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Oct. 2, 2025

Science of Fat Loss For Men Over 40: Part 2 What Works and What Doesn’t - 4

Show Notes
Transcript

Many men face confusing diets, fat burners that do not work, and quick fixes that do not last.

In this episode of Driven For Health, Coach Brian explains the science of fat loss in a clear and practical way. The episode is designed for men over 40 who want to make lasting changes while balancing career and family life.

You will learn:

The five fundamentals of fat loss that remain constant
How building and maintaining muscle supports fat loss
Facts about carbohydrates, cardio, and body fat
How to establish habits that support long-term results
Common reasons diets fail and strategies to maintain progress

This episode provides guidance to apply these strategies in a way that fits into daily life and supports sustainable health improvements.

Share this episode with friends or colleagues who are committed to improving their fitness. Leave a review to help reach more men who will benefit from this message.

Follow @coachbrianparana on Instagram for success stories, practical tips, and guidance for men focused on improving health and fitness.

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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:

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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 have to say this, but supplements aren't magic. They are supplemental. The truth is fat loss comes down to calories, strength training, protein, and consistency. Get the foundation right, and everything else becomes easier. Welcome to Driven for Health, the podcast for men over 40 who are ready to take control of their bodies, energy, and ultimately their lives.
I'm Coach Brian Piranha, and for over 23 years, I've been helping men like you lose fat, build strength, and feel confident in a body they are excited to take their shirts off again. Let's build some muscle, some strength, burn some fat the scientific way for better bodies, regardless of how old you are. Each podcast will tackle real life strategies for fitness, sciencebacked nutrition, powerful mindset, and creating a sustainable lifestyle ultimately, so you can finally live leaner, stronger, and be more alive. Let's get started.
Welcome back. This is actually part two, the continuation of episode three, the previous one. This being episode four. So, if you didn't hear the beginning of the science of fat loss for men over 40, what works and what doesn't, part one, actually, pause this. As much as I hate to say it, pause it and go back and check that one out first.
it'll make more sense as I keep building reasons on why and what actually works for you. Now, part two rolling in today, we're going to cover the next section, the psychology of fat loss. Here's the truth. Most people don't like to admit fat loss is as much mental as it is physical. It's a head game, right? In between the ears.
That's what decides the life and the energy and the capacity and the things that you do or don't. You can have the perfect diet plan, the ideal training program, a strict schedule, but if your mind isn't set up to support consistency, it won't stick. Now when we think about eating behavior and your practices around food, we have to think and point out a lot of people men and yeah women alike fall into a trap of chasing extreme diets or they cut things out of their diet.
That's the first thing that happens. Phrases like I can't eat dairy, no gluten, I'm going keto starting on Monday. and and fasting is the only way to get lean because that's what I've been marketed to on the internet. Basically, these are common traits that people fall into and they feel that something has to be done to lose 40 lbs or so and do it quickly because again that's what they've been marketing to.
Now, these strategies can work and but the kicker is they often fail because they're just not in alignment with someone's lifestyle. Most people think about the perfect plan on paper without actually considering whether they can actually execute it day in and day out. That's a big problem and it's something that I with four kids and been married for so long and all, my life is always upside down and inside out and all around.
Remember back in my CrossFit gym days, we had a paleo diet they were doing. I could not figure out how to make it work because I couldn't cut out grains and dairy and and things because it was just part of what our family ate and it was very restrictive and challenging to say the least. Let's focus on motivation isn't enough. It will never be enough.
It's the biggest most common mistake too many rely on in this. And at the start of a diet, motivation is high. You're excited. You're energized. You're ready to to crush it for a lack of better phrasing, right? Let's get after and let's go. But as we think motivation is the king or the thing that you need, you actually don't.
It's an unsustainable vehicle in a sense. And eventually life does happen. Whether you're going on business trips, you have family dinners, you're eating alone, you're fast fooding, you're whatever, buddies take you out to a ball game, there's stress. Motivation alone will not be the thing that keeps you on track.
Now, we've also heard of this in direct relationship with motivation is shiny object syndrome, right? People constantly chase the next trends of diets and supplements and hope that they'll be able to make things fix it all and happen in a quick blip. But that's just not how it goes. They just don't think about the simple question is what small consistent changes can I make today that will will work long term.
When you get into that type of mindset, motivation isn't something you even think about. Willpower not something you think about. This is why building habits is so powerful. And habits remove the need for constant self-control because you are in the habit of not buying Ben and Jerry's ice cream at the store or you are in the habit of not stopping off at the fast food joint at on the way home from work or at lunch.
You actually just pack the lunch and it's just part of your everyday. Now, when a behavior becomes a habit, your brain doesn't debate it. It's not just like, well, should we do this today or not? That's not how that goes. It just happens. And that's the undertone of anything I've ever done with my clients throughout all this time talking to so many people is how do we get behavior change, lifestyle change to happen automatically? We want to make sure that we make decision makingaking processes, good decision making processes easier. Think
of it as the kitchen. Say you've got a big bowl of candy on your counter. Every time you walk by it, it's tempting. It's right there. It's staring at you. It's a lot of colors. It probably talks to you. Hey, come on over here. John or Bill or Andy or what? Whatever your name is. Brian, my name. Hey, there's a there's a cookie here.
I'm ready. Come come come over and have me. Now, if you just moved it into a cupboard that's off the the walking path in a sense or in a blacked out or an opaque container or put it on high on a shelf, it ends up requiring a little bit more effort. another decision in the process to actually stop what you're doing and go open the cupboard or open look in to the container.
But it actually just blends in if it's in a a solid container or if it's in the high shelf above the kitchen and refrigerator, then it makes it just easier to not have to go get it. Most people aren't going to drag a chair out to stand on it and grab the thing in the back cover if you've done a good job of creating that distraction that that uh what I would call a pattern interrupt in a sense.
When you break a pattern of behavior around grabbing the thing, then this works. I told a story on another podcast I was on and this guy Roy was his name. We decided that he was going to take caution tape, the yellow and black caution tape and tape it to the frame of his door. Now, for him, that is what he suggested.
And I said, "Yeah, let's do that." And he did. He sent me pictures of it. Hilarious. and we both had a good time with it, but it worked. Why? Because it was something that blocked the easy path of least resistance to get into the kitchen to eat the thing. more. I had someone, we were looking this up and this was actually in the last two weeks.
They needed a way to distract themselves or not fall victim to sweets and treats and whatever was in the house cuz there's multiple people living in the house and she just can't have the they just can't have the the thing, the food, the snacks or whatever. And what we found was this randomly is looking for adult cabinet locks. And it said best adult locks for cabinets with adults have have dementia.
And I just we both got a kick out of it. Just kind of laughing because that's what happens. You have darkness dementia in a sense where you when it goes dark you have dementia around remembering why you're not eating food or why you should not eat the whole container or why you forget that you should just go to bed instead of staying up.
Now when we design our environment and design it for laziness remember write that down. designed for laziness that is going to create this say architecture around your choice a power of choice and it's about making good behaviors the path of least resistance and bad behaviors slightly harder because again reinforcing humans are lazy by default and we can use this to our advantage just for you other examples keyfruit precooked protein Snacks visible, easy to grab, readily and available.
Pre-portion treats into smaller containers so you're not just mindlessly keep putting your hand into the bag to your mouth. Or keep high calorie convenient foods out of sight, out of mind. If you have to recruit your loved one to hide it from you, but also don't be mad at them or maybe just not put that responsibility on them either.
These small tweaks reduce your what we call cognitive load, the amount of thinking and the effort that it takes to go through the process in your brain around dieting. It makes it easier to be consistent. And that's what it is. We want to make sure that all of our patterns and behaviors align toward the path of least resistance, which aligns with you getting healthier.
Habits formed over self-control. Okay, if we have form habits, it works. And want to really hit home on this. Self-control is finite. You can't rely on it. Every meal, every snack, every decision around are you or are you not going to work out or is it rely on what the temperature or weather is of the day? Research consistently shows that self-control is critical in forming a habit.
But once a habit is established, self-control isn't needed anymore. It's just part of your life. And that's something that I'm going to bang into you all podcast long is once maintenance is super easy. trying to lose weight 20, 30, 50 pounds. That's going to take a better part of many months, many weeks, and months and longer. Think about this as an example of say brushing your teeth.
You don't debate whether you should or shouldn't brush your teeth every night or in the morning. It's just automatic. You get up and you do it and it's just part of your routine. That's that's ultimately his goal here. Healthy eating behaviors make them automatic. So they don't require constant mental effort. If something requires constant mental effort, you're either need to get paid a lot of money to keep doing it or it's going to get stopped.
Say running. If you don't like running, it's a lot of work to run. But if you love running, oh my gosh, the time flew by. And you're thinking, why in the world do they like running? Right? Or vice versa. Why do they not like running? It's so fun and it's just good to get out there and clear your head and breathe and exercise and move your body.
Now, one study in health psychology down around 2010 followed participants as they tried to build new habits. On average, it took about 66 days for a behavior to become automatic. Though it varied person to person and the complexity of the habit, the routine, the behavior, the takeaway is that small repeatable behaviors done consistently over time lead to lasting change.
Do want to put this caveat in here is that every person can decide how long it takes them to change. You are free will. You are a decision maker. You have the capacity to steer how you do life in your work and your relationship and all those things. Okay, super duper important. Let's look at a real world example. I worked with a client named Andy and he tried every diet under the sun.
The ketos, the low carbs, the intermittent fasting, you name it, he did it. But he came to me in the most overweight position he had been in in years. Every time he started strong, he'd lose the weight fast, but by week three, week four, week eight, he was burned out. He wasn't failing because of lack of motivation.
He wanted the weight to be gone, but he was trying to use motivation to replace the habit. and do it instead of all right I'm just going to be motivated to go do this exercise routine instead of having a habit behavior system or process around the exercise m being made easier for you now we we shift his focus started thinking differently and instead of a drastic all or nothing approach we made tiny adjustments how do you eat an elephant one bite at a time James Clear says we do 1% better.
If a ice cube, I love this example of James, an ice cube melts, does not melt at 20°, 21, 25, 31°, it's still not melting. But at 32, it will melt. At 34, it will melt. At 40, it's melting. At 80, 90, or 100 down in Miami, it's melted. Right? And you might not see those first stages of say 15 to 20 to 31 degrees of the shifts happening in your body and the temperature warming up because you haven't reached the melting point of it.
We shifted his focus and instead of the drastic all or nothing, he took me up on my middle gear mentality and we shifted these processes and habits and routines and started simple things. Making sure we're getting 40 to 50 grams of protein at every meal. Having vegetables available, fresh, frozen, canned, precut, easy steamable bags or in a can to open.
moving candy away, just now buying candy and ice cream and making that more of a special treat. Within a couple weeks, Andy was making better choices without having to think about it so much. We don't need food to be another decision in the day that's ultimately exhausting for you.
No stress, no struggle, no guilt, and was losing all the fat that he could. Andy felt really good about his problems and his success. That is the power when you design your environment and you build your habits around your lifestyle. Some of the key takeaways here and what I really want you to remember from this part is fat loss is mental first. It's in your head.
Your mind decides whether you'll stick to the plan. Number two, stop relying on motivation. It's a spark. It helps you get excited about starting a thing, but it's not going to be the main fuel, so to speak, to run the engine and the car and the vehicle that you use to create the outcomes that you're after of body transformation, losing the belly fat, taking your shirt off, working out, and feeling younger.
Next up is building repeatable habits. We start small. We build consistent and that process of keep building and building and let the behaviors become automatic. We have to design our environment around us. We'll talk about more of this constantly to help give you better insights and ideas on how to do this better for you, which allows healthier choices to be easier and unhealthy ones to be harder.
say going out for fast food. For me, that's a difficult choice. It costs money, time, energy, and it's just not as good to me as making my own food. That keeps me more in alignment with my goals. Well, my body looks like and feels like. And my last meal literally made it and ate it in about five minutes. I can't do that.
I can't even get in and out of line at McDonald's, so to speak, in that amount of time. No. Say no to the drastic changes. Okay? If you're feeling frustrated or like diets haven't worked for you, it's not because you're weak or you're lazy or unmotivated. It's the environment around you. And I hope that this sinks in.
the habits that you live by, the way you that you are processing things in your world, the stress, the time, the managing of those and the mental frameworks all are designed to make you successful if aligned with healthy goals and healthy outcomes. You can fix it if it's not one small step change at a time. Again, I think I've shared this a couple times, but walking in water, 100 ounces or more, 10K steps or more always do really well for guys to get going with.
Next up is supplements and fat loss. Yeah, supplements that get a bad rep. And people often think that if they take the right powder, the pill, the the thing in a bottle, the shot, that they can burn fat effortlessly, right? Effortlessly is just not going to happen for most people. And that's important to know that it does take a little bit of work.
The heavier you are, the more effort you need to pay attention to to create change. That's it's just not that simple. In a sense, fat loss is fundamentally comes down to calories, macros, exercise, adherence. But supplements can be a good support tool, but they can't replace the basics that they need. Now, simple things like creatine, caffeine, omega-3s, those are all things that can help aid and give you the outcomes that you're looking for.
Here's a couple main categories, three of them actually, for fat loss supplements. We have fat oxidation enhancers. Think of these that include things like carnitine and conjugated leninoleic acid. In theory, they help the body burn more fat. In practice, well, most well-designed studies show minimal effects. For example, carnitine supplementation, a review in molecular nutrition and food research in 2011 found that while carnitine is critical for fatty acid transport into mitochondria and supplementation in healthy adults
just didn't significantly increase fat loss without exercise. taking the carnitine supplement didn't help. All right, oftent times minimum viable doses are things that are really important here. Next up, number two is energy expenditure boosters. Things like caffeine, capsain, uh what do we have? Endorphins and Yhibine.
Some of these can increase your calorie burning effects, but there's always caveats. Yeah, caffeine is pretty effective, but you can become used to it and you need to take lots more to get the same. 100 milligrams caffeine doesn't hit quite like it once did. So you go 150 or even 200. Yo, hemine can be dangerous at high doses and can cause some anxiety, cardiovascular dis side effects and stuff.
These things get the heart rate up, the jitters. We want to know that the practical takeaway is that the effects do exist, but they are small and not substantial to ultimately replace a solid diet or exercise program or just good behaviors. You got nutrient blockers. These are marketed to block fat or carb absorption like certain fiberbased enzymes and supplements as well.
the problem that they cause GI distress, right? I remember this one. It was called Oh man, what was it called? Oh gosh, I cannot think of it. Holy cow, it's eluded me. Ali, maybe that was what it was. And Ali just made oily poops and quick pit stops to the bathroom. That's what Ali did for you. And that's what a lot of people realize, like, oh, if I take this, it blocks the absorption of fat, but just pushes it through my digestive tract and gives me oily stool and uncontrollable bowel movements sometimes.
That's not good. Now, a quick review in 2015 in critical reviews in food science and nutrition highlighted that most marketed fat blockers or thermogenic supplements either lack strong evidence or produce effects so small that dietary changes alone would accomplish the same results without the side effects.
It's really important. And don't waste your money. Some of these supplements are 30, $40, $50 a bottle for a month's supply. It's just not it. And if something's selling you the and promising you the world, it's unlikely that it's actually going to be worthwhile. We do want to focus on supplements that actually do work, that support your nutrition and training rather than promises some magical fat loss mystery magic. It's just not it.
There's a short list that makes a lot of sense. Creatine monohydrate. I take five to 10 grams a day. It's been 20, 30, 40 years of sciencebacked research that supports that. This is what's up. Supports strength and power gains during resistance training. Preserves muscle while dieting, which is indirectly that helps you keep your metabolism higher.
Some research in journal of strength and conditioning research consists it shows that creatine is safe effective for maintaining lean mass during calorie deficits and whatever small advantages you can take that are actually science backed then it's worthwhile and creatine monohydrate is super cheap.
I think I got a sixmon supply for $23 on Amazon. Now, there's a lot of other cognitive benefits as well about focus and energy and all that that we can definitely lean into. Whey protein. Who doesn't love some good old whey protein? This helps you hit your protein targets without excessive calories, right? Because there's not a lot of carbs or fats in it most of the time.
Now, they have different types of whey protein and casein and other protein powders, but let's just break down whey for right now. Typical whey protein supplements have a little bit of carbs, a little bit of fats in them. The protein isolate doesn't have any fat or carbs in. It's just literally protein, which is good to know.
And you can use them subtly differently. There's a lot of tasty flavors on the market now that make it really easy to get some in in a tasty convenient time of the day or add it to I love adding into cereal, oatmeal, shakes, smoothies, pancakes, things like that. Now, I personally like just suggesting my clients have one, possibly two scoops of protein or supplementations in a day.
That helps you make sure that you are not say overdoing it. You're not getting a 100 grams of protein powder in your day. That's not it. 100 grams worth of protein and protein powder, not it. Meta analysis in nutrition and metabolism 2013 confirm high protein diets impact fat loss outcomes. Yep. We know this through even bodybuilders would say have a high protein diet.
Fish oil, omega-3s, definitely these may help with inflammation, recovery, overall health during a calorie deficit. While fat loss effects are modest, the omega-3 support of general wellness and health is the bigger reason. and the anti-inflammation properties of it help. I'm a big fan of two grams or 2,000 milligrams of EPA and DHA combined.
Those I've seen for years being recommended as a minimum viable dose for you. Now, multivitamins and vitamin D with K2 multivitamin IO men's one a day. Taking one just covers your bases to get everything in that you need. vitamin D with K2 about 5,000 milligrams of that up to is a good amount if you're not getting out in the sun, but we should definitely get out in the sun.
Think of especially say a multivitamin, it just helps fill in the potential gaps by adding in calories. And the key takeaway is that no supplement will ultimately override poor nutrition. You can't hack it. it's you have to eat good food or even inconsistent training. You have to burn calories and build muscle.
Muscle doesn't just build on your body frame unless you're steroids. Here's a quick example. Yeah, another client. We'll call him Jake. He was obsessed with fat burners and thermogenics and every supplement marketing online. I I swear he sent me a picture when we started working together.
It had 30 bottles or something that he had gone through of of various things. He was really trying to rely on him to get lean. He just was fed up with fasting or other protocols and the marketing got the best of them. Guess what happened? Not much. Fat loss was minimum. frustration was higher and the side effects caused a lot of jittering and insomnia actually because he didn't get a good rest and a lot of those are say caffeine or will get your nervous system very stimulated.
Uh we focus on the basics of small calorie deficit, resistance training, hitting his protein targets, using a variety of different ways to do that, taking some creatine and strength training. And then he was able to start losing some belly fat, which was really helpful. And it didn't have a lot of stress or anxiety or money wasted or ineffective supplements.
This reinforces the science that supplements are supportive and not magical. All right? They can make things easier, but they won't replace fundamentals of fat loss. Some of your takeaways from this is skip the fat burner, save your money, skip the magic pill, skip the marketing online.
They just don't work and have marginal effects at best. Number two, focus on some of the fundamental foundational supplements that support diet and training. Those would be the creatine, a protein supplement, fish oil, and multivitamins. Be strategic with them, and they help fill in the gaps. They're not the things that are causing the results to happen on your body.
You have to invest your time and money in your habits and your behaviors and nutrition and showing up at the gym consistently. These change your lifestyle over supplements, right? Think of supplements like icing on a cake. They can improve the experience and help can support some of the results, but if the cake itself isn't good, isn't solid, it doesn't No icing is going to save that cake.
So, wrapping up episode three and this episode here, we've covered a lot of different things from fat loss, nutrition, psychology, maintenance, even supplements. But let's tie it all together. Here's a what I would say a fat loss fundamentals recap. First and foremost, fat loss starts with a calorie deficit. It's that simple.
It's universal. It's across humans. It's the most important factor. And without a deficit, nothing else matters. Once a deficit is in place, the next priority is resistance training. Keeping your muscles active and and that signals to your body that it needs to hold on to lean muscle that you need this to do keep up with the retired tasks at hand.
So lifting weights is a good idea or doing some form of muscle building activities. So weights, getting outside, being active, working in the yard, things like that that actually lift weights and change your body and muscle, that is a good idea. When you lose the fat, you'll look better, too, right? It's just not cutting out the calories and sitting on the couch.
You won't end up with a body that you want. Now, last one, we talked about what's an appropriate deficit. enough to lose fat, but not so aggressive that you'll burn out because it's too hard or you'll lose muscle cuz nobody wants to lose that. That comes to 0.5 to 1.5% of your body weight. So, I'm 190 right now. So that would be about one 1.
9 or maybe two and a half somewhere in there in a week would be a great guideline to make sure I target as much body fat as possible. Protein intake is next. You got to hit ideally what do we say about 140 to 175 190 depending on your goals, your body weight, how much muscle mass you have, what your exercise, strength conditioning are, what your muscle retention is.
It's going to help with s being satiated. There's metabolic health. There's practical tips to help me make measure that you keep your muscle mass on. Now, cardio strategically used. It's not remember we talked about the marathon runner and the sprinter. We want to have a good blend of speed and distance. In sense for me, leveraging low inensity cardio like walking or biking or jogging to do it occasionally a little bit longer or faster and then working your way in toward a HIT session one, two, three times a week really will complement your
resistance training and not allow you to overdo your exercise and and actually get hurt. Nutrition, nutrition, nutrition, nutrition. I talk a lot about it with my guys. This addresses the food debate. Calories and macros ultimately are the things that control your fat loss. But food quality does matter to make it easier, make you fuller and satiated because we don't want to do the IFYM if if it's your macros and you pop-tarts.
Like I said, we want to focus on lean proteins. one, two, three pieces of fruit. We want to have some ve lots of lots of vegetables. My last meal, I had a whole pepper and a Roma tomato in there to help fill me up. And that cost maybe 60 70 calories between those two, which is good because then I can stay that much fuller but not get a lot of calories there.
And of course, minimally processed carbohydrates that are calorie dense. We we treat these snacks and and treats and snacks, we want to make sure that they're they're not forbidden, that they stay in that moderation balance. A little bit of flexibility there. And think of the 8020 or 9010 rule. 80 to 90% of your meals in a day should be really healthy, leaving you about 10ish, maybe 15% to have a little bit of wiggle room.
All right? If you do that, then you will be happy, successful, and enjoy some of the finer things in life. Some of the psychology here, one of the biggest takeaways was extreme diets often fail. They're not sustainable. Willpower is limited and it's a resource that runs out, but habits and routines and structure are good. Talked about choice architecture or power of choice and making sure that healthy options are easier to access while unhealthy options are harder.
This limits your ability to have to rely on willpower. Okay? We don't want that. And make sure that the environment works for you. It has to. Small changes of putting things out of sight, out of mind, make a big impact and keep you from eating an extra 100 to even 400 calories today. Looking beyond the scale as far as maintenance and once you've lost the fat, the challenge is always keeping it off.
I like that 5 lb weight range. when you get to the top of it, you say, "Hey, I'm going to stop the nonsense, whatever I'm trying to get away from." So, we have to have some cognitive restraint, some form of structured approach to manage intake. We need regular self-monitoring. You have to track weight or measurements or clothing.
There has to be some way to monitor progress by even just looking at yourself. consistent exercise of resistance and cardio. We have structured programs, guidance beats the guesswork. So you don't want to just randomly do things. You actually want to have a process in which you go through and prioritize your goals over immediate gratification.
in a marshmallow study where kids were asked to sit and have a marshmallow sit in front of them and if they didn't eat it in sometimes the time went to 15 minutes in a room by themselves staring at the marshmallow then they actually got more because of delayed gratification. so important. Maintenance doesn't have to feel like deprivation.
If you're gradually increasing your calories to a sustainable intake and keeping your metabolism high and robust, and keeping your behaviors in check, having some fun along the way, then you will be successful. As far as the supplements, we cover creatine, whey protein, omega-3s, multivitamins, vitamin D, and skipping all the other ones for calling them nonsense and money wasters.
Now, putting this in action, we have to figure out our target calorie range for most guys. We're going to be 16 to,800 calories, unless a larger male to lose weight. around 2,000 generally, maybe up to 2500 depending on activity, size, body weight, muscle mass for maintenance. And if you're really busy, 2500 calories or more to cover for activity.
We have to hit our protein. We've got to work out three to five times a week. We need to have whole foods. We need to be have some flexibility. We're going to incorporate cardio, but not a lot of it excessively. We want to keep some your V2 max up. Build habits and let's not rely on willpower. We have to track our progress.
My guys use a measurement sheet, scale, circumference measurements, pictures, clothing are four ways to assess progress. And eat real food. So final thoughts, fat loss is simple and practical but not always easy to practice. We need a calorie deficit resistance training, adequate protein, strategic cardio throughout the day, whole food focused nutrition habit that are designed around your lifestyle, shifting your mindset and creating longterm consistency.
Now, that really wraps up part four or I should say part two of the second one here of the the secrets of how fat loss, what works and what doesn't. That's important. So, we want to make sure that you are aligned there. All right. Now, next up is the fast five. We want to talk about those of course end with some rapid fire questions.
Question number one, why am I gaining weight even though I eat the same as before? Unfortunately guys, your 40s metabolism does shift. Muscle mass does start to go down, especially that use it or lose it. Your hormones change, testosterone goes down, and you start accumulating fat around your midsection.
It's unfortunately that simple. You can do something about it though. And number two is how can I get more energy throughout the day where we have to understand that low energy, midday crashes, and just bad recovery are often due to either stress, poor sleep, or poor nutrition choices. If you have something high carb, high calorie, high filling, then that might sit heavy on you come 3:00 and you want a nap.
What's the most effective way to lose fat without spending hours in a gym? Well, time's limited for our busy guys like you. We want effective workouts and easy to follow food protocols. Number four, how do I balance health, family, and career without feeling overwhelmed? That's just one of the reasons why I'm here, guys, is because a lot of men in their 40s are met with all sorts of responsibilities that they didn't realize were going to wait and they often put their health last.
And it's so important to changing that around. Certainly, we got to prioritize the most important things, but finding different ways to manage the overwhelm and small chunks is what we do. And find suitable, realistic behavior patterns that help you lose that. Great. Last one is which supplements or foods actually make a difference for men over 40? Well, we went over that and we don't want to be confused about this, that, or the other.
We want to make sure that we have mainly food be the thing, but then the creatine, the protein powder, the multivitamin, vitamin D. So, thanks so much for joining me on episode 4. And this episode is brought to you by the call to rise, the 100 day fat loss challenge for men over 40 who know it's time to step up when it comes to dropping belly fat and improving their health.
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With that said, I'm out. Have a wonderful, wonderful day and we'll catch you in the next episode.