr. Anthony's own father died when he was only 9 years-old, because his dad was stressed out from work and financial stress that caused a horrible cancer to take his life at the age of 42. Dr. Anthony set his mind on not letting that happen to him, and teaching other dads how they can live long and full lives with their families.
The reality is, health and fitness is a bedrock for everything we do, including spiritual growth, creating great family memories, and performing well in our businesses. As we get older, we only face more health challenges. That's why if dads can combat them now in their 40s, it makes their 50s, 60s and later years so much better.
Listen as Dr. Anthony Balduzzi shares with Brett tips and secrets on how to get healthy and stay healthy amidst the business and stresses of life.
THE FIT FATHER PROJECT: https://www.fitfatherproject.com/
The Leaders In Health & Fitness For Busy Men 40+
Fit Father Project YouTube: @Fitfatherproject
Fit Father Project Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/fitfatherproject/
Fit Father Project Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/fitfatherproject/
Fit Father Project LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/fit-father-project/
DR. ANTHONY: Oftentimes we have many people and structures that depend on us, especially as dads. Maybe as business owners, as husbands. Our presence, our capacity supports a lot of other people. And especially in the 40s... what you end up doing and the habits that you establish in that decade are going to set you up for either a great and a strong 50 - 60 or a lot of pain ... in a bigger hole to dig out of.
BRETT: What's going on? This is Brett Snodgrass with another episode of The Iron Deep podcast. Got Dr. Anthony Balduzzi on the episode with me today. What's going on Dr. Anthony? -
DR. ANTHONY: I'm really happy to be here. It is a sunny hot day here in Scottsdale, Arizona. And yeah... I'm excited to drop in and talk about fatherhood. My Christian faith. Fit Father Project. And why dads need to be healthy. Especially today. -
BRETT: Yes! Yes. Definitely. Well this is a... this is obviously... it's a pretty Hot Topic in America, I think. You know, Fitness and Nutrition and staying healthy, right? It's... you know... Is it a small industry? -
DR. ANTHONY: Yeah, I mean, it's massive. Like there's more ... there's more noise than ever before in terms of different kinds of diets, approaches... It seems like if you're on YouTube or social media there's all this Fitness stuff. But at the same time, the reality is that we are more sick, more stressed, at least United States, than ever before. Like the stats for dads... and I particularly help dads over 40. I think it's like 60% of people over 40 are overweight or obese. Most people taking multiple prescription medications. You know... we have more information, but we're not be able to implement it. A lot of guys feel overwhelmed, and health gets put on the back burner, because we're juggling our family. We're juggling our deep priorities. And food is comfort. And we often don't feel like we have time for exercise. So it's this whole constellation of things where we we honestly are just trading our health for all these other things. And then eventually it comes and bites us in the ass. And many of us who have aging parents, we see that happening with them. Cognitive decline - Cancer rates are increasing - Pre-diabetes - Diabetes - it's like... it's kind of mess. -
BRETT: Yeah, yeah. No definitely. I think you hit the nail on the head. And... we're going to dive into that today guys. And I just want to introduce Dr. Anthony Balduzzi to you. Number one, he's the founder of the Fit Father Project and the Fit Mother Project. Most of our listeners, you know, we're talking to men and fathers, but we have women as well. But he is, again, the founder of the Fit Father Project. Host of other podcasts. Named those names... Fit Father and Fit Mother Project... He's a health expert dedicated to helping men and women over 40, which is very interesting. I want to talk about that. Optimizing their health with the over-arching goal of building and maintaining both a Fit Body and a Fit Mind for longevity. So welcome to the show, Dr. Anthony. Super excited! I got some deep questions for you. Number one, I want to just talk about your own father. I know you have a... you have quite the story. And this kind of really catapults you into this industry, I believe. And because of what you saw your own father go through. Can you tell us about that story? -
DR. ANTHONY: For sure. I've been on my own personal health journey for several decades now. And you know... I think when I look around a lot of people don't have a wake-up call with their health until they're in their fourth, fifth sometimes sixth decade of life. And stuff starts breaking down, and you start getting scared. I had the privilege of kind of getting it second-hand. I watched my own father growing up... bust his butt to put food on the table for me, my mom, my little brother. We were born in New York, and we kind of did a split time between Syracuse, New York where we were born - Toronto Canada. And I saw my dad just work himself to the Bone. You know? He didn't prioritize his health. He thought he was doing the best he could. And he was super stressed. And he got a cancer diagnosis. And it was like a really bad one. And I saw him fight through chemotherapy - radiation - surgery... for many years. And he ended up dying when he was just 42 years-old. I was nine... I was nine when I saw my dad die. And just to see... the pain that he went through... Obviously my pain on the other side of things of... seeing our whole family structure destabilize. And this realization that health is the foundation of what we love. It gives us our ability to show up and do the things. It gives us the ability and the energy to be around for our families to make memories. And we need to do certain things to take care of it. In the converse if we don't, eventually this whole system breaks down. And so, around that time, I just got serious. In that pain, I I felt a lot of motivation. In my young mind to figure out how I could get my body healthy, so I could kind of step-up and be the man of the house. And also, in time, make sure cancer didn't get me. And help other dads do the same. And so it started as a healing journey for me where I began to exercise. My mom gave me a pair of my dad's old dumbbells. I would keep them under my bed. And when she would tuck me in to go to sleep, I'd take my little Walkman thing out, and then pull the weights out, and do my exercises at night. And what I found is that I began to become stronger. but not just physically, like mentally too. As I was exerting all this pain and angst that I had inside, I began to heal. And I was ... I was moving forward in life, and I was feeling life energy and passion. And that catapulted me into decades and decades of studying Nutrition - Exercise Science - went to Naturopathic Medical School - and I'm proud to say like in memory of my dad, I started the Fit Father project about 10 years ago. And we've helped 60,000 dads in over a hundred countries, through our programs, get healthy. And yeah... I just think it's such an important thing. And many guys struggle with it. And the cool thing is that there are simple systems that you can input around your nutrition, your recovery, your exercise - that work for busy parents - that are age appropriate - that work for people over 40 - and you don't have to have this all or nothing ... kind of experience where your health gets left behind. Or even if you're someone who's doing decent. Like... there's so many ways you can take things to the next level with with good strategies. -
BRETT: Yeah, no. I love that. I love that. Well thanks so much for sharing. I know that that story, you know, is is dear to your heart. And I appreciate you sharing with our audience that, about your own family. And so... you talked about you studied natura... naturopathic medicine. And in nutrition and psychology. And I think my question would be that there's a lot of things out there, right? We've already talked about this industry. And... But you've taken an approach with the Fit Father Project, which honestly, I'm 44. And when I saw that it really kind of struck a cord with me. Because most of the time, if I watch a fitness routine or I get on beachbody.com, or I do CrossFit, or whatever it is... that you know... there's certain things that I might be asked to do or that maybe I don't ... maybe feel as comfortable doing. So this number one kind of struck with me, because I'm a father, I'm getting a little bit older, I'm in my 40s now. And I'm feeling things just... just a little bit different. So talk to us about, you know. You've really gone this direction with over 40 and 50 and 60 year-olds. Talk to us about why in that arena. -
DR. ANTHONY: Well, I think it's this critical point in life where oftentimes we have many people and structures that depend on us especially as dads maybe as business owners as husbands like we're we're in a leadership Lyn pin of structure where you know our presence our capacity supports a lot of other people and like on the Converse when we kind of deteriorate a lot of things around us begin to crumble and destabilize as well that's what I experienced with my family I also think it's a time where your health and Your vitality is at this Crossroads where you just can't rely on the Vigor of Youth and the kind of resilience that you had maybe in your 20s and your 30s and and especially in the 40s like what you end up doing and the habits that you establish in that decade are going to set you up for either a great and a strong 50 60 or a lot of pain in in in a big hole to dig out of there's a lot of changes that happen hormonally and metabolically around this period of Life metabolism isn't working as efficiently as it used to recovery from exercise takes you know a little bit longer joints don't feel the same that they used to and so there's a lot of challenging factors and a lot of guys faced with the general busyness of life and all these other aspects kind of say screw it or they just try to do the things they did in the past and it's not working for them and frustration Creeps in and now we're creating a more complex issue here that's like multifaceted frustrating hard to get a hold of um and often times that leads guys down these these pretty poor paths with their health so I I Zone in on on this decade of life because I think it's like this this halime midpoint where you can make a lot of changes it's also a time where you can exert a lot of influence on your kids if you have those and and what they're going to be doing and modeling your behaviors so it's just like a such a high leverage point in time and it's where I saw my dad kind of slip up and that's why I want to help people in that age range because there's so much much leverage and you're still young and have enough Vitality you can make massive changes like we've literally helped people who are 200 pounds overweight in their late 50s early 60s get all the weight off and now start running like half marathons and strength training three four times a week so like you can make massive changes in in any of these decades it's just if you catch it sooner and you get on the stuff like now it's going to be a lot easier yeah no I love that I'm always fascinated kind of by the stories that like you mentioned someone is super out of shape uh they they haven't put their health a priority for years and all of a sudden now they do and they make a massive transformation in their life and I want to ask you like you know maybe some of the stories that you've even seen is or ask you the question I guess this is um do do people have to like face something to to realize to put their health a priority um what are some of the like the the Mind things because I think a lot of this is mind I mean again it's like everyone knows everyone knows how to how to get in shape honestly and lose weight hey eat eat healthy exercise get some good sleep right but it's so it's so difficult to do like you said we're the sickest most overweight country ever and uh so there's something going on the mind can you talk to us about the psychological barriers that prevent people from putting their health first this is such an important question and I I'd say it's even like the basis of our methodology in fact when we have new fit fathers who come into our program before we eat them give them a meal plan or talk about exercise the first step of our program is going through what we call creating a mission statement which is this deep mental emotional connection work because at the basis of actually you know all human behavior and in fact I'm going to explain how the brain is actually structured we have these deep motivational systems that need to be activated and aligned for a sustainable path because I could hand you some kind of nutrition plan that has all the right Foods or kind of work out and you might do it for some time but then the friction of your life and the things eventually you're going to fall off track if you haven't connected really deeply and I think the mistake people make with with health is they don't realize and make this conscious connection of how health is impacting all these different areas of their life that they care about so and I'll throw this out here I think if we go into a a church in America today we might still find very similar percentages to who like how people are overweight it still might be 50% of people are overweight and and that that goes to shows and demonstrate these are people that heavily value their faith and their connection their walk with Christ walk with God but they haven't made a connection in terms of how they actually put food in their body and treat their body and that's actually directly related to that value um so what we help talk about that can you type in that a little bit more um because because I think that's just a really important point is you're exactly right yeah we'll walk on the churches and again you know not to put anything on the church but a lot of times they they have unhealthy food you go to their events and there is unhealthy food around and but a lot of times people in the in our world Christian circles they don't talk about their health as much they they might even talk about or brag about the other direction of hey let's eat all the bacon we can can you know because we're men and and all that so talk to us about the the the connection between your body and and health and being fit with their faith for sure and and and as a part of this broader conversation what we what we're doing is we're creating a deep deeper level of motivational scaffolding about why the health is so important because if you're just looking at the pizza is just pizza or the bacon is just bacon it's not a big deal then you're not going to have the same motivation but when you connect and you see holy crap like my choices of my food are actually directly related to my walk with God my ability to show up and be a good parent and be a good role model my ability to have energy and perform at work my own internal feelings of integrity and wholeness with you know being on track with my life my ability to create more money because I have more mental sharpness Clarity due to this kind of stuff wow like now those decisions have a lot more weight and there's a deeper motivational framework now as it relates to to the body like we come in this human form we are humans we have this Human Experience and we are embodied and the quality of our life experience is is based in the energy of this body which is how good is the circulation how balanced are your neurotransmitters how much capacity do you have to move to serve to connect the strength the stamina all that is direct directly related to the inputs you're giving your body on a daily basis with food with sleep with exercise um and and you know I don't think it's a surprise that you look into all these religious Traditions certainly in Christianity that practices with body Temperance like fasting are completely baked in Jesus gets baptized what does he immediately go do he goes fast for 40 days there is a physical component to expressing Temperance in the body and and and in the face of Temptation and that actually brings us to higher level of I guess you could say control um of not being a a slave to our different kinds of senses when I look at like maybe something some things that are written down in the in the Ten Commandments there's a lot of like you know we're talking Old Testament now obviously a lot of things that you know you should not do this you should not do this don't covet don't harm your neighbor don't don't kill your neighbor things like this we we we know these ideas what effectively they're doing is is creating restraints around our senses they're saying hey don't like watch your eyes make sure they're not lusting you know watch your hands and make sure they're not too greedy or or damaging to people we have this this sense of taste and I guess gluttony is another sense that uh people we don't we don't put it in the same category as other things but a lot of people are ultimately enslaved with this idea of of taste sensation that's kind of taken a hold of them and is actually poisoning themselves with food that's not good now I I'm a huge believer in having balance and not to say you can't ever have pizza or Burgers we have our our members have these things every week it's just planned and proactive we have them build in free meals but I would just take a deeper look if you do realize that you're using food as an escape you're using food as a way to you know self-medicate or de-stress and you know deep down that it's actually harmful for you but you continue to do it I would say this is an experience in some sense of sin it's an experience of deviating from what you know is your high path and not being honest with yourself about it and there is a path forward where you can enjoy these things but it's in a more temperate moderate whole way and I'll tell you this like I I've having practiced health for decades now with with very I guess you could say dedicated nutrition I've had periods where I've been totally on it totally off it everywhere in between and I know that I my walk with God and with Christ is so much more clear when my body is on point when my belly is bloated when I've eated the wrong Foods when my energy is tanked because I'm not on my routines I can't I can't hear God as much feel like I can fall into more fear and anxiety and into less trust when my body is optimized I have this life energy flowing through me I feel like I can be the extension of of God's work into the world in my small circles and I'll tell you this too I I had a pretty powerful experience early this year I went down to Mexico and I did a Darkness Retreat I'm not sure if you're familiar with these but they're a completely dark room and you stay in for a prolonged period of time I spent seven days in a completely pitch black room basically praying meditating and and you know just like having a deep internal experience and one of the main things that I found was I fasted for the first half of that experience I was crystal clear I I had some of the most deep profound experiences with God that I've ever had in my life in that state and then when I began to eat food and in a lot of too much food there was a couple times where I overindulged when they started serving me food I felt like this whole connection was was dampened by at least 75% it was like it was so I I'm I'm trying to say I think there's a deeper impact of of how we eat and how we move in terms of our actual Integrity in our faith walk and if you feel like you're a little lost right now a little anxious you're not feeling as connected to God and purpose then actually working on your body can be a path into the spiritual I think we're having this like physical into spiritual spiritual into physical they're both like they're feeding into each other in in my experience yeah no definitely I mean I can definitely I can definitely relate to you and especially as you get older and we're entering in to this season I I I can tell a lot more now than I did before of yeah yeah oh I'm eating I'm eating bad I'm I'm I'm not in my routines I'm not in my rhythms and uh and and let's just talk about that sometimes uh it's just it hits me and I'm like man that's why I'm feeling anxious that's why I'm feeling depressed and and it all goes back to that so let's talk about again let's revisit the the psychological barriers that men or women face in maybe their 40s or 50s or 60s uh something is going on their mind what are some of those different things that's like blocking them from taking that step taking that action and move forward well anytime you want to make a change you need you need three different aspects that need to be aligned the first one is you need this deeper motivational context which we've kind of talked about and I won't spend too much time there but you need to make deep connections and really figure out a true why and we actually have our members like write this out into a mission statement like I it's time for me to make a change these are the costs if I don't make this change this is how health impacts all my values of being a parent financially spiritually mentally emotionally you know relationally all these areas and you get very clear on that why and it's got to be deeper than just how you look although that can be part of it it needs to be as wide and as networking as you can possibly do with that the next thing is you need Clarity on a plan you need to actually have a clear plan that you can execute on because we can have all the energy possible but unless it's focus is just scattered and dissipated and we have a lot of other things taking bandwidths you need to have a plan that's like simple and clear and that plan needs to address systems in the areas of how do you eat how do you recover how do you train so like you need a system you need a meal plan you need an exercise plan you need to have a recovery or sleep or restoration plan you need to have systems in these areas and if you don't have systems in these areas you're eventually just going to be stuck in the same current that you have so you need to have clear systems and those systems need to be as friction free as possible and this is a big problem with a lot of health programs is is their like the workouts are not age appropriate so they eventually break you down you fall off track you get injured the nutrition plan is too restrictive or too complicated you can't take the time to do all the meal prep you don't actually really enjoy the foods it's slowly building up friction that over time is going to derail you and then you reinitiate this guilt and shame cycle so it's this three this three-part process then of like Paving a good environment having that motivational framework and having a clear plan we we and many other great health coaches and trainers like we help people nail this and the cool thing is you don't have to figure this out all on your own like there are people who like me we we have the program you can just sign up and follow it like we've paved the path run so many people through here and it's a weird thing where I think a lot of guys have this kind of like Pride that they feel like they just need to do this area all by themselves like man I just know what I need to do I just need to go start jogging cutting back on my carbs and doing all this and you know they never really get traction and then we look at like some of the highest performers in the world like professional athletes they probably have like three or four different coaches like KOB bran had two shooting coaches like a defensive coach like you know like they invest in all these things and and at the same time we don't get coaching in these areas that are honestly so much more important than even playing a game this is the longevity of your body um so and the other thing I I think it's important to be surrounded by likeminded people in community a lot of us when we're unhealthy are surrounded by other people who are in similar habits and patterns and you know I think it's a famous quote from Jim ran that we're kind of like the sum total in our in our characteristics of the five people we spend the most time with and oftentimes unhealthy environments are you know they have a momentum to themselves so shaking that energy up is important and this is why online communities masterminds like yours communities like fitf Father are just so nurturing and protective because it creates like this stronger field of like of goodness that like elevates you and keeps you on track through the hard times because the hard times are inevitable yeah no definitely uh couple questions on on this so we talked about mission statement you talked about you got to have a simple and and clear plan uh you talked about these four elements nutrition exercise recovery and sleep um I want to talk about there there's something that goes on with people they go in and then they go out they go in and then they go out they try to get in shape and then they fall off and then and then they go then they join another gym and then they fall off and then they try this nutrition plan and then they stop it after two months like can you talk that that push and pull and there's something I heard the other day is just about again consistency right can can you talk about this a little bit people's in and out and then how important is it just to I don't know can you talk about this just the slow go so for for sure it's it's it's uh I call that it's it's really rooted in something that's called The All or Nothing mindset it's you either feel like you're all in and it feels so good you're like man I'm GNA do it this time I'm GNA commit you get that Rush of those neurotransmitters the dopamine the excitement like you're going to get after it um and and then you honestly pick some kind of plan that typically has friction in it it's not necessarily going to be sustainable but you feel that motivation and then it Fizzles out because it's not built to be sustainable and it's the same kind of mindset that happens when someone like has an unhealthy meal for breakfast it's like man I went to the office I had a doughnut I wasn't planning on having that like that stinks and then the day is shot oh it's now it's a cheat day and now you go proceed and have two more unhealthy meals eat another 1500 calories where it's like in real in realist ially you only had like a 200 calorie doughnut like if you would have just eaten clean for the rest of the day that'd be like no problem for the body it's like we just get on these huge huge Cycles over the All or Nothing mindset and it's it just needs to be called out that we're in these patterns and and it's because we want to do well it's like authentic feeling like we want to be honest we really want to get this area nailed and so we just throw this kind of like really extreme approach whereas the truth of it is once you have like a daily system and we can maybe spend a few minutes getting into to at least on the nutrition front what I suggest to give someone a daily system then your actual mindset zones in out of this big picture am I on a plan how am I doing like this kind of global projection down to like working the daily plan and and then the slip-ups become like learning experiences and then you're just trying to rematch to the plan as much as possible so you have a meal you had pizza at night the next morning you know exactly what to do with your morning routine rehydration consistent meal number one and you get right back back on it and that tightens these Loops of drift where you're not drifting all off the rails for then weeks and months it's just like okay you had like a Bad Day right back on track and you know the things in nature that are are strongest are not the most rigid things they're typically things that have strength and structure but some degree of flexibility like palm trees would not survive hurricanes if they were rigid and brittle like they have sway to them right they're strong but they have sway same thing needs to be modeled in our plans if we're in all or nothing thinking if we're on the plan and off the plan that's obviously G to it's going to break it's going to snap it's it's it's not it's not realistic um so it's a habit of the mind that needs to be broken and it's so so common and it just needs to be broken in the dojo of practice Yeah know I love that so and and I'm kind of like I know some people have that extreme system I'm I'm kind of like that I've been in and out of different plans so let's talk about me you know uh not me but someone like me 44 year old male I'm a dad I got four kids I own a business I do podcasting I do Ministry thing like I got a lot of hats that I'm trying to figure out and uh and sometimes yeah my health uh kind of kind of goes out the window and I want to plan I want to be consistent I want to it's not like like you know I was telling my telling my group I had my my 12 guys today we're talking about like I don't know if I I don't care about having like a six-pack I just wanna I want to have energy I want to be able to play with the kids I wna you know feel when I get home from work I want to have that energy with my family you know and not just to be man I'm I'm tired right so um take take someone like me and and where do we kind of start you know obviously we talk about the mission statement a little bit but a simple plan for someone like myself I think it's really important to speak into what is the order of priorities and the hierarchy of things that are most important that you focus on and that also informs like what can fall away or into the background for a short period of time when you get really busy when it comes to the body like foundationally at the bottom of this pyramid Health performance and energy is sleep and nutrition these things are far more important than exercise and a lot of people have these these ideas where it's kind of part of that All or Nothing mindset oh I'm busy oh I can't get my workout in and then this the crumbling effect starts to happen oh then they stop eating healthy or or now I can't do these other things what I'm trying to say is is basically for health and performance and this is modeled in the longest living people around the planet you know the centenarians around the planet the 100y old plus communities of people they're not doing P9 X they're eating Natural Foods they're walking they're gardening they're connected with the natural sun cycle they're around family and they're breathing like and they have tons of energy so it's important to remember that there's certain things that can fade away during really busy times you don't have a lot of bandwidth so what what should be in the plan regardless of where you're at in any given day is a great nutrition plan which I do want to spend some time talking about ideally prioritizing sleep because you know if you're not if you're not if you're constantly sleep deprived and you need to use a ton of caffeine to feel energized your body is in a tough hormonal State cortisol is always high you're not going to process carbs as well and you're kind of like in the stress hormonal state that no matter what you throw on top of that it's suboptimal so the sleeping nutrition and then daily movement which could mean like a walk like take a meeting walking or walk with your family after dinner or even just like take a work break for 5 10 minutes do some squats some push-ups and just get a little bit of daily movement the body needs daily movement to be healthy it does not need formal workouts formal workouts are essential for high level of fitness and muscularity if that's what you want for sure you need to be doing some resistance training strength training a couple times a week but for daily Health you need to get the walking the food whatever the and I'm sorry I just say the mindset now food is interesting because it's either like heal Health promoting or it's poisonous like it's it's it's like unfortunately it falls in these buckets like you eat inflammatory you know burger and fries and stuff like that that actually like harms your health dis regulates your blood sugar introduces en Al toxins into your body at the same time you eat like a really healthy meal for you might be like avocado eggs berries or something you know like feels great for you like that literally gives you energy it gives your cells vitamins and minerals that they need to produce more ATP it helps you feel good internally and it sustains you so the choices you make in your food probably have some of the biggest impact and for busy dads you need to get a system that you can run with your nutrition um and one of the things that we do is we help people standardize a meal system for them and that's not to say you eat the same meals every single meal of every single day but I believe in the beginning of a day it's a time where we want to build momentum we don't need a lot of uh choice we don't want to make a lot of choices don't want to have a lot of decision fatigue so we help guys standardize their first one to two meals of the day and make them dialed in locked in healthy foods they love don't require a lot of digestive energy and then dinner can be a little more free and variable so you have a play that you can run every single day that's quick convenient energizing and then okay you slip up one day you have right back to the default plan in the morning so we're a big Believers in set meal timing and having go-to meals early in the day to build momentum I love that and I I want to just revisit the the sleep thing and it's just my own experience like yesterday I was feeling amazing uh I was just like had so much energy and I uh so much energy and I was just feeling awesome and uh and I think because I got a really good night's sleep and then last night night I had to wake up I had a small group we do it at 6:08 in the morning and I wasn't quite prepared for it so I woke up I think at 4:30 in the morning so anyways I look back I got six hours of sleep and I was like I don't feel I don't feel that good I'm like man where's that where's that energy and a lot of it comes down comes down the prioriti and sleep and that's just really really different because most of us really focus on oh I need to get in shape I need to eat right I need to exercise those are the two yes right totally and it's it's the truth and here here's a little bit of a a nail down somewh of the science to drive that Point home um dur sleep is our Master restoration cycle for the body it's where we heal it's where we release the growth hormone it's where our brain goes through these profound different brain wave states where we consolidate memories and emotions we process things that happen through the day and our brain actually literally cleans itself we have a lymphatic system in the brain that cleans out cellular debris from all the the metabolism that happens from thinking and we get brain fog it's like real there's like a chemical basis to it when we don't run through enough of these Cycles and then what we have to do is go use stimulants and caffeine the next day and just stack on top of that and it's a vicious cycle here's another thing like your ability to process nutrients I mentioned this slightly before but I want to reemphasize it like you you become insulin resistant which is the basis of metabolic dysfunction when you miss sleep so you could be eating the same healthy foods the next day but you're not going to process it as well when you miss sleep your stress hormone cortisol is going to be high which is going to chew through your muscle tissue over time make it harder for your body to release fat so it's like if you're not getting this nailed um and nailed looks different for every other guy you know every guy is a little different sleep needs Etc but like it's something you absolutely must invest in here's a couple like practical tips I think I should do one is try not to eat too late one of the biggest things we know now is you eat a big meal late at night it's going to disrupt your sleep so I'd say like if you can start having an earlier dinner and kind of begin this fasting period a little bit earlier it's going to help a lot of our members try to have dinner at 56 pm and then kind of begin their fasting window it's going to improve your sleep tremendously I would also watch your light exposure get some of those blue blocking glasses or get those filters on your phones like it's so important because that aberant light when the sun is down our human system is attuned to that we're not meant to have all these blasting lights that suppresses our melatonin production so sleep's a big discussion I know we're getting towards the end of our conversation today but you you really got to work on that in a big way no I love that I love that let's uh let's just talk about this real fast so you wanted to talk about nutrition food and I want to just mention intermittent fast that's kind of a big thing going on right now and a lot of lot of guys my friends are starting to look at that a little bit um food nutrition start there and then and then discuss good intermittent fasting bad talk about yeah for sure okay well well first off I I think when it comes down to food what you want to do is before we're looking at the specific kinds of foods to have is create your your meal timing schedule like what is your schedule that works and that schedule might be different for you Monday through Friday work times than it might be over the weekend and that's fine but we actually want to lay down the Scaffolding in a proactive decision of this is when I eat this is my nutrition system during these days and in this context so for example Monday through Friday you might find that you know you just want to be productive in the morning you're not that hungry and you're fine with having water and some coffee or tea until 10:30 11: a.m. and having your first meal then so you might do like an intermittent fasting in the morning which is like first meals at 11: you have a snack at 2 or 3 and you have dinner at 6 that could be a fine nutritional frame work you could be a classic I love to have breakfast kind of guy and you do the breakfast lunch snack and dinner template so breakfast at 7 lunch at noon optional snack at two dinner at 56 like all that's fine but you actually want to choose a template because if you don't do this ultimately what you're allowing is reactivity to creep into your nutrition plan oh you know maybe I had a meal maybe I didn't oh I'm getting a little hungry now oh I'm not prepared I go do this and the second you allow reactivity to come you're activating those same patterns of All or Nothing you're activating these same patterns of on the plan off the plan so really having proactivity in there is is super important um what we recommend people do first thing in the morning most guys need to do way better at this is rehydration we're talking like 20 to 32 ounces of water within 15 20 minutes of waking up your body needs water right away get it in there it's more important than any kind of food intake even before your coffee and you want to get even better energy uh from that is to add some minerals to that these can be a mineral mineral supplements some Trace mineral drops but honestly some Celtic Sea salt has a ton of different trace minerals in it it has a sodium chloride about maybe an eighth of a teaspoon or quarter of a teaspoon in there water and minerals this is the basis of how our body conducts electricity our cells need all this stuff for energy production so yeah that's what you do first thing in the morning and what's cool about that is I literally consider that in a sense a form of prayer it is like an intentional action you take every day first thing in the morning giving your body this vital substance that so poetically makes up around 70% of our planet and 70% of our bodies is the basis of life and you were going back and you were saying thank you God for this new day here is some revitalizing fluid and now I'm starting this off with a good healthy note and that kickstarts this healthy positive um momentum moving forward into your day so we rehydrate in the morning for your first meal of the day whether you have it at breakfast or whether you have intermittent fasting it comes a little bit later um we like to make it super simple you don't need to think about it but I want that meal to be high in protein high in vitamins and minerals have a good amount of healthy fats and slightly lower in carbs I'm a big believer not in like this don't have carbs we have a balanced approach to nutrition we allow guys to have rice and sweet potatoes and veggies and stuff in the right portions at the right times but earlier in the day is a time to go slightly lower carbohydrate um it supports good energy production in the day so what a lot of guys have on our plans for a breakfast meal number one is some kind of power smoothie which you know has a bunch of good stuff as you can imagine the greens the protein you know all the good stuff and we have recipes for that and it tastes great keep you full until lunch maybe around 5600 calories tons of vitamins minerals you can do it anywhere um it could be an egg based recipe eggs cooked any style with a sighted avocado or some different kinds of fruits but it's something that's so easy and dialed in you don't need to think about it because again we're now cranking the wheel of consistency every day with your nutrition for lunch or meal 2 we have guys make healthy sandwiches on Ezekiel bread or some sprouted organic bread or they do a salad Protein Plus Greens kind of concept or if you've cooked in bulk you just use a little bit of a batch of what the dinner was the night before let's say the night before you had some kind of like taco night with the family you had some grass-fed brown beef fajita veggies a little bit of like rice whatever you just overcook and you have something the next day so it's like this whole plan begins to feed itself with consistency and for for snacks we actually recommend people standardize goto snacks like and and have them around the house get rid of all the crap that's going to be tempting for you and pretty much most people it's going to be like jerkies nuts and seeds fruits um or approved protein bars that aren't full of crap and we basically help you find your best and Slot things this is what you carry with you when you travel this is what you keep in the car it's what you keep in the office so like you have this tool belt um of things that you can constantly deploy and for dinner we talk about this concept of the perfect plate where without needing to decide exactly what you're eating every single day if you take a blank plate of food you fill it half with some kind of Veggie you love this could be broccoli salad asparagus fajita veggies brussels sprouts roasted whatever half with some green veggie a quarter with any kind of protein you love and a quarter with any kind of healthy carbs you love so again that could be like chicken breast with some avocado it could be steak um you know with some sweet potato like you can make so many different combinations that framework of the perfect plate is almost always going to contain around 500 to 700 calories so without even counting calories you're basically going to be dialed in it's so great your family can interface with this framework too because okay maybe your kids won't eat a ton of the veggies but you can make it all work in in the framework and and you start to run this play and you're going to learn and dial into your unique nutrition plan and this is what makes it different is we're not trying to get you to fit some plan that I made on paper I'm helping give you a framework that you can discover what uniquely works for you on the different days in the different seasons in the different pressures and guess what this changes seasonally maybe you have busy time and work and you need to do more like takeout kind of stuff at certain periods of time like the plan needs to actually go with you in the different seasons and pressures of your life weekends might be a little bit different but once you develop this system and this plan and practice it and practice it you become Rock Solid because you've developed something internal something that you own and it's yours and you're developing real real habits not just another fat diet man I love it I love it so much good stuff uh we could probably go on again for for days really just talking about this so important guys and uh so but Dr Anthony I want to just really give you the opportunity the fitf father project obviously you talked about you take men and women fit mother project too but we're talking about men here um you take them into this program and you kind of help them along this how do they get involved what does that even look like again most let's say exercise programs you might buy this or watch this and and there's no guide to it how do you guys how are you guys different working with people over 40 in this industry well first off like our entire program and methodology mindset nutrition exercise is all geared for busy dads over 40 or on the mom's side busy moms over 40 and so our websites are fitf father pro.com or fitm pro.com you can go to those sites you can see hundreds of different case studies and the process of is is this for starters we get people on our 30-day plan which runs you through getting your your mission statement in check getting started on the fit father meal plan and doing our starter exercise a few times per week and in the first 30 days a lot of guys lose 10 pounds some even up to 15 pounds that's not pure fat but it's just like clearing out bloat feeling so much better getting on the plan and feeling that positive momentum and from there we have a full year-long transformation curriculum of ongoing workouts improving and Shing you up even more with nutrition when you join the program you get our app as well as like our direct access to our coaches where we're actually emailing you stay in contact with you constantly to make sure you're getting up and going on the play plan it covers all the videos the nutrition the community of all the guys it's just like we've spent 10 years building this amazing experience it's like you join and and we we walk you through the the onboarding of getting all your habits in place um and the 30-day program is the best place to start I'll also say if you're someone who is interested you know certainly go to the website you can also check out our YouTube channel we have hundreds of videos on our YouTube channel um as well but if the most people who get the best results actually commit to the program because they get to interface and meet the other brother and the Brotherhood and like it just builds a lot of motivation when you actually put some money behind something and commit and join it's a lot more powerful than just perusing yeah no I love it I love it well thank you so much guys make sure you go check out the website what what's the website again fitf father pro.com fitf father project.com make sure you guys go check that that out we're going to put that in our show notes on our YouTube channel as well and our website and Dr Anthony I know that you are a busy busy person right I mean you're doing uh you know some crazy stuff you've been on some amazing podcasts high high high level podcasts you're helping out thousands of people thank you so much for joining us today and helping out our community at iron deep and appreciate you so much man thank you so much for the time today
