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April 25, 2026

Men Over 40 Fitness, Testosterone, And Health With Funk Roberts - 102

This episode is for the man who has been putting a lot into work and family and knows his health has taken a hit because of it. Brian sits down with Funk Roberts to talk about what really changes for men after 40 and why more men start dealing with lower energy, weight gain, poor recovery, worse sleep, less focus, and more frustration with their body and health.

It is a practical conversation for business owners, entrepreneurs, and driven men who are trying to lead well, stay productive, and keep up with the demands of work and family while also realizing their fitness, nutrition, and stress management need more attention.

Brian and Funk talk through the 6 main areas that matter most for men over 40, including mindset, hormones, training, nutrition, recovery, and lifestyle, and how each one affects fat loss, energy, focus, business performance, and long-term health.

They also talk about the Men Over 40 Summit and the bigger message behind it. Men need a better plan for this stage of life. They need better information, better structure, and a way to improve their health that actually fits real life. If your weight has been climbing, your energy has been dropping, your sleep has been off, or your body is not responding the way it used to, this episode will help you understand what to pay attention to and where to start.

Main topics in this episode:

What starts changing in a man’s body after 40
Why so many men struggle with energy, weight, recovery, and focus
Hormones, testosterone, and why blood work matters
Training in a way that supports strength, muscle, and longevity
Nutrition habits that support fat loss, energy, and better health
Sleep, recovery, and stress management
Lifestyle, leadership, family, and long-term health

• The Men Over 40 Summit and the six pillars behind it

Join the Summit Here

https://www.menover40healthsummit.com/a/2148255456/Fy4hGGYp

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.

bring back the alpha. Today I got a great guest, an esteemed colleague, Punk Roberts, and he's founder of the Over 40 Alpha and the Over 40 Alpha podcast. And he has been a coach, has been around for a long time. He helps men in their 40s, 50s, 60s, and beyond improve their health, their fitness, their recovery, hormones, all of those things that we cover here as well.
And I thought he would be an amazing guest. Plus, we're partnering up with a men's over 40 summit and we recorded my podcast on reversing diabetes and I felt just compelled to have him on so we could talk about men's summit and everything from there. He obviously has been focused on his on his own business and the podcast around helping men's health over 40 and we're both passionate about that. So, we'll be covering that.
He is a former professional beach and indoor volleyball player, a two-time best-seller author and owner of Funk Roberts Fitness Inc. and the Over 40 Alpha Brotherhood. So, this guy knows men's health, eats, sleeps, and breathes it. So, welcome to Driven for Health podcast, episode 102. Let's talk funk. Excited to have you.
What's one big takeaway you want our guys listening in to to have from our conversation today? >> Yeah, so thanks for having me here. I'm excited. And the the one big thing is you can get in the best shape of your life in your 40s, 50s, 60s, and beyond. We just have to we have to train smarter. We have to eat smarter.
The margin for error is here, but you can get in the best shape of your life. I see it every single day. >> I second that for sure. And it's something that really is You have to focus on it, though. And because life just gets run away and then you fall into the well, I'm too old for this or it just starts falling off from there.
Now, I said a little bit ago, one of our our main talk points today is to bring a showcase to the men's over 40 summit that you were so kind to invite me on and we had a wonderful conversation and I'll be promoting that. The episode or our summit starts on it is what June 7th through the 14th.
So, we'll be doing it live then and so you'll be able to in the show notes be able to click on links to be able to sign up and participate in that. So, you're wearing a hat. Let's talk about second and half strong. What does that mean to you and why the summit all of those things? Sure. So, yeah, second half strong means exactly what I was talking about at the very beginning.
you can become the best you, you know, health, you know, emotionally, physically, emotionally, spiritually in the second half of your life. We're not losing that in the second half of your life. And so, you know, I've been working in this with men over 40 for the last over the last decade. When I first came into this, there was nobody else, maybe a couple of us that were working with men in their 40s, 50s, 60s, and beyond.
So for me this was a a passion of mine because I struggled when I was 39 turning 40. I struggled. I didn't know what was happening with my body. I didn't know even though I was I was still, you know, posting workouts and I was funk Roberts fitness. My body was changing. Um my I could you know was 215 pounds of big puffy muscle.
Um you know I'd usually been about 180 185. I wasn't able to build muscle anymore. My joints were hurting. I had no energy. my my libido was gone. And so when I went to the doctor uh for my for my checkup, he said, "Oh man, your your your testosterone levels are 189 nanogs per deciliter." >> And for me, unfortunately, >> no.
And >> real quick, just so that the guys know what's normal range. >> Yeah, I'll get to that. >> Okay. >> So the real the real thing is like so 189 I'm like, what is 189? What is that? What is what is that? because I didn't I didn't I didn't I wasn't able to connect testosterone to it being our number one male hormone.
So he's like, "Yeah, yeah, it should be about 600, 600 plus 600 nanograms per deciliter. That's total tea, right? I was 189, right?" So that was like a grandfather basically is what he's telling me. Like you you got to a grandfather. So again, I didn't know the difference. So what you know, he worked through it with me telling me this is well this the reason why you got no libido, the reason why you have no energy, reason why you can't build muscle, reason why you have no you know you're depressed and all of these things. And so when he told me that I
can naturally increase testosterone because that's what my my whole program is about helping men naturally increase testosterone through lifestyle. Six months later I was 185 pounds. My tea levels tripled and you know I was lean and ripped and that was in my 40s and I never looked back since. And you know my 40s were some of the best years of my life which is why second half strong is something that I lean into.
Even though I'm 57 now, the 40s really was a catalyst for me to build my business. And I fought Muay Thai professionally in Thailand. And I did all of these different things that you wouldn't really think could happen in your 40s. But it wasn't until uh my later 40s when I had a heart uh a lung disorder called cryptoorganizing pneumonia where I really put into action how to really implement the lifestyles that we'll talk about today for men in their 40s 50s 60s7s and beyond.
And that's that was the catalyst to launching the over 40 alpha brotherhood. And over the last 10 years, I've helped thousands and thousands of men in that membership to also become second half strong through the the the the programming that we put together. So So yeah, second half strong is is is kind of like the the identity, right? We need a new identity because a lot of times we lose that identity.
>> So a new identity is yes, I can become strong, >> whatever that means physically, emotionally, spiritually. We there's a lot of stuff that we have to kind of break down and rebuild in our second half, but I want to be living till I'm 127 years old, 120 years old doing work, right? So that means that stuff up for today.
So that's really what what second half strong is and the catalyst for putting together the men over 40 >> summit men over 40summit.com is because the men men in their 40s, 50s, 60s,7s, we're the most underserved audience when it comes to health and fitness. We lead the league in obesity. We lead the league in heart disease. We lead the league in chronic health issues.
We lead the league in suicides. We should not be leading the league in suicides. But that's because we don't have the information that's curated specifically for who we are because we go through physiological changes. We'll talk about that a little bit later. But we go through changes that not no other demographic does.
Like women have menopause in their 40s. you know, things, you know, when you're younger, you got tons of tea and and tons of testosterone and, you know, different things happen, >> but the stuff that we go through isn't really addressed. And so, that's what this summit's all about, bringing over a hundred hundred speakers and doctors and fitness experts like yourself to to curate information specifically for us guys.
So now we have people talking to us, understanding what we're going through and giving us strategies and tips to implement them right away. >> Right? And my experience on our conversation that we had was just like we were just hanging out, chatting it up and just giving real world advice, real value, and that's across the board with everyone that you're bringing on.
So you're gonna have this uh we're not talking sciency jargon. We're not talking above the clouds or anything. It's just like man-to-man type. Tell it the way it is and so that you can easily understand and then be able to easily implement and have simple takeaways from each conversation to be able to implement and take action on.
Now the first I love the second half strong. I am in that 40 to 60. I'm 43. And that 40 to 60 range is is riddled with men having a midlife crisis because of financial stress because they're bothering their parenting. They might have aging parents that they have to take take care of. They are either wildly successful in their career or they're starting over.
Oh, we're seeing that a lot now in the AI generation and phase here that we're in of people that thought they were cruising now are under pressure because of the fast pace of technology and and that that challenges us and all of a sudden health goes on the back burner. That hour that you were going to do for the gym is now spent stressfully trying to figure out all these other life things.
>> So, we have six pillars that we're going off of in this summit. The first one we'll do it one by one but mindset and manhood in the 40s and 50s and what are some of the changes of the mindset the the just the identity that happened to men? >> Yeah. So this this spans in different the different decades but I think what happens in your 30s like you know in our 20s we're just really trying to make you know we're trying to figure ourselves out in our 20s right school and then we're looking for a career trying to
figure >> in our 30s the focus is career family you know getting married a lot of those things that you know just the to the drive to to inre improve in your career. So a lot of times >> you the health gets thrown to the back burner cuz as men we want to provide right we want to be the guy who provides for their family or for you know the kids or what have you.
And there's a lot of things that happen throughout your 30s. Some people keep the relationships. There's divorces. There's all kinds of things that are going on. But then when what what starts to happen as you get older, like I said, the physiological changes that are happening, they start to slow you down.
You don't understand what's happening. The things that you were doing before aren't really working now. you probably haven't been in the gym in 10 years because to tell you the truth, most guys aren't in the gym in 10 years. They're not going to the gym. They're not working out. They're focusing too much on their on the like consistently focusing too much on the on their careers. And that's fine.
That's what kind of what happens. >> But then when you get to your 40s, you don't know what's going on and why I got the beer belly and how come my libido's gone and why don't I feel the same way? I don't have that drive anymore and why am I feel like I'm grinding and why do my joints hurt? All of these things start to pile up.
And so what happens now also in our 40s, 50s, 60s, depending on where we are, you you may have a family, amazing family, but now the kids are getting older and now the kids are leaving. Now they become empty nesters in your late late 40s, maybe early 50s. So now you're not providing for the family anymore, right? So now you're looking at yourself in the mirror mostly and see, oh, wait a minute, I got out of shape.
Maybe it's a divorce that's happened throughout that time and now you're dealing with being a single father and you got to figure out the kids situation and you're still navigating that. Uh maybe it's a a loss of job or changing job or you're just at a career where you're kind of stuck. So that that kind of happens and and the last thing is maybe you're retired so later on 40s 50s 60s you're going to retirement.
All of those things have an identity that is that is applied to that, right? As a father and you're still a father, but you're not the >> your role change. I've got four kids. I'm in the thick of it. 16 to 10, three boys and a girl. Holy cow. I might have to drive 90 minutes to to go to the middle school today. I don't know. Someone might needed they forgot something and I have to go drop it off.
Oh my gosh. Well, there goes a large portion of my day that I have to rearrange to be able to do that. And that causes other challenges and stuff. So, I'm in the thick of providing, but oh my gosh, bonk. What am I going to do when all my kids are gone? I'm going to be bored out of my mind because I was so used to being go with them running around.
>> Sure. >> And I will be I'll feel sad. >> Yeah. And that's what happens generally speaking. You have the empty nesters. You've got maybe you're now you're you're divorced or maybe your wife just leaves you or whatever whatever that is or maybe you had a great career and it's your career is now over or maybe there's a change but your when that identity changes then you don't really have a clear purpose what also starts to to to to surface is your health right now you're because you haven't been taking care of your health and you know that's
just the the reality of it right you have to take ownership of the fact that hey I haven't really been taking care of my health. And usually what what it it it unfortunately what happens is it it it some type of uh uh life uh chaotic life. Yeah. Honestly, that's how I run into people.
It's not because hey, I want to stay strong in the second half. It's no I got slapped in the face by my doctor basically. He said we're putting you on medicine or my size 40 pants don't fit anymore. I saw myself in a picture and I didn't recognize who was standing next to my wife. Like all sorts of things start happening. >> Yeah.
So that's exactly, you know, it's it's that event where, you know, they get high blood pressure, cholesterol, whatever that is that that kind of slap them in the face, wife leaves them because they're not the same as they used to, whatever that is. So, so, so now it's about, okay, now what do I do? Right? What do I do? But I don't know. I haven't gone to the gym.
I you know there's so much information out there or not enough information that's not and the information is not curated for us. >> So it's very difficult for men to kind of see what is that next step. And of course for guys we have a lot of ego right? So we don't want to ask for help >> because we feel that if we ask for help >> then we're we're weak which is 100% the opposite.
We need the help so that we can you know get the structure and the system in place. So, so that's generally what's going on mindset wise. There's a lot of changes that are happening lifestyle, but also physiologically they're happening too that we don't understand, right? >> And then not having some some somewhere to go or something to do.
Like you go to your doctor, your doctor is going to tell you they're going to prescribe and they're diagnosed and prescribe, but your doctor doesn't know nutrition, workouts. They don't know that stuff. They're not spending the time or the energy with your understanding your lifestyle or understanding your strengths, your weaknesses, and the challenges that you have to face every day to be able to overcome them.
>> Yeah. So, it's it's so now you're you're kind of like, okay, now where do I do work? Where do I go? And that's where we have to kind of sit back and think about um you know, those next steps. How did I get here? Which again, sometimes it's very difficult to understand how you got there because you've been so focused on one thing.
But yeah, that that's basically what keeps men stuck because not only that, but the the you know, our our the media and and everything else makes it okay to have the dad bought and it's okay. Unfortunately, yeah, >> society has trended that way toward where the majority of the US and Canada are trending toward obesity or or like definitely overweight and chronic illness is more regular than it's ever been in people, which is unfortunate.
>> It's the worst it's ever been actually right now. We and and men illegally in obesity, in heart disease, and and suicides, everything else. So this is um it's not it's not even like we're kind of there. We're it's it's the other the other side. >> Epidemic level proportions going on here. >> Yeah. 100%.
So yeah, it's it's uh that's that's really where the the the mentality is and now it's like kind of stuck as to okay now what do I do? What do I do first? And then you kind of just I don't want to ask for help. So now you're just back in this isolated bubble. You don't want to talk to your family. you feel down. You can't look at yourself in the mirror and when you do look at yourself, you don't like what you see.
So that just, you know, the the depression becomes worse. You kind of try to hang on to your old identity, but that doesn't work. Or >> like I used to be I used to play football in high school, right? Like I Hey, that was like 20 years ago, 30 years ago. We need to >> Yeah. Yeah. And there's some things you can pull from that for sure because of course, but you know, yeah, it's just uh Yeah.
Anyway, so that's yeah, that's kind of where we're at with the >> right. So that's the first pillar of the one of the key pillars because if it's not right in your mind, then your identity, you never can realize that second half strong type mantra and a body and a healthy legacy of yourself. That leads us into pillar number two centering around testosterone hormones and longevity.
Certainly with dealing with the low tea that you had, the testosterone and going on a personal journey to improve that. Let's talk what happens when a guy's got a waist that's over 40 inches big. He's been overweight for a decade. He hasn't been in the gym because he's been too busy and he eats fast food or on the go all the time.
where is his hormone levels at with that tes? Like what's going on there? >> I'm going to step one back just to the mindset. Leave you guys with something um that's very very important. >> This is the this is the key for >> you listening to this being able to take that next step. You have to actually take ownership of where you're at.
Because if you don't take ownership of and what I mean by that is most men will blame >> their career or their family or their situation and they blame the external. And when you blame something that's external that means you don't have the ability to make a change because if it's your wife's fault she's the only one that can make change.
If it's your kids fault they're the By the way, you should never throw your wife or kids or anybody else under the bus. >> Agreed. >> Because it's all about ownership. But when you take ownership, no matter what it is, when you say the reason why I'm here is because this is the way I ate or didn't eat.
These are the things I did and did not do. That means that you can actually make the change. That means like, okay, I'm here. I'm good. This is where I'm at. I'm not going to beat myself up. Here is ground zero. Now I can make the changes. Now I have the power. So you take the power back to make the change. When you when you give that away to other people by telling them, blaming other people, then you don't have power.
We need that power cuz in order for us to become second half strong, we need to have the power to make those changes. It's going to be difficult. It's not going to be easy. That's why you have to get some help and get a structure and a system. But the thing now is, oh my god, I can actually make changes.
I I'm telling you when I'm talking right now, I see it every single day. guys coming in their 40s, 50s, 60s,7s, they're in the worst shape of their lives. We have thousands of testimonials and thousands of before and afters because they take ownership. So, I just wanted to leave with that. I know I kind of beat everyone down about mindset and this and that, but >> it's so important.
>> Ownership, it is the number one thing that will allow you to make the change and then you'll start to make the change. It won't be easy, but it will. It's a marathon, not a sprint, because we want to be, you know, doing this for the rest of my life. So I just wanted to leave with that and that's >> then we move into the the hormones and health.
So I I want to I want to premise by letting you know what's actually physic physiologically happening to our bodies when we when we're at 40. So the first thing is testosterone levels naturally decrease >> 1 to 2% every year after the age of 30. So by time we reach 40 our tea levels are low. I talked about 600 nanogs per deciliter.
Back in the 80s, a man's like the normal range of men's testosterone were over a thousand nanograms per deciliter. So like our fathers, they like they all had testosterone >> walking around like Arnold Schwarzenegger all the time. Huh. >> Just that though, because it's not just muscles and that's the mis misnomer. People think it's about being jacked and ripped. It's not about that.
It's about the energy. It's about everything that goes along with testosterone. But now what happens is testosterone levels throughout the decades they slowly moved the marker down. So a,000 would have been normal. Now then it was 800 then it was 600. Now the norm is 200 or I think it's 300 nanogs per and I'm just talking >> 300 nanogs per deciliter to I think 700 now they say. So they keep moving.
Uh, and the other thing too is that's such a a large how can a nor something normal be 600 points? That makes no sense, right? It makes no sense. So whether you're 200 or 800, you're normal. No, that doesn't make sense. So 600 nanogs per deciliter is basically specifically my program where you're going to feel your best, right? You're going to have the energy. You're going to feel good.
You're going to be your fat's going to be burning off. You're going to have be able to build muscle. Your libido is going to you're going to be waking up with the morning wood. But unfortunately, you know, by time you reach 40, because our our testosterone levels naturally decrease because we haven't lived a lifestyle that supports hormones, we are now in a situation where we have the lowest testosterone across the board.
So testosterone levels in men are even in younger men are lower than they've ever been before. Estrogen also starts to increase. Estrogen is a female hormone. We need a little bit of estrogen for our uh sex sex a healthy sex will help. But too much right causes aromatase which means that testosterone um converts back to estrogen.
And when we have too much estrogen that means we have too much visceral fat which is a fat around your belly which kills you. When we have too much estrogen we have the man boobs. We see the guys walking around the man boobs. Too much we have too much estrogen it kills our hormones or testosterone.
So that's the the kind of that's the one thing that's going on, right? The second thing is psychopenia, which is a natural loss of muscle due to aging. We don't have to suffer from sarcopenia, but as I mentioned before, most guys aren't consistently in the gym training, working out, building muscle, using resistance.
So m muscle is metabolic. Muscle will help us burn fat. Muscle's also uh important for our metabolic health. And muscle is it it's the or it's the organ of longevity. The more muscle we have as we get older, the longer >> science define status. The more muscle you have, the longer your opportunity to live on this earth will be >> because at the very basic you'll be more functional.
But yes, you're stronger, you can handle life, you'll be more durable to put up with the gravity even it's a metabolic health too. It's like a metabolic health thing. >> Um, you know, most a lot a lot of guys look at it as the as the aesthetics. >> It's not the aesthetics. You know, if it's the muscle, of course, you're going to look better and you're going to be leaner, but it's more about how it's going to help us metabolically internally.
So, sarcopenia happens starting from 35 and it starts to accelerate when you're in your 50s. So, again, we have to actively be building muscle. The third thing is our metabolism slows down, right? So that's more of a lifestyle thing than a aging thing, >> right? >> Because the foods we eat or don't eat, the movement we're not doing, we're sitting down more, we're on our phones more.
So, and then maybe you're trying these crash diets, maybe you're going too hard in the gym, that that's going to slow down our metabolism. So again, our ability to build uh ability to burn fat and then of course insulin resistance becomes and obesity are increasing as well. So we get the beer belly, we get the the uh the the ability for our body not to to convert glucose where it needs to.
So all of these things creep up by the time you're 40, which is why it's important for us to understand. Okay, so if all of these things are physiologically happening, then I need to create a lifestyle that is going to address that. I'm going to eat to naturally increase testosterone. I got to work out to naturally increase testosterone and build muscle, etc.
So that's where the the So by the time we reach 40, that's what we're dealing. We're dealing with low tea. We're dealing with erectile dysfunction. We're dealing with insulin resistance, which is uh which is massive right now. We're dealing with visceral fat. So there's two types of fat. There's subcutaneous fat, which is what I'm pinching right now.
Visceral fat around the organs, which literally will kill you. Period. Right? And all of this fat that the body can't convert will will will settle in the organs and will kill you. So that and and causes a lot of the other chronic diseases that we suffer from. And then of course there's um yeah and then and then and then it it's it's so all these physiological things we have to fight right that are happening with us.
And that's that's that's where our focus now should be okay well how do I improve my energy? How do I improve my recovery? How do I, you know, get rid of this brain fog? Cuz that's another thing that happens, right? Brain fog, recovery. So, we're fighting all of these things hormonally and and physiologically, but we have to understand that that's why we're doing that that that's what's happening.
Cuz when you don't know that's what's causing these things, then you're going to be stuck in that like, okay, well, why is it just because of my age? Has a little bit to do with it, for sure. But some people age in 40s, 50s, 60s and they don't have those things because they have been living a life st with their testosterone.
They have been in the gym. But when you know, okay, the reason why I'm not getting good sleep probably because my testosterone levels are low, my insulin resistance, I got this big belly fat. Okay, but if I change those, I'm going to sleep better. Obviously, you got to do some things to to get a better sleep environment.
But when you know that these are the reasons why these things are happening. Why is my libido gone? Oh, it's cuz my tea levels are low and my estrogen levels are high. Why is my why do I have this belly fat? Oh, because um I've got uh you know, I've got a lot of visceral fat probably from the drinking and the foods and all the crap that I'm eating.
And if I change that, then I can change, right? Or my body can change because a lot of times we feel like, man, it's just I'm 40 and this is where I'm at or I'm 50 and this is where I'm at and there's nothing going to change. but it can. So understanding hormones are very important. Um the thyroid is responsible for your metabolism.
Like when you know these things then you're like okay you're going to think everything you do is going to be intentional. What you eat is going to be intentional. You're going to be like okay I'm eating healthy fats. We'll get to nutrition. Eating healthy fats because it's got cholesterol and cholesterol is a precursor testosterone.
Cool. Need the healthy fats, >> right? >> As opposed to listening to someone who says don't eat fat or use this type of diet. you're gonna be like actually that doesn't apply to me because these are the things that are happening to me and these are the my lifestyle that I have to change.
So it is important to understand that these are the physiological things that are happening but we can overcome all of those health issues that we have when we reach 40 50 or 60 depending on when when that comes to surface. >> Right now let's transition into some of the other pillars because they directly build off of what we've been talking about. All right.
So, we've got the mindset. We've got this identity around being a man and a leader and provider and living the second half strong. And we start to understand testosterone, hormones, and if you haven't been to your doctor and gotten a blood panel, uh, probably a good idea to go in and get those numbers done. So then you have a relevant baseline for where you're at right now to be able to then start adjusting.
So then we get into the third pillar, which is training and fitness for men over 40. How is that different and then what we may have done when we were 20 and you know leaping for at least my age we were leaping through the men's health magazines and stuff to uh or the Arnold Schwarzinator workouts and whatnot but let's talk about fitness and exercise and getting in the gym.
>> Yeah, I got to back up again. Sorry. I got to back up. You said very very important and it's blood work. So the most important thing I can leave you with. So there's the next. So the first step I told you about ownership. >> The second one, this is what you're going to do. You're going to go to your doctor today, tomorrow, whenever, and you're going to ask for blood work, full blood panel, including your testosterone levels.
That's what everyone is going to do. Your doctor is going to push back. Your doctor is going to say, "You don't need testosterone. Uh uh you don't need that test. You know, they ask you stupid questions. You demand it because you need to know where you're at. Once you get that information, just like Brian said, now you have the info.
Now, not only do you have the mindset, the ownership, right? Okay, I can take ownership. I make change. Now, I got the info. Okay, my tea levels are really low. Cool. That talk speaks to a lot of the stuff that phone just talked about. Oh, maybe my cholesterol is high. Oh, maybe this is So, now you have a you have blood work that you can use.
you're you're you may have to take it somewhere else to someone who can actually read it and and understand it and help you apply, but now you have uh more power because you have the info, the data because you can't make decisions without data. >> Exactly. >> And you have the the ownership of I'm going to make a change.
So, we got the first two things. Now, we're going to get into training. This is super important because there's big mistakes that men make just like Brian said. >> Yeah. >> Mistake number one, you jump to the cardio. So, jumping to cardio, I get it. We've been told so many years that cardio, cardio, cardio meaning long steady state cardio hit, >> right? >> Yeah.
Long steady state cardio meaning like go go getting on a treadmill for 60 minutes or getting on the elliptical for 60. By the way, any man who's listening right now, if I ever see you on an elliptical machine, I will I will knock you off that elliptical machine. No man in their mind should be on elliptical machine anyway. So elliptical machine for 60 minute, treadmill for 60 minutes, you know, stair climber for 60 or you start jogging.
All of those things are are are what you would do for cardio, but that's not what that's a massive mistake because that sets up a catabolic environment. So cardio, right, you're training for 60 minutes. So your cortisol levels, cortisol is a stress hormone and we need cortisol. It's an important hormone. We need it for waking up.
We need it for when we're actually training in the gym. We need it for when we need to focus. It's our fight or flight. So, we need cortisol. But elevated cortisol levels, which most men have, uh will cause testosterone levels low, heart disease, all of all of the chronic issues that we have, >> right? So, we don't want to be keeping our cortisol levels at a high state.
Cortisol is also catabolic. So it will so in terms of training and muscle building it will eat away at our muscles the more catabolic we are. We want to create an anabolic environment. There's a time for catabolic environments which is 30 minutes into a workout. But anything after that that stays there is going to sabotage our anabolic environment which is what's going to help us rebuild.
So so long steady state cardio is going to not only be hard on our joints. It's you may lose a little bit of weight but that's going to be muscle. We talked about cyclopenia. Copenia is a natural loss of muscle due to aging. And remember I told you you have to be building muscle. So we don't want to spend 60 minutes doing something that's that's literally doing the opposite of what we want, sabotaging.
So no more long steady state cardio. We don't need that. There are other ways to train where you'll add that conditioning and that stamina in I'll get to you in a second. The second thing is bodybuilding style training like like you were talking about, you know, you go to the muscle and health.
I mean, I've written for muscle and fitness and all the all the health magazine doesn't really work for us as we get older because we don't recover in the same way. So, doing chest day, then back, then legs, then arms, then shoulders, then a day off, and then doing it again, which is probably all we know at the moment.
If we haven't been in the gym for so long, we don't that's all we remember, right? You walk into the gym, >> you're like, "Okay, today's chest day." All right. So you jump >> Monday. >> It's just underneath the bench and you're all of a sudden you're like, "Shit, I don't even remember how to bench, right?" Because I got to move in a long, guys.
So you drop the bench and you're looking around and you go to the dumbbells. Okay, well they're dumbbells. And you pick the dumbbells up and you start doing bicep curls, but then you're looking around and everyone else is kind of doing it differently and you feel out of place and they don't want these. And then next thing you know, you're looking around.
Oh, I see a leg press machine. He's sitting the leg press machine. But most guys never did legs to begin with. So then you're not going to get a leg. So you're going to get out of the leg fresh. You don't even remember how to use it because you never used it. Then you end up just getting on that treadmill again.
You end up just going on the treadmill. >> Default. So >> yeah, but our our joints are are not as uh uh elastic as they used to be. Elasticity in our joints >> little stiffer. >> Touching your toes a little bit harder. >> Exactly. So the the the recovery piece, remember I talked about anabolic catabolic.
So what you're doing in the gym, we are breaking down and tearing muscle fibers in the gym. So every time we do a bicep curl or a chest press or or squats, we're tearing muscle fibers. That's what's going to help us to rebuild. But the more we do that, we have to have the the the other things in place that will help us recover.
But if we keep breaking it down, chest day, back day, even though we're doing different body parts, still that that uh that volume, our body cannot handle that volume and we'll just end up getting injured. We'll end up getting more joint pain and we won't be able to have a sustainable training environment where we can train for the rest of our lives.
So that type of that unless you're going to step on on the stage, you don't need that type of training, right? So that's number two. And number three, going too extreme. So a lot of times I remember when when CrossFit first came out, you know, that was a big thing, right? And CrossFit is amazing sport.
I watch it, but it's a sport, people. It's a sport. It's not a workout. It's actually a >> Well, yeah. In the very beginning, we could it was a training program, but now it is definitely support and definitely high stakes with money. >> Yeah. Yeah, for sure. So, and and there's a lot of technique behind it. There's a lot that goes around.
So jumping all the way to an a high intensity uh that type of high intensity cuz um you know is is just again a sap, right? You're setting yourself up to get injured. Our bodies can't go from zero to hero, which is what we always want to do because we want the quickest results, but that's also going to sabotage our results. I've seen it many, many times.
>> I'm going to do all the squats that I haven't done in years. I'm going to do them all today to catch up. And then you can't walk for a week. you lose. It's not the wrong workout. It's the consistency. So, what do we do instead? Well, the best workouts are you're going to do two to three workouts a week.
Three workouts >> would be the best, but if you're just starting, even two workouts a week. But each one of those workouts you're going to do total body training using compound movements, multiple mo multi- joint movements, >> and you're going to use metabolic training. So, metabolic resistance training, that's my specialty.
Um, so you're gonna liter it's a literally circuit training. You're gonna six exercises where you entire body move from one exercise to the other with little to no rest in between. So let's pick a work. So you're going to do 40 seconds of work of goblet squats with the dumbbell. Then right after that you're going to rest for 20 seconds.
Then you're going to get on the floor and do 40 seconds of chest press. Then you're going to rest for 20. Then you're going to do 40 seconds of bent over rows. Rest 20 seconds. You need to do that four times. Right? So it's like 24 minutes, six exercises. And that's total body.
So now you're hitting your entire body in one workout. We're doing it under 30 minutes. So now we're setting ourselves up for our cortisol to come down naturally. And we're also getting what's called the afterburn effect because when you work out in that way, right, it's called the afterburn effect. So before we start a workout, we're at homeostasis.
That's when our body's at its at its rest. When we work out, when we do cardio, 60 minutes of cardio, right? you start doing 60-minute card, you're you're only doing at a moderate only moderate intensity. You can't do cardio hard and intense for for 60 minutes. So, you're going to burn calories for sure. You're going to burn calories, but then it's only going to take your body maybe an hour to get back to homeostasis.
Okay? So, that's that's regular cardio. So, you're going to burn calories, but it's and and for your body to get back to homeostasis, that's that that requires energy, which requires calories. So, you're going to burn calories for another hour. When you do a metabolic workout where you're going from one exercise to another with little to no rest in between, the intensity is super high because you're going to get a lot of cardio and conditioning because you don't have a lot of rest in between the sets that you're doing.
It's it takes your body 24 to 36 hours to get back to homeostasis. >> Let me do that again. 24 to 36 hours. Many times in my program, during my coaching calls, guys will be like, "Hey, Funk, something's wrong with me because I keep sweating like two hours after your workout." So, I'm like, "Yeah, that's good.
That means your body is thermogenic. It's still burning calories. It wants to get back to homeostasis. >> So, you've got a workout that only lasts 30 minutes. You can do it in the comfort of your own home. You can do it at the gym. You You can use just dumbbells or body weight, resistance bands or something else.
We use kettle bells if you have kettle bells, but not style." And you're going to do that on a Monday, uh, Wednesday, and a Friday. And that the exercises you choose on Wednesday and Friday are going to be different from the one on Monday. So maybe we did squats on Monday for the first exercise. You'll do lunges on on Wednesday, and then you'll do um, I don't know, a hip bridge on on on the Friday.
So you're hitting the different parts of the lower body or different squat variations, but still it's total body, right? So maybe you did chest press one day, you'll do flies the next day, and maybe do alternating chest press or incline chest. So you're always picking different exercises for that week. You're going to implement that Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and that is going to set yourself up to be able to build muscle while you burn fat because remember, we have the afterburn effect, but we're also using resistance. So
we're building lean muscle. And in between, we have mobility and flexibility, which is uh paramount because we don't want to get injured. Right? I talked about the recovery not being uh we don't recover the same way we used to and we want to build an anabolic environment, right? So the the stuff around inside of the gym.
So this and this is like this is a non-negotiable by the way. Mobility, you can choose mobility, you can choose like Manflow yoga, by the way. Manflow yoga is part of the summit. He's got yoga specifically for men, right? So you could use Manflow yoga. You can use Pilates, but that is a non-negotiable on your Tuesdays >> and your Thursdays because that is going to keep you injuryfree.
You know, we're always hunched over. We've got to, you know, open up. We've got to get rid of the pain in our back and our shoulders and our knees and our joints. That's what's going to help us. And it's going to also help us perform in our workouts because remember, we want to be doing this for the rest of our lives.
Like this is not couple of months. This is not, you know, that 28 day program. This is the rest of your life. Mhm. >> training three times a week or two times a week or sometimes four. We're going to implement those that mobility >> and that specific is perfect for us guys. And again, as you start to advance, then you can add in other things like CrossFit if that's what you want to do because you built that that that baseline of of a body that's that's that's hard to kill, right? And not only is a body in the gym functionally, but
externally, right? Because here's the thing. When you're 40s, >> you probably still want that six-pack. And I see that with my guys in my program, you know, when they they don't want the six-pack. They just want to lose the weight, right? And and the first thing you should be losing is fat. By the way, when you first come in, the very first thing you should be losing is fat.
>> But of course, you're going to build muscle as well. But in your 40s, it's more about like, yeah, I still I can still look good and, you know, take my shirt off. In your 50s, things start to change a little bit because you're more about functional. You want to be functional throughout the day. You want whatever you're learning or building inside the gym to help you with everyday thing.
Picking up your kids or grandkids, putting stuff away, building things in the backyard. You don't want to be always in pain or weak. So, a lot of the workouts that you do are going to help with that. But when you get in your 60s and 70s and beyond, it's more about being able to do things like hiking and and being painfree and waking up pain free.
And yes, of course, you want to be >> Yeah. running and jumping, which is other things that we lose, but are part of things that we have to still train, right? Balance and and uh you know, a stability that all of that stuff comes with that mobility work, but you build that into your workouts as well. So, you're always applying new things like you're always trying to get better.
Maybe after you get that baseline, you want to increase your pull-ups and your dips. Okay, well, I'm going to add pull-ups and dips, right? You don't need deadlifts. You don't need barbell chest press. You don't need back squats. That's just setting yourself up for for more disaster. So, in that training scope, it is the the the metabolic resistance training.
So, building muscle while burning fat, but the mobility or the yoga or whatever you use is a non-negotiable. Like, we're not even having this conversation about training if that's not part of it. They're 50/50. They're 50/50 for sure. Does that make sense? >> Agreed. Totally agree. I love this. There's one thing I always say to people and you would definitely resonate with this.
If you're consistently doing three times a week for the say the rest of your life, working out, you're going to be more consistent than most humans have ever been in the entirety of mankind, especially in the modern gym, uh, you know, phase that we're in. And that's because you go back 500 years, you there weren't gyms because you were trying to you're digging in the dirt and and pulling and dragging things.
And so that was a part of your everyday life. Now we have to put it into insert it into our everyday life. And going to the gym is a great way to do it. And lastly, I know that Funk really would appreciate this and totally abides by way is that make sure you don't get hurt. That's the first rule is do make sure you can show up at the gym tomorrow and not overdo it today. That's so important.
And that's where some of the the mobility work comes in to re elongate and and get your body back to a full range of motion and flexibility and not stuck in these bad posture positions that you've been in for too long. >> Moving on to nutrition because now we have to fuel the machine to burn the body fat to live and have that energy that we want and and not fall asleep at 3:00.
What are we doing and in our 40s, 50s, and 60s with nutrition, punk? >> Yeah. So, the biggest mistake right now for men is using feminizational diets, going on restrictive diets, going on diets that don't even have anything to do with us. Because remember, once again, we're going to go back up to what's physiologically happening.
We in and our hormonal environment. We need a nutrition plan that is going to help with our overall health with our hormones. And of course, the byproduct will be helping us build muscle, burn fat, and tackle the insulin resistance and tackle diabetes and pre-diabetes. All comes down to our nutrition. So, there's tons out there.
Keto diet, paleo diet, one day, all of these crazy diets that those diets aren't for us, okay? They they don't they don't align with us. What what aligns with us is what I call the balanced plate meal. Okay? Because a balanced plate meal >> means that you're going to have four quadrants on your on your plate or your bowl or your smoothie.
And every quadrant has a role. So you're going to have a source of these are called macronutrients. Protein. You're going to have a source of protein. You're going to have a source of healthy fat. You're going to have a source of complex carbs. And you're going to have a source of vegetables and fruits.
with every single meal. You're only going to eat three times a day. That's it. There's no snacking. There's no need for that because that puts too much uh uh load on our digestive system and it it causes that causes the insulin resistance because we're just continuously putting >> it just even the more times that you eat, the more likeliness you to put more calories in your mouth and now we're out of calorie balance and we're in calorie toxicity in a sense of weight gain, which is what we don't want. Totally.
So, let's talk about what why we're eating each one of these. First is protein. Protein is a building blocks of our muscles, our bones, and the metabolic processes that go through our body, which means and we don't naturally our body does not produce protein. We have to get it from an outside source. So, protein is super important again for muscle building, for fat burning and metabolic process.
So, we need to get that protein in our body and generally we're going to do that through animal protein and high quality protein. Listen, I told you guys before that the margin for error is here. So, we can't be floating around eating all kinds of other types of things. We want to keep things very very high quality. So, protein is going to be key.
It's going to be animal protein, eggs, uh uh meat, you know, try try to keep it very high quality. And that's that's >> land, sea, and air type protein sources, right? >> Yeah. For sure. For sure. Then, so that's one thing. The second thing we're going to get is a source of healthy fat. Healthy fats like monounsaturated fats.
There's a lot of there's different fats we have to be very very careful. Trans fats are the ones we want to stay away from, but there's healthy fats that that we want. And the reason why is healthy fats have cholesterol. Cholesterol is a precursor to testosterone production. So testosterone production happens during deep sleep at night.
There's this whole production that happens, right? hypothalamus, you know, signals uh uh the hypogonad tropen hormone to go to the pituitary gland. Pituitary gland releases luteinizing hormone and follical stimulating hormone goes all the way down to the latex cells in your testes. And when the luteinizing hormone gets to the testes uh to the latex cell opens the door and it looks for cholesterol.
If there is no cholesterol in there or not enough cholesterol, your testosterone production does not happen. So we need to now our body does produce a bit of cholesterol but not enough keep our testosterone levels at 600 nanogs per deciliter where we want to get to. So we need healthy fats. There's again non-negotiable here.
So healthy fats have to be and and unfortunately most guys don't really know what healthy fats are, right? So avocado, grass-fed butter, olive oil, MCT oil, you know, Brazil nuts, beautiful. So those would be like >> almond butter. So those would be healthy fats and that's the reason why. So that's why it's so important.
The third thing is complex carbs. So there's two types of carbs. There's simple carbs. That's the sugars, that's the that's the pasta, that's all of the junk, the crap, the processed foods, all that stuff. That's simple carbs. Complex carbs are the good carbs that are going to help support our thyroid.
Remember I talked about the thyroid being responsible for metabolism. If you're not feeding your body the carbs, complex carbs, you're jeopardizing your your thyroid. you're jeopardizing your energy and you're jeopardizing muscle because that's where a lot of the glucose goes to when you have muscle is carbs, right? The carbs from the glucose goes to the muscle and it also helps you it also helps you um replenish the glycogen stores that you lose in the workout because that workout that we're going to do is going to drain our glycogen stores and our body needs
that that that those carbs. So those carbs are going to help with metabolism. Carbs are going to help with energy, going to help with brain health. And carbs, I'm talking about sweet potato, potato, any type of rice except brown rice because that's estrogenic. Um, quinoa, uh, steel cutouts. So, it's not a big list, right? A lot of these things are not a big list.
You want to remember I talked about the I talked about the margin of error, man. Like we just we got to stick here. So, we got to pick from pick and choose the things we love to eat >> and then we create the plate. So, that's why carbs are important. And the last thing is vegetables and fruits because they have the micronutrients.
If you are following a diet where they don't talk about micronutrients, which are the vitamins, the minerals, and the phytonutrients, then there's a problem because those are the things, the vitamins, the minerals, the the boron, the the selenium, the vitamin D, the um magnesium, all of these things, zinc, that we get from foods that are going to help balance our hormones.
They're going to give us a better hormonal environment and also healthy. We're gonna get that from food. Now, we can't get all of it from food unfortunately, but >> right, >> we want and we're gonna and the fiber. Uh so, we're getting going to get that from vegetables or fruits. So, those that's the quadrant.
So, whether it's a breakfast bowl like maybe you're going to have steel cut oats, right? And put steel cut oats, you're going to put a scoop of uh whey protein, animal whey protein, high quality New Zealand whey protein, right? Um so, that's going to be your protein. You're going to have uh uh bananas and berries as your fruits.
And bananas make everything taste good. And then you're going to have almond butter maybe. And then you're going to mix that up. And that's going to be like your cereal, right? That's going to be your healthy cereal because the steel cut oats is going to be your carbs. Or maybe for lunch you're going to have uh you know grass-fed steak. Beautiful.
Uh some white rice. You're going to have avocado. And then a salad, a side salad, right? With no salad dressing on it. We're not putting all that sugar on there. We're just keeping it very simple. So you you and then so that's and then whatever you have for dinner. So that's kind of the the the blueprint, right? You have your right >> take meal one, meal two, meal three or breakfast, lunch, dinner, however you want to however you want to do it.
But you have to also stay away from all the other junk. You got to stay away from processed foods, from sugars, from trans fats, from takeout, like all of those things because they'll sabot alcohol cuz they'll sabotage that one meal that you have, right? Even more than than than anything.
So, you don't want to put that stuff in your body because again, we're trying to create a a healthier environment both physically and for our uh for overall health. But that but but it's simple. It's honestly, we don't count calories. You don't need to count calories. All you have to do is make sure you have a source of carbs, fats, proteins, vegetables, and fruits on your plate.
And when you can see that, you know that you're putting the quality of food, right? It's the quality of food, not the necessarily the quality. Of course, we want to be in a caloric deficit. We have to lose weight, but caloric deficit doesn't mean eating less. It all it also means making sure that we're training so we're burning more calories at the end of the day, right? always want to fuel fat loss and burn calories to do so rather than just eat less >> 100%.
So >> yeah, and the quality is is going to be key, which is why we don't have the fake food and the processed foods because they don't have the nutrients, right? They don't have nutrients, right? These these foods we're eating have nutrients that are going to help us feel full longer and also going to going to give us what we need in order to again live much healthier and much more energy.
So the nutrition piece is easy. Another tip before we go to the next one is one of the things that we do in a program is how do we make things easy for guys? We're we're very simple simplify, right? >> Yep. >> So what we do is we choose our go-to meals or sorry our go-to foods for the week.
So at the beginning end of the week >> we go okay so next week so for me this week by for instance this week I just I just shopped. So, this week I'm gonna have uh basmati rice is going to be my my carb for most of the week. Um I'm gonna have uh steak and and ground beef. So, I have a lot of steak and ground beef.
So, that's going to be my go-to proteins and of course whey protein in the morning with my still cut oats. Um avocado is is a main stay for me. So, I buy a whole bag of avocado and then whatever you know salads I'm going to have. But that's it. So, the whole week I'm done. I just come home, I batch cook all my and then and for me, I will put all my carbs in one bucket.
I'll put all my my protein in one bucket. I'll build from there. My wife's different. She will build her meals out like she builds her meals. >> But the meal prep is very important. But picking and choosing your me your foods allows you to be prepared, right? And that's what it is. It's being prepared and you're cooking your meals, right? It doesn't have to be perfect.
Just make it easy and simple and eat the same things over and over again. Don't try to keep changing things. Eat the same. >> Simple is easy. Easy gets done, people. >> Totally. So, that's that's where the nutrition comes in. Um, and then supplementation, too. There are some non-negotiables if you want to quickly go through that. Totally up to you.
>> Yeah. So, supplements. >> So, nothing happens. Supplements are kind of the final piece of the puzzle, but they're a very important piece because the foods that we eat today are not the same nutrient density as the foods that we had in the 80s. You know, the soil is a lot more damaged and the >> are just the way they're making these foods these days are just unbelievable, man. It's it's horrible.
It's very difficult >> now to find real good whole foods. You need to go to farmers market or whatever. Now, I'm not making excuses because we can still eat healthy, but we do need supplementation, non-negotiable. So, what are some of the non-negotiable supplements? Protein powder, high quality animal whey protein.
I don't care what anyone says, you're not going to get most men do not eat enough protein. So, we need to sure we have this high quality protein, not with sugar, not with all these other added uh fillers. We want it one, that's it, protein. >> Cuz we're going to use that. We're going to use after a workout.
We're going to use it in our steel cut oats in the morning. We're going to use it when we feel like we need some, you know, chocolate, like chocolate protein and a little more water. Only use water, not milk. >> Second is creatine monohydrate. Every man in the planet should be on creatine. Not even a question.
For the brain, for muscle, and for all of the different benefits that creatine has. Get on creatine right away, right? You have to go through a little bit of a phase where you're going to feel a little bit bloated with water. That that ends after four weeks. So that those are the first two. The second thing is the third one is magnesium glycinate. Magnesium.
Sleep is a super important um uh super important for us. Magnesium is one of those things that helps keep the stress levels down, anxiety down. It prepares us for sleep. It's also most men are deficient in magnesium. Most people are deficient in magnesium. Magnesium is a very powerful testosterone booster, but also it's a powerful uh in uh uh mineral mineral that we're deficient in for overall health. So, magnesium glycinate.
Now, the problem with magnesium is there's so many different forms of magnesium, which is why I said magnesium glycinate. And you're going to take that >> oxide. Make sure you're looking at your labels. >> That's exactly. Then we want omega 3 fish oil, right? So, omega-3 fish oil. It's a top tier um because we're not eating enough healthy fats, not enough fatty uh fish, and most of us are we have too much omega6, which is very inflammatory, and not enough omega-3.
So, we have to switch that. So, we got omega-3 fish oil. Again, that's a non-negotiable. Vitamin D3 K2, non-negotiable. We just went through COVID years ago. We found out most people are deficient of vitamin D3 K2. We also found out the benefits of vitamin D3 K2. And yes, we can get it from the sun, but that's not realistic for most people depending on where you live.
>> And the K2 is a is is kind of like the the Robin to the Batman, right? It helps with uh with absorption, but we're also deficient in A2 as well. So, vitamin D3 and K2. Next up is a multivitam multivitamin. Every man should be taking a high quality multivitamin. Not centrum crap, like a high quality multivitamin because we're not getting enough of the vitamins and minerals from the foods that we're eating.
We're getting some, but we're not getting enough and it's getting worse and worse, right? And so, those are kind of like my my main main uh am I missing anything? Yeah, that's that's pretty much the >> main you covered all your bases. That's for sure. >> Yeah. Having electrolytes, you know, maybe some collagen, greens, zinc would be great.
But those are the main ones like that. Get those and you're you're you're set. >> Agreed. Agreed. Moving on to the next one. We got sleep. This is a huge pillar. And I know I'll be having Nick Lambion on as your your partner in crime for the men's health summit. He'll be coming on here next week and we're going to go over some of the pillars and his specialty is sleep.
So, let's jump into sleep as our fifth pillar and why it's so important and it helps with the recovery and it's its own form of biohacking that's free. You just have to go to bed early or on time and not be drowning out scrolling on a phone or something. Yeah, it you know it is it's it's hard it's easier to say than it is to do and I realize that 100% because most people are sleepd deprived.
>> Um and sleep is something that we always thought of being weak, right? Like you know I'll sleep when I'm dead. I you know and and and our environment actually rewards non-sleeping like if you work hard come in earlier work later good you know work harder you know oh I only got two hours sleep but I was able to do this in school when you're studying you're studying all night longer >> all of these things are like rewarded rewards are like a badge of honor it's not sleep is the foundation if there is one thing that will move the needle in
health the most is sleep. It's getting two to four two to four hours of restorative sleep. I know you're probably saying two to four hours, isn't it? 7 to nine hours. That's total sleep. >> Yeah. >> And 7 to nine hours is only going to set you up. It's not even going to set you up to be able to have two to four restorative because I used to get eight hours sleep every day.
But then I would look at my Whoop, my Whoop strap. I have a retractable and my Whoop would say that um my Whoop was always in the red. I'm like, how is it possible? It says I got eight hours sleep, but then I looked at my and I used to think my loop was broken. In fact, I th I threw it out and bought a new one thinking that it was broken >> because I'm getting eight hours sleep, but why is my recovery still in the red? >> And then I realized, and this is me being the expert here, realize that ah it's a restorative sleep. I'm only
getting 30 minutes restorative sleep and that's the that is the most important the quality of sleep >> and so once I started to focus more on how do I get more restorative sleep which is 2 to four hours and why is this important well let's talk about what happens at night let's talk what restoative sleep is that's REM that's deep sleep like that's like the deep sleep that you're getting so two to four hours a night is going to set you up because that's when muscle grow that's the anabolic environment you need to
build muscle right So, we're breaking down muscle in the gym or at home. I work out at home. So, you're building you're breaking down muscle. Muscle at night time. It's like, "Okay, guys, funk's broken us down. Uh, we need to we need to build back up, man. We got he's going to put us through another workout in a couple days, man.
Here." So, that's when everything starts to rebuild, get stronger, get bigger. But, you have to have that environment. The second thing is your brain starts to flush during that that time. And so that you don't get that brain fog, right? There's a lot of uh things that happen neurologically during that deep sleep, that restorative sleep.
The third thing that happens is your testosterone production. Remember I talked about that whole production. Well, that happens during only happens during deep restorative sleep. So those three along with, you know, setting yourself up for a better day, more energy, etc. happens when you get that 2 to four hours. So that's what you really want to track and focus on.
7 to nine is going to set you up better, but it's to two to four. So once you get that and that also helps with all the other marker, insulin resistance, um all those other things when you're getting that sleep, which is why it's the biggest lever. The problem is >> we want to hang on to the identity that we're bad sleepers or we can't get sleep or I'm a night owl or I wake up early or whatever it is.
>> Let me put a pin here real quick. I have a client in my program, the call to rise, and the guy came in and he's been in roughly about a full week and a half, and he came in with chronically like fourish hours. He's saying exciting insomnia. We got him eating better. I got him moving.
He's now today, this morning, I got I got my first eight hour of sleep in years and years. and he's doing the things that we're talking about today. And it's incredible because he feels like a new person getting that much deep. He's like mind-b blown. I can't believe I've slept this long. >> So, it's so important. >> Yeah.
And and you don't know what you don't know, right? Because if you could be three hours for the rest of for your whole life and then that's all you know. So, you don't know how to that that getting more sleep is going to make you feel better. In fact, Nick, I want you to talk to Nick about this next week. I'm gonna set it up for him.
But we we did a sleep challenge. Nick and I created a collab on a sleep challenge. And we had one guy in our challenge who was literally I am only a three-hour sleeper. He was in his 60s. He'd been doing this for 40 years. He's never slept more than three hours for 40 years. And two weeks into the two and a half weeks into the sleep challenge, he'd be getting eight six hours, seven hours, eight hours.
And he could not believe it. And it wasn't about anything else but about the sleep environment that we created for him, which Nick will talk about next week. But that's what it is. It's like the identity. You have to change your your relationship with sleep. >> You have to change it so that sleep is just as important as everything else in your life.
Because when you change that relationship, you're going to be more int uh more uh uh you're gonna you're gonna be more What's the word I'm looking for? you're going to be more focused on the intentional the intentionality that you have >> to set up your sleep uh your sleep environment and kind of like the whole I call it a production right like three hours you don't eat three hours before you sleep you you start to wind things down and turn off the lights two hours right you you off your phone you're off your your screen an hour maybe you go
you go in a separate part of your house where it's your sleep den and you you kind of like wind down, you maybe you read a little bit, maybe you do some some uh mobility or maybe you do some breath work or meditation and then you go to bed. >> Yep. >> And your bed is all there's no TV in your room.
You turn, you know, you black these blackout blinds, maybe put on a mask if you have >> and you're sleeping and that's where your bed just from. If you wake up, you wake up out of bed, you go pee or whatever and you can't get back to sleep, you go back to that den. You go back to your sleep then and you you recalibrate and then you go back to sleep.
You don't stay up and and sit in the bed. And then also once you're up, you're up. You're not sitting in bed thinking about things. You get out of bed right away because you >> snooze button, right? >> Yeah. The only thing you want to associate with that bedroom is sleep and sex. Those are the only two things. Yeah. >> Right.
S squared and it doesn't involve screens. >> Yeah. Exactly. You don't bring your you don't obviously your phone does not come in the bedroom. whatsoever. >> And so that but but it's the whole process. It's like it's like a process of okay like we even do this here like my wife was great at this. It's like okay we you know we're we start off with the with you know whatever we eat and then it's okay let's start let's turn off the lights now.
Let's get the lights back down and let's kind of settle in. You know we're off with the phones and we're just either chilling together or whatever. You know she reads um using her you know some blue blocker light or whatever to calm her down. Then she sleeps and that's it. Right. So that's >> y >> it's the relationship and once you do that once you change that relationship and that identity like you're a sleep guy now like that's all I'm sleep like I I appreciate sleep I know how important sleep is and just being as consistent as
possible you're not going to get the two to four hours every single day depend and also it also depends on where you're at in life right like if you are at a point where you're something's changed in your life obviously you're not going to get incredible sleep if you're moving somewhere Honestly, you're not going to get incredible sleep.
If you are working on a project that's like high high intense project, that's cool. But it's the consistency of like, okay, I understand that I'm in this season right now. >> Or you just had a child. Like you just had a child. Obviously, you're not going to get enough sleep. >> So, you're not kind of forcing it. You're understanding it and you're doing the best you can at where you're at uh at the point you're at.
But again, it's the relationship needs to change and specifically as we get older. So that's that's that's that part, the sleep part, but there's also the cortisol. This is another important one. It's also the elevated cortisol, the elevated stress. Men need to realize that we we can't live in an in a in an environment that's fight or flight.
So I talked about cortisol being a stress hormone, which we need. Like right now, my cortisol levels are through the roof because I'm focused here talking to Brian and you guys, right? Um, when I'm in when I'm working out, cortisol levels up high. When I wake up in the morning, I need the cortisol levels to be high because cortisol wakes us up, right? But at night time, you want cortisol levels to go down because if levels aren't down, then we can't release melatonin, which is our natural sleep hormone, right? They don't they don't work together.
They work in conjunction with each other or they work against each other. So, >> right, >> we want to pull that down. So, how do we keep a life a daily routine where we're not in fight or flight all day? Because most of the times we are, right? We wake up in the morning, all of a sudden we're on our phones, we get this bad email where the media's pouring crap in, and now we're thinking about, "Oh, I got to do this today. I got to do this today.
I got to do this today." And now before you even get into the shower, you're already elevated and you stay elevated because cortisol levels are supposed to go down. I know they're up in the morning to be up, but then they come down. Then you're in the shower and you're just thinking about this and that and the kids are all over the place.
Your wife probably says something. You get in the car, you're driving to work, somebody cuts you off and now you're you're flipping them off. You're giving them your power. You get to work. So you're talking about the guy who flipped you off. Now you're in this high stress work.
Then you got to go pick up your daughter. Like your full day is just stress, stress, stress, stress, stress. You're thinking about things that you should have done last week that you didn't do. You're thinking about these things that are coming up, the bills you haven't paid. Hey man, we got to slow down. How do we slow down? Well, we need to learn the things to do.
Breath work, meditation, gratitude journal in the morning and when to do them to help us reset, right? Guy flips you off when you're driving. Uh, who cares? The guy's probably probably cutting everybody off. I'm not going to give him my power, right? You know, in the morning, as soon as you wake up, write in your gratitude journal.
Write with paper gratitude journal the things you are you are thankful for every single day. I have a gratitude journal. I got I got so many of these gratitude journals but I write them every single day. Gratitude 50 60 things I'm doing every single morning. I've got huge ones all over the place because that sets me up for success. Right now my whole my I'm looking at all the the beautiful things in my life.
I'm my stress levels are low. I'm relaxed. I can I can now be able to make better decisions. You can't make decisions through when you're emotionally here. You want to make int intelligent decisions. You want to say intelligent things and you can't do that when cordis levels are elevated. So gratitude starts the day off.
A little bit of meditation. Uh I pray and I read my my Bible. Those are that's like the morning routine that sets your morning off. That's a win. You don't look at your phone at all. my I don't go on my Gmail or my phone until like 9:00 and I wake up at 6. >> I do everything else beforehand. This this this comes separate.
Um and then throughout the day you'll learn breath breath work technique. Go outside for a walk, ground yourself, right? Get back five minutes. You know, you're someone comes in, it's so stressful, they're dumping all of their stuff onto you because a lot of times people do that too. They dump all of their crap on you.
You got to be like, "Yeah, yeah, okay. No worries. I'll take care of it." You got to get up and go. You got to get up out of that place and get yourself break the pattern. Interrupt the pattern there. Exactly. Move to go >> get some fresh air, breathe, get the sun on you. Just go do something different. So it's >> release all that stuff.
>> Release all that stuff that you dumped on you. You got to release it, right? Um so yeah, learning these skills like meditation and when to use it, breath work and when to use it, uh gratitude. I know that it sounds woowoo for most men, but again, when it comes to recovery, sleep, and biohacking, that makes more of a difference than getting a sauna, which is what I have here, or red light therapy, that's going to make the biggest difference because we're always tired.
We're always wired, as you say, we're always underreovered. These are the things that are going to help us stay focused. These things are going to help us make the right decisions, and it's going to keep our cords levels up and down like they should be throughout the day. >> Yep. I love we've wrapped in some of the the sixth pillar which is lifestyle and relationship especially with yourself and and building that legacy.
Maybe let's round out our conversation with legacy of being a man that is a leader that is in his family in his sphere of influence of around the people the work the friends relationships. How does this all come down to to that? Um, for me it's you got to take care of your baggage >> because here here's the thing, man.
>> We all have it. >> We all we all have it. 40. We lived in we lived in a in our 40s, 50s, 60s. Remember, we're a generation X. Some are are our our baby boomers who are listening to this. We lived in a time where there wasn't phones and there wasn't all of the you know norms that we have today where it is okay to have mental health and you know like all you know like mental health is all there which is amazing now.
We didn't live in those times. >> So we suffered a lot. We may have done stuff to other people or we had stuff done to us when we were younger and or other things that happened. Maybe you know we were uh we suffer from PTSD or whatever but we don't take care of it. We like to push it down, right? We want to hide it. We want to push it down.
We don't want to talk about it. It's it's going to be weak. Blah blah blah. But when we something happens specifically with the hor there's no there's no science behind this, but something happens in our 40s, 50s, 60s where all this stuff starts to come up and it starts and and it doesn't come up it doesn't come up in a way where we start to rethink a lot of that stuff, which of course happens.
It comes up in how we sabotage ourselves. We don't have self-love at all. Zero. Like zero. So we'll be beat ourselves down. We don't deserve this. You know, we may be doing really well and then all of a sudden we do something to sabotage without even knowing, right? And a lot of that stuff stems from what's what we have not taken care of and talked about and had someone in a professional environment help us to wean through some of the stuff that's happened so we don't have to hold on to it because we got to let that go if we want to be the legacy. If we want to
provide protect procrate if we want to be that person because we've been grinding too much but that grinding we're going to grind ourselves off of the track and off the off the track completely. It's not sustainable a hunt because it's going to it's going to come up in either mental remember I told you from the very beginning we're leading the league in suicides right that's not that's not something that's kind of like >> oh it's not dealing with things in the past we lead the league in isolation not having enough other men and friends
around our lives we isolate ourselves too much we need to deal with that once we can start dealing with that and letting go and having someone help us let go then we can have the selflove and then we can't love other people as much as we say we do. We can't give them the love they need or the the most we can give them unless we love ourselves.
But we can't do that holding on to this other baggage. So for me, it's about manning up, getting help, and because it's a lot there's a lot out there right now. And knowing that you're going to be stronger than any other person. The strongest person in the room is a guy who has nothing to hide. Period. >> Yes. >> Like when I walk into the room, everyone knows my past. They know addiction.
They know all this stuff. I got nothing to hide. What What are you going to say? what are you gonna say to me? Nothing. Right? So then no, like I'm I'm here to serve and provide help people. So that's going to be the most powerful thing. And I think once once we do that, your relationships are going to be better.
Your uh your your your way yourself is going to be better, more uh you know, the the way you help other people is going to be much more better is going to be better. You're just going to live a way better life, man. Specifically in our 40s, 50s, 60s, 70s, and beyond. >> So that that's kind of where I want to leave it.
>> Right. And that's the time that you really want to have the fruit of thy labor for the last you've been probably grinding 20 or 30 plus years and starting to get into that this you know third chapter of your life. You want to enjoy. You want to see that the sun is shining and the blue skies and and not be burdened with an unhealthy body and poor relationships and poor energy and and all the consequences that go around not taking care of yourself.
>> And remember legacy >> and the world we live in right now is a very very very destructive world. It's a horrible like like I'm not saying horrible in the sense that it's horrible. was saying, "We all know the media is not on our sides. No one cares about you, >> right? >> No one cares about you.
" So that's why you need to care about yourself. No one cares about your problems and all these other things. They don't care. They're not coming to save you. They're not coming to help you. No one is coming to help your savior. You got to help and save yourself so you can help and save the people who you love around you.
But in order to do that, you have to have the self- loveve enough to to go through the struggles because everything I talked about here and we talked about is not easy to do. You have to actually be outside your comfort zone the entire time. >> Simple, not easy. I love saying that to people. It's simple.
It's not easy though. >> It's not easy. It's very difficult, which is why we're where we're at. If it was easy, then most people would be able to do it. >> Everyone do it, >> you know. So, we have to be like, okay, cool. I want to be hard to kill so that if I do have something chronic that happens, I can recover faster.
I wanna I want to continuously get better every single day, 1% better every single day, which means >> stay outside my comfort zone. I'm not afraid to fail. I'm not afraid to fall because I'm going to fail fast, fall fast, get back up, learn. Yep. So when >> do burpee when uh life knocks you down, do a burpee, right? >> Maybe birthday burpees in the brotherhood.
Um but yeah, that that that's going to set you up for constant growth. No one grows in their comfort zone. So I and again I know it's not easy which is finally you need help which is why you want to come to the men over 40 summit met over4summit.com because you're going to have over a hundred experts fitness experts doctors going through everything they're going to give you.
Some people are going to give you science and research some people are going to give you practical. The one thing that when I decided to do this, the one thing I 100% wanted was every it's not just going to be an information dump. Like this is kind of like an information dump. Although I'm trying to give you guys things you can do next step, but I want every single talk you're going to have an implementation plan.
There's going to be what is the next best thing to do so that you hear the talk, you listen to the expert, and then you have something that you can take away right away and implement into your life. So that's why and it's for you guys for us 40s 50s 60s7s beyond. It's all about what we're struggling with and the understanding that everyone who's speaking to us and with us and for us understands what we're going through. So it's free.
It's 7 days. It is a non-negotiable for every man on this planet who's over the age of 40. Believe me, you will not miss and you'll know a lot of the speakers that are going to be part of it. Yeah, you're pulling out some big names, which is awesome and I'm grateful to be in association with them.
The dates again, when is the men's over 40 summit happening? June 8th to the 14th. I don't know if you guys know this, but June is men's health month. So June 8th to the 14th from a Monday to a Sunday, every single day we release one pillar, right? So you're not going to get overwhelmed with everything. Day one, mindset manhood, you'll have all the talks, everyone who's speaking speaks to that topic.
Day two, testosterone hormones health. A lot of doctors, a lot of specialists, hormone specialists, of course, training fitness. And in the training and fitness, we have people doing actual workshops. So like Chris Lopez, Forest Vance, they're doing like kettle bell workshops. So like they're going to show you how to use the kettle bell online.
It's all online, by the way, everybody. It's all virt, you know, nutrition supplementation. We're going to go through peptides. It's a big thing right now. So we got Jay Campbell like literally run down all the peptides. you talked about diabetes, uh, which is super important. We got sleep and recovery day. So, every day is going to be specific.
>> And even the lifestyle relationship day, I love that day because it's going to be more about style, about relationships, about marriage, about entrepreneurship, retirement. >> So, the whole thing is geared towards us men. And for from June 8th to the 14th, that is when you want to be part of it. It's absolutely free.
You can upgrade to lifetime access to the talks, which I advise everyone to do. But yeah, man. Show up men over4summit.com right now because I just did a coaching call this morning inside of our Facebook group because we have a Facebook group. I do coaching calls bi-weekly. So even if you sign up now, we still have a few weeks until we get to the summit.
I'm going to be there. Rick will be there and we're going to be, you know, spitting. We're going to be spitting value for you guys and answering your questions. >> Show up. Show up. Show up. >> Let's do this. That's the whole reason why I had you here to help promote it. And this episode's getting released ASAP as soon as we get done.
Preston stopped on this recording. So, check the show notes, check out Bunk on his socials, check obviously my socials. I'll be pushing it as well. And join it, guys. That's what we do. 40 plus helping you be your the best version of yourself so that you can then serve the people that you love and the people that you are surrounding and then you just are a better human period because you have energy and you're happier and the sun is shining and we see life with the glass half full which is so important.
So thank you Funk for joining me. Thank you for listening in. We've got the men's over4summit.com. Check it out. Link in the show notes. Off we go, everyone. >> Thank you so much. >> Thank you. All right.