How To Achieve Your Fitness Goals Before Or After Age 40 With Allan Misner

[00:00:00] Jeremy: If you're old enough to recognize that clip from the 1987 film lethal weapon, then you probably feel like you're also too old for this shit, especially physical. But as you're about to hear, there's always an opportunity to improve. As long as you have one more breath in you, you can get healthier. You can get more fit

[00:00:19] Zach: that's according to our guest today, Alan Meisner is the host of the 40 plus fitness podcast and an NASM certified personal trainer. He'll share why commitment is the key to his very unique wellness goal.

[00:00:31] This is the fit mess conversations with world-class experts in the fields of mental, physical, and emotional health. And this episode 

[00:00:40] Allan Misner: fitness has fit for task, be the person you want to be, be the person that can wipe your own butt at 105, which is when acquire strength, mobility.

[00:00:48] I hope not stamina, but see. It depends on 

[00:00:52] Zach: the day. Right. 

[00:00:53] Now, here are your hosts, Zach and Jeremy. 

[00:00:56] Zach: O

[00:00:56] Jeremy: Welcome to the fit, brought to you by athletic greens. Thanks for listening while you're doing whatever it is you're doing right now. I'm Jeremy and he's Zach. We've been through all kinds of struggles and ended up stronger because of them. And we want to help you do the same. So if you're sick of your own shit and ready to make a change, you're in the right.

[00:01:13] Zach, you're not too old for this shit yet. Are you?

[00:01:17] Zach: Uh, before today. No, I was not too old for this shit. , the workout at the gym today, , crushed me and I think I left my soul on the ground at the gym. wasn't alone though. There was other people there who were younger than me, who seemed to have trouble as well. But when I finish a workout, I like to walk it off 

[00:01:37] Jeremy: Sure. Yeah. 

[00:01:38] Zach: today.

[00:01:39] I just fell over. 

[00:01:40] Jeremy: Literally fell over like lost 

[00:01:41] Zach: literally, I fell over like big snow angel kind of arms out legs out. And I just sat there for two minutes going, what the fuck? 

[00:01:51] Jeremy: What was the 22 year old version of you saying to the 42 year old version of you?

[00:01:57] Zach: The 22 year old version of me wouldn't have been able to do 

[00:01:59] Jeremy: Oh, there you go.

[00:02:01] Zach: So when I was 22, I was 300 pounds. Smoked cigarettes drank mountain Dew all day McDonald's every day. And like, I remember trying to run, , a lap around a track when I was 22, I got like halfway around it and I fell over like, and this workout was quite a bit tougher.

[00:02:18] So I'm in much better shape at 42 than I ever was when I was told. 

[00:02:23] Jeremy: Yeah, I I'm, I'm getting there. I definitely, I feel like I started over this year. The, the workouts I've been doing every day, that consistency and showing up, I can feel the difference in my body. I can see the difference. The scale is a fucking liar. I'll tell you that much. I don't, I don't believe a word.

[00:02:36] That thing tells me, but I'm definitely seeing the rewards even at 45. Which is weird to say out loud, that, that I'm feeling good. When I started this journey however many years ago, it was now I've completely lost track because I'm old and senile, but I remember feeling like this feeling like, oh, right.

[00:02:56] So if I actually move this body and build some muscle and do some things, it can do a lot more than I'm used to being able to do. I was in the pool with my kid, the other. And I was there with another dad and he was doing the, you know, the ultimate warrior press. He was lifting his daughter up over his head with both arms and throwing her across the pool.

[00:03:13] And I was like, oh God, I wish I could do that. I wish I was that dad. That would be cool. And then I went, I'm going to give it a try. Let me see if I can do that. Now. Literally did this, lifted her up and threw her through her further. And I was like, I didn't know, I could do that. That's awesome. And me six months ago, couldn't have been able to do that.

[00:03:32] That's part of what we're going to be talking about in this episode is being fit for the things that you want to do with your life. It's not about having the perfect abs or looking a certain way or, or whatever it's being able to actually live the life that you want to live.

[00:03:46] Instead of being the guy who's in the pool of this kid going, oh, I wish I could do that.

[00:03:49] Zach: That's what I tell my daughter all the time. She questioned me a couple of times about why do you go to the gym? Why do you do that? It is hard. Yeah. And like , you know, take out the endorphin rush, but like why in the fuck would you do something like that? yourself. It's because , when you need to do anything else in your life, you can show up for it with, , the strength, the confidence, the mindset, like the mindset behind working out and doing all these exercises just translates into every part of your life. And I know we're talking about physical fitness, but you know, one of the things that I need to do to make sure that I'm ready to tackle life as it comes at me is to make sure my nutrition is in order. And that's why I take athletic greens. 

[00:04:29] I started taking athletic greens because I really needed to have a sufficient. That tasted great, gave me all the things that I needed. , and I didn't want to have to take 10 pills a day or, spend all of my time cooking all the meals.

[00:04:43] I try and get my nutrients from food, but let's face it. We don't get everything we need every day from food. So athletic greens was a great solution for me. It tastes great. Gives me everything I need for more energy, better gut health optimized immune system. 

[00:04:58] It has less than a gram of sugar and there's no nasty chemicals or artificial anything. And it actually does taste good. And for what you get, it's less than $3.

[00:05:06] and right now is the time to incorporate better health and athletic greens is a perfect start to make it easy.

[00:05:12] Athletic greens is going to give you a free one-year supply of immune supporting vitamin D and five free travel packs with your first purchase. All you have to do is visit athletic greens.com/fit mass. Again, that's athletic greens.com/fit. Mess to take ownership over your health and pick up the ultimate daily nutritional insurance.

[00:05:31] that link will be on the show notes and it's plastered all over our website@thefitness.com. 

[00:05:36] Jeremy: All right. Our guest today is Alan Meisner. He has a long list of qualifications that may his perspective on health and wellness important, but he hasn't always been the picture of perfect. His life was once completely out of balance until he woke up one morning with a hangover and a new direction for his life. 

[00:05:52] Allan Misner: 

[00:05:52] I met NSAM certified personal trainer with the specialties and corrective exercise behavior change. And. Fitness nutrition. I'm also certified by the functional aging Institute as a certified functional aging specialist.

[00:06:06] Also certified as an online trainer at level two with a OTA. So I've been working on a lot of sort of certifications. I host the 40 plus fitness podcast and I have a Facebook community right now. We're around 1700 people. Very active. Fun group. I do online personal training. I also wrote a book called the wellness roadmap.

[00:06:28] And then I bought a gym here in Bocas Del Toro called island fitness, and my wife bought a bed and breakfast here. So, I have quite a bit going on for a semi-retired guy. But I got here from the fact that I was not retired. I was actually working very hard in the corporate environment and doing quite well.

[00:06:46] With my job. But I found myself at 37 years old basically obese out of shape, feeling terrible, unable to do things I wanted to do. And quite frankly and I warned you guys. I felt like a fat bastard. I didn't like myself. I didn't like the relationships I was in. I didn't like the way I was treating my family.

[00:07:05] I didn't like the way I was treating myself. And so all the feelings I had about why everything else in my life sucked was. Out. I mean, it was like, I was, I was not a nice person and I, I realized that one day and I said, okay, I gotta fix this. Now, if anyone's tried to lose weight, try to get fit, try to change their life, change their relationships and do all those things at the same time.

[00:07:29] It's hard to say the least. And, and so I went eight years kind of bouncing back and forth between trying this, doing this. Almost killing myself, doing that, trying to get rid of these relationships, change jobs, all this different stuff I did to try to get myself in line and it hit me one morning.

[00:07:48] I woke up, I was in Malaysia. I was in a hotel room. I was working there and I was hung over and I felt like crap. And I just, it just sort of hit me. Why have I been so successful at my career and not successful at anything else?

[00:08:05] And what it was was I committed myself to my career. I was married to my career, you know?

[00:08:11] And so that, that relationship that you have when you just do it, you don't even think about it. You know, This is people say, well, I, I have no willpower. It's like, well, do you have willpower in your relationships where you're committed and answers? Well, I don't need willpower. I'm just not going to do it.

[00:08:25] That was the missing ingredient I had not committed. To change. And at that moment I did, I said, okay, I'm going to change this. I signed up for a mud run glow mud run with my daughter, and I said, let's do this. And I did it. And then I said, okay, this is, this is what I was meant to be. This is what I was supposed to be.

[00:08:48] My daughter's 20 years old. She's a level one CrossFit coach. I meant to be a part of her life. I've meant to be a participant in her life, not a spectator. And then I committed to a tough Mudder eight months. I was nowhere close to being ready to run a tough Mudder. So it was sorta like pudding sort of like putting something in front of yourself that if you don't do something it's, it's going to hurt.

[00:09:11] And so I was committed, really committed at that point. And, and that's really what broke this all for me was when you. Put a commitment in there and lean. So it's got to start with self-love. So I had to get rid of the things that were making me not like myself. So I ended a relationship. I ended a job.

[00:09:29] I did a lot of things to try to fix that part of my life. And then I started looking at food and I started looking at exercise and I started saying, okay, I'm going to do the right things out of self-love, but the commitment was emotional. Deep because I wanted to be a better father. I wanted to be a better person.

[00:09:46] I wanted to feel better. And so I had already kind of earned my chops if you will, with my career. So that wasn't going anywhere. I just needed to do better on all the other facets of my life. If you did like a life audit you, don't just kind of like, okay, I'm peaking here at 10 and then everything else is a two, if that, and so that's really what kind of spawned all this was me sitting down and saying, I'm committed to change.

[00:10:12] And then when I did a lot of people sort of asked me, what did, what did you do? Cause I traveled a lot and so I couldn't hire a trainer. That's why I became certified. I was like, I need to be my own trainer. There's no, I can't. I can't pay a trainer to travel with me. I can't pay a chef to travel with me.

[00:10:31] I'm not quite that wealthy. Uh, so I said, okay, what do I gotta do? Well, I gotta become a.

[00:10:37] Sure.

[00:10:38] that's what I got my certification. I never had any intention whatsoever of being a coach. And then once I succeeded, I had friends saying, look, dude, I want what you have, what did you do? And I said, okay, well, let's talk about it because it's not an easy track, but it has to start with the commitment.

[00:10:55] Are you committed to doing this? And everyone that I've talked to, everyone I worked with once they get that, they don't skip that step. I'm not going to say it's easy, but it happens. It just happens for them.

[00:11:10] Yeah. I'm curious about something. The two things you mentioned there, one is. You didn't say the words rock bottom, but you, but you hit sort of an emotional rock bottom for yourself where it was just time. You were sick of your own shit, ready for something else and wanted to make a change. But then it was through self-love that you were able to get on that right path.

[00:11:29] I think it's really hard for people to reconcile the two. Sometimes I think you get to that rock bottom point and there's so much sort of self, self hate, frustration, anger that you let things get so bad, whatever. What advice do you have for someone who is there right now, listening to this and going, I I'm 40, whatever, I'm sick of this.

[00:11:47] I've tried a failed. How do you turn all of that failure and all of that sort of misery into enough self-love to take the right action, because we know that if you do it from a place of darkness of hate or anger, that's not going to end well, there, there has to be a brighter light. So how do you, how do you help someone turn that light?

[00:12:07] Well, the principle is this. If you had a best friend who was struggling. And then you had, you were going to be there for them. You were going to be that person. And I think the encouragement, the, the, the, the, the push, how would you talk to them if it was your spouse or your daughter or another family member that was struggling?

[00:12:30] How would you communicate with them so many times, like you said, we're, we're, we, we have this spiteful language that we talk in our heads, 88, you did it again, and we, we use those words that we use words like can't and never, and always, and if we had that kind of conversation with someone we love. Well, we wouldn't, you know, we actually wouldn't say those things to them. We might think it, come on, asshole, get over it. But you know, it is a friend you might say asshole, but the reality of it is you have to be your own best friend. You have to be an advocate for this because you're the one that has to do the work. And so it's not that you love where you are a love, how you're doing or love what got you. There, it's a function of loving the life that, you know, you deserve the future you want to have because a commitment is made up the two things. The why. So I told you is like, man, my daughter, my relationships with my family, they were horrific.

[00:13:28] And I'm like, I can't, no, I can't live the rest of my life. This way. So my, why was that? My daughter is like my family. It was just knowing that I deserved more, the vision changed a little over time, but it was, I want to participate in my daughter's life. She's talking about these obstacle course races.

[00:13:50] She's talking about CrossFit, she's talking about all these things and I'm like, okay, well I'll maybe never be, that athlete. If I go on that obstacle course race with her, I don't want her waiting for me to finish. I don't want to slow her down. And so it was kind of this mindset of, I want my daughter to be as proud of me as I can make her. So the vision was me finishing at that point, me finishing a tough Mudder with my 20 year old daughter, which we did.

[00:14:22] Hm.

[00:14:23] And then the whole mission of getting there. I lost 66 pounds of fat gained 11 pounds, a muscle. Nice. It's 47 years old. So I'm telling you, it doesn't matter how old you are. Start, just start and start with the commitment, because if you just start throwing strategies and tactics at that, like what workouts should I do?

[00:14:46] What eating should I do? How should I do it? Won't. Because you won't have the foundation. It always has to go back to that vision and that why, and when those are compelling, nothing else holds you back. It's not, it's not a resolution that you quit. It's not willpower that you don't have. None of that stuff matters anymore because quite frankly, if you have a spouse or a best friend or a significant other or whatever, and they say, look, I need you to pick me up at the airport at five o'clock tomorrow. I'm coming in on a red eye and I'm getting at five o'clock. Will you pick me up guess where you are at five o'clock in the morning. You're sitting at the airport. Now, if you tell yourself out of self-love, I need to be at the gym at five o'clock tomorrow morning. Where are you at? Five o'clock in the morning.

[00:15:36] And if it's not commitment, if it's not selfless. You're probably setting your alarm for a later hour, sit in snooze five times and not going. So it has to start with that commitment and that self-love, and then you treat yourself just like you would want your best friend, your spouse, your family member, to treat you with love and respect and being where you say you're going to be when you're going to be there.

[00:16:01] I love 

[00:16:01] Zach: that. That's I know, I know when my alarm goes off in the . Morning. , I have a conversation with myself every single morning. It lasts only a couple of seconds and one side goes, go back to sleep. And the other side says, no, you said you were going to do this. It's time to get up.

[00:16:21] And the other side gets really pouty, really, really pouty about it. Your podcast is, is fitness over 40 and I'm over 40. And I know. What I could do in my twenties, physically, and probably even mentally is way different than it is now. So what's, what's different about fitness over 40. Is there any, and you could probably go on for hours and hours, but what, what are the main things that you see?

[00:16:47] That's. With people over 

[00:16:48] Allan Misner: 40, well, on 40 plus fitness, I I've interviewed hundreds of guests. I've had over 320 interviews of expert guests. I've read their books. I've had all these different conversations and I, yes, I, I try to present the information on 40 plus fitness for. An individual, my age or 40 or older, I'm now 55, almost 56.

[00:17:09] I want them to have the tools because you're right. I picked up an insanity DVD and I started doing the, the basic just the, the benchmark exercise. Yeah. And I woke up the next morning feeling like someone had beat me to death with a baseball bat. I could not get out of, I had to call in sick for work because I couldn't even get out of this.

[00:17:31] It was hard to even reach over and grab my phone off the nightstand. And I just knew if I got into the office, I wasn't even going to be able to function. So I had to call in sick for work because I tried to push myself like an idiot. Like I was 26. 'cause that's all I knew now over time I realized, okay, I don't recover as fast.

[00:17:53] When I go into a workout, I need to be a little bit more measured. I still need to push myself. I still need to find that line where the stimulus of the work is enough. When I look at nutrition, it's like, I can't get away with as much, they'll having a whole pizza and a big two liter of Coca-Cola.

[00:18:13] It's not going to float. Now, my, my metabolism is just not going to be that fast and I'm not gonna be able to out exercise that. So you do have to make some subtle changes, but the wonderful thing about the human body, and this is something we should just all really celebrate is the fact that with a little bit of work, your body improves.

[00:18:34] There's always an opportunity to improve. As long as you have one more breath in you, you can get healthier, you can get more fit. And so it's just finding that line of, okay, I need a stimulus. I need nutrition and I need rest. And if I keep giving my body that over time, I get stronger. I build more bone density and I actually slow if not reverse the aging curve. we're all on this curve. And a lot of us watched our parents and my grandparents go down that slope and it got. Steeper and steeper and steeper every single decade. And we're on that slope. We're on that slide and it's not the fun slide, you know, it's it's, this is the slide that was, you know, metal and a hundred degrees, heat burning.

[00:19:22] It's not a fun slide. So what do we do to slow this down? What do we do to change the angle of descent so that we're living healthier? So it's not about longevity, but I have this joke. But I say, but it's, it's true. It's fully true from a vision perspective of who I want to be. I want to be able to watch my own, but when I'm a hundred, five, nice.

[00:19:44] That's a good goal. That's that's that's that's a tough one to ignore for sure. You mentioned. Insanity w we love Shaunti. We've talked to them a couple of times on this show and I, I, his, his home workouts, I've only actually completed one of them. I've I have a hard time with commitment. I have a hard time staying motivated. And even now thinking about trying to start in sanity, again, just the amount of cardio and the amount of just sweating and jumping and running around. I'm exhausted thinking about trying to start that up again, is that, is that kind of workout still? Would you still recommend that kind of workout? I hear more and more that we need less cardio and more just lifting heavy things is, is a, a home workout.

[00:20:29] What Shaunti recommends, something that you recommend for people? Is it, is it really individual and just a matter of what you will actually do every day? What are sort of some good ways to approach physical fitness for someone over 40.

[00:20:43] Okay. So, CrossFit has this phrase when they're doing their competition every year, uh, ma uh, the world's fittest man and fittest woman. And if you look at them, they look a certain way. They are truly astounding athletes. Don't get me wrong, but I don't think that's the definition of fitness for most of us, for me, fitness is fit for tap.

[00:21:08] Okay, so fit for task is different when you're 20 than it is for when you're 40 as is when you're 50 as is when you're 105. So fitness for task just means you're able to be the person you want. Now, if I was trying to train to do a CrossFit competition and I needed some cardio work then I think, yeah, maybe Shaunti's cardio stuff with insanity could be a good little thing.

[00:21:35] If the weather won't let me get outside and do what I've got to do. And that keeps me motivated and keeps me moving and you enjoy it by all means do it. But when I look at actual fitness and say, what do I need? Well, I need to be. if my wife's depending on me, my mother's depending on me, my daughter, depending on me, I need to be a strong individual that can help.

[00:21:55] Them can lift them, can move them, can do things. Okay. I've got to be able to do things around the house. So five gallon bottle of water that I have to move around and put here and there weighs 40 pounds. So if I have to carry a couple of those around, I need to be able to carry a couple of those. And occasionally open a jar for my wife strength.

[00:22:14] Also as we get older particularly for women, we lose bone density. So resistance exercise helps maintain bone density. So resistance exercise is probably necessary for all of us, if we want to not get old fast as far as stamina and mobility and some of the other things, those are depending on who you want to be like, if you really like hiking, walking the beach and doing different athletic things like that.

[00:22:40] Kayaking or paddle boarding then. Yeah. You're going to want some stamina for sure. If you want to keep up with the grandkids. So sometimes fit for task is just being an awesome grandpa. I mean, how many grandpas get on the floor? Sit with their grandchild. When the grandchild gets up and runs away, the grandpa jumps up and running.

[00:22:58] Hm.

[00:22:59] Well, not a lot, unfortunately, but I want to be the grandpa that can go over, sit on the floor, hang out with them. When they hop back up. I don't want this creaky uh, getting up. It's so hard. I want to be able to pop up just like they did. Maybe not exactly like they did, but get up and go and then think this is fun.

[00:23:17] Cause grandpa is now at their level and I'll, I'll tell you if you have kids. And you don't get on the floor with the young kids and you don't get on the floor with them. You're missing something huge. Your entire relationship with a child will change when you're at their level, playing with them. You're sitting up in a chair, watching them play on the phone.

[00:23:37] It's a whole different game. You're a spectator in your child's life. Whereas you get on that floor and it, yeah. First it's uncomfortable. You're moving and shifting. That's actually a good thing. Getting up is not easy until you get more comfortable getting up and the kids going to be there for five minutes and then they're going to get tired of SpongeBob or whatever the heck they're watching these days.

[00:23:56] And they're gonna want to go somewhere else and cool. They get up and they start popping around, running around. That's awesome. Get down at your kid's level and have some fun. So fitness is not always this. Go do this incredibly intensive. Insanity workout. Sometimes it's just playing with your kid. I had this girl, I was dating and she had a nephew and his name was Ryan and he was just, he was by himself, a little kid out there.

[00:24:21] So he took a ball and he squatted down, you know, the perfect little squat the kids do. And then he. And he ran at the ball as fast as he could got to the ball and he squatted down and picked it up and he held it for a second and he threw it again. So I started playing squat ball, they call it squat ball.

[00:24:36] I play squat ball with Ryan and he just loved it, so just recognize that fitness has step for task, doing things that you want to do. As a part of it and doing things that you enjoy, if you played tennis, when you were younger. And it's like, you know, I really liked playing tennis, but I don't know that I could keep up with the stamina playing singles.

[00:24:56] So maybe you play mixed doubles or doubles. Maybe you shift the pickle ball, but it's, you know, so it's a similar. But I'll maybe just a gradual easier thing, but it's still something that you'll truly enjoy. It's something that keeps you moving and it's something you work towards being better at. So, again, fitness has fit for task, be the person you want to be, be the person that can wipe your own butt at 105, which is when acquire strength, mobility.

[00:25:19] I hope not stamina, but see. It depends on 

[00:25:24] Zach: the day. Right. I love that. I, I, I actually was talking to my daughter the other day. Y I actually just got done with a CrossFit workout. She was asking why I go and do those really hard things. And I was like, so I can do the things I want to do in my life.

[00:25:40] Not that I want to mow the lawn, not that I want to like weed back the yard but I do all of that, so I can do the things that I want to do. But also what I found too is like it, my daughter is watching. At 42 years old, go to the gym with, I take her with me every now and again, and she sees all these young people there and I'm not doing everything they can do, but I'm doing what I can do.

[00:26:06] Like I'm showing her what it's like to be healthy as well. Do you, do you have any thoughts or comments on. Being fit to inspire 

[00:26:14] Allan Misner: younger generation. Yeah. I mean, you know, as I went through my years, cause it was, basically my thirties and early forties when I was not in shape. One of my proudest moments was when my daughter got off the plane, we were going to do this tough Mudder.

[00:26:29] And I went to pick her up at the airport and she's you know, you see, you could walk all the way down to the gate and obviously you can't do that. Now. She comes out and she was like, you got. That was the words that came out of her mouth when she walked up to me, cause I had lost 66 pounds, a fat but the real moment was when I was holding her hand, as we went through the, have this little.

[00:26:51] Paying it, I forget what it's called, but basically they electrocute you in a tough matter. You know, you've probably heard a little bit about that, but they've got these wires hanging down and you seen grown men just sitting there just shivering. They're just terrified because they've seen people face planning over and over again in this thing.

[00:27:06] And so I grabbed her hand, I said, let's go. And we ran through together. And then we jumped over the little fire and we finished the race together. Okay. Now, That's a memory that I'm going to carry for the rest of my life. And it's a memory that she's going to carry for the rest of her life. And she saw her father.

[00:27:22] So if she ever went down the path, I went and lost her health or fitness for one reason or another gave up on it. Wasn't working on it and realized she got herself out of shape. Well, she's seen her father get back in shape. So I wasn't the best example. Well, my whole life, obviously, I've classified myself pretty clearly there that I didn't, I was not a good person and I was not a good example.

[00:27:45] But now, you know, at least now I know I can do these things with her if she wants to. And I, I don't even know what our grandchildren are going to do. You know, We didn't have mud runs. We did five Ks and 10 Ks and 10 K was extreme when I was a kid. Ben, they're doing mud runs and all this stuff.

[00:28:00] I have no idea what these kids are going have. My grandkids are going to be doing, but they're gonna come to me. Hey grandpa, we're doing. Whatever I'm like, all right, I'm in that's, that's who I want to be seen as is a participant in their lives. So all the other adults in their lives can sit, watch if they want, I'm going to participate,

[00:28:19] I want to go back to your podcast quickly. You've interviewed, as you mentioned, a 300 and some nod folks on that

[00:28:25] over, over, over over 320.

[00:28:27] That's a lot of interviews. I'm just curious. Is there something that you've heard in those 300 and those hundreds of interviews? That's still, you're just like, wow. I had no idea, like something that just completely blew you away.

[00:28:39] Surprised you as much as you've learned on this journey. Something

[00:28:42] well then the interesting thing is this. Okay. So I've had people on that work. Vegan vegetarian, paleo, raw paleo, carnival war all the way across the gamut. And, and so everybody has their way of eating, right? And it's tribal. It's like, well, no, you have to be keto. If you're not keto, you're wrong. Oh no, you have to be vegan.

[00:29:04] If you're not vegan, you're wrong. But as I have these conversations, I read their books. The reason they're right is all for the right reason, the same reason. Quit hitting junk.

[00:29:18] Yeah.

[00:29:19] It seems so simple, but it's like, why are, why is a vegan diet help people lose weight? Because they start paying attention to the food they're putting in their mouths and they start eating whole food, real food.

[00:29:29] It grew in the ground. It was, it was. And if you're, if you're carnival, guess what? You're, you're eating. food, whole food we get when we get away from that and we get into this ultra processed food and we get into processed food. That's when we go off. I mean, that's when we lose it, I'm not gonna say don't ever eat a doughnut again, but it's not food.

[00:29:51] It's, it's not, you know, You can eat as many of them as you want, but you're off the plan. The plan has to be real food. If you really want to improve your health. And this is not just losing weight, this is just overall your health focus on the quality of your food. It that's the one thing that's become so important to me over the course of all these interviews, because I can no matter who I'm interviewing, I can say, you know why I think you're right and they'll be wise because it's whole food.

[00:30:19] And they're like,

[00:30:21] Yeah.

[00:30:21] Now you can choose to not eat meat. You can choose to not eat vegetables or any mix in between, but if most of your food or most of what you're eating is whole food. You're doing your body a favor. And then there's one other thing that I would add is that I didn't take into consideration when I was younger, but I've got a lot more respect for sleep. I make sure I get at least eight hours of sleep and for the last five years, I only set an alarm clock. If I have a flight to catch, otherwise I go to bed relatively early, eight 30 to nine o'clock and I'm up anywhere between four and seven. So if I had a job, if I had a job I had to be at by eight o'clock, it doesn't matter.

[00:31:07] I'm still going to be up well before seven. And I get either four or five or six sleep cycles, depending on what my body tells me. It needs. And I know when I wake up from that sleep cycle, I'm up. So, sleep is really important and just letting sure you're getting the good quality and the length of sleep that your body needs because you can't catch up on, it's not like a bank where you can start putting more money in on the weekends and try to hope that you make it through the rest of the week.

[00:31:32] Okay. Our body doesn't work like that. This is a recovery time. 

[00:31:37] Zach: So.

[00:31:37] Allan Misner: I'm glad you brought that up. I wanted to ask you about that. In my case, I've still got young kids and getting them in bed and asleep by 10 is a challenge. So I wrestled with, I want to be the guy that gets up at five and goes for a run or does the things, but there's no way I get eight hours asleep.

[00:31:51] If I'm getting my kids to sleep at 10 o'clock. So what's more important. Should I get this? And, and work out later in the day, if I'm going to add that into my routine, or should I sacrifice the sleep for the early physical activity?

[00:32:05] But the answer is going to be self-awareness for you. So your answer could be different than my answer than anybody else's answer. So the answer will be is, would you still work out in the afternoon if you chose to opt for another hour of sleep each morning, would you do that workout now?

[00:32:22] Uh, 40 years of experience tells me no.

[00:32:24] Okay. So see what I did, what I did in my, in my work environment.

[00:32:28] What I did was I, I did, I would do cardio in the morning when I woke up. If I woke up early enough, which I did. And I, I pushed my work day. I literally told my boss, I said, I'll be in at nine o'clock. I'm going to be, I'm going to be the nine to six guy. He was like, okay, no problem. And so instead of going in at eight, like everybody else, I was coming in at nine, so that I could go ahead and get some cardio in, in the morning before I showered and went to work.

[00:32:54] And then what I did was on my calendar. I basically set my lunch from today. So I told my son, my lunch is two to three. As if you need me, I'm obviously here, but otherwise it's my lunch hour and I blocked it out. No meetings, no one else could schedule anything. If they wanted everybody there. And they saw I wasn't there, I wasn't there.

[00:33:13] And then I went over to the gym. The gym was like two blocks over from our office. So quite literally every day. And it was good because you get in there and you're stressed out day at work. And now I can get in there and just throw heavy stuff around. It's it's, it's better than meditation in some cases.

[00:33:30] And so yeah, if I was having a particularly bad day, I would usually have a really good lift. So it's knowing yourself and knowing what you're going to do and not do it. You've got young children. That's a temporary thing. I don't mean that in a bad way, but they're going to get older and become teens and sleep until noon.

[00:33:45] And honestly up until four o'clock in the morning, but you don't have to worry with that at the point where you're. Having to deal with the, okay, I got to get them in bed, get them, brush your teeth, take your bath. All the things you got to do with them. You're going to get past this sometimes.

[00:34:00] So right now your schedule will be maybe a little different, but it can be later, but always keep that in mind that the quality. And the right amount of sleep for you is going to be one of those health things. And if you're giving a little bit of that way, you'd have to just understand that the trade off of it.

[00:34:16] And anything you're going to do to kind of try to make up for it. You have to think about your human nature, who you are. Self-awareness is this something I will do? Or is this something I'm going to blow off more times than not? 

[00:34:29] Zach: Could you tell us what your podcast is and where people can find you and the podcast on. 

[00:34:33] Allan Misner: Sure. The podcast is 40 plus fitness. It's been going since December of 2015. We have this episode where as we're recording this here in w I'm at episode 515 you know, early on, I was doing a lot more episodes and now I'm just doing once a week.

[00:34:49] So we come out on Mondays. Uh, you can find me@fortyplusfitnesspodcast.com. That's where the podcast is or 40 plus fitness. And that's where you're going to see my training and things that I do working with clients on. 

[00:35:01] Zach: Our thanks to Alan Meisner, hosted the 40 plus fitness podcast. You can learn more about him and his work in the show notes for this episode at the fitness star.

[00:35:10] Jeremy: I can relate to so many parts of his story, , but especially the part about waking up with a hangover and realizing that there had to be a better way. I did the same thing about four years ago when I completely quit drinking, I didn't realize how much I was dependent on drinking to, to manage my emotions and get through the day.

[00:35:25] , but letting that go, letting alcohol be a part of the past was a huge step, but it was also just one of many that I took on this journey to getting better overall.

[00:35:35] Zach: Wait, you mean it takes many steps. You can't just do. Thing 

[00:35:39] Jeremy: We talk about that all the time. Our favorite question is what's the one thing you did and it's always a thousand things, 

[00:35:44] Zach: I've been answering it differently now. 

[00:35:46] Jeremy: Oh, really?

[00:35:46] Zach: when everyone, yes. I was like, what's the one thing you did. And my answer is a thousand little things. 

[00:35:51] Jeremy: Yeah. Yeah. Or, or as we just talked about committing, right. If you're going to start, if there's one thing commit to trying things commit to showing up, commit to whatever the thing is that you wish was different and just decide you're going to do better. , and as he pointed out, you know, it's never too late.

[00:36:08] You can't go back in time. I'll never be 25. But I can slow the slide into old age. Like you said, the idea of being able to wipe my own ass at 105 that's, that's pretty appealing. I would like to have, uh, to, to not have to rely on other people to change my diapers. If I can avoid it at all,

[00:36:25] Zach: I don't know the sounds like that, that kind of service might be interesting, like, you know, but that's the laziness and me coming out though.

[00:36:33] Jeremy: I there's something tells me you might be into that just now, just as a, as a hobby. I don't know.

[00:36:39] Zach: Well, Jeremy, there are a couple of things that I need to keep secret on the show. 

[00:36:44] Jeremy: Some things are just a little too personal. , and finally, I think that the most important thing, aside from the committing is finding your wide, whatever the thing is that motivates you has to be more important than finishing whatever it is you're watching on Netflix. Find that thing that pushes you past the, I don't feel like it.

[00:37:01] I don't want to, it's too early. I'm tired. It's hard. I don't want to, it sucks. There's something bigger that will push you through all of that, but only, you know what that is, , and you have to do , some deep digging to figure out what that is.

[00:37:13] Zach: And if you don't want to dig by yourself and you want the conversation to continue join us in our Facebook group or you and fellow fitness listeners can connect for monthly challenges, accountability to reach your goals and a supportive community 

[00:37:25] Jeremy: that link is also in our website, the fitness.com where we will be back next week with a brand new episode. Thanks for listening. 

[00:37:32] Zach: C.