Jan. 2, 2026

26 Real Health Questions Men Over 40 Asked Me (Answered for January 2026) - 40

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Season 1Fat LossLabs & Health

26 Brutally Honest Questions Men Over 40 Need to Hear



If you’re a man over 40 who works hard, carries a lot of weight on your shoulders, and knows your health has slipped, this episode is for you.



Instead of another “New Year, new me” pep talk, Coach Brian walks through 26 real questions men send him in DMs and emails. These are the things you think about late at night but rarely say out loud:

• “Why am I not losing weight when I barely eat?”

• “Why do I blow it every night after 9 PM?”

• “Do I really need cardio, or can I skip it?”

• “Is my blood pressure actually a problem?”

• “What do my A1c and cholesterol numbers really mean for my future?”



You’ll hear straight answers about late‑night eating, belly fat, motivation, soreness, cardio, tracking, and the chronic health issues that start to creep in during your 40s: high blood pressure, rising A1c, and cholesterol that keeps “creeping up” on lab work.


This episode is a New Year gut check. No shame. No hype. Just clarity, context, and simple next steps so you can protect your health, lose fat, and still show up for your family and career.



Coach Brian Parana’s "30 Tips in 30 Days" offers simple, actionable strategies to improve nutrition, fitness, and overall self-care.

Each day introduces one practical tip, empowering you to build sustainable habits, boost confidence, and feel your best without overwhelm.


Highlights Include:

* Nutrient-packed meal ideas and grocery list optimization.

* Quick workouts and movement habits for busy schedules.

* Small daily routines like hydration and gratitude journaling for lasting health improvements.


Ready to take control of your health?

Visit https://go.brianparana.com/30days

to jumpstart your health journey today!






Sources

[1] Blood Pressure: Types, Ranges & Readings - Cleveland Clinic https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/diagnostics/17649-blood-pressure

[2] High Blood Pressure–Understanding the Silent Killer | FDA https://www.fda.gov/drugs/special-features/high-blood-pressure-understanding-silent-killer

[3] Top 10 Things to Know About the New AHA/ACC High Blood ... https://www.heart.org/en/health-topics/high-blood-pressure/the-facts-about-high-blood-pressure/high-bp-top-10

[4] A1C Test for Diabetes and Prediabetes - CDC https://www.cdc.gov/diabetes/diabetes-testing/prediabetes-a1c-test.html

[5] The A1C Test & Diabetes - NIDDK https://www.niddk.nih.gov/health-information/diagnostic-tests/a1c-test

[6] Diabetes Diagnosis & Tests | ADA https://diabetes.org/about-diabetes/diagnosis

[7] Understanding A1C Test | ADA - American Diabetes Association https://diabetes.org/about-diabetes/a1c

[8] Borderline Cholesterol: What It Is and What to Do About It - WebMD https://www.webmd.com/cholesterol-management/what-is-borderline-cholesterol

[9] Cholesterol Levels: By age, LDL, HDL, and More - Healthline https://www.healthline.com/health/high-cholesterol/levels-by-age

[10] Normal LDL Cholesterol: What It Means for Your Heart | VLN https://thrombosis.org/patients/patient-articles/understanding-normal-ldl-cholesterol-levels-what-do-they-mean-for-your-heart-health

[11] Understanding Your Cholesterol Numbers: What They Really Mean https://www.texashealth.org/areyouawellbeing/Heart-Health/Understanding-Your-Cholesterol-Numbers-What-They-Really-Mean

[12] Cholesterol: Understanding Levels & Numbers - Cleveland Clinic https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/articles/11920-cholesterol-numbers-what-do-they-mean

[13] What Is High Blood Pressure? | NHLBI, NIH https://www.nhlbi.nih.gov/health/high-blood-pressure

[14] High blood pressure (hypertension) - Symptoms & causes https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/high-blood-pressure/symptoms-causes/syc-20373410

[15] Prediabetes | Hyperglycemia - MedlinePlus https://medlineplus.gov/prediabetes.html

[16] Prediabetes | UI Health https://hospital.uillinois.edu/primary-and-specialty-care/diabetes-and-endocrinology/diabetes-center/prediabetes


Music “More Power” by Liborio Conti

Want help applying this to your own health, weight, energy, or lab numbers?

Coach Brian Parana offers Health Hot Seat coaching segments for men who want a clear next step with nutrition, fitness, weight loss, blood pressure, cholesterol, A1C, or daily consistency.

Learn more about The Call To Rise, a 100-day coaching program for driven men over 40 who want to lose weight, improve their health, and rebuild confidence:

www.thecalltorise.com

To connect with Coach Brian:
brian@brianparana.com

Disclaimer: This podcast is for education and coaching support only. It is not medical advice. Always work with your physician before changing medication, treatment, or medical care.

  • I'm going to walk you through 26 real questions that men have been asking me, sending me in the DMs and Instagram, my emails, questions about health, about fitness, about nutrition. I get a lot about blood pressure, cholesterol, A1C, diabetes as well. Want to cover those, too. If you felt a little stuck in 2025 with your health, nutrition, fitness, and all that stuff, then let's clear this up for you right now.
  • Welcome to episode 40 of Driven for Health. Here's my mug. Looking forward to having you join me in the next 40 here. I'm on a fast track to get to a hundred episodes full of really not only great information provided for you for your health, your nutrition and fitness guys want you to live your best lives.
  • I'm also going to be bringing on tons and tons of guests that are going to speak your language. They're going to align with you and help you level up in 2026 just as I am too. This is for you. If 40 is running into that midlife crisis, if you feel as if you are stacked full of responsibilities, you're 20, 30, 50 pounds overweight.
  • You have bad health blood panels, your doctor wants to put you on meds if you're not already on them, your clothes don't fit, and you know what to do, but you're just not doing it. You find a lot of success in a lot of areas of life, but you're not there. and you want to be a leader for your family. If those any of those one things resonate with you, then that's what this podcast is for.
  • Today's episode is brought to you by the New Year's. It's Janu. And I wanted to get out and speak some truth to you. Give you some cold hard facts backed by science. There'll be a list in the episode description as well of different sources of some of the studies that I found, some of the information cited from.
  • This is actually going to be released for our podcast on Jan 2 and Jan one I am live streaming right now the New Year's right is the season for New Year's resolutions or even goals or to reassess as a fresh start this is so important and oftentimes a lot of people just let Christmas slide they let the holidays just have fun the holiday cheer and it's important to note that yes, Janu can be a really hard restart and you can get really strong momentum out of this time of year, but I want to answer some really easy questions that can get you started off on the right
  • track. Let's get through these. I I went through a large number, probably about 50 or 60 questions and filtered them down to these 26 fitting for the 26 year into the 2000s. Let's jump in. I'm going to go rapid fire on these. Listen up. Here we go. Question number one. Why am I not losing weight even though I barely eat? Well, because barely eating, we need to define that.
  • Often it turns out that we're undereing during the day and our brain lapses in the evening times of how much you actually eat or if you are still undereing, you actually end up over consuming calories. Long work days, lots of child things going on. I've had my kids home for a week and a half and dad guilt is definitely weighing on me.
  • Should I work? Should I spend time with family? Should I work out? All these things are things that I'm juggling as well. This is how we end up skipping meals or we just don't pay attention to ourel and you skip eating sufficient amount or even a lack of a plan. I don't even remember if I've eaten today. It feels like now I do this for a living and I have no problems with balancing and find figuring it out at the end of the day.
  • But most people don't even care. evening comes around, they have no idea what dinner is. And then that's when this common behavior of overeating at night happens. It's very true that you think you're undereating, but you're actually still eating too many calories. Facts. If you are not losing weight, you are still eating too many calories.
  • It's brass tax. Can't get any easier or better than that. All right, next up is going to be number two. How bad is it that I hate cardio? A lot of people struggle with cardio and that's okay. We want to make sure that we understand properly define what cardio is. Cardio, usually when your heart rate is up, is for your heart health, for cardiovascular conditioning, for that energy system.
  • I think that you can just walk and maintain a healthy body weight the rest of your life as long as you don't overeat. Cardio can accelerate the rate of burning calories, which then can get you to burn calories faster. a raise of hands or you flexes our hearts or whatever in the the chat. Have you ran started running and then you end up losing weight faster? Well, you burn calories faster as long as you don't overeat calories.
  • Cardio is just a tool and it's to help people build either burn more calories or build their cardiovascular system and just be in good heart health. So, you don't need to do cardio if you just don't like it. Although I would find alternative ways to keep moving your body. Number three, why do I look bigger after I start lifting? Well, we we look bigger because when we lift, we are actually breaking our body down, causing micro tears, causing temporary water weight to come in the body, inflammation.
  • When you do a bunch of push-ups and your chest is sore, your chest is inflamed, it can retain a little bit more, giving you an appearance of looking bigger. Now, we want to always stay consistent throughout this whole time to be able to make sure that you build a body, you build muscle, and muscle takes longer than you want it to to be able to get the results that you're after.
  • So, consistently doing at least ideally three workouts a week is where the money is at for this process. Number four, do I need to track calories? No, you don't. Actually, I have tons of clients that never track their calories and are very successful. But calorie tracking is a very fast, easy way for you to put your finger on are you eating too many calories or not? If you even grossly track it as approximately accurate, then you will have a much better understanding of how much you're eating, of how much you're
  • putting in your mouth, of how balanced the meals and foods are. Even if you want to blankly put a food down on a journal and write it down and just call it as a protein, a carb, a fat, a fiber, a fibrous carb like vegetables, then you could see how balanced your meals are. It it gives you a 30,000 foot view of how to manage your food.
  • I will tell you the people who track that work with me that track they learn so much faster because they are aware. If you have a bad experience tracking in the past you likely didn't do it right. I of course not everyone enjoys tracking but it is a tool in the toolbox to help you learn.
  • I have a fun, more enjoyable, curiositydriven way that I take my clients through to help them learn how to track, but more importantly, what is in the food. It is a long-term a lifong skill to be able to look at your food and have a general understanding of how many calories are inside your meal. It's just a phase that you can learn and move on. Question five.
  • Why do I lose control around food at night? Well, we can go back to question number one about undereating calories in the day. If you want to know how many calories you should be eating, check out episode number five. That's the start of the nutrition pyramid that I outlined. Calories, macronutrients, micronutrients, supplements, what supplements are best for you to do, how to put it into a lifestyle.
  • That is episodes 5 through 10 that you can jump into in the driven health for health podcast on Apple Spotify. But back into undereing in the day and oftent times evening is left for destress, boredom, distraction. A lot of people don't do the nighttime right. They end up to be honest I I fall victim to this too, but you end up wasting a lot of time.
  • you you don't do necessarily fulfilling things in the evening. If just going home and watching your shows does it for you, then that's that's great. But when we step back in life, do you want to have a how much time do you want to put into just staring at TV every single night of your life and not actually doing something that's exciting and fulfilling? If you were to have people to go see programs or plans with others, I have one client, they joined a comedy club to do something different.
  • They bowl, they go to the gym, they have their home, they have their work life, but then they have a very active personal life where they're social and they're engaging and they are actually a fun person to be around. If you fall into Netflix and chill, you're more likely to do it. Plus, you've been marketed to for decades on why you should be putting high calorie foods in your mouth at that time of day.
  • Number six, am I doing enough protein or too much? Well, for guys, 200 grams of protein or more ends up being a pretty good amount of protein that you need. Now, with that being said, most gentlemen, the lowest I'd say if you're vegetarian, about 120 for men, but 140 to 150 for just an average male. If you're an active, probably 175, maybe 200ish would be the range of protein.
  • Again, the only way you actually know how many grams of protein you eat is by actually tracking and measuring it and monitoring what is in there. This protein does matter. It supports your muscle maintenance. It supports recovery. It supports your sicha society, meaning that you stay full longer.
  • It balances out blood sugar levels. It helps you curb cravings. And if you put a giant chicken breast in your mouth or fish or whatnot, it will slow down the hunger that you might feel at the nighttime eating. As we went over in the last episode, on episode 39, we talked about the the metabolism and protein has a high thermic effect of food, meaning it costs a lot more energy to break down in your body through digestion than say a bread or sugar or rice or pasta, things like that can break down a lot easier. Fat breaks down very quickly. If
  • you want a recap on metabolism and how to manage that, go back to episode 39 and you will see that it dropped today actually on Jan 1. We got question number seven. Why am I sore but not seeing results? Soreness is not a determiner of if you're making progress or not. Soreness just simply states that you overdid it on your muscles in relation to what you had been doing.
  • Example, I am sore in my biceps because I hadn't done biceps in a couple days. The winter break, my buddy had a schedule with his kids. Life is busy. I again feel dad guilt. This is reality of should I spend time with my kids that are in the house or work out? My oldest is the only one that's interested in working out right at this moment and the other ones are a little bit younger or say my second.
  • So Levi is the worker outer. But then Everett, he works out too with me, but he's swimming two to three hours a day. He's tired. He just doesn't want to lift and he doesn't necessarily need to. Maxwell and Emine are 12 and 10. They're just not interested. I'm not going to bring them out and say force them or try to spend a lot of time out here because I want them to foster a relationship with being physically active with exercise.
  • I didn't work out a lot in the last week and a half because of this the break and plus I got unfortunately I was sick. I had something going on with my eye and congestion and all which then resulted in me not feeling well, sleeping a lot which was good and not working out. Didn't lift some biceps and all and back and I'm sore but that doesn't mean that I grew muscle either.
  • You don't want to chase soreness either in your workouts. Soreness can show signs of a good workout, but it also could just not make you effectively gain strength or muscle. We want progressive overload. And I go over the exercise pyramid starting at episode 17. Talk about all sorts of different things from exercise selection to progressive overload to tempo.
  • And that starts at episode 17 in podcast. Effective training focuses on doing the correct amount of work right now to get you to be stronger and break down enough muscle to then make sure that you get stronger for the next set. Question eight, is walking actually doing anything? Right. Sometimes it doesn't feel like that. We're standing.
  • any episode that you would have ever listened to. I just want to throw out I I was celebrating yesterday 1,000 downloads of my podcast. It's really cool because I just started on a random Tuesday and it's been downloaded a thousand times. I swear it wasn't just me or my mom or something like that listening to it.
  • But uh that's really cool. And I stand every single conversation because it creates a lot of energy and flow. I can just speak and go. Uh, I talk walk and talk with my clients and I move a lot and I will always advocate for 10k steps a day as an sign of an active lifestyle. What does that mean? That means that yes, walking is a gamecher.
  • It's a cheat code for you. keeping a slim waistline, keeping your blood panels in order, your A1C down, your blood sugar levels more stable, your cravings and hunger in balance. Yes, in episode 39 about metabolism talked about NEAT, non exercise activity, thermogenesis, and how moving, fidgeting, standing, and literally parking farther away from things is a real thing for you to do.
  • I'm a big fan of tracking steps. I have a an Amaze Fit. It's a watch. I have about 4,000 steps. I haven't moved too much. I was preparing for this episode. I woke up. I did shovel the drive. I had to do some other things around the house, play with my kids a little bit tonight after we're done.
  • Actually, we have cookies, Christmas cookies. We had to delay those because of the holiday sickness that seemed to sweep our house. But tonight's the night. And maybe I'll I'll go run tonight later after we're done. Who knows what the evening brings to get some more steps in. Or at the very least, going back to episode five, calories.
  • If I keep calories in check today and I don't overconume, it doesn't matter how much I move today, I won't worry about weight gain, which is so so important. Number nine, we're getting ready and going to to all 10 digits here. Why does my weight go up when I eat clean? Well, let's define clean. Did you wash it before you ate it? I always be silly and and joke about that, but clean food doesn't necessarily mean that you kept your calories in check.
  • Calories are number one rule. This is what I call the simple six, a framework. You can pause and write these things down. But if you have this framework that I teach all my guys, then this will keep you healthy and happy, especially around food, and never have to necessarily worry about overeating calories. Number one is calories the most important.
  • Number two, we prioritize getting enough protein in. talked about that on episode six with macros, but we're generally trying to do about 40, 50, maybe 60 grams of protein per meal, depending on how frequently you eat your meals. From there, then we want to where's my fiber? That's the second question that I want you when you build meals.
  • Where's my protein? Where's my fiber? That allows you to be a lot more organized in this process. All right, third one is or where we at? Calories, protein, fiber. Fourth one is limit fat because it's calorie dense at nine calories. Then we want to be conscious of carbs because they're everywhere and always. Yes, you should be eating carbs.
  • It's a active part of a lifestyle that you should have. Then we want to go to eliminate simple sugars. Quick recap. Calories are first, protein second, getting fiber third, limit your fat fourth, conscious of your carbs five, and the last one being eliminate simple white sugar in your diet. Live and die. By that, you'll be healthy because you'll prioritize more than just clean foods.
  • You will prioritize just healthy, calorie appropriate eating. But yes, quality, quality, quality is important, but you can still eat too much. Silly enough, good luck eating too much spinach or broccoli. You probably will have brussel, you know, broccoli sprouts coming out your ears and you'll turn green if you try to do that too much. Number 10, hanging with me.
  • Thank you so much for keeping pace here. Question 10. Is it bad if I miss workout when life gets busy? Absolutely no. You probably thought I would say yes. I just told you that I had missed a bunch of workouts, but when I went back and I counted, I actually have my workout board over there and it's [snorts] loaded with lots and lots and lots of letter numbers.
  • I'll just go get it here real quick. Give me one second. for you on the live stream or in the video on Spotify and YouTube, wherever the video is. And here you go. This is my This is how I record my workouts. We're right here. You can see this. I did on the 1st, 3rd, 4th, 5th, 8th, 12th, 13th, 14th, 15th, 17th, 18, 22, 29.
  • I worked out that is one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, 10, 11, 12, 13 times in December. That is just under every other day. I didn't work out a lot in the last week, but over the course of the whole month, thumbs up. My biceps didn't appreciate it, as I said, because they are actually sore from the last workout because I hadn't gotten enough, say, consistent reps on them. But I am fine.
  • Consistently working out across time is what we're going for. Missing three or maybe even four days in a row without intentionally working out, I think is just fine. 11. We'll go with the two pointer fingers for that one. Why do I lose motivation after two to three weeks? Well, if you're relying on motivation to be the thing, you know, in other areas of life, you don't you literally don't rely on motivation to show up to work on time and do a great job.
  • You don't rely on motivation to be a a parent to guide your little children to be good humans. You don't rely on motivation to show up for your spouse all the time or your partner, your partner in crime. We don't want to rely on that. We need systems, habits, behaviors, and processes. That's something that I spend an awful lot of my time building with my guys and like literally anyone I've ever worked with for the last 23 years.
  • We talk about how to make a healthy lifestyle more simplified into your everyday because so many people know what to do, but they don't do it. And once they understand better systems that produce long-term outcomes, then they are happier and healthier. And that motivation is going to come and go. when it is there. Yeah, definitely ride that motivation wave.
  • Ride the willpower wave as much as you can, but don't rely on it. One, two, 12. Why do I look better in the gym mirror than I do at home? Lighting, the postworkout pump, your posture, right? You just got done lifting, you just feel better. Literally standing even an inch taller gets you a better looking physique, right? Because we stretch everything out instead of scrunching it up.
  • Different angles, the lighting in there and and the the giant mirrors and such. If you're looking in your small bathroom with one light in it, then it's going to give you a different image. I also whenever I have my guys take pictures because we do before, during and after pictures for the call to rise program, the 100 day fat loss challenge in that they have quarterly pictures to do and make sure that they do it consistently at the same time in the same lighting and the same positioning as much as possible so we have comparables between one time and
  • another. All right, there's just a lot that goes into lighting. It can be flattering or fattering in a sense. Plus, if you're a little more pumped, then you will also feel a little bit more jacked. Number 13, am I gaining fat or muscle? Well, body weight isn't the first metric you want to look at in that situation.
  • The scale doesn't tell the whole story. what does is a body fat measurement, but even more importantly, we can use those scales that you get on Amazon, but they're also getting powered by two AAA batteries. Even the Hume Hume M you'll see and it's got a hand thing or we go to the Inbody that you'll find at a lot of commercial retail stores or gyms such as Orange Theory has them.
  • Then we can go to BodPods or Dex Scan. Those two are some of the the premium ways to monitor and measure body fat. Then those are going to give us more of an accurate the the further up the chain or the f the more you pay for the test, the better off it is. But ultimately, the most important gauge is take pictures so you can see progress over time in the same clothing and good lighting without a bunch of black on because black hides your body.
  • And then if you do have one of those scales, we just it's an apples to apples measurement. So every time you step on it, it will give you a relative relatable body fat or scale based on the last time you stepped on it. Recapping that, you're don't even judge the way you look [snorts] with your eyeballs, but through a picture and your clothing will tell you very quickly if you're making physical body composition changes. We're at 14.
  • Why do I feel hungry all the time? Low protein, low fiber, poor sleep, high stress levels, they will drive hunger. If you sleep under six hours, it is a scientific fact that you will struggle losing weight. You're up longer. Your body stressed out. Your hormones are doing back flips. Low protein, low- fiber diets keep you hungry.
  • A good example is McDonald's. McDonald's small fry and a cheeseburger is about 600 to 700 calories. That will leave you hungry in a very quick time, maybe even an hour. But if you eat a a proper meal that we've talked about in the nutrition pyramid in episodes 5 through 11, then a balance of protein, vegetables, starchy carbs, you will feel way more full.
  • You oftent times I can get some guys eat so much food that they come up to four or 500 calorie meal and they're stuffed. I can't tell you how often that actually happens. Fill your plate with high volume foods at lower calories and you'll be fine. You'll more regularity in the bathroom. 15.
  • Is it normal to be scared to eat more? Yes, because we've been told that move more, eat less. But eat less is in terms of overall calories but not volume of food. My play is that I'm going to have you eat as many calories as I can. Get you to eat a lot of lean protein and high volume, low calorie, fibrous foods. When you do that, you will feel more than sufficient and you will not be hungry and your body will actually thrive. You'll have more regularity.
  • fear, fears around the scale going up and down will quickly be calm because I will be coaching you through that change in the process. All right, we we want to make sure that we're consistently eating and being successful with breaking that relationship with food as well. 161 and six.
  • Why do I always restart on Mondays? Well, if you live and die by that all or nothing, then yeah, you're going to break anytime a pebble gets in the way. You're going to trip over it and fall and get hurt and then have to start over on Monday because it's by time you start healing and feeling better. Well, I'm a big fan of a simple coin, a a term that I coined.
  • There we go. Middle gear mentality. Something that I live by every day. Something that I have my guys live by every day as well. So important for you to have that middle gear mentality. 17. Do I need to work out every day to see results? Let's define workout. I think you should move every day.
  • There should be no lazy days, off days in a sense. We still should establish a 10k step rule of being active. Rewind a thousand years. You would be moving every single day a lot to stay alive. in a highly convenient modern lifestyle, you don't have to move so much. But if you are strategic with your training, then you can work out every day.
  • If you aren't and you get really sore, then you definitely have to take breaks. But most people are going to do a reasonable amount of training consistently, three-ish days a week is what I'm always going to recommend. making sure that your recovery is allows enough time to buffer so that you feel good to go work out again. We have 18. What are we at? One and eight.
  • There we go. Why does my progress disappear when I stop dieting? Well, if that's the way you phrase this question, then from the get-go, you're already off to a bad start. Meaning we want sustainable. We want nutrition. Nutrition is the foundational knowledge and understanding of how you actually put food on a plate and plan it and grocery shop and put it into your mouth.
  • That's so important. We want to make sure that you maintain progress and you maintain success and that you are able to be sustainable in this whole process and you don't have this I didn't eat carbs and therefore when I eat carbs all my progress disappears literally people will lose 10 pounds in a week or two and then gain 12 pounds back by the end of the month.
  • What was the point? just it just doesn't make a lot of sense. Uh 19 10 and nine. Is it bad that I compare myself to others at the gym? It's normal. I do it too. We're humans. We comparison game is alive and well. Especially in our social media days and especially having so much access and information and so much people.
  • I mean, you could literally be surrounded by thousands of people while you sit in your room. Literally, with social media now, it's very easy to see this comparison. And and some people look and appear differently or they're putting on their best foot forward all the time. That doesn't necessarily need to be the thing that you want to compare yourself to.
  • It always goes back to comparing yourself to the things that you have control over that you are in the driver's seat on example being this podcast driven for health. I am in the driver's seat and I sure I could compare myself to some of my podcast idols in a sense or superstars. Chris Williamson, Huberman Labs, what else? There's the dire CEO, but all these guys started just the same that I in a room talking to a microphone and wow, the pioneers of podcasting were they really pushed through a lot to pave way for me.
  • I'm using Riverside and I have this Samsung Q2U that's at an affordable price and I have this vocer thing that helps with my my radio tone and my voice and I have a MacBook Pro. a Mac. Yeah, MacBook Pro, brand new, October 2020 25 that I'm recording off of right now. So, this is so easy to be able to just pull up this live stream.
  • I even started trying to do live streams about three weeks ago before I got this computer and my old 2019 was struggling and I couldn't do live streams because it literally couldn't keep up. So, I can compare myself to all these people have like these $10,000 cameras or whatever and these teams of people, but I'm doing what I can around this to provide this type of value to you guys.
  • We don't want to compare ourselves to others, whether it's at the gym or any other point in life. 20 and we're into the home stretch here. We got six more questions. Rapid buyer, I hope you've gotten a lot out of this. Let me check the Instagram. We have some people that joined. That's very nice. Very nice. Thank you for joining here.
  • All right. Excellent. That's fun. This is the third time I've done a an Instagram live recording this and all my social media. So, it's really cool to see that people are popping on and checking this out. I hope that you're getting tons of value in the podcast world between your ears as you listen to this as you work out or whatnot.
  • So 20 is why does fitness feel way harder than it should? Well, a lot of this comes down to your approach. If you have to be every day of the week, if you have this plan that you have to follow Exactly. If you have someone that's driving you, you're doing the 75 hard, you're doing something, then yeah, that that can create a challenge to to keep up and make sure.
  • But sometimes fitness can just be checking the box. Doing 10 rounds of 10 push-ups, 10 squats, 10 sit-ups, even in the course of a whole day, would help you feel a lot more successful. That's it. That's fine. That's all you have to do. Now number 21. This is on chronic health.
  • These last ones I wanted to pull in for uh chronic health because I've spent a lot of time actually working on chronic health issues between diabetes, blood pressure, cholesterol. People I literally have had people call me from the hospital room after they've had a heart attack after they have an extremely low kidney filtration rate. This guy had a 10.
  • was his global filtration rate for his guineies. That should be 70. So, so I want to cover some of these too that I get and it's great. Share a lot more about some of the chronic issues that you're dealing because it it really has a profound impact on your health, how you feel, and how you show up for the people that you love every day. 21.
  • What blood pressure number should I actually be worried about? normal 120 over 80. But once that top number starts to go over say 130 and the bottom number goes over 90, then we're starting to have problems. Okay? Uh that's a big If we're 140 over 90, you're in a very stage high to excuse me, a stage two of high blood pressure.
  • your doctors are really going to talk about you being on medicine. What does that mean? The the first number is your your blood pressure at work when I'm moving and pumping. That that squeeze of the heart is the pressure there. But then it relaxes and lower number is the pressure in your blood veins and all of it at rest.
  • So you have a little more wiggle room on the top number from 120 to say 130 140 before you really start getting pegged and your doctor will get on you. But the lower number at rest when you go from 80 to 90 your doctors really we don't want the heart and the cardiovascular system working so hard when you are at rest and well if you can go get your blood pressure checked at the the grocery store even and if you haven't done that in a while maybe you should just to get a pulse.
  • uh you do want to sit down and and rest for a little bit before you actually go and and run the the thing. You don't want to just like stroll up to the machine and get on there and boom and it goes all that, right? It's higher than would be if you just sit for a minute or two and take some breaths. We got question 22. What A1C numbers count as pre-diabetic verse diabetic? Your A1C is a blood test number that shows the average blood sugar level over the last few months.
  • A normal A1C is going to be 5.7 or below. Between 5.7 and 6.4, they put you in the pre-diabetic range. And those that go over the 6.4 are definitely a type 2 diabetic. You have that identity. then you are a diabetic and you should be very concerned about your blood sugar levels and the quality of your food and and and all that.
  • I've had some people up as high as 15. Now, you should be concerned at anyone in the pre-diabetic or diabetic range and want to do something about it. All right? So, the doctor will treat you with medicine usually or insulin, metformin, something like that. But we all know that a lifestyle change is important.
  • You can change it through exercise and proper nutrition. And if you do have a weight issue, losing weight will help normalize that. If you don't have a weight issue, then clearing up your food quality will because you can be skinny and be a diabetic. It's a real thing because you just eat low quality food. It wears on damage of blood vessels, kidneys, nerves, eyes, your feet, your circulation.
  • Unfortunately, my grandmother, she actually lost two limbs from the knees down as a result of uncontrolled diabetes for probably 10 plus years that we just didn't know. 23. What cholesterol number should get my attention? Well, total cholesterol under 200 is normal and should be the goal that you want. Between 20 and 239, that's when we're in the borderline high.
  • Of 240 and up is where it's very high. Okay? You need to do something about that. You go to the doctor, they'll give you some meds that you will then have to take to help lower it down. And it helps, but it's not a long-term solution for LDL. What we have is this is the considered the bad cholesterol. it's under 100 is a common goal, but between 130 and 159 is borderline high.
  • If you're above 160, 189 is super high and above 90 is ridiculous. You are in trouble and your doctor will be yelling at you quite a bit if it's there. All right, for HDL on the other hand, this is the good cholesterol and men want this at least 40 or above. 60 and above is considered being really proactive.
  • So, it's got to be above 40, but 60 would be ideal. As we wrap up, because I got a call here in five minutes, due for a coaching client was my call to rise program. We've got 24. If I'm already on blood pressure meds, is there any point in changing my habits? Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Medication can help, but it's not a long-term solution that you want.
  • Not anyone that I've ever worked with. They want to manage it through just health, nutrition, lifestyle. That is super duper important. We cut back on on on processed foods. We have whole foods. We cut back on alcohol. We move our body. We manage stress. We get better sleep. We take care of ourselves.
  • and it will solve its problem. Question 25. If my A1C is pre-diabetic range, can I turn it around? Yes. Yes, you can. You do not have to be identified as a type 2 diabetic if you get back down into the normal range above below, excuse me, below 5.7. Very important that you want to do that. and even losing 5 to 7% of your body weight and just literally walking 10 minutes after you eat and adding some strength training, cutting back on sugars and processed foods and all, you will get back into a normal state.
  • I see it all the time. And lastly, 26 of 26 of 2026 on Janu. If my LDL is high, does it always mean I will need a statin? Not always. So certainly you need to consult your doctor. I'm not a medical professional but just know this stuff from sheer experience and what is important is that if you are proactively taking your health in control in your own hands and you're doing something about it then you have more power and say on controlling it to lower it down.
  • Now, if you've been at it, you actually have done every single thing you possibly can to get in the best health that you can be in then and it's still high, then maybe you end up having to be medicated for a lot longer than you want. But it's worth burning every bridge in a sense to make sure that you get the knowledge and the application to lower it down.
  • I just want to take a moment. I appreciate you hanging out with me for 26 tips. And if you found any of these questions as something that you would ask, then I would send you to the show notes in my 30 tips for 30 days. All right. And just want to throw this out there that I do have a sequence that allows you to get really easy actionable tips that you can implement into your every day.
  • Literally, I have boiled it down to the basics of exercise, nutrition, good calores to enjoy for the family as well, onthe-go snacks, quick exercise routines, all sorts of things about ways to be strategic and tip seeking. So check out the show notes and that is the the link will be there for my 30 tips in 30 days for the love. Even if you only just do 10, you'll be in that much better off of a spot.
  • Want to be excited about episode 40? Most episodes literally don't make it past three or four episodes. And to get past 10 is a lot. And then have a thousand downloads is even cooler. And to get to a 100red is a milestone. and to get to a thousand downloads per episode, which I'm working toward. I got one over 100, then that will be uh really thrilling and exciting.
  • So, I appreciate the time that you're spending with me in the journey. And if you listen to this and felt like the questions were talking directly to you, don't don't ignore it. Do something. Your body is a sign, your brain is a sign, is saying that you need to do something different. Pick one of the questions today that that really got under your skin.
  • Write it down and decide on a simple action that you can take to make it better. All right, there's 26 of them and let's be successful here. All right, episode 40 wrapping up for Driven for Health. I want to thank you for being here. Happy New Year in 2026. Thank you so much for joining me and let's [music] make this a just a super successful year. Thank you.